10 Questions with Dan Franz

Hi, this is Uriah from Productive Therapist, and this is 10 Questions with my good friend, Dr. Daniel Franz.

Uriah, this is such a cool idea. I love the opportunity to reconnect with you. It’s kind of ironic, earlier today, I reconnected with another therapist we worked with long, long ago. We had a little conversation about you, but you’ll have to wait for my podcast to come up before you hear from Linda. 🙂

So your 10 questions. All right. Here we go.

What is my name and job title or license type?

My name is Dr. Daniel A. Franz. Or just Dr. Dan. I have a PsyD, a doctorate of psychology specializing in Victor Frankel’s logotherapy. I also carry a licensed mental health counselor in the state of Indiana license, as well as I have a license for clinical addictions counseling in the state of Indiana.

What I love about my job or business?

I tell this to all my students and interns and anybody in the field that I work with. It is this amazing opportunity to do so many cool and different things like here I am chatting with you and your audience. I wrapped up a podcast with a friend from the past. I get to talk about really cool and interesting things here, but then also the opportunity to be in my office with individuals and families one-on-one or with couples and really see the genuine change they get to make through a little bit of good psychotherapy.

Of course, I teach as well. I just do a lot of really interesting things. So that’s what I love about my business in this field in general is the opportunity to help and impact people in just so many different ways.

What are one to two things that you always do in the first 60 to 90 minutes of your day?

Well, we’re in a state of transition here where I live, just my family. Big state of transition. My oldest daughter’s heading off to college shortly, my wife just went back to school where she goes to a classroom and teaches virtually, mMy daughter is a high school sophomore, so she is learning virtually in the home-office-slash-podcast-studio.

So for me, my wife and daughter really wanted a puppy this summer because our oldest is taking off. My youngest said dad, you know, with my sister leaving, you know, I just really need a puppy. And somehow I kind of got sold on the idea.

So we got a puppy because they really wanted one, and so the first 60 or 90 minutes of my day is now taking up with first making coffee, both the dog and the puppy know that’s a necessity for myself as well as my wife when she gets up. So we make coffee, the puppy and the older dog go outside. They play for a little bit. They come in, they demand to be fed, I think about going back to bed and they won’t allow that because they eat.

I may meditate or pray just for a little bit while I hear them chewing. And then immediately after that, they want to go back outside and romp around for a little while.

So by then it’s time to replenish my cup of coffee and we’ll go walk the yard for a while. I’m very fortunate that we have a nice size yard that they both get to walk around and get into all kinds of sorts of trouble. So for me it’s a little bit of exercise, and for them it’s a lot of exercise. But right now, as everybody transitions back into school, that is my opportunity to slowly wake up on the demands of the dogs.

So, for number four: what is my go-to drink or snack for productive energy? Well, as you heard, my day starts with coffee and tapers off with coffee towards about the five o’clock hour. I enjoy trying all kinds of different coffee. My favorite, as you hear on my podcast often, is Black Rifle Coffee. I love supporting veteran causes, so I do that as much as I can. So I have a subscription for them.

But then I really enjoy seltzer water or just water. I got a lot to mingle and a lot of water throughout the day. So that is my drink.

Snacks — I always keep just a large container of mixed nuts and cashews and pistachios for healthy protein in my office throughout the day.

Question number five, what does a very productive day look like for you?

Ironically, today was a very productive day, but normally a productive day is going into the office. I live maybe 10 or 15 miles from my office, so I schedule clients back-to-back and I’ll see seven or eight individuals or families from the afternoon into the evening hours before family has activities and things like that. That’s Monday through Wednesday.

Today being Thursday is kind of my virtual day. I believe the recent pandemic has taught me that that is truly possible and a lot of clients liked it. So I still keep some virtual office hours on Thursday mixed in with some adjunct teaching responsibilities.

Today I threw in some podcasting and an interview. Ironically, it’s only five-thirty in the evening and I feel like it was a really productive day. I dropped my daughter off at volleyball practice, we’re going to pick her up and go see her older sister for some ice cream, her last day of work. So very productive is just, you know, a good 8 or 10 hours of helping people in a variety of ways.

On top of that question, question six, what is my favorite way to rest or recover?

I’ve I like to stay active, whether it’s running or biking. I enjoy golf or walking around with the dogs, hiking and camping with the family, staying busy with them.

I have two hammocks here and I think I used one of them once this summer. So stagnant relaxation, that’s not my thing.

I do enjoy reading. But the funny thing is reading for me is always about what to do better as a therapist or a business owner. I am very excited about some work I’m doing to improve some public speaking and to engage in that a little bit more often. So rest and recovery is being active or learning and growing for me.

Question seven, am I a Mac or PC person and why?

That’s so funny. I just got done buying — with my daughter going off to college, she decided on a Macbook Air, MacBook Pro, some kind of iMac because it had free air-, some kind of things you put in your ear to listen to music [AirPods!]. And also it was time for a new phone so she wanted an iPhone. My wife wanted an iPhone. My younger daughter already had an iPhone. So here I was at the cell phone store buying a bunch of iPhones with my Samsung in hand. 🙂

I am an avowed PC & Android user, basically because I’m lazy. I don’t want to switch. I hear good things about I-stuff and iPhone and I-this, but I just never quite made the switch and probably won’t any time soon. I just upgraded. I’ve been a Chromebook user for years because as a therapist, all I needed to do was run a billing program and type notes and do a blog once in a while, but I learned doing seminars online and trainings and certifications and even a podcast, I updated to a nice Samsung, but still PC, still running Chrome on it! And if I remember right, I think you’re pretty much an I-guy, but I’m sorry, I just can’t do it.

So the best business books I have read?

I love Seth Godin; Linchpin was introduced to me for 10 or 12 years ago, and I probably read it once a year. Definitely my favorite. That’s always my go-to. Boy, I got a whole stack of them downstairs and I can’t think of one.

I think Lencioni, Patrick Lencioni in his business fables, he calls them. “Death by Meeting” was a good one. And there’s a couple of other really good ones with it.

But Seth Godin, as well as his friend, cartoonist Hugh McCloud, he wrote “Ignore Everybody,” which is basically just a bunch of great cartoons with some really wise sayings. And I subscribe to Hugh’s daily comic strip, or I would even call it a comic. Look, you’ve got to check it out for yourself. It’s amazing business art. I think he calls it ‘cultural art,’ right. So he’s at gapingvoid.com. And I’ve been paying attention to him and Seth for, well, I think as long as I started my private practice!

Question nine, if you were a hot sauce, what would your spice level be? One to ten with ten being the hottest.

Uriah, this is sad! You cannot measure hot sauce on a scale of one to ten. 🙂 We must go with the Scoville scale, which measures the intensity of hot sauce. I’m usually 1.5 million Scoville kind of guy. I like my Habaneros and really intense ghost pepper and things like that.

In fact, I grow my own! I have a batch of habanero serrano and Dragon cayenne pepper fermenting right now that will eventually become my own hot sauce. So I love hot sauce and spicy chili. It’s one of my favorite things to eat. And now hopefully if I do it right, one of my favorite things to create.

Finally, question 10, where can people find out more about me and what I do?

Well, I have my own podcast and that’s called The Meaning Project.

I write regularly about everything. We all have a website now, right? Go to my website: Danielafranz.com, and you can find out all about me some of the online courses I’ve made, my podcast, my writing, and just the other stuff that I’m up to!

So thanks for the opportunity. This was a lot of fun. Oops, I missed the bonus question.

I’m glad I scrolled down before shutting this down!

What is one of my best tips for success and happiness?

Being a student of Victor Frankel’s work, he talks about the idea that you cannot chase success nor happiness, that they must ensue. You cannot pursue them, but they must ensue from our very human need to discover meaning in our lives.

And we do that through transcending ourselves, by truly loving one another, by stepping outside ourselves to help each other, much like you’re doing with this podcast and all the great work that you do, but also through being creative and finding meaning in our work.

So my tip is that you cannot pursue success or happiness, but it must ensue as a result from discovering meaning in your life.

All right. Now, that was really cool getting to put that answer and there was even better. Thanks for the opportunity. Keep up the good work.

It’s always fun to connect with you, and I hope everybody out there finds this meaningful. So take care.


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