Hiding from the world: Dave Navarro interview
By Alex Fayle

As you may have noticed, over the past couple of months, Someday Syndrome has been going more butt-kicking. Some of that comes from reading Dave Navarro, whose blogs are always good for a quick kick in the pants, as are his ebooks, which why they are included in my Someday Busting Affiliates (see sidebar). So let’s see what Dave has to say for himself about butt-kicking.

Who: Dave Navarro of Rock Your Day and The Launch Coach
Dave is a no-nonsense business coach who uses his New York Italian attitude to get people to quit making excuses, refuse to settle for less and take action no matter how “stuck” they were in the past.

Name one moment in your life when you threw a pity party for yourself and the reasons why you felt you weren’t able to achieve your goals. Were you feeling stuck? Had you felt you failed? What wasn’t working in your life?
I left college to start my own web hosting and design business and was shell-shocked by how poorly it went.  I had picked the wrong partner, the wrong vendor, the wrong everything - and it bombed horribly because I didn’t cut my losses early on (even though I knew I should have).  I felt stuck because up until then I had had a really good track record of making things work and I didn’t have a coping mechanism for dealing with such a beginning-to-end failure like that one.  I also gained 30 pounds, which didn’t help me out, either.  I started sleeping 12 hours a day and basically spent 6 months hiding from the world.

Even our lowest moments fulfill a need in us or express our desires. When you threw that pity party, what did you hope to gain? What need did you fulfill?
I just wanted to avoid things - mainly the fact that the strategies which had worked so well for me over 10 years of “achievement” just didn’t seem to be working in the “grown up world.”  I was having a huge identity crisis and I cut myself off from people to save myself the embarrassment of admitting my mistakes - basically I just felt like I needed to protect myself, so I went into hermit mode.

Tell us what you did to break up the pity part. What actions did you decide to take? Did someone help you buoy your spirits? Push you along?
I swallowed my pride and saw a counselor.  I read self-help books.  I started dealing with my baggage and focused on being “okay” with making mistakes, being transparent - you know, being a human, I guess.  I also wrote up a list of things I would personally not settle for in my life - emotional eating, unrealistically negative thinking - and I surrounded myself with people who demanded similar things of themselves.  I even had a list of six core phrases I would repeat over and over again to break myself of disempowering thought patterns, which helped me hit the gym and change my eating habits enough to lose those 30 pounds in 10 weeks.

Can you look back on that moment and tell us how you felt when you did decide to take action? What results came about from your decision to take charge and move on?
I felt horrified with the state of my life and hit what they call “threshold” - that moment where something snaps inside and you say, “This isn’t me.  I can’t live like this.  I *have* to change.”  I felt so repelled by the attitudes and actions which put me in the spot I was in - attitudes which actually ran counter to how I had lived over the past decade - and I pushed back, hard.  I found a new, more empowering social circle, lost a lot of weight, and took a breather from business to reassess where I wanted to go.

Everyone has a Someday problem hiding deep inside, even little ones. What variety of the Someday Syndrome do you currently harbor? What would you like to achieve but haven’t yet?
Well, ten years later, I’ve let my physical and emotional side slide again.  I’ve gained back that weight (not through emotional eating but just from lazy diet decisions), and I’ve let the relationship side of my life weaken as well.  My goal is to get back to my college weight and just be more emotionally connected around the people I care about instead of having all these “walls” up - something that hasn’t ever been easy due to some extremely painful events in my childhood.

Examining your Someday Syndrome problem, what are you currently doing to resolve it and eliminate it from your life?
I’d been telling myself I’ll get to turning that around “someday” but in December I hit threshold again.  I’ve cut out caffeine and soda, started exercising again and though I’m not seeing a counselor right now, I’m connecting with a core group of friends who are helping me unpack some of the additional baggage I’ve been carrying around. I won’t say it’s been easy, but I’m confident that like anything else I’ve had to deal with, I’ll overcome it because I simply won’t quit.

Many people suffer the same problems you do. You’re not alone, and neither are they. What would you tell people in your situation right now to help them avoid what you’re going through?
Find other people.  Don’t pretend you’ll deal with it yourself, because face it - you haven’t been.  Suround yourself with encouraging people who demand more of you - and if you’re too nervous to do that, find online forums and talk your stuff through with people anonymously.  Nothing gets better until you take action, and the pain of dealing with stuff is much smaller than the pain of regret from wasted time.  Swallow your pride.  Let other people help you.

If you could ask for one thing, right now, to help you overcome your Someday Syndrome, what type of help would you ask for?
More people with varied life experiences who would kick my behind on a regular basis.  I have a handful of those people, but not enough.  But I’m gathering them - now - instead of someday.

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