What kind of people are in your circle? Who influences you? Do they inspire you, or are they triggers? People's mindsets, values, and habits are contagious — even more so than the books and media we consume. It's therefore best to find people who show you that you CAN achieve your dreams: expanders!
In this short episode of The Pollen Podcast, Diana shares reflections from her recent retreat experience in Annecy, France. She shares the value of having and finding 'expanders' in your life — people who have what you want and inspire you to walk the path toward your dreams. Proximity is power, and who you keep in your circle matters.
Listen to this episode to know more about ‘expanders’ and how they can boost your life!
Create your own creative entrepreneurship story of clarity, professional confidence, and profit. Join Diana’s 90-day group course Camp Clarity and learn everything you wish you already knew, like how to land dream clients, harness the power of social media, and make the money you deserve. Learn more here.
🔥Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Learn about ‘expanders’ and how they show your mind what's possible for you.
Discover the value of attending retreats for your personal and professional development.
Get practical tips on finding your Expanders.
📘Resources
Achieve the life, career, and clients you’ve always wanted (and fully deserve!). Sign up for Diana’s Camp Clarity Course now!
Take a week off and join the first Diana Davis Creative Retreat in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, from August 29 to September 1. Use the code “RETREAT” for $500 off — my treat!
Learn more about Nicole and her yoga retreats at The Collective Kula (aka, The Kula).
Attract your dream clients with my free masterclass!
Access other courses from the Diana Davis Creative
🎧Episode Highlights
[02:11] Nicole Wilde’s Retreat in France
Diana recently joined one of Nicole Wild’s retreats in Annecy, France.
She had plenty of time to take space, connect, and cherish nature.
Diana shared the retreat with 13 people who transformed from a group of strangers into a community.
[06:07] The Power of Retreats
Diana used to think organizing retreats was a lot of work before she realized their value.
Diana: “As a community builder, this is such a powerful thing — to cultivate a community under one roof who comes in maybe as strangers and leaves as, you know, business partners, or clients, or best friends.” Click Here To Tweet This
You will never be able to erase the connections and relationships you build in retreats.
Experience the power of retreats in the first Diana Davis Creative Retreat in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, from August 29 to September 1! Get $500 off using the code “RETREAT.”
[07:31] Do you have ‘Expanders’?
Imagine being in a room full of people who inspire you.
‘Expanders’ are people who inspire you by making you realize that you can have what they have.
These people show you what’s possible instead of being your competition or someone to be jealous of.
Diana: “They're expansive to you because they've paved a path already that you can see pretty clear down, right? The GPS has been mapped. It's not no man's land anymore. It's something that you aspire to be maybe — not exactly — but you can see that it is possible for them. So it must be possible for you.” - Click Here To Tweet This
[10:50] The Value of Expanders
Diana says she advises her clients to look into their expanders.
Find people involved in the direction you want to pursue.
These ‘expanders’ are valuable because they show you possibilities.
[09:51] Finding Your ‘Expanders’
Think about the ‘expanders’ in your life. Who are you surrounding yourself with?
Diana shares that she hangs out with a lot of older people.
Diana: "It's powerful to have someone ahead of you who can kind of shine that flashlight for you in the cave and go, "Hey, you know, I've been here before — here's what it looks like. Let me shine a little light on that for you.'" - Click Here To Tweet This
Expanders are not just people in real life. They can also be the people you follow on your Instagram or other social media accounts.
Fill your feed with expanders who shine the light for you — not just people who trigger you all the time.
Enjoyed this Podcast?
Your quality of life depends on who and what you consume and surround yourself with — including books, media, and people. Sometimes, this will include letting go of some people and building relationships with expanders — people who challenge you to be better.
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Transcript
Diana Davis: I want to know what expanders you have in your life. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Get real with yourself. Are you surrounding yourself with people, maybe from high school who don't understand who the heck you are, what the heck you're doing, and kind of naysay everything, every decision that you make? Or are you surrounding yourself with people who expand you who show you the way?
Welcome to Pollen, the podcast for creative entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Diana Davis, multi passionate creative, business coach, Gemini, manifesting generator, macha drinker and travel junkie. I'm also the founder of Diana Davis Creative, where I went from a six figure photography business to coaching creative entrepreneurs like you. If you want to have a career and a life you love, you're in the right place.
On this show, I'll be coaching on all things creative entrepreneurship, and you'll hear stories from fellow creative entrepreneurs that will show you it is possible to do life the way you want to. They'll share the nitty gritty of their journeys, like the real shit, and how they are doing it differently. I'm stoked to have you along on this journey. Let's go.
Hello, welcome to another episode of Pollen in the realm of being nomadic. I'm sitting cross-legged on my bed in Annecy — Annecy, however, everyone pronounces it — France in an amazing flat, as we say, here in Europe, such a beautiful Airbnb that I was able to find, so grateful. I just arrived today. I just got back. I don't really know what back means anymore, because my home is where I am, so getting back home doesn't really make sense anymore, right?
But, “back” from a retreat in Chamonix, France, in the French Alps, hosted by my friend, Nicole Wilde. It was incredible. I do want to give a little recap of that because, man, just so many cool things transpire when you're with someone for a few days. Nicole puts on these beautiful retreats, and I've done retreats from being in Guatemala with massive spiders next to my bed and compost toilets to retreats like Nicole's where it is luxury, truly, and the space is completely beautiful and curated and all the things.
So, she did such an amazing job. We are in such an amazing space, a beautiful, beautiful Airbnb. There were 13 of us. It was just almost completely windows where you could see the French Alps and Mont Blanc just out from the couch. It was so incredible. The views there are unreal. I know now, truly, the views are unreal, because not only did we take the trolley up to Mont Blanc, which I cannot recommend enough. It's the highest I've probably ever been in it.
Even if you're not afraid of heights, it's a little jolting, especially picturing all of these men working on these buildings at the top of the Alps. Oh my God, it was unreal. But, a few of us actually went paragliding as well, which was one of the coolest experiences of my life literally, taking a cable car up the mountain and strapping on with your pilot and running off a cliff with a parachute and climbing into the mountains on the airwaves.
Oh my God, it was unreal. The views, I can't even begin. You have to go to Chamonix, have to in your lifetime. Please put it on your list. But back to the retreat, there were thirteen of us in this beautiful space. We were doing yoga every morning, having some discussions and things a little bit, and then, just really a lot of free time to take space for ourselves, a lot of time to connect. We went to an amazing spa with amazing views.
I don't think there's a spot in Chamonix without amazing views to be honest. But in that amount of time, we came on, I think it was a Saturday, and didn't know each other. No one came with somebody else like I knew Nicole and Devin because I know them, but it wasn't like I was attending the retreat with them. They were leading it, right? Nicole was and Devin was photographing. We all came without knowing each other.
By the end of five days, I have people I'm literally planning to visit in Berlin next year, next spring. It's pretty crazy how you can find common ground with people. One of the gals, Courtney, who lives in Indiana, who had attended the retreat, she reflected this that she didn't feel like she had really much in common with people in the group at Intel. She just started sharing her story, and she always found common ground with every single person in the room.
Even though we had people from Brazil and Dublin, and Germany and the US, it was really incredible to connect with these people. I think it was cool for me to is we weren't all entrepreneurs. It wasn't an entrepreneurial retreat. This was strictly a yoga retreat. So, that was interesting, too, because I'm around entrepreneurs a lot. But, I just wanted to share that because retreats are so powerful, and segue, we're hosting ours at the end of August, and that's why we decided to do this.
I'm not gonna lie. When I was thinking about doing retreats for the last few years, which of course, it was the pandemic. But, I was thinking, man, that's a lot of work. I just don't know if that's something I want to endeavor. But after going to so many retreats, it's like, no, I have to. As a community builder, this is such a powerful thing — to cultivate a community under one roof, who comes in maybe as strangers and leaves, as business partners, or clients or best friends.
It's really incredible. There's just nothing like being in person and actually living with those people and practicing yoga, or meditating or coaching circles or hiking or hot tubbing or whatever, and then, leaving completely connected to these people. You will never be able to erase this string you have attached to these people. So, I cannot recommend retreats enough, truly.
What I want to talk about today, in a very short manner, is expanders because that was also mentioned on the retreat by my new friend Kira, who is German as well. Kira is not how she pronounces her name in German, and I cannot pronounce it in German, so you'll have to ask her. Maybe, we'll have her on the podcast someday. She was talking about expanders, so we're gonna get to that in a second. But, I do want to just shout out this retreat one last time.
We are almost full. We have four spots left. It's getting down to the wire. I'm recording this on July 29. So actually, we have exactly one month until this retreat happen, so it's time. It's time and it's filling up like crazy, which I'm so excited about. We have everyone from photographers, to chefs, to yoga instructors, to nutritionists, to coaches, artists, all of the above coming to this retreat.
So, it's just going to be amazing, an amazing time to connect, an amazing time to just meet new people and be in a room with like minded creatives, right? So, the link will be in the show notes to stag that. Here's a little tidbit. If you want $500 off, use the code ‘retreat’. My treat to you. But, I want to talk about expanders for a second because Kira, she said we can pronounce her name however we want.
She is my German friend that was saying how powerful it was to be in a room full of people and women, specifically, that inspired her. That's powerful. My friend who's a web designer and a coach, Tracy Dungo, told me a long time ago about the word, expander, and what it means to me is to have someone in your life, they might not even know, you might just be kind of stalking them from afar, but to have someone in your life that is kind of showing you it's possible versus being your competition or being someone you're jealous of because they have what you want.
It's inspiring because they have what you want, and you realize it's possible for you too, so surrounding yourself, not only in in-real-life situations, with people who expand you, expanders, not your competition, your sisters, your colleagues, your friends, whatever you want to call them. They're expansive to you because they've paved a path already that you can see pretty clear down, right? The GPS has been mapped.
It's not no man's land anymore. It's something that you aspire to be, maybe not exactly, but you can see that it is possible for them, so it must be possible for you. You're just on a different leg of the journey, right? You're just on a different turn of the GPS map. So, something we do in Camp Clarity is to really research some expanders, some online people who inspire you, who are doing something similar to what you may want to do, what you may want to pursue, the direction you're headed.
Just looking at them and going, okay, she's a photographer. She makes good money doing this. This is how she shows up online. Wow, she actually does educational videos about what an 85 millimeter versus a 50 millimeter lens looks like when you take a photo, right? Maybe, we're talking about the bokeh or the compression, which if you're a photographer, you know what I mean. If you're not, you can look it up.
But, that's really expansive, maybe, to me as a photographer that I am watching someone make money on YouTube, not just because they're a photographer, but because they're educating other photographers, right? So, that can be really expansive. Or to know, oh my god, you charge $1,200 for your branding shoots, I'm charging $300. That's really expansive. I can kind of step into that because now I know it's possible.
So, in lieu of keeping this super short and sweet, I want to know, what expanders you have in your life? Who are you surrounding yourself with, get real with yourself? Are you surrounding yourself with people, maybe from high school, who don't understand who the heck you are, what the heck you're doing, and kind of naysay everything, every decision that you make? Not saying that everyone from high school is bad, but you know what I mean.
Or are you surrounding yourself with people who expand you, who show you the way? Most of my really good friends are older than me. I hang out with a lot of older people, and that's actually advice my brother gave me a long time ago, and I didn't really do it on purpose. I just attract those people, and they attract me. But, it's powerful to have someone ahead of you, who can kind of shine that flashlight for you in the cave and go, hey, I've been here before.
Here's what it looks like. Let me shine a little light on that for you, right? So, I just want you to think about who you're surrounding yourself with, as far as friends, as far as colleagues, all of that stuff, but also who you're following in your Instagram feed, who you're allowing yourself to be influenced by. Can you fill your Instagram feed with expanders, with people who inspire you and show you that it is possible, right?
Not necessarily just trigger you all the time, but really show you it's possible and shine that light for you in that cave. So, let me know. Share this episode on social. Let me know how it goes. I always love a lot of you share where you are listening to the podcast, which I really love, because I have a lot of van-life people and just people honestly all over the world listening to this podcast, so let me know where you're listening.
Post it on social, tag Diana Davis Creative. I would love to reshare. Just as always, just a little reminder, please give us a little rating, give us a little review. It helps so so much. We've had so much momentum with this podcast, and it's helping so many people. It's such a cool way to plug into coaching for free, and we'd so appreciate that. So, let us know who your expanders are if you want or just that you've listened and you're thinking about it and you heard this and maybe where you're listening at. Maybe, take us on a walk with you on Instagram while you're listening to the podcast.
