From Cancer Diagnosis to Entrepreneurial Success: The Collab Queen's Inspiring Story

Welcome to the Event TV Podcast with me your host, Dr. Shanna Scott. 

In this episode, I bring you a special guest to the show, the "Collab Queen," Deana Jean. Deana shares her incredible journey from being diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer during pregnancy to becoming a collaboration strategist and entrepreneur. 

She highlights the power of collaboration and how it played a pivotal role in her life, and discusses her unique framework of goals, gifts, and gaps. She also talks about her successful collab sessions and international retreats, inviting listeners to join her in the Success Tribe Network. 

Stay tuned as Deana and I delve deep into the art and science of collaboration and the impact it has on entrepreneurship.

Transcript

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Everyone, welcome back to another amazing episode of Event TV. I am Dr. Shauna Scott, your million dollar event conversion strategist. And I'm so excited about my guest, and I know you all hear me. Say that all the time, but I'm. Always excited about all of my guests because this world is filled with such amazing people. But the guest that we have here today is an amazing collaborator, so I will go ahead and bring her right on up. And she is Deanna Jean, the collab queen. Hey, Deanna. Hey, Dr. Shauna. What's going on? Nothing much. And everything all at the same time. It's. Right. That's the roller coaster of entrepreneurship. It is, yeah. So I'm so honored to have you on. I mean, I know I met you. Maybe about a year now, and you're just doing a year, right? Yeah. And you're just doing great things in the space, and I'm like, I've got to stay connected with her. And so now you're here, so. You. Thank you. I'm excited to be here, Dr. Shauna, and I just really appreciate all the work that you do. So it's cool that we get to sit down and talk a little bit about collaboration and events and all of the good things. Absolutely. Because everyone here is in for an amazing. You know, you have a very powerful know. But before we get into the story, just tell everybody who you are and what you do in this world. Oh, thank you so much. So, I'm Deanna Jean, and they call me your collab queen. I am Brooklyn Bourne, and I am a collaboration strategist. And ultimately, what that means is that folks connect with me so that I can connect them in order to achieve amazing goals together. It's work that I love to do. It's work that I get to do with Fortune 100 companies. It's work that I get to do with local organizations, and it's work that I also get to do with entrepreneurs. Awesome. That's absolutely amazing. And your fellow sales sister. So, you know, you got a. We really, really connected on our first call. So, Deanna, you know, today I want to talk about you, as I said before, and your amazing contribution to entrepreneurship. And you have a unique story. So, you are the collab queen, and I don't think that there's anybody here in the entrepreneurial space that is doing what you do. Right. I hear that very often. And the interesting part is that a lot of times when people get monikers or they get pseudo names, they create those names so that they can create an identity online. Or this is how they want to be known. But I was actually dubbed the collab queen before I decided that I was going to be it. Right. People would constantly come to me and say, oh, my gosh, you are the collab queen. You are the collab queen. So when I actually started to use it, it's like the light bulb went off. People are like, yes, absolutely. And that's what I get a lot, is that no one has really seen someone that leans into collaboration from a science and an art perspective. The way you got my attention, you said science and art, and you married the two sides of the brain. It's nothing but success. But share with us what is the power of collaboration? I mean, why does that work? Or does it even work? Yeah. So collaboration is very powerful when done well. And the reason that collaboration is so powerful when done well is that a lot of times, Dr. Shauna, the thing that prevents us from moving forward to do the very big thing, the thing that prevents us from accomplishing huge goals, are actually the limiting beliefs that we have. We always think about what we don't have. Oh, I can't apply for that job because I don't have that skill. Oh, I can't buy that house because I will not be able to be approved for that loan. What collaboration does is it gives you the opportunity to really lean into the thing that makes you very unique, your gift, and then it gives you the opportunity to incite and to invite help in your area of gaps. Right. Really marries together the genius zones of so many different people across the world. And at the end of the day, we all want to be able to do the thing that we love the most, and that's what collaboration allows you to do. Love it, love it. And you know, what's unique about what you said, other than you had this amazing definition? I love the fact that with collaboration, you incorporated the word invitation in there. Love it, love it, love it. But you said something that was very distinct. It's collaboration when done well, because we can mess up on collaboration. Right? It's very easy to mess up on collaboration because collaboration is about relationships. And the thing about it is that we live in a microwave generation right now, right? Very used to getting immediate results, instant results. We got instant everything. And collaboration is not an instant mechanism. So it trips some people up. Right? It does. But when you build your collaboration, they're on a solid foundation and it has longevity. Yeah. That's the way to do it. Right. So thank you for that and your work. Now, entrepreneurship, normally, when people get into entrepreneurship, they want to either sell some sort of a product or some sort of specialized service, social media, marketing, sales. You chose collaboration. Where did all that come from? Collaboration chose me. Collaboration queen. Collaboration chose me. So, for a few reasons. The first is that what I found when I was growing up, whether it was when I was playing sports and I wanted to get picked for a team, or whether it was when I was in college and I decided that I wanted to major in a specific area or I was going for internships, is that my secret sauce was the ability to create a category of one. I'm the type of person where I am competitive, but I am competitive in a way that I want to be able to distinguish myself from others versus competing with others. And I had a decade and a half career in sales, leadership training and management in the tech industry, and came into entrepreneurship doing that. But ultimately, I ended up realizing that the category of one and what people really wanted to come to me for was collaboration, the ability to build relationships that create mutually valuable opportunities. And that created my category of one, and it allowed me to use my sales props and all the other things. Category of one, love it. But how did you. Yeah, category one. Love it. But did you choose collaboration, or did collaboration choose you? Collaboration absolutely chose me. Right. So I tell people all the time, same way that sales chose me. I didn't know what I was doing with sales until somebody said to me, you'd be a really good salesperson. Right. I thought about the things that I used to organically do. I was always about bringing people together. I was always finding the thing that somebody did really well. And even as a sales coach, instead of me coaching someone up in all these different skill areas, I would look at the thing that they actually enjoy and that they do well, and we would find a way to amplify that. And I always felt like that was collaboration. But the biggest and the greatest testament of collaboration for me actually came when I was diagnosed with stage two b breast cancer when I was pregnant with my daughter. So I have three children. Whoa. Okay. All right, hold on. I'm trying to catch my breath here. You were diagnosed with cancer while you were pregnant? I was diagnosed with stage two b breast cancer when I was five and a half months pregnant with my daughter. Oh, my God. Oh, gosh. But we're happy to say that your daughter is amazing. She's amazing. I've been in remission for seven years. She's about to be eight in July. Right. So it's amazing that it all came to fruition. But the thing about it was that that was really when I realized the power of collaboration, because a lot of times we feel like we can't collaborate until we have it all together. And that was a point in my life, Dr. Shauna, when I did not have it together at all, I had no idea what to do. Right. You're five months pregnant, and is she your first, second, or third child? My third. That's the thing. So not only was I five months pregnant with her at the time, but I had two boys who are five and four who are only 19 months apart. My husband at the time was still an active duty military service member. He did in the military, so he was out and about going. There were so many things. There were a lot of factors. There were a lot of factors to consider. Okay, so pregnant mom with two small babies just diagnosed, and your hubby was away on active duty. Yes. And he ended up coming back home. Right. They ended up letting him come back home, but it was still navigating all those things. Navigate. Okay. Because the next question is, how did you manage collaboration? So that was the thing. And that's really when the light bulb went off. I had to think about what my gift was. So in the successripe network, which is the network that I lead, we have a framework called goals, gifts, and gaps. Love it, love it. And you got to tell us more about that, and I'll tell you more about it. Right. But ultimately, before that was a framework, that was what I used in order to get through this. So I think my goal was. Right. The goal for me is to have a healthy baby girl and for me to be able to survive and to get through breast cancer treatments. Right. So you said goal, gifts, and gap, and then your goal was to have. Successful pregnancy, clean bill of health, be able to get through chemo, all of that while pregnant with my daughter. And then I had to look at what is my gift? What is the thing that I can extend that will be super valuable in this situation? And for me, I had a gift of tenacity, and I also had a gift of connection, bringing people together. Right. And then I had to look at my gaps, though. And there were so many gaps. This was completely uncharted territory for us. Right. I didn't know what the outcome was going to be. We needed all types of specialists. So what I ended up doing, Dr. Sean, is I ended up looking at my goal and I ended up looking for people to fill my gaps based on my gift of connection. Right. And tying everybody to that same goal. Because, see, collaboration doesn't work if you don't have the same goal. Right? And ultimately, that is what saved my life, and that's what saved my daughter's life. The ability to be able to bring together all these different people who have different areas of expertise, different genius zones, and bring them all together to achieve a common goal. That's what collaboration is, and that's what we were able to accomplish. Love it. That is absolutely brilliant. Can you give us an example of what that actually looked like while you were going through? Because you had four more months of pregnancy and you had this diagnosis. What did those connection and fill in those gaps look like? Absolutely. Yeah. The first thing that I had to do was I had to figure out who I knew, who knew the people that I needed to know the two to three degrees of separation. So I ended up getting on the phone with people that I knew had connections to healthcare agencies, insurance agencies, and because of the fact that I had these relationships with these folks and they had relationships with who they had relationships with, within hours of my diagnosis, I was able to have phone consultations with the five medical directors of the top five cancer centers in the country. From there, within 24 hours, it allowed me to be able to be sitting in the office of the woman who had become my oncologist, which was actually, at that time, on Good Friday. So the power of relationships and the power of collaboration allowed for me to achieve something that many people told me was impossible. So wait a minute, wait a minute. 24 hours after you were diagnosed with breast cancer, in that time, you immediately got on the phone and connected. There was a moment I had to have my mom. Yeah, there was a moment, but, I. Mean, I would have still probably been there, like, oh, my God, this, that and the other. But you're human. Exactly. And I knew, I said, you know what? You could either sit here and cry and sit here and cry, or you could sit here and cry and call people while you cry. Right. Like, you could make phone calls came up in me. Right. And so that was when I said, you know what? At the end of the day, especially, what was really helpful, too, was being a person of faith and understanding that whatever the outcome was going to be, that God really needed me to go through it the way that I needed to go through it. I had that initial fear, but after a little while, I was like, hey, it's going to be what it's going to be. So I'm at least going to go down fight, right? So I got on the phone, I had doctors that were telling me, don't try to make these phone calls on your own. It's going to be really difficult. I'm like, you don't know who I am. I'm getting on the phone. I'm advocating myself because no one can advocate for me like me. Right, right. And that ultimately was the thing that made the difference, people making that connection to me and knowing that I had a relationship with them. Right. That's really what it's about. Wow. And then nine months, four months later, you delivered a happy, healthy girl, which is absolutely. So what we ended up doing is, once I got in with my oncologist, within two weeks, I was in chemo. And we did the first half of the chemo while I was actually pregnant with my daughter. And then we delivered her two weeks early, perfectly healthy, all good to go. We actually ended up having to do an emergency c section with her, which is. Right. Whole nother story. And then went and did another eight weeks of chemo, and then did surgery and then did daily radiation for three months, and then we were in remission. And there have been hormone therapy things and all that since then. But thank God I've had a clean bill of health since I've been in remission. Amen. Love it. Wow. And it was your framework that you utilized that you didn't even know. It wasn't even a framework then. I didn't even know it was a framework. It didn't turn into a framework until five years later when I decided that I was going to pivot into entrepreneurship from sales. And I took a course, and in the course, they were like, listen, you got to have a framework. And they said, your framework is something that's already inside of you. Go and look at all of the successes that you've had in life. Go and look at all of the things that you've done where you've been able to go against the ods, where you've been able to exceed expectations and look at what your process is and walk that process back and put it into a framework. Love it. And you came up with goals, gifts, gifts. Makes total sense. Total. Okay, so now you utilize this framework. That wasn't really a framework then, but. Actually was because it was inside of you whole time. And you took your success with hitting your goal by having the healthy baby, having a clean bill of health, and turned into entrepreneurship. Yeah. How has that been five years later, now that you're doing the entrepreneurship? Yeah, it's something. So I tell people all the time, entrepreneurship is really first of all, not for the week, right? A lot of times people, you mind. Saying that again, I'm sorry. When you real entrepreneurship, right. Like when you run in a real. When you really standing on business, entrepreneurship is not for the week. So here's what I'll say. My entrepreneurial journey. I never thought that I was going to be an entrepreneur. Dr. Shauna I went to school and I graduated from college during the.com era. I'm telling my age, probably.com era, so that I graduated from college in 2003. So when I graduated from college, everybody was going to start their own business, start a.com, something, right? Okay. Was buzzing, right. All of these things. And I went to a college where a lot of people, they knew right away that they wanted to be entrepreneurs. I had no idea, right. So I ended up falling into entrepreneurship. With that being said, I've always been an entrepreneur. I just didn't know it. Right. I've always been the person who would see the idea, who would see the vision, who would put it in place. I was always the person that wanted to go a little further ahead. I was always the person that wanted to do it a little differently. So I say that entrepreneurship is such an amazing and a tremendous gift. It gives me the opportunity to show up every single day and to challenge myself. It gives me the opportunity to serve those that I love because I love the work that I do and I love the demographic that I serve. And it gives me the opportunity to prove to myself day in and day out that I'm undefeated at what I do. Right. Even in my lowest point and in my worst entrepreneurial day, my mantra is I couldn't even fail if I tried, because even when I was trying to fail, it wouldn't work. Right? So that's it. Right. Okay. So right now you have a business, a collab business, where you bring entrepreneurs together and you have events that do this. So share that. Yeah. So we have a few different types of events that we do. We have virtual events that we do, which we call our collab sessions. That is our take on networking. So you get the opportunity to meet amazing experts from across the globe and to be able to understand how you can serve and support one another through your goals, gifts and gaps. And then in addition to that, twice a year we fly to an international location so that we can take those amazing relationships that we've created online offline. And that is when the magic happens, when we get these people that have been connecting, collaborating, trading ideas, trading introductions, serving each other, serving each other's clients. And now they finally get to be together in the same space at the same time. There is no feeling like it. Right. And I am wanting to make one of those. I'm just waiting for the days to align. I know you're busy. Yeah, I just can't wait. I've seen the pictures. I've seen and heard of all the collab that happens, the partnerships, the million dollar plus ideas that happen in those spaces. And I appreciate those. Definitely. So tell me, where are you going next? Yep. So, depending on when you see this, you may see it in time to join us in Montego Bay, Jamaica. So we were in Cancun in April and October of last year, and in a few weeks we'll be in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and then we will be heading at the end of the year to Aruba in. Great, great, great. And so if there's anyone that wants to connect with Deanna, please, you will have all of her information that is on her page here on the event tv, and you'll be able to connect with her for her virtual events or her international retreats. And you may pick one that I'm at because I'm excited because I need to get to one of these retreats. I really love these retreats. We want to have you. Yeah. So do you have anything that you want to share with everyone? I'll just say know, collaboration is the name of the game. And if you are reticent about the power of collaboration, just look at what Dr. Shauna creates when she comes together with event host to put on these amazing events. Right? And if you yourself are looking for a collaboration space, if you are saying to yourself, you know what, I've been burned by collaboration, or I just want to try collaboration, then I invite you to join us in the success tribe network. You can go to thesuccess tribe.com, and when you go there, you have the opportunity to join us for a guest pass in one of our upcoming collab sessions. And I hope I get the opportunity to see you and meet you soon. And when I see you, make sure you tell me that you saw me here on event tv with Dr. Shauna. Yes. I'm so excited. I've got to get to one of those goals, gifts and gabs, virtual events that you have. Excuse me, goal, gifts and gaps with the virtual event. So I'm so excited about that. Well, Deanna, thank you so much. We're excited. And everyone, I do want to say to you, deanna is amazing. I've worked with her in a mastermind setting. We've been close together. So she is the goat when you are wanting to build your business and collaborate with other individuals. She is the go to. She's my go to person. So I'm very excited and honored to have her here. So thank you all for coming on event tv, and we will see you on the next episode. Talk soon.