Hello, this is Leslie and I am the host of the Why Not Today podcast.
This is a podcast to celebrate people who have been courageous and said, why not today?
I started this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Kane, who often just say, why not
today?
I'm based in Reston, Virginia, a planned community right outside of Washington, D.C. and thanks
for joining us today.
So I'm excited about my guest, Dorian Watson.
I don't know Dorian very well.
We met a couple months ago, no maybe a month ago, and she's going to share kind of her
journey of courage.
But before we get to know her, I always like to share connections where I matter.
So I went to a chamber, smells not like chamber because I'm involved in that event a couple
months ago and met this woman, Jen.
She had a practice, I don't know exactly, a psychologist, psychiatrist, counseling, and
then decided to go into coaching.
And not only did she go into coaching, but she started coaching group in Lynchburg,
Virginia and invited me to it.
And I ended up going and it was one of those things that wasn't convenient at all whatsoever,
but I made it work and I met Dorian and so grateful to hear her story and got to know
her.
So I'm excited to have you share about you and your journey and your faith and just,
you don't have your hope wall behind you today.
Not really.
When we were on the other day, you had hope behind you.
So Dorian, go ahead and introduce yourself to us a little about you and us.
Fun fact.
My name is Dorian Watson.
I'm a native of Lynchburg, Virginia.
I have been in business for myself for the past five years.
I run a consultancy called DM Watson Consulting.
I'm still niching down to my very specific expertise area, but right now I'm blended
on organizational management.
So my goal is to help small business owners to be more efficient with their organizational
management and to be able to.
I'll make that, don't we?
Yeah, for sure.
So to help them be able to plan and organize and lead and control their businesses better
in a way that makes them more profitable and helps just make their lives a little bit
easier.
So that's me as a professional.
I'm a Christian and I've served in law for over 20 years.
I'd like to teach the Bible and have the opportunity.
And yeah, fun fact about me.
I have a blog.
It's called The Pearl of Priesttown.
And the blog is named after my mom and dad.
My mom's name is Peggy, which is, can have a nickname of Pearl.
And my dad's name is Preston.
And Preston means priest town.
So my blog is The Pearl of Priesttown.
I did not know that.
Okay.
I'm going to learn something about you.
I have to check it out.
So I admire people who can do a blog.
My background's in numbers and finance them.
Yeah.
Do you want a blog sound scary?
Everybody keeps saying, you should write a book.
I'm like, oh, that's a little scary.
Yeah, it's always consistent, but I do it when I'm inspired.
Oh, good.
Well, I met you and the organization skills are amazing.
You are very instrumental in running the group that Jenna started.
And when we talked the other day and kind of got to know you, and I love your journey
from you were in Northern Virginia and the corporate world, and then decided to take
a turn and follow your heart and follow your calling.
And so before we kind of hear all about your story, what does courage mean to you?
Yeah, I thought about this when I saw the question.
And it's funny how you don't really define words sometimes, you know, you really just
kind of have an idea of what they mean.
And so I looked it up and one of the definitions was Darienne Mobley .
And so that really resonated with me.
So I'd say courage is the ability to do hard things.
And just, yeah, just being the spot of the situation and just being able to work through
it regardless of, you know, how difficult it is, just being able to get to the end of
it or get through it.
And generally you're better on the other side of it or you come to a place where you're
able to move forward.
So but yeah, definitely that ability to do hard things with you.
Yeah, I love that.
Yeah, I've got a friend that I think the name of Facebook group is we can do hard things.
And you know, courage, it is doing the hard things.
And if people think, oh, when you're courageous and brave, you just do it.
I'm like, no, you don't, you have to work through it.
And once you get on the other side, we're always so much better than them.
So no fun for me through this podcast to hear everybody's definitions and what they've done.
So let's talk about your career path, your switch you want to seminary, which is, you
know, a brave move.
So let's talk about where you started and where you've become.
And now you've got your own business.
But let's talk about kind of in between and the courageous steps that took and yes, God
led you.
Yeah.
So when I was younger, I didn't really have a huge plan for my life career wise, you know,
just kind of going with the flow and, you know, I had an older sister, so I'd like to
follow her lead.
So she said she wanted to be something I wanted to be that too.
So I'm going to be a lawyer and a teacher and that kind of thing.
So sure, I want to be a lawyer.
I want to be a teacher.
But that's not really what I was designed for.
When I got to high school, I kind of thought I might want to own my own business, but didn't
really have an idea of what kind of a business or how that would go along or whatever.
And so senior year was kind of like, all right, well, what would I want to major in when I
go to college, you know, go to college.
What would I do?
So landed on business because, hey, regardless of what business you go into, you can get
a job with a business degree.
So that was my thought process going into college.
So went to college and majored in business, chose management because every business needs
a manager pretty much.
So I was like, no matter what, I should be solid with a business management degree.
So got to school and the Lord really took a hold of my life my freshman year.
So was leaning in the direction of, okay, God, like, what are you doing in my life,
getting to know him better?
And was able to just really connect with the Lord on a deeper level than I had before.
And my junior year, I went to Longwood and that's a public school here in Virginia in
Central Virginia, about 45 minutes from where I was living.
I was wondering what's your faith in school at that level and delivery?
Yeah.
So when I was younger, I didn't really understand what Liberty was all about.
When you live really close to something, you know, sometimes you don't really appreciate
it.
Like Jordan Mason here, I'm like, who would ever go there?
Yeah, you know, you're like, it's right.
There's a school next door.
That's too close to home, basically.
So I was like, no, I don't want to really go there.
As a matter of fact, I told my dad asked me, you know, about Liberty and I was like, I
never want to go there.
We'll get to that in a minute.
Yeah.
Funny how we, what we say, we'll never do that we do.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
So, uh, was it about junior year and the Lord really let me know, like, you cannot do business
in the way that you're thinking you're going to do business.
Like that is not in alignment with me and my will because, you know, the 90s, I went
to school in the 90s and, you know, the 90s were all about power, you know, power trips
and, you know, the power executive and especially women empowered executives and, you know, she's
got the red high heels and, you know, she's going to step on everybody to get to the top.
And that's what it is.
What is that making the devil wear his product?
Yeah, basically that's, that's kind of the idea that I had, right?
When I was a young, a young 19, 20 year old, the Lord said, no, that's not going to be
you.
And I was like, okay, God, then what am I doing?
And so didn't really know what that was going to be a senior year.
A lot of my friends were going to be going to seminary after that, but I knew that I
wasn't ready for seminary and that wasn't the timing of that.
But the Lord really laid it on my heart, you know, seminary is going to be for you.
And I was like, okay, God, you know, whenever you want me to go, you let me know when you
let me know where you let me know what I'm going to study.
And you know, I'll just, you know, I'll trust you with that.
So that was back in 2001.
Fast forward 10 years later, I was living in Northern Virginia was in a job in security
of the account representative for a security firm and was miserable and was really looking
for, you know, the next thing like Lord, all right, like this job is not it.
I'm really unhappy.
I really hated at this place, you know, but I had my career was really in the dumps, but
my personal life was pretty good.
Like I really had a great faith community.
I bought lots of good friends, really enjoyed where I lived, love the city I was in.
And you know, was thriving in that regard, but the job was really just taking its toll.
So I was like, okay, God, gotta get, you know, gotta do something.
And so over a period of a couple of months, the Lord was speaking to me through all kinds
of various venues and that was a really neat time.
And one of the tools that he used to help me was actually the Chronicles of Narnia.
I had never read that as a child, I've seen the movies and things, but had never, you
know, never read the books and the books go a little more in depth with some of the spiritual
aspects with the analogies that CS Lewis makes.
And the Lord just really spoke to me through that series.
And so I was just in a time of brokenness and repentance.
Eustace's character was really resonating with me in that season where I had a lot of
pride and a lot of different other things I need to shed.
Like he shed that lion skin, that dragon skin in the voice of the dawn.
I read it as a kid and I have not read it as an adult.
I need to go back.
It's a great story.
And that's a whole different read.
Oh yeah, it totally will be.
It's so great.
And it's when you can really apply it to, you know, aspects of yourself and of your faith
and of your life and just of your humanity.
So I'm like, oh, you know, this is really, it's really, it gets deeper than you think
it should for a children's book.
And so it's like, okay, all right, Lord, like I'm in this place of brokenness.
I'm in this place of where you're going to heal me and you're going to, you know, get
me out of this attitude that I'm in.
Because, you know, when you're in a place that's hard, you tend to get bitter and resentful
and that can really mess you up from a faith perspective because then you're not looking
to act out of love and compassion like God wants us to.
And not where we just let people walk all over us or abuse us in any way, but there's
a holy way to respond to adversity.
And I was not in that holy way.
It's responding to adversity.
But God was so gracious to me in that time.
He gave me those books.
He told me I wasn't going to get fired from my job.
That's how bad it was, right?
Like they really could have fired me if they wanted to.
And not because I was doing things that was, you know, blatantly, you know, wrong or bad
or whatever, but my attitude was just so terrible, you know, just coming in with, you know, all
that kind of stuff.
And it was just like, okay.
Well, Corporate America, it's, and this is something I'm passionate about and I share
because I left my corporate job 24 years ago.
And, you know, it was scary, but I think one of the breaking points, I was already in Mary
Kay, so I saw better worlds.
But one of the breaking points is when I was at work one day, left work and tears, thinking
I could never get another job.
I just finished my MBA.
I have never looked for a job in my life with connections and things.
I'm a super hard worker, but I think Corporate America's job and a lot of instances just
beat you down.
And people, and, but the sad part is you got out, I got out, but somebody's feel they're
staying there because they're scared.
Yeah, if I can encourage anybody through these podcasts is just live your life and live and
joy and do the things that give you joy.
It is.
It's super important.
Like it really will, it changes you as a person to be in that kind of environment.
And I didn't like who I was then.
And that's why those, those words that I was reading were so powerful for me because it
was like, you know, you become this person, you know, and in the book, if you're not familiar
with the voyage of the Dawn Treader, it's the little boy puts on this bracelet and he
becomes a dragon.
And that's kind of how it becomes where you've, you've got this outer shell that's not yourself
and you're stuck in there and all you can present is dragon, you know, and it's not your
good sweet self, you know, it's right.
This bitter, scaly, you know, monster kind of a thing.
And this is like, who, how did I become this?
And so, you know, to be delivered from now was really, it was so amazing just how God
orchestrated all of that.
And I love that you listened and you're paying attention instead of so many people that ignore
the signs.
I'm very big at, you know, I see the signs, hear the signs, paying attention to things
that so many people just ignore.
Yeah.
And it's really easy to just go along with what somebody tells you to do, particularly
your boss or your upper management.
If they're telling you to do things that are not in alignment with your values or just
aren't good and they're not just, they're just not good business practices.
Right.
You know, and if you're looking around and paying attention to how your business and
organization is functioning, you know, you can see where it's going to be a problem,
you know, not just for you, but for your clients or your customers.
And if you don't value your clients and customers, you know, well, that's, you need to check
that anyway, if you're not valuing them.
But if your organization isn't set up to really give them the best experience, you really
need to do that.
You can find a different organization or figure out something else to do so that you can,
you know, make money.
And I understand that that's a very difficult thing to do when you're, you know, trying
to pay rent, you're trying to pay your bills, you're trying to, you know, you may have medical
bills that are in the background debt from student loans or other things, you know, I
understand all that kind of struggle.
So I know it's not, it seems like it's not easy and no, it isn't easy, but it's not
impossible to figure out something.
You just gotta trust it.
Yeah.
And let it go.
It's what I've found in my life.
And I think that's, that's, we're really important lesson I learned with my first job
out of college was you can leave.
It's your choice and you have that, you have permission to leave it because a lot of people
will tell you in your jobs, you know, your manager might tell you or your colleagues
might tell you or even your bank account kind of might tell you, you know, Hey, you can't
leave this job.
You can't leave.
And that was one lie that I had to squash real quick because it was like, no, you cannot
stay in places that are really sucking your soul away, you know, unless you've been given
a supernatural grace to stay there, you know, or a particular instruction, you know, for
me, I'm following the Lord's instructions.
And if he doesn't tell me to stay somewhere, I'm not staying.
Yeah.
And now when I put my job, people are like, what are you going to do?
How are you going to live?
I literally looked and like, okay, I knew I could sell enough products to live.
And I'm like, I might have to eat at my mom's and stick, skip Starbucks and not go shopping
or, you know, pick out all that.
But, you know, we can, we live, we can live better, you know, and when they do, we really
can, we really can.
So it all came to a head.
Okay.
Yeah.
It all came to a head at one point and it was just like, Lord, like really, I was literally
on my face on the floor praying like God, like you got to really intervene here.
I really got to get out of here.
So he told me I wasn't going to get fired.
And one Saturday morning, I was just at home and got up and the Lord said, apply to Liberty
today because he had been talking to me about seminary that whole 10 year period.
I've been, you know, keeping my eyes open, looking at schools and programs and, you know,
cities and things and just trying to figure out, you know, where to go or whatever.
He had opened a door through my church that I was attending at the time and they had started
a satellite program with Dallas Theological Seminary and they had a class offering.
So I was like, oh, well, maybe this is what the Lord wants me to do to take, to go through
the satellite campus and go through Dallas Theological.
So I took that class and it was an amazing class, really loved it and wanted to pray
through the next semester.
And so that was all, so I took the class in the fall and the spring I was praying through
the semester to see, okay.
Lord, do you want me to do this satellite program or do you have something else in mind?
So this was in March and that Saturday morning, the Lord told me apply to Liberty University
today.
So it wasn't just apply to Liberty.
No, today.
You need to apply today.
So I applied that day.
I got accepted.
And so in May, I moved out and moved from Northern Virginia back to Lynchburg.
Like I said, I'm from Lynchburg originally.
I talked to my parents about it.
My dad had always said, you can always come back home.
You know, whenever you want, you know, because, you know, your dad just wants to come back
home.
I'm on back home if you want to, you know, that's fine.
And so came back home, didn't have a job, just moved back in with my mom and dad and
didn't know what I was going to be doing exactly.
Hadn't figured out what the major was going to be, but had been accepted, moved back home
and was like, okay, guys, like what are we doing?
And so the Lord provided for my tuition and my expenses and everything told me I wasn't
going to get a job because I was looking for a job, you know, because, you know, school
is not cheap, even if you have tuition or whatever, you still have other things you
need to get and whatnot.
And the Lord provided opportunities and money just out of nowhere, like literally out of
nowhere just would get money for thousands.
So it was just such an amazing time of trust and dependency on him.
And he really taught me, you know, trust me, I've got you, you know, and you really can
do that.
So, and just had the best time in seminary.
It was a two-year program that I was in and got my masters in theological studies.
And then moved on into a position after that, where I worked for Liberty University for
a season and what's helping on the student population there.
So really, it was a really amazing time just of just how he was moving things and providing
and just getting me to be able to trust him more.
And that takes so much courage.
And I can pinpoint many, many times in my life that, you know, we try so hard to plan
differently, different than my plan, and, you know, he's got it.
He's got my back.
And, you know, he always does that.
Got a courage.
Seems like my internet's going in and out.
Are we disappearing or am I?
Do you see that?
You were freezing just a little bit, but you're back.
Hopefully we're okay.
Looks like it's not so strong.
But that's okay.
This is not perfect.
Beauty of wine, I'd say.
All right.
So seminary, which I love the trust and you did that.
And the God provided, like the same thing with me.
And I share this on the podcast where I quit my job November of 99.
And it was really not, it was a date of just arbitrary date based on something silly.
Going shopping with a friend.
I don't even like to shop.
But I quit my job and I stepped out in space.
And, you know, God had another plan.
My dad had a major stroke that next April.
And I was able to be there with my family.
I was able to take off.
I didn't have to take, ask permission to take time off.
And you know, if I had not stepped on on faith and had that courage to say, you know, why
not today?
It was kind of like, you know, your decision to go to seminary, like God told you today,
like, you know, we need to listen to those and not argue.
And what a different path your world has taken because of that.
It really has.
And what you just said really resonates with me too.
I had a lot of family things that came up when I moved back, when I moved back home.
And had I not been living with my family at that time, I would have had to travel, you
know, three and a half hours or so, or I would have been certain things.
And you know, yet trying to figure out how to take time off and to be there.
And with as many things that happened, like, I don't know if I would have had enough time
to take off, you know, to be able to do the things that I needed to do, you know, my sister
was, yeah.
And the flexibility and the line of your life with your values of what's important, you
know, so crucial.
And, you know, I've been full time Mary Kay with the flexibility for 24 years.
So that's just the life I live.
But unfortunately, I had unexpected death of a friend last week.
And it was not a family member.
And if I was working for somebody else, I couldn't have said on Sunday, when I found
out I'm leaving tomorrow and I'm gone for a week.
And it's been, you know, it was a week ago Sunday and I really haven't gotten all the
way back into work yet.
And that's okay.
You know, I'm not getting fired and I have that flexibility.
There was no question.
But if I would have been working for somebody else, it would not have happened like that.
And that's, you know, that for me, that is just invaluable to have that flexibility
with family and or friends and do the things that mean something to us.
Absolutely.
So then you left, so you worked in a church, you worked at Liberty and they started your
own business and kind of a different, so I'm sure whatever you learned in seminary and
the church and all that, you apply to what you do now, but kind of a different trajectory.
So how'd you get there?
I love hearing people's stories in their past.
Yeah.
So I was working for a church.
I was working in their administrative office and I felt like I needed a shift, you know,
working for the Lord, it's awesome, but it's a really different environment, especially
when you're a business mind.
And as much as I love ministry, I love ministry as a non-business entity.
And so the two areas can converge more often than one would think.
And the way that they converge is it can get really complicated.
And so I was having some frustrations with the way those two things were converging,
particularly with the demands of ministry.
And ministry is more 24-7 than 9-5.
And so I was finding things that I needed to be doing for my position were falling outside
of my work hours and it was just kind of like, okay, I can't keep going over these crossover
with the particular structure that we had at that time.
So it's just like, this isn't really a good fit for me anymore.
And I thought, you know, I would really like to help people with these kinds of things,
but I'd like to keep my faith ministry separate from that.
So it's like, let me separate these two things.
I'd like to be able to come to church and worship on Sunday and not, you know, get pulled
into something work-related.
Exactly.
So chose to make that separation and decided to go into administration.
Administration is one of my favorite areas of business to focus on.
And so all the behind the scenes organizational things, that's all the things that I'd love
to get into.
So decided to become a consultant, I talked with a coach as I was trying to make the transition
because I didn't want to leave my church in the lurch, you know, nobody to come take
my place.
So I was going to train my replacement and all that.
So I worked all that out.
And so, and I didn't want to go into business blind because I'd never run my own business
before and I'd never done what I wanted to do as a business before.
So I had some test clients first, just to see if that was something I liked doing and,
you know, kind of figure out the trajectory of where I went to take my business.
What a great idea to have a client.
I'm a chronic planner, chronic planner.
And so, I have learned recently, especially I am a planner and yeah, he's really worked
with me on that.
And so everything is a fluid plan now.
So I can't get an idea of a plan that I have.
God, you know, if it's going to ship, that's fine.
You know, so whatever you want to do with my plan, you can go ahead and do that.
So, but just had some test clients first and talk to a coach.
We'll figure out that I want to be a consultant versus mainly a coach or mentor or something
else.
So he helped me get those ideas and alignment.
And so, DM Watson Consulting was founded in 2018 and I've been on the journey, the entrepreneurial
journey ever since.
I'm still figuring out who I am as a business owner and as a business person, but like you
said, I love the flexibility of it.
It allows me to be able to help people, but it also allows me to focus on other things
that I need to be doing.
My ministry is a part of that.
And so, some of that really just is being available to people whenever they need to talk about
things or, you know, they seem to meet up for something.
And so that gives me that flexibility to do that.
So that's awesome.
And I love that you're in the coaching world as part of the administrative, you know, helping
coaches with their, you know, business.
And, you know, that's important.
You know, we all have creative ideas for businesses, but you got to have the business
part behind it.
And people have asked me like, what are you doing as a Mary Kay consultant?
You have an MBA in business.
I'm like, I'm a smart business woman.
I'm running my own business.
But it does take the systems behind it to make it successful.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And everybody has a system whether they recognize it as one or not.
It could be a bad system.
That's right.
It's where it all could be.
Yeah.
So what would you say to encourage somebody else?
And I love the word encourage because it's like, give somebody courage.
Yes, for sure.
It's really just kind of just do it in a way.
You know, a lot of times we have a lot of doubt behind things.
And I've gone through a season where I doubted myself after going through some different life
experiences.
I had lost some of the confidence that I had because a lot of my confidence previously
was based in pride.
And so it's really difficult to just trust yourself.
But I would really encourage people to trust yourself.
You know what your values are.
You know what you are trying to accomplish.
And if you're a Christian, you know that God has a plan for you and you're probably seeking
that out.
Trust God has a plan for you and trust that you are capable of following the plan that
he's got lined up for you.
And have faith that you can really do it.
Believe that you can do it.
Have faith that you can do it and trust yourself that you're able to execute it.
Even if you don't have all the tools right this second, right?
Most things are a process where you're learning about it and you're getting information.
Trust that you can give the information.
Trust that you can learn it.
Just have that.
Try to trust yourself to do those things that you need to do.
And you can gain that ability to do that hard thing.
It'll be less and less hard as you go along.
Now, some things really do just slap you in the face, right?
Unexpected family losses or health incidents and those kinds of things.
Those are tough to navigate.
They really are.
But trust that if you're still alive, there's something that you can do.
And I thought my dad always said after he had several strokes, he had a long journey
of it.
But he's like, you know what, God's not done with me yet.
And he knew he still had a purpose.
And people say, how are you?
And he's like, I'm on the silograph.
It's just always a good thing.
Yeah, I love that.
And I think the whole theme of what we talked about today is trust.
And I love doing these podcasts because I get to hear people's stories.
But so often more than anything, I'm doing these podcasts because it's a message I exactly
need to hear today.
And it's like, OK, God put me, you and my past a month ago, who knew that I needed you
today, in my life recently, and just the trust factor.
And yeah, just got to trust.
So where can people find you?
And I know we're going to share all your contact in the show notes.
But if someone's looking for some business administrative, do you do virtual or do they
have to be in Lynchburg?
No, I can do virtual or I can do, I'm in person.
If you're in the general area of Central Virginia, I can get there.
If we play it accordingly, I can get pretty much anywhere.
So I'm available both virtually and in person.
You can reach me at dmwatsonconsulting.com for all your organizational management needs.
All right.
And I know you're with at LinkedIn.
You're going to teach me how to do that because that's not something I've figured out.
So why not today podcast?
You can find on every channel.
We have a website, why not today podcast?
We have swag, if you want a t-shirt, a cup, a vinyl, we're looking at some other things
that we're going to add.
And just share it with a friend if it's encouraged you today, the podcast.
Share it, review it like it.
That's how we're going to grow this podcast.
And Dorian, thank you so much for your story and of courage.
And I just love the faith in business combined and just the trust.
Thanks so much, Leslie.
Thanks so much for having me.
Oh, my pleasure.
And everybody listening, watching, say why not today?
We are not promised tomorrow.
I know that more than anything.
And enjoy your life and say why not today.
So thanks again and say why not today.
And I'm going to figure out how to stop it.