Navigating The CEO Space With September Dohrmann

by | Feb 18, 2020 | Podcasts | 0 comments

GCM 86 | CEO Space

 

As a CEO, one of your most vital and important assets is your network. This is the raison d’être of CEO Space and why it’s become such a vibrant and essential space. Rodney Flowers interviews September Dohrmann, who is the President and CEO of CEO Space International about what it takes to be a CEO in the present environment in the business world. There are many factors that could bring you up to the level of some of the world’s most successful CEOs, and in this space, you might just be able to get there.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Navigating The CEO Space With September Dohrmann

How many of you would like to have a conference or a place that you can attend that would provide all the insights and tools that you would need in order to grow your business? I have September Dohrmann with me. She is the President and CEO of CEO Space International. CEO Space International is what Forbes called a must-attend for entrepreneurs. It is a business growth conference. It is strategically scheduled five times a year to help you grow your business. Welcome to the show, September. I’m excited to have you here as well because this has been a very long time coming. I know you’ve been busy with CEO Space doing your CEO thing. I’m honored that you’ve taken some time out to be here with me.

The feeling is definitely mutual, Rodney.

I want to get into you as a CEO and what it takes to be a CEO of such a large international business such as CEO Space. I also would like to talk about the benefits that some of the audience can gain out of attending the conferences that CEO puts together five times a year for entrepreneurs and CEOs. I want to get to know you a little bit better, September. I know that you are a proud mom of two kids and you’re living in Florida.

I’m in Tampa, Florida.

Tell us about your journey, September. I know you haven’t always been the CEO of CEO Space. You have a prior life before that. Walk us through how you became the CEO of CEO Space.

I grew up in a house where both of my parents were business owners. When my parents divorced, their spouses, my stepparents, are also business owners. I don’t know another way of providing for my family than being a business owner. That feeds my passion for working with business owners. It’s not always easy to be a business owner. It could be lonely being a business owner. You don’t know what you don’t know and you don’t know where to turn. Oftentimes, we find people that don’t have that inner circle that is 100% supportive. Most people I find have that, but there are a lot of people who don’t have that. Their friends and family are naysayers. They don’t believe in them. They think they’re crazy for stepping out of the job. I have a soft spot in my heart for business owners. They have the gumption and they got the guts to go out there and to risk everything to make their dream a reality. Oftentimes, it impacts the world around them and extends past their inner world and can affect lives globally.

For anybody to step out and to take that risk to make their dream a reality, kudos to you. How did I step into this role of CEO Space? Berny Dohrmann, my husband is the Founder of CEO Space. He founded the company many years ago. When I came into the picture several years ago, we moved to Florida. In the beginning of our relationship, I asked him what he wanted. He said, “I want to have a wife and somebody to share my time with. I don’t have any other expectations.” I’m like, “I can do that.”

After a couple of months of being here in Florida, I got bored not doing anything. I need to keep myself active and being creative and I thought, “What can I do to contribute to CEO Space?” I started off with I can update the sales team manual. I took on that project. I enjoyed that. There was another need in the company within the accounting department and I stepped into that area. It organically grew from me wanting to contribute to the company to make it better, to improve their processes. I might geek out when I get to talk about systems and processes. It was an evolution of starting in one place, having a need in the company and being competent enough to be able to step into that area fully. My husband says I wowed him every time and that’s humbling. It’s his words, not mine so that’s one way of explaining the process of how that took shape.

I want to circle back to something that you were talking about regarding CEOs stepping out and exploring their dream, going out there and starting their business. Why do you feel a lot of people don’t do that?

CEO Space is all about networking. Click To Tweet

Fear will grab you by the throat every time. If you don’t know how you’re going to pay your bills, there’s the fear of losing your home, losing your car, not being able to buy for your family. What will people think of me? Will I have support? I have no clue what I’m doing. It’s all this mind chatter that goes on in people and it stops them. It’s been a while since I’ve talked to somebody that has that job and will not move outside of a job. I always try to push to see what it would take for this person to step outside of that.

There are some people that I talked to and they are absolutely captivated by the fear, the unknowns, and the uncertainty of what this journey does look like. There are books up there, but there’s no real manual on how to raise your child. It’s the same thing with business. There are lots of tools and education out there, but there are no books specifically built for you and your business on how to grow that. The darkness of the uncertainty and the unknown freezes people. They won’t move past it.

How did you manage to overcome that fear? I can imagine that’s something that you experienced as well.

I experienced fear from time to time in different phases of the business. I’ve never had a fear of owning a business and starting it, even when I did have a job. I was a manager of a salon years ago. I used to be a hairdresser for my first career. At that time, I quickly moved into management, but I also still did my own thing on the side. I was a flipper. I did real estate. I have carpenter skills. I would buy a distressed property and restored them. I always had a side hustle going on. It was never anything that I was afraid of doing.

There are moments and there are times within the phases of growing a business that I do encounter fear. It’s the uncertainty and the unknown, not knowing how to navigate through it. Trying and not finding a method or a process to create the results that you’re looking for and you push through. You call people that you know and you ask for help. I was on a call with one of our partners, Jim Padilla. They were doing a large 2020 planning call. One of the items that we were discussing was what is your sphere of influence? If you had a list of names that I would love to be able to meet these people, who in your circle is 1, 2, 3 or 4 degrees of separation to that person. All it takes is reaching out and asking.

This is a good segue into the CEO Space because it’s all about networking. I feel that a lot of people feel that it’s what you know. You’ve got to know certain things. One of the biggest things in starting a business is the funding. I don’t have the necessary resources to start a business. What are your thoughts towards someone who may have a good idea and wants to put that idea out there as a business but has those types of thoughts in their mind?

I would market test. Even if you don’t know how to do that, one basic way of doing it is by asking people that you know and asking people that you don’t know. Go to a networking event. Ask people some very basic questions. What are your most common fears around X? For us, we’re right in the middle of creating an online course for capital education. I am literally in the process of market research. The eight questions that I ask in that interview that is providing incredible insight as to what people are looking for when it comes to a product like that.

My first question is, when it comes to raising capital, what are the biggest challenges you face? When it comes to raising capital, what are the biggest fears you face? When it comes to raising capital, what are the biggest frustrations that you face? You’re figuring out what the fears, the challenges, and the frustrations are around a particular type of product. You ask them, “What would you like to learn about this X, Y, Z?” Whatever it is that you’re wanting to do. You can even ask them, “What would you pay for something like that?” Start asking people around you to get an idea of what do people have on their minds? You want to get at least 20 to 30 different people giving you information around that market research. You need to understand what the needs are first and ask, talk to people.

What you’re saying as well is that your network is one of the most important assets when it comes to being an entrepreneur and a CEO.

I’m not going to be the first one to say this, but your network is your net worth. Depending on who your sphere of influence is will determine how far you can go. It ties into that whole mentality of your income is the average of your five closest friends. Your mentality is going to be the average of your five closest friends. If your friends aren’t moving and shaking in life, I suggest you find a new circle. If that’s what you’re wanting to do, if you want to move and shake in life, you’ve got to get yourself a new circle. Find those people that are moving and shaking.

GCM 86 | CEO Space

CEO Space: When you’re thinking about contribution and service, it’s possible for everyone to win.

 

Scientifically, when you surround yourself with people and you hang out with them long enough, you create what is called an external cortex. You begin sharing data between this external brain that you’re creating with people. That’s why when you hang out with somebody for a while, you begin completing their sentences or you know what they’re going to say before they even say it. You’re in a space of sharing this external cortex. This outside brain that you share with each other. Whose brain are you sharing? If you don’t like it, you need to find a new brain.

As the founder’s wife of CEO Space, why was CEO Space created? I can imagine that CEO Space was created for that very reason you explained to us. I want to know it from you.

The story that I know that I’ve heard Berny share several times is that many years ago, Bob Proctor and Berny were having a conversation about competition. Think many years ago, it’s definitely gotten a lot better. That the ‘80s, it was so competitive. People had this greed mentality, this mine mentality. It’s a dog eat dog world out there. You’re talking about how ineffective competition is in business. They’ve put together what was originally called The Millionaire Mastermind. It was a small group of people that came together to share cooperatively with other great brains and it continued to grow. It evolves into IBI and then it evolved into CEO Space.

As a side note, as you know, Rodney and most of our members know. My husband has been to prison for what he should have known many years ago about raising capital. What we do, one of our sweet spots, is we educate people on capital and how to be an over compliance on that because he got in trouble for what he should have known. We teach that it’s not enough to be compliant, especially when it comes to raising capital. You don’t want to skirt any lines when it comes to raising capital. You need to be absolutely clear and over compliance when you’re taking that journey because it’s a very scary place.

That’s why capital education is one of our sweet spots. He doesn’t want and we don’t want, we’ve bought into his vision. We think it’s unnecessary for another human being to suffer unnecessarily. When somebody else has the knowledge or the experience to help you, it is their obligation to share that. We fully wholeheartedly believe that. He learned a lot along the way. We surround ourselves with SEC attorneys and people who are well-known into that space because we want to be super safe and over compliance and helping others stay out of trouble when it comes to capital education.

Capital raising, not only the education but raising funds is something that you get out of being a member of CEO Space. What else is there? Why do you do the work you do with holding five events a year? That’s a lot. I don’t know of any other company that’s putting on that many conferences a year. For some reason, you find that important. What can the audience learn from you about why you do the work you do?

About every 60 to 90 days as we’re growing in our business, especially scaling and hyper growing, we run into new challenges that we don’t know how to overcome. I’d shared that there are times within the phases that I encounter fear because of the unknown and the uncertainty, being able to go to an environment that’s all based around the Law of Reciprocity. As you know, our networking is not quite like anything else out there and I’m grateful for that. Our networking is all based on the Law of Reciprocity. We strongly believe in the mentality of giving back first.

When we do our networking, it’s not, “My name is September and this is my business card. Here’s what I’m doing. It’s all about me.” When we do our networking, it’s, “What’s your name? What are you working on and how can I contribute? How can I support you? How can I give to that?” Something common that I say is because I’m at CEO Space for several years, I have a large real estate background. Both sets of my parents are in real estate. I know a lot about real estate. If somebody were in real estate, I can help them with that. I can contribute to their ideas, their contacts or the resources that they need.

There are a lot of events out there that have great content, but the reality is that there’s great content online. Type in any question into Google and you’re going to be able to find an answer. Does it mean that that’s the right answer for you? Not necessarily, but it’s not about the content. It’s about the connections and it’s about the culture within those connections. Our subject matter experts, the people that are teaching, what we call faculty members, they all have formal background checks done. We do that because our customers have a tremendous amount of trust in us.

Stop focusing on making money and start building your legacy. Click To Tweet

They trust that we’re going to put the right people in front of them, that we’ve done our due diligence and we’re not putting some rip off Joe in front of them just to be ripped off. We verify that the person is who they say they are. They do what they say they do. There’s nothing that we or our investigators can find that you need to be concerned about in working with this subject X. We also have an extra net where if a customer is not happy, they can file a formal complaint. We’re very picky about who we bring in. Let’s look at our members because it’s all about who you know and who we go after are high-achieving business owners who have well-established businesses.

We’re not interested in the dreamers. We’re not interested in the wannapreneurs because we want to play with people who are taking action. They’re making it happen and they know that they need to do something to take their business to the next level. Maybe they know what that something is, maybe they don’t. Coming into an environment is to be vulnerable and to be transparent, which all of our members sign an NDA. It protects your idea so you can be open. You can talk about where you’re at in your business and the challenges that you’re facing so that you can get solutions. You can brainstorm new ideas, you can hear what other people are doing, you can look at different resources. Taking your business to the next level, you have such a wide variety of ways that you can do that when you’re in the right environment. Maybe CEO Space isn’t right for everybody, but if you can find yourself into an environment that you feel fully supported and you feel safe in doing business there, milk it. Do everything you can to maximize your participation within that group and be there all the time.

As a member of CEO Space myself, one of the things that I value within this company and within the conferences is doing things in the spirit of collaboration. You talked about how you meet someone and how you’re looking to help them. Talk about how doing things in the spirit of collaboration has been a fundamental aspect of the success of your business.

The amount of conversations that I’ve had in those moments of uncertainty, I had a call with somebody I highly trust and I said, “I’ve got a leadership question for you. To what degree does the leader of a company set the tone for the team?” He said, “It’s 100%.” I said, “Where am I disconnecting?” We talked about that because I was having a small challenge with our sales team. We had talked about that and worked ourselves through it. By the end of the week, the problem was gone. It was solved. The individual that I had called Randy, he was very open to sharing his knowledge with me, “This has been my experience.” He said, “I have faced this problem before in other companies and here’s how we work it out. Here is what we did to overcome it.”

I got to pick his brain on that. It was maybe a twenty-minute call, but because I knew he would have the answer right away, we didn’t have to spend that much time. Randy has a spirit of collaboration. He’s always wanting to collaborate with people. I can do the same thing with everybody on the faculty team. If I have an intellectual property issue, I know I can call Maria and say, “I’ve got this challenge. What do I do about this?” She’s going to direct me. Never have I ever once called anybody on our team with a challenge that I presented to them that they said to me, “I’m not going to give you that answer unless you pay me.” They don’t have that mentality. They have a collaborative mentality, “Let me contribute to you.” It’s only going to take 20 or 30 minutes to have this conversation, but the results can be immeasurable sometimes.

Collaboration is fundamental and that’s what I’m saying. If you don’t have collaborative people and supportive people around you, you need to find another circle that is collaborative and that they want to contribute. It’s fun contributing to people’s ideas. It’s fun to be able to say, “I have experience in that. Let me help you.” Checking in with them and saying, “How did that recommendation work out for you?” “I’m on the right track and I’m taking off. Thank you.” There’s nothing greater than that feeling knowing you contributed to somebody just in a simple conversation.

Many business owners may feel that if I contribute to someone else, they may get ahead of me. It’s this whole competitive spirit. I know a lot of people live by that. You’ve got to be better than the next person that’s providing a similar or the same service or product. Can you give us some examples of why that’s not true anymore? Why that’s not the most successful route to take?

I know you’re all about mindset, Rodney. I go back to that. To answer your question, I immediately go to mindset that if you’re in this fear-based mindset and thinking, “I can’t share my idea,” or “I don’t want somebody else to get ahead of me,” or “Why are they doing so good and I’m not?” maybe in the same field. You’re coming from a lack of mentality. That snowballs and creates more lack in your life. This phrase, Law of Attraction, keeps being thrown around, but a lot of those principles that are true. If you continue to focus on lack and not having enough, guess what you’re going to have? Lack and not enough. If you can open up your mind and be of service, it’s the contribution aspect of life. You reap what you sow.

If you’re reaping fear and I don’t want you to be ahead of me, guess what’s going to come right back? It’s karma, Law of Attraction. You reap what you sow. It’s biblical. You hear it in every religion or belief practice. It’s not healthy for you. It doesn’t serve you. There’s a phrase something like, “If you don’t forgive somebody, you’re hurting yourself by not forgiving somebody else.” It’s the same thing. If you can’t open your heart and your mind to be a contribution and be happy when somebody else succeeds, you’re not going to be able to feed off of that same energy. It feels great to celebrate with somebody when they have a win. I feel empowered that if they did it, I can do it. I can ask them, “How did you do that?” When you’re surrounded by the right people, they’re going to tell you because they’re not afraid. They don’t have a lack mentality. It all stems into the mental game of it all.

Let’s take it a little deeper because some person might be saying, “I have to be profit-driven. I have to be focused on profit. How can I make money with this type of mindset?” What is your response to that?

GCM 86 | CEO Space

CEO Space: CEO Space is an avenue for entrepreneurs who want to take their business to the next level for the right reasons.

 

If you come at it with that type of mentality, you scare away opportunities. You scare away magic where it’s like serendipity. Things that you don’t expect to happen, but they happen in your life. I had posted on Facebook, “Shift from a dynamic of being motivated by profits that are generated by serving others to a dynamic of serving others that is made possible by profits.” You’ll still get those profits. It’s going to be harder. It will be a harder struggle. There are some successful people out there that are jerks.

Maybe it doesn’t last very long or maybe they’re not truly happy within themselves. I do believe that there are people in the world that you shake your head like, “How is this guy doing it?” or “How’s this girl doing it?” When you can put others first, everything else falls into place behind it. It feels very counterintuitive the first time that you step into that type of mentality, especially if you’ve been coming from, “I need to get my money. I’m doing this to get the money.” To shift to, “How can I help this person? How can I help my audience?” To create from that space of, “How can I make this person’s life better?” you don’t have to think about the profits as much. As a business owner, you have to think about profits. You’ve got to run your company and it’s a numbers game. When you’re a contribution, the openness to how things flow into your life is far greater than if you started with the notion, “I’m doing this to make money.”

Being a member of CEO Space, being profit focus is more like I win. When you’re thinking about contribution and service, then everybody can win. What can a person expect as a member of CEO Space?

When you come into the environment, you can expect to be supported. Everybody’s there with a heart wide open. They want to contribute. It’s one of the qualifiers that we look for in business owners. How much of a contribution do they want to play? How do they contribute into other people’s lives? That’s one thing that we look for. The other thing you can expect is you have to work your butt off. It’s not going to fall in your lap. It’s not going to just happen. You’ve got to have a conversation, you’ve got to be vulnerable, and you’ve got to ask questions. You’ve got to contribute to others and be of service and open your heart up. Over the years, we’ve had some people that because it is such a counterintuitive notion and idea that maybe midweek they would come and go, “I’m not making the contacts I’m looking for.”

We’d ask them, “How have you been contributing?” They’re like, “I haven’t been. I need to get this thing resolved. I’m in a panic. I need to figure this thing out.” It’s like, “I know it’s uncomfortable because it’s new for you, but switch the game and only serve.” Jason Webb, one of our attorneys tells that story where he had come in going, “How can I move my business forward? What can I get to move my business forward?” He switched it and he said, “I’m going to come and be a 100% service. I’m not even going to think about my project and what I’m working on. I’m only going to see how I can improve or help this next person that I encounter.” By the end of the week, they will get what they’re looking for. It shows up for them because they’re open to receive. They’re not closed off in fear. They’re not closed off in black mentality. They’re open to the possibilities. They’re open to be inspired. They’re open to be moved and motivated. You can expect that as long as you come in with a heart of contribution.

What areas of business does CEO Space help with?

It’s all kinds of areas. I love that part about us. Ellen Morgan is somebody who has been with our company for about as long as I have been. She tells a story that her very first time attending, she was at a meal table and she sat next to somebody who had a new startup venture. They weren’t new to the business, but they had a new venture that they were doing. On the other side of her was somebody who sold their company for a couple of billion. The diversity of who we attract. It’s like if I’m in a new venture and I’ve got some challenges in the beginning of this space, I know I can go to somebody. There’s somebody in the network that can guide me in that if I’m having challenges with marketing, leadership or the inner game.

If you’re clogged up on the inside and you have a weird storyline that you keep telling yourself that you can’t do this or you’ve got some blocks or beliefs that are holding you back, you’ve got to get some support with the inner game. We have email marketing experts. We’ve got speaker coaches and people who will help you get speaking gigs. We’ve got authors, publishers, and people who work with large publication companies. Regardless of what you’re working on in the business, there is a solution at CEO Space. We’ve been doing this for many years.

We have a tremendous number of members. Even if the person is not there on-site that you’re looking for and you say, “I’m looking for somebody in this space,” we’ll connect you to that person. Here’s their phone number, here’s their email. Let me make an introduction for you. We do that all the time. We’ve heard a lot of people who are raising capital that most of their investors came from CEO Space or a referral from somebody in CEO Space. It’s very common, but I believe that all stems from having this heart for a contribution that it’s like, “I might not be your contacts, but I know somebody who could be your contact.” They open up their resources and connections outside of who they are. Even people who are not inside of CEO Space, they’ll start making introductions.

Your network is one of your most important assets when it comes to being an entrepreneur and a CEO. Click To Tweet

I’ve played this game but I want to talk about it here as well. It’s a game called SNAP. It is an acronym. I want you to explain exactly what SNAP is and why do we do it here at CEO Space?

SNAP stands for Super Networking Accelerates Potential. It’s the cousin to the elevator pitch where you’ve got to get very clear on what you’re working on and what you’re looking for next. There are two major components to it. The game that we play in that is that there’s a circle of people and there’s a bunch of circles set up throughout the whole room. There’s one runner in the group and that runner is going from circle to circle and they’re snapping. “This is what I’m working on. This is what I’m ready to receive.”

If somebody in the group is either A, the contact, B, knows the contact or C, has an influence on the contact like, “My next-door neighbor’s brother does what you’re looking for.” They’ll give you a card, which we call See-Me card and you write down the resource. “I have the resource that you’re looking for. It’s my next-door neighbor’s brother.” You collect all these cards and throughout the week. We have designated times so that members can connect with one another and follow up on those contacts. “You said that your neighbor’s brother is who I’m looking for, can I get in touch with them?” “Absolutely. Here’s the phone number. I would make an introduction for you.” That’s all taking place, but it’s a way to accelerate the results that you’re looking for and a way to meet all of the people at the event. Oftentimes you’ll go to an event, especially the larger ones. You don’t get a chance to meet everybody. This is a way for everybody to know what you’re working on and for you to know what everybody else is working on.

CEO Space is not just a conference, it’s more like a community where you have all this heart space, connection, and engagement. It’s an environment where you get to know people. Everyone is there to support one another and it’s like a tight-knit family. September, as the CEO of this wonderful company, what is it that you love most about your job?

I love a lot about my job. I love the creativeness. I love to build systems and processes. I love to improve systems and processes. That’s on the back end and I enjoyed being on the back end. My husband, the founder, he’s fantastic being on the front end. He’s the speaker. He’s the face of it. It works out well. The thing that gives me the most joy are the relationships that I’ve created and fostered over the years of being here. My friendships, people that I trust with my life. I trust them with my kids. People that I know I can go to for any challenge. I need to vent, scream it out, cry it out, whatever it is, whatever I need to do that day. I know that there’s somebody in my circle that I can lean on, that I can talk to and vice versa.

I’ve got people that will call me and ask, “I’m stuck on this. How would you handle it? What would you do? Have you encountered this before?” It’s the quality of their heart, their intentions. It’s also the quality of their brain. We’ve got people that have worked with a wide range of industries, including tech companies, finance, consumer goods, people that have worked for companies like Pfizer, FedEx, Apple, Inc., Forbes, and Blue Cross, they’re smart brains. I want to be connected to smart brains. I definitely do not want to be the smartest person in the room. The relationships that I’ve fostered over the years give me the greatest joy of my job. That’s what keeps pushing me through, especially in those challenging times.

This is the legacy that you’re building here with CEO Space. This is not your average Joe conference, not your average Joe business, not your average Joe community. Kudos for you for leading such a needed charge in the business world among business leaders. I want to say thank you for doing that. When you talk about legacy, it’s so important, but it gets overlooked by making money. I did in a little bit of research on you. I know you had written this article a few years ago about stop focusing on making money and start building your legacy. I would like to get your expertise on why is building your legacy more important than the focus of money?

Because it matters. Legacy matters. Money matters, but not as much as legacy matters. Steve Jobs, that’s all I have to say. He left a legacy behind. He had created a product, but more importantly from my perspective, he created an expectation. When you’re engaged with the brand, there’s this new expectation that maybe wasn’t here 20, 30 years ago. You expect great quality. You expect to be wowed by that. When it comes to legacy, it’s like, “What are you leaving behind?” Don’t waste life. There’s a gift inside of you. Everybody has a gift. What is your gift? Stop denying it. Stop pushing it down. Stop talking it away. Tell your ego to go to its room and allow that gift to shine and to surface. You know what it is.

If you say to yourself, you don’t know what that is, when you get quiet and you go inside, you know what it is. It’s just covered up and buried by fear and all these weird stories that you’ve created and that have been programmed in your mind over the years. Your circle has programmed it, your family has programmed it, your upbringing has created programming around that. Creating a legacy has an impact on lives for many generations. How beautiful is that? We can think of Thomas Edison and he left a legacy. Henry Ford left a legacy. What they created still impacts our lives.

I want to come back to that. Before I do though, if they wanted to learn more about CEO Space or learn more about you, how can they connect with you?

GCM 86 | CEO Space

CEO Space: Money is a part of what you do, but you also have the responsibility of bringing your gift forward so you can contribute to others around you.

 

You can go to CEOSpaceInternational.com. You can learn about our company there. You can connect with me on LinkedIn, September Dohrmann or if you want to reach out to me via email, you can reach me at September@CEOSpaceInternational.com. I’m happy to talk to you.

Coming back to your talk about legacy, I want to say something to you and I want to get your thoughts about it because I believe that out of all the things that we enjoy in life, all the amenities, all the technology, and everything that has been created. First of all, those things were somebody should dream at one point in time. We get the benefit of that. It’s amazing all the things that we’re experiencing. It leads me to think that we haven’t tipped the iceberg and what is possible for us because not everyone is bringing their dream forward. If you think about the number of people that are bringing their dream forward and those that aren’t, we’re at a massive deficit of what we could be experiencing. First of all, what are your thoughts about that?

I’m going to say if you are not living your dream and what you know in your heart of hearts of what you came here to do, shame on you. People are not getting to live their fullest life because you’re not stepping up to yours. Can you imagine what would happen or maybe what could have happened or where life could have went if CEO Space was never created many years ago? The impact that we’ve made, starting off with Chicken Soup for the Soul in the ‘90. That came out of CEO Space. Robert Kiyosaki and all of his Rich Dad Poor Dad, all of that came out of CEO Space, out of the collaborative community of that. The ripple effects that those two projects alone have had on people. I’ve had this conversation. When people are afraid to step out and live their dream, I always go back to, “You’re doing a disservice.” Your fear is stopping other people from living their fullest life.

What are some other examples of successful projects that have come out at CEO Space?

Lisa Nichols had gotten her start with us. Obviously, Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen were members and Chicken Soup was formed at a meal table. It was a dinner table and everybody at that table were contributing to it. We’ve had large water projects, real estate development projects come out of here. We’ve had the home testing kits that women can take to see when they’re ovulating. That’s one of our customers’ projects. We’ve had many books. Many authors write their books and have them published in big houses. The number of projects that have come out of CEO Space. I’m always amazed when somebody runs into me and go, “I came to CEO Space X number of years ago and I had nothing, and now look what I have and the people I’ve been able to influence.”

I was having a conversation with one of our customers. She was a member in 2016. She goes, “I don’t know what I was doing when I came in.” She knew that her growing up programming was, “You never ask people for money. If you need money, you need to go out there and earn it.” She said, “I knew I needed to raise capital, so I had to overcome that barrier of all of that programming that was in my mind. It has taken me a lot of years, but I can tell you I am living the greatest life I have. I’ve had pinch-me moments. I didn’t even think my life would be this great and I’m taking it to the next level, but I’ve got the skillset on how I can do that and I’m grateful.” That was a wonderful conversation to have there.

I know there are probably so many. You’ve probably forgotten more than you can remember because there have been many. The members there take to heart what they’re doing. It’s not about the money. Money is a part of it. It’s about the responsibility of bringing your gift forward so that it can contribute to others. I’m grateful for CEO Space. I’m going to be one of those success stories having my start there. Thank you for coming on the show, sharing your knowledge, your expertise and your business and what you’re about and offering that as an avenue and a vehicle for entrepreneurs who want to contribute, who want to take their business to the next level for all the right reasons. I know there are many things we didn’t talk about like authenticity and integrity, which is a major staple at CEO Space. I would like for you to offer maybe one nugget that we can all take away from this episode, some game-changing information or message you can share with us.

Even when you do not feel like it, you’re tired and you’ve had a rough week, do it anyways. Take one step towards your dream every day. Make it your side hustle. If you’re not ready to jump in with both feet, that’s okay. Start somewhere, do something. Even it’s one thing a day to move it forward. It will begin opening up because it’s meant to be. You came here for this. You came here for that particular type of expression and that particular type of impact, contribution on other people’s lives and you need to do it. When you’re scared, when you don’t know what you’re doing, do it anyways. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It has to be done. It will project itself out. Everything comes out in the wash.

It’s your responsibility to do so. Thank you, September Dohrmann, for coming on the show. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time and please keep doing what you’re doing.

Thank you, Rodney. I appreciate you.

There you have it. Straight from September Dohrmann herself, even if you don’t feel like it, do it anyways. Peace and love. Thank you.

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About September Dohrmann

GCM 86 | CEO SpaceSeptember Dohrmann is the current President and CEO of CEO Space International. In what Forbes.com called a “must-attend” for entrepreneurs, the CEO Space Business Growth Conferences are strategically scheduled five times each year to create a steady pace of growth.

For over 25 years, CEO Space International has brought together business leaders, investors and entrepreneurs to create an networking environment unlike any other. By developing meaningful, mentor-driven relationships, professionals are able to get the help they need in a cooperative environment.

Her past positions with the company included Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. In addition to her role as CEO, September serves as the Vice Chairwomen of the CEO Space Board of Directors.

Prior to joining CEO Space, September was a licensed real estate agent and specialized in the purchase and turnaround of distressed properties. Her portfolio of over 2 million dollars was focused on residential properties in the state of Tennessee.

September lives in Tampa Florida with her husband Berny, and her two sons, Daniel and Preston.

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