Boys Allowed w/ Dominic Piaccentini

A cranberry margarita, a haunted retreat story, and one simple framework that quietly changes everything you touch—our convo with Dominic Piaccentini will help set the tone for the entire year. 

Meet Dom:

Dominic Piacentini is the founder of R4 Wellness & Consulting and a Real Estate Professional who helps leaders and entrepreneurs make clearer decisions under pressure. With a background spanning education, real estate, and entrepreneurship—including owning and operating a catering business, hosting wellness events and retreats, and property management —Dominic brings a practical, real-world lens to mindset, leadership, and growth.

Now a professional learning leader and executive coach, he works with organizations and individuals to strengthen focus, resilience, communication, and follow-through. His work blends strategy, mental fitness, and human connection—delivering insights that are actionable, grounded, and built for real life.

Dom breaks down mental fitness with a four-part flow: 

-Detect the patterns and triggers that hijack your day

-Disrupt them with fast somatic resets

-Reframe without slipping into toxic positivity

-Surf the waves with steadier presence

Our convo gets into the science too—why the refractory period keeps you stuck in fight or flight, and how short, consistent reps shift activity from the limbic system into the prefrontal cortex where focus, creativity, and problem solving live. If you’ve ever wrestled with “justification lies” or lingering stress after tough moments, this will hit home.

If you’re curious to try it, Dom’s launching a free four-week Rise and Thrive intro to mental fitness in mid-January—join in and tell us what changes for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs this reset, and leave a review to help others find the pod.

If you're anything like us, you'll want to be friends with Dom after this episode! You can follow his journey on IG @dominic_j_piac and learn more here!

Music Track: Building Dreams by Aylex Source: https://freetouse.com/music Copyright Free Background Music

Chapters

• 0:00 New Year, First Male Guest
• 1:45 Cranberry Margaritas And Warm-Up
• 4:33 Meet Dominic: Many Hats, One Purpose
• 8:55 PQ And Mental Fitness Basics
• 13:40 Detect, Disrupt, Reframe, Surf Explained
• 20:02 Refractory Period And Brain Science
• 24:55 Retreat Stories And Haunted House
• 28:40 Breath Work Container And Releases
• 35:10 Somatics, Safety, And Collaboration
• 41:20 Monthly Meditation And Methods
• 46:30 Kabbalah, Dispensa, And Mindset Parallels

Transcript

Barb: 0:15

Episode 118.

Lyssa: 0:20

The first one of 2026. I love it. It is.

Barb: 0:25

Oh my god, it is. I don't know why that it took me. I was like, wait, 2026? What? Oh yeah.

Lyssa: 0:30

I know, right? It took a second. It took a second. Yes, we have an amazing, amazing interview that we get to share as our first episode of 2026. It feels very fitting to start the new year off with this episode. And I think what makes it super special is that it's a boy.

Barb: 0:49

Our first boy. And obviously we've had boys on, but like family boys, boys that we know and love and love us for all of our craziness. Yeah.

Lyssa: 1:00

This was like the first outside boy. Yeah. Yeah. I know. We well, we've had, you know, again, we do these interviews and we love to amplify, you know, the voices of our fellow sisters. And we've always had women on the pod that have in some way, shape, or form, you know, changed our lives or helped us to think differently, to move differently. And so we've just kind of had that pattern this whole time with all of these women. And we kind of just realized that this man has played a pivotal role in in our growth journey. He played a big role in a lot of the movement that we made in 2025. Um, so it just felt fitting, you know. It was like you can be on this pod and not have to be a woman, right? Like I think that was just something that we it's not girls only. Yeah, yeah. And I think we started that way, right? Because I think that's just where we were at in our journey. We needed this, this sisterhood, this womanhood that we wanted to really amplify. Um, but now, right, we're different, we're different versions of ourselves than when we first started this podcast. And now it's not necessarily about man or woman, it's just about person, who is impacting you and how is that impact changing your life? And I think this interview is gonna impact somebody else's life just as much as it impacted ours. So I'm I'm very excited for everyone to uh to listen to Dom. Yeah.

Barb: 2:22

I'm I'm excited. We recorded it on Christmas Eve, and like that was just fun to pause on what was happening at home, to come here to intentionally have that moment with him. Um, I it's a great episode. It really is.

Lyssa: 2:37

And you were a cutie little bartender too. Because Seard was out of town enjoying their holiday, their well-deserved holiday, but it meant that we didn't have our margaritas. Our margaritas. Um, and so you did. You played uh bartender and you made us these cutie little cranberry Christmas uh margs, and they were so good.

Barb: 2:55

They were good. I am happy that we were able to pull it together. Yeah, um, because there was an ingredient that I was missing, and and it came through. It came through, and they were good.

Lyssa: 3:07

They were good. So I'd do it again. Good margs, good interview, good episode. Go on and listen. Love it.

Barb: 3:20

Um, okay. So we do start off with uh the what's in your cup segment. So we're gonna ask you, what's in your cup?

Speaker: 3:29

It looks to be like a very festive seasonal uh cranberry margarita.

Lyssa: 3:34

You got it. We never nailed it. A plus. Um, I love it. Yeah, this is a very fancy margarita. Um, Sear and Sacrum, who is our margarita supplier, is actually on holiday, which is well deserved. But it meant that we had to make our own lunch this week, and it meant that we had to make our own margaritas this week.

Barb: 3:55

So we're struggling a little, but I wanted to make sure that we had a proper margarita for you. So I, you know, moonlighted as a bartender. So here we are.

Speaker: 4:06

I have full faith.

Lyssa: 4:08

All right, I'm gonna go in for a sip because I'm I just wanna I wanna see. I want to know.

Speaker: 4:13

Salute.

Lyssa: 4:14

Salute. Oh, that's good. It's not good. Okay, okay.

Speaker: 4:19

I foresee more sips in our future.

Lyssa: 4:20

Yeah, okay. I do, I do. Well, I think now is the best time to have our uh audience uh or have you introduce yourself to our audience. Who are people listening to today?

Dom: 4:33

Well, hi audience. I am Dominic Piacentini, and I am the owner and founder of R4 Wellness and Consulting, new staff member of uh our friend Rayan's business, um, the integrated entrepreneur. Uh I'm a caterer, I'm a mindfulness coach, I'm a breath work facilitator, I'm a realtor. Um I own rental properties, I do flips, um, and I work in education and secondary education. And so I am a bit of a serial entrepreneur.

Speaker 3: 5:04

Yes.

Dom: 5:04

Um, and we've talked about that and been in spaces where we kind of work through that with other people, and it energizes me to be involved in many things. But I will say I'm working on harnessing the energy of what I call the golden thread, and that I want to be in service, right? So whether it's um in my day job or which I'm working to work myself out of uh in the near future, in real estate, uh flipping houses, being a landlord, serving clients, or doing the work that I'm most passionate about, which is my consulting work, my coaching work, leading groups, is to be in service of other people and to help uh heal myself through healing others and just connecting with people. And so that's a short version of who I am.

Barb: 5:46

You did great, you did an amazing job. I I can't wait to jump into it because you are the first boy that we've had on the podcast, like interview style. Yeah. And we connected about it's almost a year now, and you have made such an imprint on us. Instantly. And I can't wait to talk about it. Yeah, yeah.

Lyssa: 6:07

I think our first um encounter was doing one of your PDs. You were offering something um about PQ um and mental fitness, and we did. We were um we joined it, we definitely received, and I think it's literally ever since that PD that we did that like I say justification lie probably once a day. Like a minimum of once a day. It it became a part of my vocabulary. I was able to identify something that I did that I may have used to call an excuse or a reason. And when I was able to now call it a justification lie, it looked differently to me. It felt differently to me. And it allowed me to really see my saboteurs, which is a lot of the work that we did. Um, and it allowed me to kind of receive, receive it differently, and not so much as something that I was doing wrong, but just a little bit of a justification lie that I was telling myself that I needed to kind of rework and talk myself through. And now I apply it. I apply it to so many different things. And I ask myself, are you doing this? Or you know, like, is this true? Are you doing this because you want to, or is this a justification lie? Are you trying to tell yourself something because you want a certain result, whether or not that be the result that you're meant to have? Um and that was literally just from the first time we met you.

Dom: 7:34

Well, there's so much there. Um, I'll start with like, first of all, thank you for having me on. I'm honored to uh break ground here and some barriers and to be the first male or the first boy.

Barb: 7:46

I know, right?

Dom: 7:47

We're just like the boy's gray beard. Um that's awesome. So I'm happy to close out the year and to do that. And it's great to to hear the the impact, right? So we did meet, I think it was virtually. Brandon and I offered a collaboration session together. And you never know, so it is the Christmas time of year, and if you celebrate Christmas, um, it's a wonderful life as a classic movie. And I was having this talk last night with a friend, and just if you're not familiar with that movie, it's like from the 19, whatever, it's black and white, and this guy contemplates suicide, but then an angel shows him the impact that he's had on people's lives, and he doesn't want to commit suicide anymore, right? And that's the gist of it. But just hearing that, like, I had no idea that just that one session and then subsequent we have other interactions that have happened, um, made an impact. I was like, who are these Barlisa? She's somebody what do they think of me? So you never know um the impact you might have on somebody, and it's just really cool to kind of come full circle about a year later or whatever it might be, and just to hear that. And I'm honored to be here and to hear that I had some impact in some way. That was that's really cool.

Barb: 8:57

That's just the first one though. I'd love for you to kind of share with our listeners like what is mental fitness, right? We talk about this PQ, these saboteurs, and you're the one that actually gave us all of those words. Um, so can you share a little bit about that?

Speaker: 9:12

Sure. So I have been on my own wellness journey uh for the last decade or so now, and that includes a lot of personal work and personal developments. And I'm uh a pursuer, so I'm always diving into these new learnings and these new ways of trying to be better for myself. I came across um positive intelligence, PQ, like IQ, uh, a few years back through a mutual connection that I met through a meditation class and kind of really gravitated towards it. And since then have kind of been working with that model and some other models that I've experienced, some of the Joe Dispenza stuff, some other mindfulness practices to kind of create my own version of that that I call the D DRS framework and mental fitness, which is a common term. And that really is mental fitness is um being aware of the things that we think and do at times that are self-detrimental, that are sabotaging our own best self, our own best interests, and having the awareness. So detect is the first D. So detecting and being really tuned in with who we are and our patterns of thinking, our patterns of being, so that we can catch them in the moment is like level one. So we notice a thought pattern, or we notice a physical response to a certain thought pattern, and then catch it. If we get really good at it, we can be proactive and look at our calendar for the day or the week and be like, I see that client meeting, or I see that in-law interaction, whatever it's gonna be, right? That might trigger a certain negative or less undesirable characteristic in us, and do things uh to snap out of it or to not fall into it. So that's disrupt the second D. Doing very what seems very simple, little physical or somatic tools to kind of get back into our body. And quite literally, there's so much neuroscience between all this work, which is really what gets me excited because it's not just woo-woo stuff, and I'm here for all the woo they put it out there.

Lyssa: 11:18

I love that.

Dom: 11:20

But I'm also really excited when we can back up the woo with like empirical data and science, and it feels very valid and real. And so we quite literally, through mental fitness and through the framework, are shifting um connectivity and connections and energy in our brain from our limbic brain, right the back of our brain, whereas our monkey brain, our lizard brain, the fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, all the F's, um, into our prefrontal cortex, which is more pragmatic, more solutions-based, more rounded, more problem solving. And who doesn't want to spend more time there? Who wouldn't think that we'd have a better quality of life if we spent more time there than in the reaction mode? And then so detect, disrupt, we do these little things to snap out of it. It could be 15 seconds, it could be a full workout, 15 minutes, right? And so, just like people who go to the gym to lift weights or they swim or they run or they do yoga, if you go to the gym and do one curl, you're not gonna be buff.

Lyssa: 12:23

Yeah.

Dom: 12:24

I went this morning. And just like that, we have to make it a habit and a repetition, and we have to build those physical muscles, right? Or that muscle memory. The same is true of our mindsets and our brains. We have to rewire our brain, and science shows that we can quite literally prune off old connections and create new connections. And um, the Spence always says uh the neurons that fire together wire together, right? So the more that we do this kind of work consciously, consciously making the reps, doing the workouts, doing the awareness pieces, we're creating stronger connections to operate our brain in a more effective, conducive manner to our overall well-being. Reframe is the R in the framework. So once we go at detecting and disrupting, how do we use different tools? Again, fairly simple, to use perspective, right? To get into that problem-solving brain to find the blessing or the opportunity in every situation. And I'm always really clear to say that this is not putting on your rose-colored glasses. Um, it's not toxic positivity. Things will suck, right? Like life is challenging.

Lyssa: 13:36

Yeah.

Dom: 13:37

Um, we can't control that. We can't always control the way that we choose to show up or the way we choose to respond or even react. And so reframe is giving us tools to respond and react in ways that are going to make the next second, the next minute, the next year as best as possible. Granted, I mean, think about, and I mention this in a lot of workshops that I do are there situations in your life that when you were living them, you felt like you were the victim, you were very upset, you were frustrated. Why me? This is unfair, this sucks, this is it, this is that. But then maybe a month or maybe even five years later, you look back and you're like, oh, thank God that happened. Because if that didn't happen down the line, X, Y, Z couldn't happen.

Lyssa: 14:23

Yeah.

Dom: 14:24

And then this really great thing is is the end result. And so what if we could save ourselves that time in between of like beating ourselves up or being anxious or depressed or the victim and hop quicker to the I'm trusting that this might be uncomfortable now, but you know, as well as I do, through through discomfort comes growth. And the last thing is surf. And surf is when we get really good at the the D, the D, and the R, we can surf, right? So we can stay on the surfboard of life, we can ride the waves of the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows, and do so with integrity and intentionality and really stay centered in who we are as much as possible. And I teach this stuff, I say, and I'm still very much a work in progress. Um and I I had just yesterday a chance to reflect on where I was like self-sabotaging already. And our good friend Rayanne, my coach, I think your coach, was able to point it out. And I was like, oh wow, you're right. I am doing that. She's so good at what she does.

Lyssa: 15:26

I know, yeah. But I I love that. And just like, you know, a gentle reminder that you can be a masterpiece in a work in progress all at the same time. So I love hearing your story. I love hearing that you are you are utilizing this framework in and of itself, right? That's what allows us to build that trust and to know that I can receive the knowledge that that you are sharing because you practice it yourself. Um and that's that's really important.

Barb: 15:52

And I think what you what you gave to us was all of the science and the words that we didn't have, right? We've gone through our transformative journey and have changed our lives completely. Where I can see now I was we were both operating in the back for years and years and years, and I didn't even know it. And all of a sudden, we crept slowly, slowly, and but we felt stuck. Um like we couldn't, there was a wall that we couldn't break through, we couldn't let go, we couldn't move forward. And that changed last year. So we were on the webinar, you were giving the beautiful spiel that you gave today, and immediately after we ordered the book.

Lyssa: 16:35

Yeah.

Barb: 16:36

So I delved into that book all winter long last year and found myself like, okay, nope, this is it. You gotta do the do the finger thing or do the or do the do something because you're you're about to lose your shit. Yeah. And slowly over the year, right, working with Ray and like-minded individuals, we have shortened that gap. I can see now that we are we're surfing. Yeah, and I've never surfed before, and surfing is so good.

Dom: 17:07

So scientifically, that that period between um stimulus, right? So when the thing happens and our body automatically responds with a stress response, right? There's chemicals that are released from our brain and our body, and the time between the stimulus of what happened and the time that we get back to what we call it homeostasis, right? Ground zero baseline is called our refractory period. And so a really cool way to look at this if you're um a gazelle out on the plains in the African Sahara, right? And you're just grazing, and then a lion comes along and chases you, right? It's trying to eat you. The cortisol kicks up, stress hormones, they sprint, they, if they're lucky, outrun the lion and then they survive. Within a second or two, they're back to just chilling, grazing on the grass. They're not thinking, why'd that lion choose me? How did I look when the lion was chasing me if there was a cameraman? Like all these like things, right?

Barb: 18:11

Not the cameraman. Not the cameraman.

Dom: 18:14

But we don't do that well if we train ourselves to. We stay in a period of heightened stress. Yes. Much longer than we need to need to. When the stress causer, the stimulus is removed, we tend to, many of us, myself included before, live in a perpetual state of heightened stress and awareness. And our whole lives become heightened stress, and we don't even know that. We become addicted to that chemical reaction. And so the goal of this work, again, to be very scientific, is to reduce our refractory period, right? So as you said, it's shrunk now. We're still humans, we still get stressed out, things still bother us. But can we reduce that period of time and get back to who we want to be our best selves sooner than later?

Lyssa: 18:59

Just gold. I sort of every time. Like I just I do, I love talking to you. I actually I want to jump to the retreat because we have we've had these different um kind of like interactions, but they've all fairly been virtual for the most part um until the retreat. And then we got to spend a whole weekend with you, um, which I thought was really cool. And I kind of want to talk about the house for a little bit because we did like talking about it. Up for sale. No, because it's haunted.

Dom: 19:28

The whole property's up for sale.

Lyssa: 19:30

No way. Really?

Dom: 19:31

1,500,000. Oh my god. We might be able to own it.

Lyssa: 19:36

We might be able to own those ghosts, you know?

Dom: 19:38

So the house, the retreat house wasn't haunted, it was the house we stayed at.

Barb: 19:43

Oh yeah. Oh, um the actual property.

Dom: 19:46

But anyways, go ahead.

Barb: 19:47

Okay. We're talking about the house then. It was haunted for sure. Yeah. I'm glad we all agree. That's how you know it was haunted, because we all agree.

Dom: 19:56

Like there's no depth. She had to leave.

Lyssa: 20:00

Because she just like felt uncomfortable, like it was she was just genuinely uncomfortable in that room.

Dom: 20:04

Yeah.

Lyssa: 20:04

Wow. I felt so bad.

Dom: 20:05

I slept in that room the next night. I was fine.

Lyssa: 20:07

Yeah.

Dom: 20:08

Um, I I'm not someone like that is like tapped into that world. Like she said during the breath work thing, yeah that she saw my ancestral spirits in a good way, like following me through as I was doing the work. So she's like tapped into that way. I just don't have that awareness per se. So it's like I'm gonna go to sleep and go to sleep.

Barb: 20:27

Um but I love that you brought up the breath work, yeah. Because, you know, haunted house, that was crazy. Yeah. And then one of the biggest things that we took away from the retreat was the breath work class. Um, and I'm not sure if it was because all of our work in the retreat was done at that point. You know, when we when we're in work mode, we're locked in. You can't shake me from that. But once I'm done, I'm so vulnerable, I'm so tired. And crazy things like happened in that room. Yeah. And you go around doing that for fun. Just like you do that to lots of people. It's crazy.

Dom: 21:03

So I have um in my own like, like I said, growth journey, personal journey, I started attending retreats and events that were like wellness-based, initially to meet women, uh, and then to eventually like to do the right work, right? And I then started like feeling confident and called to like creating and hosting them. And then I just got in more spaces and started doing more things and picking up more skills. And um breath work is a thing that I offer now. And I'm not formally trained um by any sense of the imagination, but I feel like in certain situations it there was magic.

Barb: 21:42

There was magic that happened in that room.

Dom: 21:44

Um the the the woman, I forget her name now, but she was from Canada. She's really Irena. She uh mentioned it um on a podcast that she was on after the retreat. Uh, I know John had a pretty visceral reaction. It was a lot in that room. And that was just really cool. Um because not like to validate me, but it was really cool to see people and experience people having some experiences and letting things up and out or realizations. And it was also really cool because that was the first time, believe it or not, that Rayanne and I had collaborated in that way. So we've done um several things together over the past couple years. Um, but that was the first time that we did that type of back and forth dynamic and breath work, visualization, meditation, and it seemed to work really well. And that was just really cool for us to balance each other like that.

Barb: 22:34

You guys have a great chemistry where you do, it's I it felt balanced where you you weren't shouting, I don't want to say like you were yelling, but you were forceful. You you commanded the room, and then she came in after with a more loving, you know, way to her. That there was no way that we could have had that if we didn't feel safe. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And that's what that interaction did. It was a beautiful balance, a beautiful dance of what I think everyone needed in the room to to experience their own thing. And it did. It was like, it was nuts. I afterwards I remember like you went to the bathroom and you came and you were like, What what was that? Were you feeling her thing? Were you feeling your own thing? And I was like, dude, I cannot talk to you right now.

Dom: 23:23

No, you put that sights of the vest. You didn't want to share what was going on, which is fully your right to not share.

Barb: 23:29

Because it it it was that visceral that it was crazy. It was unexpected.

Lyssa: 23:35

I think that's the we've done breath work before. Yeah, but we've never done that before. I think, and that's what it was. So, like there was just I had a standard in my mind of what was gonna happen inside of that room. And when this blew the top off that standard, like I I don't know. I I still to this day, it's been what two two months removed from it now. Um and I still am kind of like questioning everything that happened, but it it a thousand percent was was the harmony between between you and Ray Ann. I think that that container was definitely built in safety. I felt safe with both of you in order to feel everything that I was feeling, and and it was the this softness that Rayanne was kind of just like guiding it in. But I don't think that I could have released in the manner that I did if you weren't in the room, if you didn't have that commanding presence. It really was almost like the permission that you were giving me. Every time I reached this moment in the breath work, you know, you would say release. And I I just did it. You know what I mean? Like it just it just happened, it wasn't an option, and I and I think that my body needed that forcefulness because it was new and because I didn't know what was happening, I could have seen how easily I could have just been like, no, I'm out of this, and just kind of tapped out. Um but I didn't, I chose to tap in. Um and it was very visceral, it was very changing. It was a it was a spiritual awakening because I I'd never felt something like that. I've never seen something with my eyes closed. Usually it's just black, you know, your eyes are closed, the back of my eyelids, that's all I've ever seen before. This was so colorful, it was so powerful. There were just so many things happening in my brain and in my body that I almost also in the moment through the breath work, I couldn't question it. I just had to kind of keep going. And I think that that is it was there was a wave, there was a harmony and a balance that you guys provided, and I think we just kind of rode that wave all the way through. But then once we did come back, there was this sense of like, I need to close up, I need to like chill, because I don't know what just happened to me. So, like, we did in a way need to kind of like go back into ourselves and just like process before we could even begin to to talk about it and and do that. But it I wanted you and Rayanne to both like you know, get your flowers because that was that was some powerful shit. And what you guys did really was was magical and awakening, and I think and I need more of it, and I can just imagine that the the world also needs more of it.

Dom: 26:31

I'm jealous.

Barb: 26:32

I wanted to attend.

Dom: 26:34

I haven't experienced that kind of um visceral reaction in in quite a while as a recipient. Um but in all the work that we do or and the things that I pursue for my own benefit that I am always called to share, what you're we're talking about is kind of like using somatics, right? So like physical sensation to kind of get outside of ourselves to the point where we just kind of surrender to the present moment. And in that present moment, there is so much. Uh spiritually and again scientifically, there's just so much in the form of frequency and energy and light um that we have in us and around us. And when we tap into that by kind of getting outside of our normal selves, there can be some really big reactions. And they could be releases, they can be epiphanies, they can be ecstasy, whatever it might be. Um it's just really uh interesting and profound of what we can do with very simple tools. Um and I'm so blessed to hear that you had such an amazing experience, and I'm I'm grateful. Um it's interesting because Rayanne is a very, to speak in spiritual terms, she's a very masculine energy as a woman, right? And I don't mean like manly. She has that linear, uh strong presence herself, which is what makes her so str so good and what she does. And as a man, I think I'm a manly man. But I also, you know, have uh I'm tapped into that feminine side too, where I am open to the to the woo and to the spiritual and I am sensitive. I'm like cancer or whatever that's supposed to mean. Um I think that dynamic and how it plays off of it, yeah, each other and those two different like combinations. Like you said, I think it works well. Um and I am eager to pursue things where I can experience what you experienced myself because I I need it too.

Barb: 28:28

Yeah, right. Well, so much so that afterwards, right, we were like mind fucked. It took us days to even just talk about it to each other. Yeah. And then we had the opportunity to see that you you host a monthly meditation class. So we looked at each other and we're like, okay, this is gonna be really scary. We've never done this before. And we have it on a couple episodes of like, okay, this is what we did. And we oh really? We did, yeah, we talked about them. It's hard for us. I think this is everybody, it's it's hard to do new things. It's hard to do things that you make fun of yourself for. So that's kind of where we are, but we're doing it. We we're drinking the Kool-Aid, and the margaritas. And the margaritas that look like Kool-Aid. Um, but yeah, and again, you have brought all of this beautiful knowledge to our world. And one thing that we do on our interviews is that we do, we we honey roast. So be even though you're the first boy on the podcast, you have you have impacted us tremendously. So we thank you. We thank you for everything that you've gone through to be the man that you are today. Um we, I think we we can say it, we have you know, issues with males, and it's not been easy to make connections like that, which is why you're the first boy on the podcast. But you you've impacted us greatly. So, like, thank you.

Dom: 29:57

Well, thank you for taking the time to say that publicly. It's a wonderful Christmas gift in and of itself. Just you never know, right? What you're what you're doing. And again, I've my path has been to to learn these things because I am imperfect and I have healing and wounds to work through. Um, but I'm also called that when I find something that's like, oh, this is really cool or this works or this is interesting, my nature is to then want to share it. Uh and by sharing it, it helps me learn it more. And so what you're talking about in the meditation group is that Joe Dispenza work, which is a very um different way of meditating than most folks are used to. I was trained in MBSR, which is more of like that Zen mindfulness-based stress reduction style meditation, which is typical kind of passive and being present and talking like this and being which is great. I love that still too.

Lyssa: 30:48

Yeah.

Dom: 30:48

That meditation that we've been doing together and that work is anything but that. But there are so many parallels. So the more I learn about that work and pursue uh opportunities to connect with other people who are doing it or to take workshops, the more it's kind of shaping the way that I show up in my life, but also the way that I try and offer services to others. And so another really cool thing that I got ran into recently was um Kabbalah. There's this guy on social media, um, David Guillaume, David G, um is a really modern Kabbalist. And Kabalism is uh Jewish mysticism. Okay, but Jewish, not the sense of like the religion of Judaism, but like predating all that. But the cool part about it is there's so many parallels into um like manifestation work or mindset work or um mindfulness or even the dispensa work that there's just different ways of saying the same thing and different little tidbits that might help someone connect and might help them move in a better path for themselves. And so I'm always searching because I'm a doer and I just can't stop. But it it continues to kind of shape what I do for me and what I try and offer to others.

Lyssa: 32:06

Yeah. And I think that's what I I agree with that in the sense of like you never know what's gonna stick, you know what I mean? So like you do almost need to receive the same information from different outlets, you know, to kind of make sure that you're wrapping your mind around it. But I am, I started reading the the Dr. Joe Dispensa um book, and it is, it's very eye-opening. Um and a lot of it I I would agree in the the science backed. I think that's like what makes it so easy to be like, no, I can believe you. And we talk about it all the time now. Now it's like, oh well, no, it's science. Hello, like the leaping and all the stuff. Yeah, it's real shit. Um, so I think it sounds crazy. It sounds crazy.

Dom: 32:52

The things that are happening and are taking place sounds irrational or crazy or blind faith. But when and he's so skillful at this, yeah. Um, to like be up there and to talk to layman people like us who aren't quantum physicists or neuroscientists, right? To understand these relevant scientific things and how it's happening and why it's happening, it's mind blowing.

Lyssa: 33:17

Yeah, it really is. And I I am, I'm eating it up right now because it is. It's it's helping us move forward, it's helping us get past that uh, you know, that judger in us that is currently judging us for trying new things and doing things a little bit differently than we've seen anyone else do it. Um but you know, it's helpful when we have people like you, and we do have people that show us what living their truth looks like, um, because then it gives us permission to also live our truth. So yeah, thanks.

Dom: 33:47

Again, so many Christmas gifts. I want to come on here more often.

Barb: 33:52

It's a great podcast.

Dom: 33:53

Feeling a little like um down lately. Um we all get there, right? Oh, yeah. I went from someone that felt down often and have done so much work that I'm now able to say, like, okay, I'm feeling down in this little period, and that's that's rare now. There's a reason. And I had a coaching session yesterday. Yeah, and um, I had the the best financial year of my life, followed by last year being the previous best year, right? Amazing things are great, but I'm not ever satisfied with like the growth of one area, or I want to serve more people, I want to make more money, I want to have this much freedom, whatever it is. But in that coaching session, I was like, oh wow, like you're right. I the best year. So what's not to be happy about? And just being able to, again, know that I'm not perfect and I teach these things, but I often teach it because I need to hear it.

Lyssa: 34:43

Yeah.

Dom: 34:44

Uh reframe and be like, no, like you need to be happy and celebrate those wins. And there's science behind that, right? The science behind celebrating with wins and being happy and present before we move on to the next, because that releases chemicals in our body too. And if we do that more often, we can become addicted to those chemicals and do the things out of addiction in a sense, in a good way, that caused us to get those celebrations as opposed to the opposite, which is the fear, the frustration, the anxiety, the resentment, the worry, right? I'd rather be hooked to the celebration chemicals, the dopamine and the success chemicals. And so just taking time to reflect and pause, especially this time of year, as I move into one calendar year to the next and take inventory of what went well and what you're thankful for. And um just doing this work is often such a mirror of what I need to hear. And I'll often thank clients. I'm like, thank you for bringing this challenge to me today, because as I'm talking to you and I'm offering you some perspective, I don't ever give advice or you should do this, but just a different perspective. Ironically or not so ironically, I'll tell them, like, I needed to hear this in my own life. And so thank you for bringing this to me so we can workshop it together.

Barb: 35:59

Yeah.

Dom: 35:59

And I think I like that approach of like, if I'm client and and coach or whatever it is, provider of service, um, we're still collaborating.

Lyssa: 36:09

Right?

Dom: 36:09

I'm not just there as the expert, like I can learn from anybody, and we're learning together and experiencing together. And that's my approach to working with people.

Barb: 36:18

Yeah, I love that. We are currently sending all of your posts to our brother. So he lives down in North New York. No, he's in New Jersey. New Jersey, sorry.

Lyssa: 36:28

North New Jersey.

Barb: 36:28

North New Jersey, exactly North New Jersey, you know. And he he found himself laid off at his current job and kind of like, what the fuck? Like he's having a big existential crisis and and finding what his path is, what his purpose is, what is the intention that he wants to bring. And we're like, we know a guy. We know the perfect guy for you.

Dom: 36:52

And how is he receiving that encouragement resistant?

Barb: 36:56

Um you know, he's coming today. So he's visiting for the holidays, and we're we're gonna elbow him.

Dom: 37:03

It'll be a shameless plug as well. Um starting in January, I think mid-January, I'm gonna offer, I just decided yesterday, a free um, I'm gonna call it Rise and Thrive, um, a four-week program. It's gonna be kind of like an introduction into mental fitness and some of this work.

Lyssa: 37:19

Okay.

Dom: 37:20

Um, and it's gonna be early in the morning on Fridays, probably like 6 45 or 7 a.m. virtual.

Lyssa: 37:24

Okay.

Dom: 37:25

Um, and it'll be like a four-week course to kind of expose people to some of this work and to give them a free service to help people and to get my uh name out there as well, and to have them experience some of the benefit. And so that might be a great kind of uh no-cost low kind of commitment, just four weeks of virtual meetings where you might he might be able to or anyone else might be able to see if that's a good fit for them.

Barb: 37:49

Yeah, we'll definitely put in the show notes um so that our listeners can can find that. And if they want to take advantage, they definitely can. Um, I I like the idea of an intro course, um, one reservation, right? Just personally, it's different. It's this is different work than we've ever done before. And we almost well, we did, right? The webinar we met you at last year was a free webinar and slowly like building that trust.

Lyssa: 38:19

Yeah.

Barb: 38:20

And now a year later, we have all of these things that we can like tie back to you. So I think this is a great way to to get people past the fear of this is scary, this is new, but let me just try it, it's free, and then they'll drink in the cool way. Exactly.

Dom: 38:37

You create value first, yeah, and then the sales pitch, to be quite frank, right? Yeah. But um, you know, I feel like in my business and that side of my business, right, there's this like hurdle of like landing that really big marquee corporate client that I've been close to a couple of times and I'm still cultivating those relationships. But I think, like you said, it is um not your typical type of work that people want to invest in, A for themselves, but B for their employees or for a company. And so it it takes the the right kind of um business owner or leadership person or whatever to just have the foresight or the experience to to be confident that that kind of work is beneficial. Um so cultivating those relationships and just kind of getting the word out that this type of work is is really the work, right? So um putting it in business terms, you know, the ROI. Like if yourself or if your employees are happier, healthier, but more grounded, more tapped into their best self, able to better problem solve, on the spot, able to better deal with stress and internal doubts and conflict, then of course they're gonna be a better employee, or you're gonna be a better leader. And of course, whatever your business is, you're going to see the benefits of that. It's sometimes tough to tie. That direct, you know, A to B correlation. But anyone with any kind of force I can see that if you put it like that, well then I'm not going to be able to do that.

Barb: 40:07

I mean, it sounds like a no-brainer. But we're the perfect example of that. We so we became a I I want to say be stop became. We had our profitable year in our business yet this year. So we celebrate you and see you and celebrate that. And I know that we couldn't have gotten here through this year if we didn't have all of that framework. It's okay. It's winter. If we didn't have that framework of working on ourselves and making sure that we're checking ourselves and when things are getting negative, right, we're we're aware we're aware enough to make the shift. Yeah. So like we are here because of the work that you did. Because of the work that Rayanne does, because of the work that coaches in general do. No one can do this shit on their own. That's crazy.

Lyssa: 41:03

It's it's that, what do they call it, like the 30,000-foot view or something. Like that's that is something that is truly impossible without the coach. You need that that third party, that someone else to observe you and tell you about yourself. I think that's the hardest thing with coaching. It's people just don't like to be told about themselves. And I think that's the, I don't know if that's the the little glitch in us or not, but like tell me about myself. Tell me what I'm saying about myself. Read me like a damn book and then tell me how to fix it because like that's what I'm interested in. I am interested in being my best self. And so for me, it's not a sales pitch. You're telling me how I can actually become my best self. Okay, sign me up. It's famous. Why not? Yeah, I'm I'm not even gonna think twice about it.

Dom: 41:46

And there's like a a cool way of looking at it, like a Buddhist principle, in the sense of we do the inner work and we we do the work to become our best self, not necessarily for ourselves. I mean, it's obviously we're egocentric, so of course it's for ourselves, but the the motivator in that framework is to do it for the benefit of all, right? So if if I am a better version of myself, when I interact with the two of you, it's gonna land differently and kind of that ripple effect, right? So we're doing it for the benefit of all those we encounter. And if we're all doing that, if we all do better, we all do better, right? We all are kind of raising that consciousness and we have a lot to raise, let's be honest, and in this current reality we're living in. Um and entering into a sales conversation or into an act of service that you're getting paid for. And it's challenging, and um, it's also a bit of a cabalist principle. Think about it like if you're gonna go up on stage and you're gonna speak to an audience of a hundred thousand people, obviously you've earned that spot for somehow, some way. And obviously you have something to offer and you want, in some way, on some level, to convert someone in the audience as a client or a purchaser of services, whatever it might be. But that's the wrong way to look at it. When you step on that stage or into the consultation with the client or whatever it is, can you enter that conversation or any room you walk into? And for the record, I am still working on this, I am not going to decide with the mindset of how can I best serve and show up for whoever I encounter in this conversation, this meeting, this whatever it is, and allow that to be the driving force. So think about it in this sense. If you go up on stage to speak in front of 100,000 people, you might be nervous. Yeah because you're it's a lot of people. Yeah, it's a lot of people. But if your only task was to go up there and say, I'm giving everyone in this room 100K, you wouldn't be nervous, oh, because you're just giving them what they want. Yeah. So if you show up to any room, any experience, any meeting, any any client, whatever it is, with that kind of mentality, you're gonna be calmer, you're gonna be more grounded, you're gonna show up better and probably have a better success rate of conversion.

Lyssa: 43:57

Yeah.

Dom: 43:57

So it's that little flip of the mindset of the purpose of that conversation or of that meeting. Again, challenging because we all want to grow and to to benefit and to be stable and all the things, but um, it's a unique way of looking at things. I'm not sure why we I went there with that, but no, but I love it.

Lyssa: 44:14

I'm gonna say that's something that you just you lock that in.

Barb: 44:16

So it's the it's it's the intention setting. Yeah. What is your intent here? And we love that. What we hope from the weekend that we spent together, you we're really big on intention. We're really big on everything that we do has to matter. The parties that we take on, how we put those parties on, how we host, how we show up. Because if there's not an intention, then what are we doing it for? Right. If we're just doing it to show out, I am all the way out on that. That is not our style. We are here to serve, we are here to share the gift that we were given. And this is this is just my gift, right? I can make things look really pretty. You can coach people, and this is my gift, and I want to show it in the best way I can. Yeah.

Dom: 45:03

Well, you've given me so many flowers today. I'll I'll return the favor. You two, um, now having experienced that. I mean, I obviously we met virtually a few times, but never got to experience you doing your work, and we did I get to get to experience that to some extent at the retreat. Um, it does show, right? So you guys did create uh and curate such a beautiful aesthetic. And beyond just the way things looked, like you said, like you can tell that when you two work together, A, there's that synergy between you two, which is really beautiful and special, but also that comes out and that intentionality comes out and and what you create for your clients. And that's probably why you've had your your best year, right? Because you're doing it in that way and it shows, and um, it was really cool to be a part of. And I'm excited for us to do more things together on the club. I agree.

Lyssa: 45:50

2026 is gonna be beautiful. Yeah, I have absolutely no doubts that we'll we'll be doing a lot more things together in 2026.

Dom: 45:57

I can't wait. Went to a class at a friend's house. She's like this hippie yoga fairy kind of person, right? She she comes in and out from Peru or Guatemala, and then she's home for a couple months and she's gone, and she held um a little fire ceremony and um breath work and sound bath and all this stuff. It was beautiful, but she did some and I'm not familiar with like astrology and you know, zodiac signs, like that stuff's cool. It's like the one thing I don't do in this world right now. Um she was talking about the the nine-year period of the snake energy, whatever that was in the zodiac, um was coming to an end. And so now in this ninth year, we're shedding old ways of being, old habits, old circumstances, and then moving into this new year, this is like the year of the horse. And so I guess it's like it's carrying you forward now on the back of the horse, like you're taking strides towards your your greatest purpose or greatest intention. And again, I don't get too into that kind of stuff, but yeah, it sounds really cool. So I'm for it.

Barb: 46:57

It feels exactly like what we are like let's go yeehaw. And that, right? Just the simple intention of no, this is what I'm going to do. This next year, I'm going to ride and I'm going to cowboy my shit on all the things just by setting that intention, right? Maybe the stars prompted you to think it, but you did the intention and you're gonna set the work in to make it come true. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love it.

Lyssa: 47:22

Well, this feels like a good place to love and leave our friends. Would you like to um tell people where they can find you?

Dom: 47:28

Yeah, so I'm on social media. I'm not good at that. I I do post stuff all the time, but it's just my name. I have to like brand more about my business. But I'm on Instagram, I'm on uh Facebook, LinkedIn, Dominic Piacentini. I think on Instagram I'm Dominic Joseph. Um J, yeah. Dominic J, whatever. Um link it. But I do post a ton of uh free information, a ton of free little lessons I've learned uh often. I am offering that uh four-week free um Rise and Thrive cohort coming up starting in mid-January. I'm not sure when this comes out.

Barb: 48:00

We're gonna be next week.

Dom: 48:02

So hopefully we'll gain some people for that. Um my girlfriend and I are co-hosting a retreat. Um we can retreat in the Cat Skills in February. That'll be really cool. We have information on that too. So um yeah, hit me up, check me out. Even if it's not just for business, if you want to just chat about what's been going on or or what you can learn about, I love to connect and just meet new people. So hit me up.

Lyssa: 48:23

I love it. Yes, we will link all of that information where you guys can find Dumb and all of the amazing things that he's doing throughout the beginning of next year into our show notes. Well, this is the part where you guys are gonna do all the things. So you're gonna like and follow and subscribe. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at Marks and Mindset Podcast. And if you're a local to the ROC and you want to party with us at HomeMade Events ROC. Until next time. Bye.

Dom: 48:48

Bye.