Check out the latest episode below. Mr.Biz Radio provides business owners with the knowledge and insights needed to drive their companies forward.

Mr. Biz Radio: From Playboy Playmate to Top Sales Producer

Unedited transcription of the show is included below:

(00:03):

Welcome to Mr. Biz radio Biz Talk for biz owners during the next half hour, Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth, a leading business advisor, and two time bestselling author we'll cover topics that will help business owners run their companies poor profitably and more efficiently. If you're ready to stop faking the funk and take your business onward and upward, this show is for you. And now here's Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth.

(00:27):

All right. Welcome to another episode of Mr. Biz radio with me, Mr. Biz, Ken Wentworth. And this week we are going to talk about a topic that everyone business owners, entrepreneurs, corporate people, non-corporate people, artists, everybody faces at some point or another and multiple times during your life. And unfortunately, but it's just part of life. And that is we're going to talk about setbacks. We're going to talk about in a positive way, because we have a guest this week. Oh my gosh. You wait to hear who we have. So she's going to help us. And she's going to give us some tips on recreating yourself after a setback. And she's had a few of those and she has recovered and remarkable ways. So our guest this week is for our first time ever on Mr. Biz radio, a former Playboy Playmate. She became a top sales producer and joined the million dollar round table. She was Miss March, 1990. She was a cover girl for Playboy in April, 1990. She was a professional cheerleader with the LA express, Deborah Driggs. Welcome to Mr. Biz radio.

(01:30):

Hey everybody. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me and what a beautiful introduction. Thank you. Very grateful for that.

(01:37):

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I could, I could have gone on and on and on. I mean, the things you've done and the accomplishments you've had and achievements you've, you've been able to earn are amazing, but so I guess let's get started with, you know, given all that background in some of those achievements that you've, you've earned talk to us about your entrepreneurial journey.

(01:55):

Yeah. You know, it's, it's, it is a journey and that's, that's exactly the right way to kind of frame it is. It's a journey it's going to have lots of ebb and flow. It's going to have lots of ups and downs. And you know, for me, I had, you know, quite a few setbacks, you know, leading up to the big one, really when I really look back at my journey. But, you know, I found myself at 40 years old, broke, divorced three kids. And really, I had never worked a real job if you know, you know what I mean? I had come from the entertainment world and I had started modeling in 1983 and then found myself on the cover of Playboy in 1990 and everything was going really well. And I kind of took all that for granted, you know, I wasn't thinking about it at the time and I wasn't preparing myself for what the future was really going to hold.

(02:50):

And so when I found myself at 40 years old, really not in a good place, you know, that's where the reinvention really started. And I thought, okay, now what, what am I going to do? Because I, you know, you can only fall back on your accolades from the entertainment business for so long and nobody cares at some point. And that's just the truth and the reality of that business. And so I started out in the real estate world for a bit. I was living in a small town and I had three kids to raise. And so that was just kind of what everybody did in the town of park city. Utah was, everybody was kind of involved in real estate, but what I was really good at and what I started to find out what my thing was, was I was really good at, I didn't need to reinvent anything.

(03:44):

So what I did was when I got my license, I worked for the number one producer in park city. I went and I interviewed with three of the top guys and I said, look, why don't I be your assistant? And I felt, you know, cause with real estate, it's like starting a business. You know, you have to start your own thing. And I really didn't have the time with three young kids to do that. So I had the, the, the knowledge to go and work for the best and learn the business world. I didn't know how to work a scanner, you know, and now that that's really the truth of the matter. I didn't, I, you know, all I knew how to do on a computer was send an email. So when I met with this one gentleman, we hit it off and he said, what do you think your specialty is?

(04:27):

And I said, you know, I'm really good with people. And he said, perfect, Deborah, I have 22 listings. I'm so burned out. Why don't you manage that part of my business? And, you know, w what happened was we ended up working out a deal and he taught me everything behind the scenes. And I took care of all the people and the business, and the joke in the office really became, like, she brings in a $3 million listing and doesn't know how to scan in the paperwork. You know, the girls would have to show me over and over again, how to do that. I'd go, you know, that machine, you know, that thing where you put the papers in, and, and then it goes to my email somehow, and they're like a scanner I'm like, yeah, the scanner. And so, you know, they'd show me again. And that kind of became the joke.

(05:11):

And then as we know, in 2008, that market took a dive. I was in a second home multi-million dollar market and boom game over for me for a while. And so then again, here we go, I've got to reinvent, again, took a lot of odd jobs until I ended up in a print procurement business in New York. And that was a whole other journey of learning. You know, working in New York was a whole other ball game, and I'm no longer in a small town, you know, we're not in Kansas anymore. You know, I'm now up against the big boys and I'm going on meetings with people like Ron Perlman. You know, it's like, I'm going to the head of Revlon and trying to get their packaging and procurement business. And so that was the biggest learning experience for me, which led me into the business that I had the most success, which was life insurance. And most of the people that I met with throughout those years ended up becoming my clients. And so, you know, I always say to people, you never know, I don't, I never take no as the final for me, no is maybe because even though it didn't work out with the print or the real estate, it really worked out for me and the life insurance. And that is where I had a huge amount of success.

(06:28):

Well, again, this is why you're going to be able to give us some, I can't wait for the third segment when you give us some tips, because you just described a couple of major reinventions, right. And not when you were 25 years old, either, which, you know, things are probably a little easier without having children and all that kind of stuff, to be able to sort of pivot and make changes. Once you have a family, once you have children, et cetera, those, those changes become much more difficult and you have that much more responsibility. That risk is higher, et cetera. So hats off to you for being able to do that. And, and Bob and weave throughout the punches, that that life is thrown your way yeah. With the crazy success. It's just an absolutely amazing so we don't, we only have about a little over a minute left for you before we're going to head to a break, but given all of those things that you've gone through, what is, what would you say is your favorite failure?

(07:24):

Oh, it's a great question. I would say my greatest failure, the one that brought me to my knees was my relationship and my divorce, because that's, you know, I, I don't like to fail, you know, I'm very competitive. I grew up ice skating and I had that competitive spirit. And so I, didn't not like failing at my relationship, you know, with the father of my kids, so to speak. And so that one really brought me to my names and that's probably where most of the growth spiritually and emotionally came from after that, because I had to really figure out what is it that I'm doing and, and how can I improve in that area of my life. So that, that for sure was the biggest growth.

(08:09):

Gotcha. Yeah. It seems like, you know, from the, the the largest fire, th th those embers, the Phoenix rises, as they say. And, and so you know, again, kudos to you for being able to get up out of those embers and recreate yourself as you have. So again, this week, guys, we're talking with Deborah Driggs, you can find out more deborahdriggs.com definitely go follow her on social media. Ever since I reached out to her to get her on the show several months back, I've been following her on social media and seeing all of her travels and different things that she's doing. So she's got an interesting feed on social media. So definitely follow her on that. We are going to hit a break here and we'll come back, give the Mr. Biz tip of the week. And then we're going to talk to Deborah about more of the things that she's got going on because she has three books coming out next year. So we're in talking about that

(08:57):

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(09:27):

Thank you for listening to Mr. Biz radio. Did you know our show airs seven days a week for more than 30 hours. Now, if you are in the B2B space and we'd like to reach thousands of business owners every week, including our more than 250,000 social media followers are thousands of daily internet radio listeners, our email list fans and Mr. Biz Solutions members email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to become a sponsor, tap into Mr. Biz nation to help grow your business.

(09:57):

Check out both of Mr. Biz’s, national bestselling books, “pathway to profits”, and “how to be a cash flow pro” on Amazon. Now, once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(10:08):

All right. Welcome back to the show. And it is time for Mr. Biz tip of the week. And this week's tip is is numbers related as some of you may have guessed. Not all of them are, but so the tip this week is if you don't know your financials, for example, your gross margin and your net margin, debt, service cashflow, et cetera, among others. But those are some of the really important ones hire an expert. So you do know them it's critically important for your business. It doesn't matter how great of a salesperson you are. You could be bringing in all kinds of money if you're not managing it well, you will not have a business for very long. Your cash flow will dry up. You'll have issues with that. You won't be making money. You won't be pricing your services or products in a, in a, in a competitive manner, in a profitable manner.

(10:50):

You got to make sure you get your arms around those financials, super, super important. So that is the, and by the way, if you need help with that you know, I might know a guy that helped you with that. So so that is the Mr. Biz tip of the week.

We're going to get back into talking with this week's guest, Deborah Driggs. So Deborah, you have you know, not one, not two, but as I understand, three upcoming books that are going to be released probably beginning next year at some point next year. Is that correct?

(11:16):

That's correct. Yep. So what's interesting is this last year has been another learning growth experience. I, I found my grandfather had written a book called son of a Basque, and I read it three times and I decided I was going to publish it. And at first, you know, I have connections in the, in the business to, you know, possibly get a literary agent and all of that. But then when I got down to it, I thought, you know, okay, Jeff, you're an entrepreneur. You can do this. So I formed my own publishing company, which is crystal woods publishers. And so I will be that book is ready to go to print. And it's a fiction historical fiction. And based, based on my grandfather's life, he's from the Basque country in Spain and just, I don't want to give too much away in the book, but he had a really interesting, interesting life.

(12:12):

And when I read it, I actually saw a screenplay with the whole thing. Cause I thought, this is, this is, I could see this being a movie. He fought in three wars, world war II, the Korean war in Vietnam. And he was from Spain and he, he didn't speak a lot of English. And so back then, you know, in world war II, they, if you didn't speak English and you weren't a U S citizen, you didn't get to fight in the war. You know, you went into a special, you know, maybe you were a cook or, you know, you were a maintenance kind of work, but he ended up fighting. He fought to fight in the wars. And so it's a really interesting story. That's that book. And that's going to be going to print very shortly here. And then I write a weekly blog for my website.

(13:00):

It's free to anybody who signs up for my weekly newsletter. You will get it in your email. You can go to my website, but every week I write a weekly blog. And basically these are excerpts from my book. There are things that I talk about in my book with my journey, their learning experiences, growth, learning, emotional, spiritual, everything from, you know, relationship's not going well to, you know, how, how do we get through certain things, tragedies, traumas in our lives. So I write about that weekly. So I'm going to do a coffee table book called Deb’s Den, the book of blogs, and it's going to be all the blogs I've written with all the photos. And so that'll be like a nice gift book. And then of course I I'm writing my memoir and, and my journey of re-invention and basically it's Deb's dad and the healing journey where the healing began.

(13:58):

And I really, I start out the book with, you know, the healing really began in the womb of my mother, you know, because, you know, I, I truly believe that we choose our, our path in life. We choose, you know, who's going to be our parents. And I really thought about that on a really deep level. And I thought, why would I choose these two humans to be my parents? You know, my mother had me when she was 19. And so there's quite a journey of healing that goes on. And at some point, if you believe this, you know, somebody has to take over and, and start that healing process, the healing of generations and generations and generations of, of different types of trauma. And so that it just kind of hit me, you know, I'm in my fifties, I'm 57. And I thought, you know, at some point I have three children. And so at some point, you know, you have to kind of take a look at that and, and start the healing. Somebody has to do it. So I thought, well, I guess that's what I was, my purpose was to, to be the starter of that and, and start that healing process. So that's what my book is about. It's about the healing journey.

(15:07):

Gotcha. Well, if anyone can tell that story, it's gotta be you, I mean, based, especially what you told us during the first segment of all the, the, the, the, you know, peaks and valleys that you've had throughout your life and career. So Crystal Woods Publishing. So is it, did you create that primarily? Just to be, yeah. But did you create it primarily just to promote or to publish your books? Are you going to promote publish others as well?

(15:31):

I publish anything that comes my way, that I, that speaks to me. And so, yeah, I set it up that way because I thought, you know, I, I really looked at hay house was kind of my, well, they did it, you know, they, they publish books and they do this and they have, you know, a web series and cards and all sorts of things. And I thought, well, why can't I do that? I can do the same thing. And so I thought, why not set myself up to be able to do that? And, you know, I thought here, you know, I am a salesperson and I had a lot of success in sales and I'm the one that's going to be doing the work to sell, sell the books. So why not just own it outright?

(16:15):

Yeah. No, it makes perfect sense. And it just, it, it's another demonstration of your entrepreneurial mindset, right? Like you said, you go, oh, well, I can go get a publisher and you know, I've got connections. I can make that happen, but wait a minute, why can't I just do it myself? I mean, that is the true entrepreneurial spirit.

(16:30):

It really is. And, and that's, and I think it is in each and every one of us when we tap into it, you know, I didn't grow up with examples of that, you know, and it wasn't until my late twenties and early thirties that I started to see, Hey, I can, we can create anything we want, you know, that's available to us. But I grew up in a family that, you know, you worked for somebody, you got a paycheck, you worked Monday through Friday, eight to five. You know, those were my examples. And I wish, you know, what, you know, growing up that somebody would have said, Hey, guess what? You don't, you don't have to work for anybody. You can work for yourself, can do whatever you want. You know, you could create your own, your own business, your own company, your own. And so I think once I started really tapping into that, that's when everything started happening, I was like, okay, I, I can do this. And I don't need to, I can write my own hours, you know, I could work from anywhere. Yeah.

(17:25):

Well, look, I gotta, I gotta ask the question. We only got about a minute left for our next break, but I got to ask, be based on, I know you moved around, you mentioned you were in New York. I know you're on the west coast now, and I know you've traveled extensively in your life. So I have to ask, especially with your spiritual journey, you you've referenced a few times as well. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

(17:47):

Wow. I have a of answers to that for, for just pure love of the country. I am a huge fan of Italy, but, you know, I really am pulled towards Mexico and I've thought a lot about it. I thought, you know, I could live down in todo Santos or I could live down in you know, canned area and, you know, cause I can write from anywhere. So, but I'm drawn to Mexico lately, but I, I absolutely Italy is definitely just top on my list. I, I just, I'm always been a fan and I've gone back several times.

(18:25):

Yeah. I've only been once, but absolutely loved it and was fortunate enough to be over there for quite some time and got to see a good chunk of the country. Different parts of the country is pretty, pretty amazing over there for sure. So again, this week, guys, we're talking with Deborah Driggs. You can find out more at Deborahdriggs.com. You can find out about her blog. You can subscribe to that. You can find about about the books that she had. She just talked about the three books that'll be coming out soon. So we're going to come back after the break and Deborah's going to give us some tips on how to recreate ourselves after a setback.

(18:58):

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(19:27):

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(19:57):

To submit questions to the show, email them to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Now once again, here's Mr. Biz.

(20:06):

All right. Welcome back to the show. So if it wasn't evident from hearing Deborah's journey during the first segment and hearing about the books that she has coming out here in the next several months she is a master. She is a queen at being able to recreate herself after facing a inevitable setbacks in life. And so I thought it would be really good for her to give us some tips. Because again, as I mentioned at the outset of the show, we all face these, we all have setbacks in life, different shapes, forms, fashions, all that types of thing, but it's something that's common with all of this. Again, whether you're a business owner, you're an entrepreneur you work for, you know, in a corporate world, you're an actor, you're an actress. You're, you're an artist. It doesn't matter. Setbacks are unfortunately inevitable, but it's, you know, the successful people are the ones that are able to, you know, recreate yourself, get up out of those ashes and recreate yourself and, you know, forge ahead and create that success in your life. And obviously Deborah's been able to do that in several different instances, in different types of careers and all that kind of stuff. So Deborah you know, tell us, you know, what are some of, some of the things that you've used to be able to recreate yourself after a setback?

(21:12):

So firstly, the questions that we ask ourselves daily, play a huge part in how we're going to react to setbacks. So I have a whole new process now, you know, in the past it was like, oh, why is this happening to me again? Or, you know, I can't believe I'm going through this again. And so that, that had to come to a stop, a halt. So now I ask what would the best version of myself do right now in this moment? And just that little switch, that little change in the mindset, in the thought process, choosing a question that you go to when things are not going your way, you know, what is that question? You're going to ask yourself because if you beat yourself up, you lose every time. And so that's my go-to, it's like, what would the best version of myself do right now in this moment?

(22:09):

The other thing is I do not make any major decisions when I am not in a good emotional place. I've done that in the past. And it's a huge mistake when you are in that emotional state, that is not good. The tendency, because there's so much fear involved as to want to make a decision right now let's fix it. Let's just move on, fix it. And that's usually when the worst decisions are made. So I have a 24 hour rule and that is, I sleep on everything because I can guarantee this in the morning, it's going to look different. It just is. And, and that's when you're a little more clear and you have had time to digest, whatever it is. It's not going your way. It looks different. And I, that, it was a very hard lesson for me to learn because I had that impulse kind of knee jerk reaction to everything.

(23:03):

I was like, oh, I've got to get that email. I'm going to send that email. I'm going to reply. You know, I don't, I don't like the way that sounds I'm going to, you know, get right on that now. And now when things come my way, I just go, okay, that's fascinating. And I just walk away from it, you know, because it's never, it never has anything to do with me. That's the truth. It might, but very rarely does it. So why not just take a 24 hour break from that? Don't make any decisions in a bad emotional state and have a better, have really good questions that you ask yourself on a daily basis. Because if you're asking the wrong questions, you're going to get the wrong answers.

(23:42):

Well, I got to ask, so, you know, those are, those are great advice, but how long did it take you to develop? I'm sure it's kind of like a muscle. You got to build it because a lot of times in the heat of the moment when you're faced with that, you know, terrible situation that setback, whatever it may be you know, I would assume that it's at least initially it's difficult to be able to have the discipline to not go into the woe is me and all this other stuff. And actually take the step back and say, you know, like you'd mentioned, what would the best version of me? How would I handle this scenario? And how do you have the discipline to not to have that knee jerk reaction? And just as you mentioned, you know, you want to fix it. You want to do it right now and having the discipline that it take you a while to develop that

(24:25):

Too long. And that's why I, that's why I really want to get my book out because these lessons, I learned all of these things the hard way. And at some point you go, okay, this isn't working anymore and I want to change. And it is a muscle. If I want to get in shape, I'm going to go do yoga. I'm going to lift weights. I'm going to do strength training. Well, the same thing applies with our mind, with our mindset. You know, it is a practice. And in order to have that practice, I have a routine. So now when I get up in the morning, I don't flip up in the computer. I don't start looking at emails. I get myself primed for the day. And I always say to people, and I, I have written a blog about it. That if you don't set the intention of how you want your day to go, it's going to go.

(25:12):

However it wants to go. Why not? Why not be the driver of how you want your day to go? So I wake up, I have a morning routine. I set my intention. I look at my vision board. I do a prayer. I do a meditation. I do all of that before I even opened my computer because it sets me up for success immediately. If I wake up and immediately start looking at things that are probably going to trigger me, right. When I wake up in the morning, that's not, I'm not setting myself up for success. I'm setting myself up for failure. And I had to learn that the hard way, because I would get up and literally get on my computer and start working. And that's not the right state to start working in. And so now I changed it all up and I try to stay very, I don't try.

(25:58):

I actually stay very consistent with my routine, with how I set my day up and how I handle those things that are going to come in and they are going to come in those emails. You don't like those people that aren't going to work as quickly as you're going to work. You know, when I'm waiting for certain materials and I'm waiting on somebody else, you know, now I just take a breath and I go, you know what? These are the out of my control. I can only control what I do, what I create, how I perform, how I show up. And if I stay in that lane and I just keep doing the next right thing, my day goes really smooth. The minute I try to control something outside of my lane, it doesn't work. You can try all you want. I did it for years and it just kept setting me back.

(26:50):

Yeah. And I think, you know what I found with myself as well, you know, we've had guests on it. I've mentioned, you know, having that morning routine and those habits in the morning. I think that's critically important as you said, because in my mind, at least the way I think about it is when you do that, you are setting intention with your day. Number one is you had mentioned, but it also, to me, it, it allows you to create your day. You don't allow the day to create the day for you, right? You're creating the day by setting up those habits and getting in that right mindset to start the day when you do have to tackle those tough emails and then, you know, difficult phone calls or whatever they may be. But if you start with those habits and get you set up the right way, you can handle those much more effectively.

(27:33):

Absolutely. And you know, like today I, I posted one of my posts today was it said, you know, the whole goal is to be happy no matter what. And when I say no matter what, I mean, no matter what we can, there's always something good in every situation, but you have to look for it. You have to see it. You have to want to see it as, as you know, an iPad, some things that are just really not fun to walk through. You know, there just aren't things that you would want to go through. You know, I've had to go, I've had lawsuits, I've had to go to court, I've had to sit through depositions. And even through those times, it's like, there are things that are what, my first thing what's good about this. What's good about this. The whole goal is to be happy, no matter what. And if you can live your life that way, you're setting it up for a much peaceful, more peaceful and successful journey.

(28:29):

Yeah. I, I think that's, that's super important. I'm glad you said that Deborah, because it's that old adage and we're running out of time here, but I wanted to mention this just real quick is that it's that old adage, you know, if you, if you're looking for, you know, red cars, all of a sudden, you got the end of the day and you're like, oh my gosh, I've seen 50 red cars today. I didn't realize there were so many red cars that's because you were looking for it. And on the flip side, if you're going in and looking for negative things, you're going to find more negative things as opposed to positive. So a powerful message

(28:57):

I use, I use that example all the time. I say, isn't it funny that when you purchase a car, all of a sudden you see that car everywhere. Yeah. For sure. Right. And it's the same thing, what you are looking at and what you are. It's what you're focusing on is where your energy goes. It's what you'll see. And so, yeah.

(29:15):

So Deborah, I really appreciate you being on the show. Fantastic information. Find out more at Deborahdriggs.com. Deb. Thanks again for being on the show. Thank

(29:23):

You so much. Thank you for having me.

(29:25):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for listening guys. Have a great week and don't forget as always cash flow is king.

(29:32):

This has been Mr. Biz radio to learn how to become part of Mr. Biz nation. Visit MrBizSolutions.com for access to free weekly content. Subscribe to the Mr. Biz YouTube channel and follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter, to listen to archive shows. You can find them on the Mr. Biz Solutions website.