266 – Making a living with intimacy retreats: Tom interviews Diana Daffner

Episode 266 – Diana Daffner
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:23] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode 266 of Screw the commute podcast. I'm here with Diana Daffner and I follow her on Facebook. Wait, wait. You hear what she does to I mean, half the time after reading her posts from her and her husband, I got to take a cold shower. So she's really had something very, very cool. And we've never heard this on this show before. But you're going to meet her in a minute. Now, episode 265. Hope you didn't miss that. And I think Diana had something to do with it because it was on booking great podcast guests. And I'm thinking, hey, how am I gonna get Diana Daffner on here? I need a great podcast guest. So so I told all about how to get great podcast guests on episode 265. Now make sure you grab a copy of our automation e-book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. It's all the techniques and tips and tricks. I've used the handle up to one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers and forty thousand customers without pulling my hair out. And there's all kinds of tips for your cell phone and some of the tips. One tip, one tip. And this is not B.S. not an exaggeration. We figured it out a couple years ago. Saved me about seven and a half million keystrokes and that's like as of two years ago. So it's more than that now. So you'll really like this book and then make sure you grab a copy while you're there. Of our podcast app. It's you can take us with you on the road. It has all kinds of cool features. We got video and screen capture training. So you don't have to wonder how to use the darn thing. You can grab that at screwthecommute.com/app. Our sponsor is the Internet Marketing Training Center of Virginia. Currently, it's a distance learning school and has been for eleven years. But this summer we're trying to open it up for in-house classes because we're trying to get accepted by the G.I. Bill. And one of the things we're desperate for is we need a veteran friendly account, doesn't have to be a veteran accountant that's qualified to do full blown audits that wants to make a deal with us to to get an audit. So that's the only thing holding us up from the final application for the G.I. Bill so we can help lots of veterans. So let me know if you know anybody. They'll talk to me about that. So anyway, this is IMTCVA.org. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about a quiz later that's going to make you mad because you can see how the traditional colleges and universities are doing what I consider and I have a consumer advocate TV show in development, so I'm kind of in tune with fraudulent stuff. I think these people would be in jail if they hadn't brainwashed the whole world for 100 years of how important their college degrees are. And I'm a big advocate of education, but not the way things are going now. So I'll tell you about that later.

[00:03:26] All right. Let's get to the main event. Diana Daffner, with her husband, Richard is the author of Tantric Sex for Busy Couples, How to Deepen Your Passion in just 10 Minutes a Day. And they lead romantic workshops for couples called Intimacy Retreats, and they've been filmed by ABC TV and featured in USA Today. Diana holds a master's degree in counseling, was a massage instructor at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California and she holds a black belt in aikido too.

[00:04:05] Diana, are you ready to screw? The commute?

[00:04:10] Good question for me.

[00:04:11] I know. Perfect.

[00:04:13] How are you doing?

[00:04:14] I'm great, actually. I'm happy to be here.

[00:04:18] Yeah, me too. So tell everybody about what you are doing with these intimacy retreats.

[00:04:25] Well, an intimacy retreat is a workshop basically for couples. They're held in usually destination locations, often romantic places. We've held the workshops, the intimacy retreats and various parts of Mexico and Jamaica and Costa Rica across the United States and various locations. And here in Siesta Key, Florida, where Richard, my husband and I reside. And what they are is there. This is their workshop. So the design is it's a group of people come together. Group of couples, they're usually couples who are in pretty good relationships. Feel really good about each other. Maybe looking for a little bit more excitement in the bedroom or maybe more connection or intimacy, more feeling connected with each other, or maybe they just haven't had a vacation for a long time on their own. Or or maybe they're just curious about Tantra, which I'll talk about.

[00:05:36] Are these typically couples that have been together a long time?

[00:05:42] Across the board. Sometimes we'll have couples who are at the beginning of their relationship. We get a lot of couples have been married for a long time. Got a whole section of couples probably who have been together maybe five to fifteen years. And their bedroom joy has kind of fallen off. And maybe they haven't even been on a vacation without the kids for ten years, you know. So they it's a whole variety really.

[00:06:13] So this tantra always wondered about this, like, is this like Reiki? Like, you know, you like, hold your hands over people, but don't touch him. I mean, it's just there's all kinds of misconceptions. I mean, I have no idea what this is. What is it?

[00:06:29] Ok. So you're right. It's a foreign word. The word comes from the Sanskrit language from India. And Tantra refers to a set of teachings or an approach to understanding life that was revealed to be revealed and studied thousands of years ago. And so I used to introduce it more as a spiritual training. But now I really understand that people are familiar with the word mindfulness. Right. Today, everybody knows the word mindfulness. A nice English word. We may not know exactly what it means, but we'd like the word right. It's out there. The tantra, really can be understood as the original training, the very first training that the human race ever had in mindfulness. It really is a training in mindfulness and it really has nothing to do with bedrooms or relationships, love, marriage, anything. Sex, really? It's really not about that. It's about becoming aware of who we really are and our beauty and our joy and, in the case of sharing it with our partner now, it's sort more of a modern time in the ancient times, it wasn't about sharing that joy with another person so much now it was more internal, OK, and now today we're using it to say, hey, if we become mindful of ourselves and become mindful of the connection we have with our partner and we do this in the bedroom. Wow. It changes everything.

[00:08:18] Wow, wow, wow. So you and your husband started this together? Was this out of necessity?

[00:08:30] Yes and no. We didn't really set out to do workshops some years ago. We were sitting on a deck overlooking. It was in Fire Island, New York, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the Long Island Sound at sunset. It was really beautiful. And Richard had just sold his partnership and business he was in. And so we were at that place. OK, what's next?

[00:09:00] How long had you been married at that point?

[00:09:02] I don't know. Five years maybe.

[00:09:04] OK. Relatively new marriage.

[00:09:08] Relatively. Right. And so we hadn't gotten the seven year itch yet. So we were you know, it was kind of a sale that a business sale that gave us the opportunity to create something new. It wasn't like, okay, now we're done. We never have to work again, you know. But it gave us a couple of years of, OK. Let's think about, you know, what we're going to do next and where we want to live. We were living in Manhattan at the time.

[00:09:37] And it's good thing you're not there today.

[00:09:39] Yeah. Well, we loved it. And and we felt really good about life. And it just, you know, we said let's create a life of business that keeps us around, keeps us looking at sunsets over the ocean. OK, we like that. There we were sitting there enjoying it. Right. And and that the customers or the clients, the people were around, are other couples who like coming to wherever we're gonna be overlooking the ocean, you know. And so that we're around happy couples, you know, couples on vacation, maybe. And we came up with this idea that we would create a resort for couples and it would be located on the beach somewhere facing west. And even then I said to Richard, I said, you know, the best thing about this creating a dream is how cool it's gonna be when we make it happen. You know how cool it is to create a dream and really go after it and see it to its fruition. So. So that was our idea. And we actually did take off. We went to Costa Rica thinking that maybe that would be a good place to do it. And because Richard actually, Richard wanted warmer water. Not that Costa Rica has such warm water. We were trying to the Pacific side of our world, of our of our country, of our of our continent is where you can see the sunset over the ocean. And the water tends to be very cold. And we didn't know at the time when we went there that it's still coldest down in Costa Rica. And we we actually found some beach front property that was at that time affordable for us. And it was a bit remote. And we looked at each other and we realize we're in a country where we don't speak the language. And neither of us spoke Spanish. We'd been living in a condo in Manhattan. And so when the toilet breaks, you call the super, right? And it's this idea of building from scratch at this resort place with cottages for couples and everything. It just started to think, you know, maybe we're not the right people to do this. Maybe this isn't for us. And so we kind of passed on that idea. At the same time, though, we became even more committed to doing something for couples, for doing something, for creating some kind of business that was really a support to help people who have who are in relationship to have happier marriages.

[00:12:23] And it came very motivated about that. We actually started something we called the Couples Project and we came back to the states and we printed business cards for the couples project. I have no idea what we were gonna do with it, but. And then we we kind of went back into doing other kinds of consulting work that we did that wasn't related. And then. Again, it came back to me, it's like, you know, we have something that we can really offer people because we really we did turn to this the study of this mindful, conscious relationship, because I felt that I needed something more connected and more intimate in our lovemaking. And Richard has told us if he were here, he'd tell you this story. And it's in our book. He says it in the book is that, you know, Diana said, you know, we can do this better. There's another way. There's a way we can bring more joy and delight into the bedroom in this way. And he looked at it and he said, you're probably right, but you'll have to take us there.

[00:13:27] Typical guy, make the girl do all the work.

[00:13:31] Exactly. Because he was relatively satisfied. And he kind of knew, you know, things used to be maybe more intense and more fun. But, you know, it was OK for him. And he also knew it could be more. And so we began applying ourselves. And then, yes, at some point we said, OK, let's share this with people. I wanted to show you right up front at our workshops, at the intimacy retreats. There's no nudity. There's no sexual activity in public, no public sexual activity at the workshop.

[00:14:03] I was wondering about that, because there's an old joke, you know, of people, you know, complaining about the high school, you know, having sex education and stuff. And so one guy says that one of the teachers said, would you rather have sex education or sex training. So that shut up the people. So. So is this sex education that you're doing?

[00:14:29] Well, in some senses, it's a combination of education and training. It's it's training. And mindfulness is training and awareness and how to apply it both inside and outside the bedroom. And Tantra provides a languaging an understanding and experiential approach that I combined with my background in Aikido, which you mentioned.

[00:14:55] Yeah. I've had a lot of work in that field. Yeah. Oh yeah. My one of my teachers went to forget where he went to Japan and he had a bow. He was really traditional. He had a bow for two years before and he had the draw before they'd let him have an arrow. You know, it was really serious. Yeah. I have I've been in martial arts my whole life and I have a site called Brutal Self-defense. But some of it was Aikido and Aiki Jitsu because I had a nightclub and I had to throw out people without hurt. I put a lot of pain on him, but there was no bruising. So that's how I had to use it to get people out of there without getting sued all the time.

[00:15:42] Interesting. So my my years of Aikido were more about kind of a meditative approach and yet being out on the mat and being very active and physical. And so those were my years of martial. And now I've transferred that into marital arts. And I discovered that the Tantra teachings and Aikido had a lot in common because they were really about being aware of yourself being grounded. I mean, you had to do that. I'm sure whatever training, you're grounded in yourself and you're open and aware of what's going on around you and particularly in Aikido. And there's this this moment of connection when your partner or someone attacks you and you blend with the attack. And you're not only that, you're actually blending with it. And that's very intimate. No, actually blend with the attacking energy and the person. And so we've applied all of that. Then I also had some background in Tai chi. Rich and I are both certified in an easy qigong version called Tai chi Cha. And again, Tai chi is not about relationships. It's not about improving or enhancing your marriage. It's about circulating your own energy. But as we began to share this with couples, we had them. We began facing each other. We had them face each other and the movement started changing a little bit. And we created a program we called Tantra Tai chi. It's our own version. Yeah. And it's really easy for people to do it. And maybe it's not the movements at all. Maybe it's just the idea that they're standing in front of their partner and making eye contact and grounded in themselves. And that's the start of a whole new relationship. It's very exciting. The work we do. It really is.

[00:17:45] Yeah. The only I didn't have. I did have a little bit of Tai chi but not too much. But I do remember I was speaking in Hong Kong a long, long time ago and I'm all jetlagged and I'm half crazy from you know, I can't open my eyes. I look out the window. It must have been 5:00 in the morning and there's a bunch of people walking down the street with parakeet cages. Am I in some dream or something? And I look over in the park. There's a whole bunch of people with parakeet cages next to them doing tai chi. I don't know if you know what that was all about.

[00:18:25] I've never been to China. I do understand there's always, you know, lots of people do it in different ways. So and there's lots of variations and versions. And so ours is called, as I said, Tantra tai chi and I, even as a business person, managed to get the name trademarked. Ok, and we have a video that we have. Tantrataichi.com and intimacyretreats.com. We even have a we have a practice. It's sort of a daily date that Richard and I do that we teach about and written about in our book and we call it peaceful passion. And I was talking about domain names with a cousin, really, who was she was starting a new business. I said, you know, you really got to look for that domain name. And I said, I've been wanting to get peaceful passion, but somebody's had it, you know. And I said, see, I kind of went online. I went, oh, it's available. So I got peacefulpassion.com as well. I know you have multiple names.

[00:19:44] Yeah. But, you know, before you know, you name your business, you've got to make sure that you can secure the the domain name and the most of the social media. And so Baltimore made a big boo boo one time. They had this giant contest over all Baltimore City about naming the stadium. And so they announced the winner of the stadium. And some young guy went and bought the domain instantly.

[00:20:17] And that's what happened at the first Democrat debate.

[00:20:22] Oh, that's right. Yeah. They had to pay the guy one hundred thousand dollars to get the domain back.

[00:20:27] Well, here's the thing. We have a friend, Ed, who is brilliant. He and I actually were on the cover of what was it called, the DnB. I'm turning around to see it on my wall. DnB reports. Right. And they are on the cover because we started the first desktop publishing business in Manhattan. Huh. He was an early, early Apple user. Oh, he himself was an artist and a designer, not I was a team trainer. So we joined forces anyway, some not long after that. And some years after that, he had moved to California and we had just moved to Florida. And he called us and he said, I just earned ten thousand dollars to design Apple's first Web page.

[00:21:21] Wow. Very cool.

[00:21:24] Yeah. He said there's this thing called the World Wide Web. He said until now, it's only been military and educational. Yes, it's going public and people are going to need Web pages and I can design them. And he wanted Richard to come out to California and market him, you know, go into business with him. We didn't for various reasons. But more than that, what we really missed was at that moment, we could have gotten Coca-Cola, The New York Times, anything, you know was wide open. It didn't occur to either of you.

[00:22:10] Tell so much more about the intimacy retreats. So somebody decides they're sitting there and they're looking at your Web page and they say, you know, honey, we ought to do this. And so what happens then?

[00:22:25] Ok. So they register for a workshop and they show up and some, they're usually weekends, sometimes they're longer, especially if they're overseas or in a different location. And during the course of the weekend, they.

[00:22:41] So it's a two day thing?

[00:22:43] The weekends start Friday evening than Sunday afternoon. Three days. Two nights. And they spend part of the time in the group session and during the group sessions. Part of it is us giving them information and teaching. And a lot of it is them practicing with their partner. Whether it's a practice that involves a little bit of touching our communication or movement, they're facing their partner and they're getting the feeling of what it's like, what it's like to really connect with someone. And then in between the sessions, we send them back to their rooms and here indeed, if they do get to practice in private, they get to apply the principles that they've been playing with in a private situation. And in the hotel room.

[00:23:35] Do they have to come back and give you a report.

[00:23:37] Well, yes, and, you know, nobody has to hurt anything, but most people are willing to share with each other, you know, whether they did it and how it was for them. And it's amazing. Sometimes the comments are more like, you know, I've I've never looked into my wife's eyes for so long. You know, it was so amazing. We haven't felt this way about each other since we got married or, you know, the comments they make are then it's not about it's not about technical, it's not about technique or, you know, sexual training in that way. It's about how to be with another person. And we're all so busy, or at least in normal life, some of us in this Corona world are still busy, but some of us aren't. You know, I, like you, I have worked. I screwed the commute a long time ago and so I'm still pretty busy. And, you know, other people aren't or they're busy with their children that were not normally at home. And, you know. And so when we wrote of the tantras, tantras usually thought of us as a very elaborate ceremonial. Time taking event that you spend with your partner. And when people talk about at least in the in the lovemaking and tantric lovemaking, that people would spend a long time and very luxurious. And most people don't have time for that. So that's why our book features a ten minute practice. This is not the original title of my book. You said it was tantric sex for busy couples. How to deepen your passion in just 10 minutes a day. That's the subtitle. Yeah. I did not write that. So I did not call it that. I have the title of the book that we wrote was Ceremonies for Love How to Create Intimacy in Your Relationship. That's what the workshops are about. And the publisher. I'm happy. I thought I might go the self-publishing route. It was. The book came out 10 years ago, actually. And self-publishing was still just becoming more acceptable. I was really happy to be purchased by a publishing house and he didn't like my title. So we ended up with a book called Tantric Sex for Busy Couples How to Deepen Your Passion and just 10 Minutes a Day.

[00:26:03] I would have called it microwave tantra. Do your tantra before your popcorn is finished.

[00:26:14] And although the art during an intimacy retreat, we give people homeplay assignments that are way longer than ten minutes. But we do share with them that Richard and I have a daily practice. We have a daily date that is often just about 10 minutes. And it's amazing. It's a juicy, fun, spiritual, sexual, joyful time together.

[00:26:42] That is awesome. So we got to take a brief sponsor break. And when we come back, Diana has a gift for everybody. So stay tuned, folks.

[00:26:52] Want to tell you about this quiz. Was told you was gonna make you mad. So the school that I have gives you a lot of skills that people want. Now, see Google, Apple, IBM, all the major companies, Bank of America or not even requiring a college degree nowadays because they're sick of people coming in and all they know how to do after four years is protest. You know, so. So they want people with skills. And that's what we teach here. And and the colleges are just money grubbers. I'm telling you, when you see this quiz, you're gonna be mad. It only takes two minutes. But there's seven ways that colleges are literally ripping off families and students. So I want you to check it out at IMTCVA.org/quiz of course, everything we do, all this stuff that Diana is talking about we're going to be in the show notes this is episode 266. And all you have to do is put screwthecommute.com/266. You'll be able to get to all Diana's stuff and just click on the link to take this quiz real quick and then you'll see. And even if you don't have kids are not thinking of retraining yourself, pass it on to somebody that does, you literally could save them hundreds of thousands of dollars and get them into a skill based training that is in super high demand. I mean, everybody on earth, every business on earth needs a significant Internet presence, and that's what we teach. So in as little as six months and we even have people in a couple months are starting to make a couple thousand a month. We had one girl in four months in the school. She's making six thousand dollars a month, quit her job and she's not even done with the school yet. So very, very powerful training. And we happen to be sitting here in the midst of quarantine with this Corona virus. And we also get Diana to tell us about what future things she's got in mind for her business. So call me if you'd like to discuss your future on line.

[00:29:02] All right. Let's get back to the main event Diana Daffner's here. And Diana, you got a freebie for everybody, right?

[00:29:09] So, yeah, we have an audio. This is the CD. And then it's available as a download audio download. It's called Lessons and Intimacy The Lover's Touch. And it's intended to be listened to by both people at the same time. It's kind of a guided home play practice and it's available for sale. And we have a shop on our intimacyretreats.com where there's a variety of things people can purchase to read or use at home. And this is on their lessons and intimacy lovers touch. But if you're listening to the show. Drop me an email from there and tell me you heard it on screw the commute and we will give you the link to that download.

[00:30:03] Awesome. Awesome. So, I mentioned that we're in the midst of the Corona virus. Many of us are hunkered down and it's nothing new for me and you because we work out of our homes anyway. It's just maybe less trips to the grocery store. But but you got some ideas for the future, right? To be able to do some of these online?

[00:30:27] Well, yeah, so. Richard and I like to travel. We had some great travel plans that, of course, aren't happening this next month. And I thought, wow, you know, if this was online live, we could do workshops or private sessions using the technology in a way that we hadn't really thought of before. I've always used it a little bit because I've always done a little bit of coaching, private coaching. And so Skype and Zoom have been part of my repertoire for a long time, but I hadn't really thought about doing it with with groups. And we're going to be doing some exploring of that, which would mean that we could be anywhere. I mean, there's nothing like coming to a retreat. You know, they're held, as I said, in beautiful places and the the in-person in real life, IRL, experience is kind of irreplaceable. But the technology is going to allow us to reach more people and people who can't get to a workshop someday in the future, we might have a totally at home based program, a total, total video program. But there's something about the interaction, the live interaction that's actually it's more intense because it can't you can't just pick it up and put it, you know, try it again two weeks later. But it's happening right now. And and part of what we do, part of it. I think the success of the workshops for the many couples that attend is that we hold them accountable. You know, when we send you back to your rooms to do home play, you know, it's very different than just sort of reading about it or hearing about it and say, oh, yeah, we had to do this sometime. It kind of brings an immediacy to it. You know, you've paid your money. Go do it.

[00:32:28] Well, I'm absolutely sure it would be a life changing and certainly unforgettable experience for for any couple that would attend. But I'm sitting here thinking, oh, man. Well, you could teach a lot to like single guys and single girls, too, because, you know, you got this billion dollar business on pickup artists telling these guys all the rotten things they do to just get in a girl's pants. And you can go to the opposite end of the spectrum and teach guys the good stuff about being in a relationship and trying to find one.

[00:33:11] I'm sure we there's a lot and there are people out there who are doing that. It's not my calling. You know something about business. You know, I think sometimes people expand their business and move away from what really got them into it in the first place.

[00:33:26] That's true. That's true.

[00:33:27] And I I'm really wanting to really honor my calling.

[00:33:33] Now, have you had any gay couples?

[00:33:37] Actually, we have had quite a few women. Lesbian couple. I've taught a workshop just for women. Richard didn't do it with me. I did it without him. And I've done that. And we have had lesbian couples attend our mixed couples. So most were a heterosexual couple. And so we teach from that perspective. But the work we do focuses a lot on the woman. We give almost equal attention to the guy. But it does focus a lot on the women. And it's so important for women to learn how to relax, how to receive and how to have there. And for guys to appreciate how how much joy they can have that they give giver can receive when their partner is receiving their attention and their love. And in lesbian couples, it works the same way. And so they've very successfully and enjoyably joined in in the regular heterosexual workshop. Not gay guys at the workshops haven't. Years ago, actually, and we we used to do more short things like a half day or a day long. And we did have attendants that those sometimes male gay couple.

[00:35:00] So you live in the keys, right?

[00:35:02] No, actually, Siesta Key, Florida is like, you know, this this peninsula that has this appendage. And the Florida people call the Keys, Key West. I'm sure at the very tip down on the way to Cuba. But both sides of Florida are dotted with islands and a key means Island K or Key. And so Siesta Key is an island off the west coast of Florida at Sarasota. It's really part of Sarasota. And it's south of Tampa, north of Naples. So I'm on the Gulf of Mexico.

[00:35:40] You know, there is no thought of it. When I heard the keys is because you have you know, I have the longest running ever Internet seminar called, Buttcamp because a goofy name is sitting on your butt making all this money. And I had one in Key West in a lot of people didn't quite understand what the name meant that showed up for the seminar. Well, thanks so much for coming on. Very, very unique. And you made a business out of this. How many years? How long has this been going on?

[00:36:20] We've been teaching intimacy retreats since 1999.

[00:36:26] Talk about a lifestyle business.

[00:36:27] Yeah. Yeah. So we were, you know, 20 years over 20 years. And the Web site is intimacyretreats.com. And we're on Facebook. Intimacy retreats. I mean pretty much if you look for intimacy retreats you're gonna find us.

[00:36:46] That's you. That's you. Okay, folks. So, yeah. So check it out if you are in need or even if you're not, I mean, you don't have to be in some kind of desperation, almost divorce to do this, right?

[00:37:01] Yeah. It's not therapy. It's very therapeutic, but it's not therapy. There's no baring of all your troubles. And, you know, it's not that kind of thing.

[00:37:10] You just do this for fun, right?

[00:37:12] It's learning something new that is going to enhance and transform your love.

[00:37:17] That is wonderful. Yeah, absolutely. Tell your husband I said hi and everybody check out the show notes to grab the freebie that Diana so generously gave us. And this is episode 266. So go to screwthecommute.com/266. Check out all her stuff. Take the quiz. Be ready to be mad and pass it on to save some people hundreds of thousands of bucks. We will catch everybody on the next episode. See you later.

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