So each person needs to choose what's right for them right now.

You might be in a space where you, you could use some pushing.

And maybe a kick in the butt.

Okay, great.

Or could you use some nurturing, some self care, look at your nutrition,

your, your physical exercise, your, your sleep, your relationships.

Could you use some more nurturing?

Oh,

When personal triumphs meet professional excellence, how do

we navigate the tough conversations that lead to our greatest growth?

Welcome to Seek, Go Create where today's guest, David Wood brings a wealth of

experience from both his personal journey and his professional ascent to becoming a

leading figure in the coaching industry.

David is a former consulting actuary turned master coach who traded his Park

Avenue job for the adventure of building the world's largest coaching business.

David has climbed to the top of Google as the go to for life coaching,

impacting over 150, 000 coaches and individuals across the globe.

Despite personal adversities and professional challenges, He is emerged

as a leader in transforming lives through the art of mastering tough conversations.

David, welcome to Seek, Go Create.

Thanks Tim.

Appreciate it.

I'm glad you're here.

And let's start off with, if someone asks you what you do, what do you tell people?

I gave you a great bio.

I gave sort of a great bio there, but if someone asks you what you do, what do

you tell them you're just out and about.

I help business owners to double their revenue, their

time off, and their happiness.

And how do people respond when you tell them that?

What if they're not a business owner?

What do they say?

Ooh.

Yeah, if they're not a business owner, they, they, they go, Oh.

And if they are a business owner, their response is.

Tell me more.

I think usually they're curious.

They're like, Oh, cause it's an unusual mix.

I mean, everyone wants to start with more money.

Generally, I find people come in who doesn't want more money, but if that's

all they want, I usually suggest that they go and find someone else.

There are plenty of people who help you with revenue alone.

Due to my unique background.

I cover business and the life aspects.

So when you want a generalist, you can help put all the pieces together.

That's usually where I come in.

No,

So how did one that, that was kind of one of the most fascinating

things when I was just reading up on your background and all, how did one

marry those two unique backgrounds?

Cause typically people that are good with numbers and the spreadsheets,

the charts, and all of those things, they aren't necessarily skilled

in communications and leadership.

And things like that.

this probably is a little bit of your background story and goes into your

professional career, but how did those two start coming together for you?

Was that you started that way or has that been just part of your journey?

I came in two stages.

So the, the natural one for me, the first one was the left brain.

I had a tragedy when I was seven years old and apparently one trauma response that

people learn is to shut down feelings.

Now, the upside might've been that I developed a lot of left brain

capacity and I came top of my school.

I, got paid to go to college and then I landed a really great

job with a consulting firm.

And then got transferred to Park Avenue at the age of 23 to consult

a Ford and Sony Music and Chanel.

that was the first half of my life and I got really good at business,

numbers, systems and money.

But fortunately, I wasn't happy, and someone spotted it, and suggested I go

and do a personal growth program, and I nearly didn't do it, because they all

smiled way too much, and they wore name tags, and I'm like, this is some cult,

hippie, weird thing, and I'd always thought of self help as, weak willed

people who couldn't think for themselves.

Fortunately, they were ready for my arrogance.

And my left brain and they cracked my cynicism and they cracked my heart

open and I discovered that I knew nothing about emotional intelligence,

vulnerability, integrity, leadership, authenticity, and I got hooked.

I'm like, all right, I got to catch up.

So the second half of my life, the last quarter of a century has been, Doing

my own therapy, sitting with gurus, doing crazy human experiments to kind

of push the limits, lean into my fears.

And I know, I know you're supposed to specialize and I, and I teach

that yes, specialize, pick a lane.

But I finally surrendered to the fact that I can handle, I can help

someone with their hiring system and their productivity in the first half

of a session, and then we might be talking about the meaning of life.

Or a fight they had with their kids or their legacy in the second part of it.

So I need to go back a second because it, I, I keep

wanting to move forward, but it.

You mentioned an event that occurred that sort of shut down part of your brain

and it's a trauma and I think, I think many people part of their journey is

they've gone through some type of event.

I call it a catalytic event.

And what I do that has.

Change the way they think, change the way they define the world,

success people around them.

So something like that.

Can you gimme a little bit more about what occurred there?

Just so that it kind of sets the stage for some of this

conversation we're gonna have.

Sure.

and I just want to warn listeners, it's, it's not pretty.

my little sister and I got off the school bus and somehow she ended up

underneath the bus and was killed that day and I was there and witnessed it.

And back then, I don't think therapy was a big thing, not in Australia, you

didn't, you didn't send kids there, and I didn't even go to the funeral,

so it wasn't until, I just, I just grew up, alright, this is my life, and it

wasn't until I was 23 and I was having trouble in a relationship that I finally

went to a psychiatrist and said, what?

Is going on and he said, well, I've just met you, but my initial

hypothesis is that you didn't grieve properly and you are sensitive and I

think I can help you reclaim some of that emotional side and go and move

through that process in a healthy way.

And he was spot on.

I don't know that I'm done like 25 years later.

I think I'm still grieving and it still comes up now and then and I cry at every.

Every movie or even a commercial has got a sense of loss, but that, I think that

explains why I was more of a cardboard cutout for the first half of my life.

And then when I discovered authentic relating and real revealed communication

and vulnerability, I was hooked.

I'm like, give me more of this.

And so my life, I would say my life is mainly about that.

It's mainly about being real, being expressed and having deep connections.

I just happened to do the business coaching because I'm good at it.

And that pays the bills and business owners can justify the expense.

Oh, well, I'm making money.

Everything I do now on the personal side with David is basically free.

So that's how it ended up.

And since you work with so many people, I've observed this myself,

you and all likelihoods see similar situations, traits, personalities.

In others, how common is it?

Not the exact situation.

Obviously it's very tragic situation.

It's interesting when you brought that up, I was reminded of a cousin who

had a cousin, not a family member, but a family member, family member.

It was a very similar situation.

They grew up in Mississippi and the older brother.

Got off the bus, the younger sister, the bus started and she was

killed in an accident like that.

And, and, and I know that his name was Donald.

I just recalled his name.

It's been a while since I've talked to him.

I know that Donald, it impacted him greatly.

He was the older brother.

I think he had this thought of, I should have protected, what

did I, why was I leaving for all these type things and all that?

So

Yep.

we don't have to.

Unpack a lot of that, but I guess my question is how common are situations

that you see in people you coach?

I mean, we know that there's no perfect person out there.

Everyone's gone through stuff, but I mean, I guess just talk in general

about what you see with leaders, business owners, just people that you

work with related to traumatic events.

I think I want to split this into two answers that first I

noticed more of that in my friends.

Because healers, healers, we're all healing ourselves.

And so a lot of my friends have got, there's some kind of traumatic.

Event where, where there was some kind of abuse or loss or something.

So I'm present to that in my clients, I have a theory that all

of us carry some kind of trauma.

I don't know much about, pre birth trauma, but I've got a friend who specializes

in that just coming out of the womb.

Apparently he's going to do something to you.

And then there's going to be a time when you didn't get your needs met and you felt

alone or abandoned or someone left you.

So I think we've all got our own version.

something from the past.

Some of it, it might be, some of us, it might be quite mild.

for others, it's, it's gonna follow us maybe all our days in

some way and we learn to adapt.

As someone who is, I think I see a title at times, you've

got, I know you've got business coach, but you also have life coach.

And, and I've noticed in our industry, the coaching industry, there are many

people that have that life coach tag.

That sometimes I think they're skirting the counseling, the counseling

role, which is not a bad thing.

I see it come up quite often with me.

I mean, I think, I think I see people go different paths.

There's some people that need some spiritual healing and with a

background in ministry and all of that.

I, I'm keenly aware of that.

I think some people need obviously some, some counseling and then some people,

maybe we can tie it all together.

But where do you, I guess, where do you draw a line between, okay, this

is a little bit outside of my scope.

This is someone who needs a much deeper emotional counseling

role than I can provide.

Or do you go into that?

I mean, I don't know if you're licensed or anything like that.

I don't know if that question makes sense, but you, but you know, some of this,

it gets watered down a little bit.

You know what I

Yeah.

The answer is both.

you know, I'm not trained as a therapist or a counselor and I've

been coaching for 25 years and I've done a lot of my own work.

So I'm able to hold space for a lot of deep emotion.

And I tell people, I tell even like I've got corporate clients, I

specialize in business owners, but I coach some executives and I, I

tell them, look, there may be tears.

There may be my tears.

It may be yours.

Everything's welcome.

It's usually got to be pretty extreme before I refuse to coach them and

say, look, this is not my area.

for example, when I was first starting out, there was a woman who had visions of

cutting herself with sharp metal objects.

I'm like, okay.

Thank you for being clear that that's not my area.

I don't know how to handle that.

I've had a client recently who's also a friend and she just wasn't

really up for being a business owner.

She was, she, there's so much healing to be done.

And I, and my, with me, isn't the most efficient place to do that.

I do 30 minute sessions.

We dive in boom, boom, boom, boom.

You got actions off you go.

I said, I think you really need to find a healer.

And then maybe a year from now.

When you feel more resilient, more robust, you can come back to coaching.

But that's pretty rare that I say to someone, sometimes I've said, I encourage

you to get therapy in conjunction with coaching, and I've got more than

one client who they have a therapist.

They got me and they sometimes bounce things off both of us.

And I often say, I like this guy.

I mean, I like it there because he's, he's saying some really smart stuff.

So I like to think of it as more of a collaboration.

and I, and I totally respect if some coaches, including life coaches

go, I'm not going to go there.

if it's deep emotional stuff, I'm not going to handle it.

It's just, I've been through so much of it at my set, so much of that myself.

I'm happy to at least hold space for some of these things.

and if they need more support, great going.

Going, maybe put the coaching on pause and go and get some therapy,

or if your therapist is okay with it, we can work together.

I do think I, I enjoy this coach role because what it

does is it fosters some deeper communications than a lot of us have.

And it allows for things like you just brought up.

David, one thing I'm, I'm intrigued by, you brought up this word earlier, so

I want to kind of circle back to it.

And that's, you've realized that in a world that everyone is told to niche

down, be specific, be very unique, that you're more of a generalist.

I have felt the same way and I sometimes wrestle with that.

I think you said you've come to terms with it, but talk a bit,

a little bit about that journey.

I think I saw somewhere.

Have you done, I mean, you've done some acting, you've done some

things in Hollywood and all that.

Give just a little bit of background to show whatever you'd like.

That yeah, you, you've got a generalist heart and it keeps leading you in

places that a lot of us would go, Ooh, that's, that's kind of different.

Ooh, that's unique.

boy, David, you're going all over the place.

give some examples.

Well, the, the generalist heart, I think, comes from all the

business background and then all the emotional work and the self growth

and the, the quest that I've been on.

I think that's why, but I also, a psychiatrist told me I'm counterphobic.

And I hadn't heard that word before, but as soon as he said it,

I started looking at it was like, yeah, I'm afraid of abandonment.

So I've experimented with open relationships and polyamory.

took me a few years to realize I'm scared of heights.

I mean, yeah, you put me up 2000 feet above the ground

hanging from a paraglider.

I'm terrified, but it, it just didn't occur to me for a while until he said

that, Oh yeah, I'm scared of heights.

And so I fly.

I'm scared of, well, crowds really.

So getting on stage is an edge for me and, and acting.

Oh my God.

I don't mind so much being in front of the camera.

Cause if you mess it up, okay, the director might be annoyed and maybe

you don't get another gig and there might be something riding on it.

Particularly if it's a million dollar budget for a 30 second commercial,

but, but you can do it again.

But you walk out on stage in front of an audience to do a play.

Or even a scene from a play, an acting class in a professional theater.

Oh my God, the adrenaline coursing through me.

So I think that gives me the credibility to help people face their fears.

Cause I've faced so many of them and I understand what it's like to have

your heart pounding in your throat.

I, I went and played guitar and sang in pubs and I have

a pretty bad singing voice.

I did that for a year and a half because I wanted to see if I could do it.

And then the acting thing, I, I've been thinking about it for years.

And then someone said to me.

I did that.

I went to LA and I did the acting and a week later she called me and said, do

you want to come to an audition with me?

They're doing a production of Dracula.

And I said, well, I thought I'd maybe take a class first, but all right, I'll go.

And I landed the lead.

They gave me the, they gave me the role of Dracula in this play.

And so one thing led to another.

I'm like, I think I need to move to LA to at least find out what I can do in a year.

So I did that.

And I'm glad the experiment is over.

It was very successful, and I'm much happier now hanging out in North Carolina.

so I don't know that that makes me a generalist, but

colorful might be a better word.

I will dive into new things that I have no idea how to do,

and I like to obsess about.

Getting better.

I like to assess it like, like what's the fastest way to get there?

I'm a nerd that way and I think that really helps with my coaching

because they might have a good plan.

But what if we could do that in half the time with half the effort?

Let's, let's try that.

So one of the things, similar, maybe different experiences,

but similar, and there are three things that I've wondered about myself.

So I'll say this and then ask it as a question, sort of related to

not, not really the generalist, but maybe just a lot of experiences.

I think you and I have probably seen people, this is very common in the

world, they go into a role, we'll call it a title, and they'll be there

for a good portion of their life.

And I'm not really judging that.

That's fine.

In fact, sometimes I admire those people greatly because it's, that's

not me, that's not my journey.

and, and, but I, I've wondered about myself.

Number one, do I just get bored, bored easily?

Number two, do I just love the thought of overcoming, you mentioned

fear or overcoming, not knowing something or a challenge or something.

And then number three, I've wondered if I'm trying to prove something, if I'm just

like, there's something that I need to prove either to myself or to other people.

And, And so those are the things that I've kind of gone through in my process.

When I mentioned any of those three, do any of those jump out at you?

Do they

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

A lot comes up.

I love this.

I love this question.

I used to look down on, and maybe I still, still have judgments about

it, but I used to look down on people who weren't doing big things.

I'd call a friend from high school and say, Hey, what's new?

Oh, nothing, same old, same old the last 10 years.

And I didn't understand that.

but as I've gotten older and gotten to see it from a different point of

view, I've realized I've always gone for the big thing, gone for speaking on

big stages and publishing a book and.

Becoming a snowboard instructor when I couldn't really snowboard and then

flying the Himalayas in a paraglider and trying to build the world's largest

coaching business and becoming number one on Google for life coaching.

Like I like big, go to LA and be an actor.

And my friends love it.

They're like, man, I can't wait to see the next chapter.

But Byron Katie, is a teacher I follow and love dearly.

And I quote her often.

And one of the things she said is, She speaks about ordinary angels.

And so those, I think those friends from school who said nothing's changed.

One of them told me, the best moment of his day is cracking a beer at

five o'clock, sitting out in his yard, looking at the mountain,

his kids playing around his feet.

And I realized they've got something that I don't have.

And Katie was right about being ordinary angels.

And she said to me once, watch the specialness.

She said, watch the specialness.

She said, watch the specialness.

Because specialness can be deadly.

And I've always, I still, my ego's I want to be, I want to be

special and I want to be loved.

I want to do, I want to, I want to do things bigger and better.

But with age, I'm 55 now, I finally realized I want to settle in

Asheville for the rest of my life.

I want to have a home base here.

I'm done with all the traveling and, and the, I want to say, I was going to say

carnivals, the, festivals and the, the different things I don't like to travel.

I like having a quiet place to sleep.

I like having my dog and my house and my friends, my regular cup of tea.

And, and my new venture is I just discovered cause I needed

something to throw myself into.

Cause I'm not very good left to my own devices and choices.

I've just discovered pickleball.

And until two and a half months ago, I hadn't even seen a game on

TV and I thought it was like T ball.

And to be honest, I'm not even sure what T ball is.

So I finally discovered this and now this is my latest.

I'm training like six out of seven days and I love getting better

and I love getting out there and being with people and I'm happy.

Plus, I'm starting to host.

I like, this is new for me is to host things.

Because I've been a bit of a hermit a lot.

And now I host people at my house three times a month and just hosted

my first public pickleball event.

So that's fun.

And I'm looking for, I got this suspicion that the real joy comes

in a lot of the smaller packages.

the cool thing about this conversation is that I've gone

through similar journeys and that is, I wanted in my circle, whatever that

circle is to be the one that was always pushing forward, the one that was

always, pushing, pulling, stretching, whatever words you want to use.

even so much so that, I don't really watch TV.

We keep a screensaver on our YouTube channel here and a commercial

will come on for lazy boy.

And it'll show these people that are fighting for their rights.

to sit in their lazy boy chair.

And, and I find myself with this irritation at this relaxation

that people are having.

And I, and I really would rather not judge, but I do, but, it's fascinating.

I do want to tell you, I started playing pickleball about a year and a half ago,

just left a place in Arizona where we were wintering, where they've got 32

pickleball courts, just like a Mecca.

And.

Pickleball is very cultish.

Be very cautious.

You probably have already seen it.

It is, it is very, very, easy to be sucked into a life that it is 24

seven for people, but I enjoy it.

I'm 60 and it's great.

It's a great, it is a great sport for people of, I think of all ages,

but it's social, it's competitive.

But it's also something that almost anyone can do, which is kind of democratized.

Is that the right word?

Is that what you see?

Well, I've never.

I played mainly solo sports, like squash was my sport, kind of similar

to racquetball, and I wouldn't have even found pickleball if there

was a squash court in Nashville.

But there is no squash court in Nashville.

but I'm stunned by the availability, like seven free courts, and One website where

everyone coordinates their social play.

Cause that's what was missing for me.

Say with tennis, I didn't know four to eight, 16 people

that I could get together.

And now with pickleball, you don't have to, there's one website

worldwide where we go and coordinate.

So I can just look at the map each day and go, Oh, that's where it's on.

All right.

Where am I going to get my fix?

And I like that there are 16, 20, 30 people all rotating in and I'm

starting to find people I actually like.

cause it's not where I'd normally source my friends, but there's some, some people

with nice energy and I'm already hooked.

I've, I've, and my ego is fully at work cause I want to see how fast, my question

was how fast can I go from beginner to 4.

5?

And I think I've been playing six weeks now with my right arm and I'm up to 4.

0.

I'm on track and then at some point, hopefully I'll, I'll, I'll chill, but

I like to learn and develop and train.

So I'll drill three to four times a week.

And I'm, I'm the one setting up all the drill sessions.

because that's fun for me, but it's also fun to just get out and

just, I, I haven't taken beer.

Oh, I once I took a beer to the court, but I think we should get there four

to six in the afternoon and someone should have a small cooler and, and

we just have some social games and doesn't really matter what happens.

So I, I like both of those aspects, but I think that training thing,

like that question I said before, what's the fastest way to get here?

That's often what we're asking the coaching questions.

What's the fastest way for you to double your revenue in a

way that's enjoyable for you?

What's the fastest way, to get from 40 hours a week to 20?

How do we, how do we do that?

So I think that, that drive serves me when it comes to, to coaching.

So one thing that I'm asking, and I'll, I'll kind of pose it to you

is, I do think there are times that we are to pursue things with all vigor.

I'll say it that way, like you're doing with pickleball.

And then there are times that we're to go at a maybe more measured relaxed pace.

And I will say this is a new thing for me.

Maybe it's age, maybe it's maturity, maybe it's life experience.

I don't know because I haven't always been this way.

I mean, I've Told the audience before I used to pride myself back in the nineties

on sleeping an average of three to four hours a night and, constant hustle mode.

I'm thinking a little differently now.

And I'm actually thinking that as I work with people, I'm even

asking questions like that.

What are your thoughts on the balance between hustle, hustle,

go, go, go pursue with all vigor.

And then let's just step back and relax and see what comes to us or allow some

time or to be a little more patient.

Did that make sense?

Well,

know, what's

careful, Tim, because you might end up talking yourself

into a lazy chair, into a lazy

I can't, I don't think I could fit a lazy boy here in the RV, but

maybe somehow I could get a lazy boy.

Yeah, well, there are two, there are two poles.

So there's some real polarity there.

There's the yin and the yang.

And I think that question's age old.

the people who come to me are usually wanting to make something

happen in time and space.

So they're usually wanting more.

And so that's often where the coaching will live.

But if, if someone's always at that full speed, then they're probably going

to burn out and it's not sustainable.

So it's probably not the most efficient way.

I want to come at it from another angle.

I used to be the spiritual warrior.

if it's difficult, I'm doing it.

And, Open Relationships was an example.

It traumatized me over and over and over again, but theoretically, I'm

like, why not love more than one person?

I can handle this.

Just suck it up.

And then I had massive insomnia because of that.

And I refused to take any medication for a year because I

wanted to see if I could do that.

And I was kind of white knuckling it.

And I think there was value in that, but then it got to a point

where a doctor friend of mine was begging me to take something so my

brain could come back into balance.

And I had to learn the hard way because I went into deep depression

and, anxiety, which is, one of the most rotten cocktails on the planet.

To have depression and anxiety at the same time.

So you can't really relax and you can't really sleep, but you can't,

but you want energy all the time.

and I learned the lesson of balance through that.

okay, there are times to be the spiritual warrior and push and say, I'm not going to

accept no, and I am absolutely committed and I'm going to show up like that.

That's great.

But you got to know when to say, okay, too much.

My body can't handle it.

Or my nervous system can't handle that.

Or I need some R& R as well.

Or you know what?

Oh, here's my, here's my favorite line that I think I came up with.

I sometimes find myself saying, I'm not tall enough for this ride.

know those signs at the carnival, you got to be this tall.

Some things like, like I'm dating a woman right now.

I'm honestly not sure if I'm tall enough for this ride, because there

are some challenges for my psyche.

I love her and it's great, but I don't know.

But I've learned to say, I can't promise anything and I don't know, but let's

keep hanging out and see what happens.

And, and if it becomes too much, I trust my body will know.

And I might have to take a step back.

That's new for me.

Well, in the past 10 years, that's new.

Before that, it'd be like, yes, of course we're going for it.

Dive in, let's jump off the cliff.

Who's with me?

So each person needs to choose what's right for them right now.

You might be in a space where you, you could use some pushing.

And maybe a kick in the butt.

Okay, great.

Or could you use some nurturing, some self care, look at your nutrition,

your, your physical exercise, your, your sleep, your relationships.

Could you use some more nurturing?

I, one of the things that just jumped at me while

you were saying that was the importance of being self aware.

And I was one physically, from a physical standpoint, I used to convince myself.

And I guess I could do this, that I could push physically to, do a new sport to

do something that might be challenging.

And I think I mentioned earlier, I just turned 60 this year.

And this last year, this last 12 months, I've had two situations where Slight

injury, no, no big deal or anything.

One was related to pickleball, by the way, I fell and landed on my

wrist, which was not exciting at all.

I'm still recovering from a wrist sprain from falling on my butt.

I know pickleball is, is unfortunately it is somewhat dangerous

for people, but we won't get into that.

But what I noticed, David, this was, I would typically get up, shake it

off and power through, but something in me, and I don't know if it was

wisdom, self awareness, self awareness.

I was hurting so bad.

I don't know.

Something said, let your body rest, be patient, get a lazy boy.

Maybe I don't have one, but, and rest.

And you know what, both times it took right at six weeks.

I kept up with it.

I monitored, I tracked it.

I'm an engineer.

So I've kind of got this left brain, right brain thing going to, I'm an

industrial and systems engineer.

So I'm like, Keeping up with okay, what's my level of pain?

Where am I at?

What's going on now?

And so I I got to the place where okay I feel like i'm healed and they

both took about six weeks, which I know that 10 years ago 20 years ago

It would have been You know, six days, 60 minutes, something like that.

How important in all of this that we're talking about, this goes back to, I

think, EQ that you brought up earlier is self awareness and, and I know as a

coach, you and I would say, that's why everybody needs a coach, but just talk

general self awareness and then we might can go into why bringing someone in helps.

But see, I think someone needs to be self aware, even to begin with.

Ask for a coach.

I mean, they won't even make that leap.

A lot of people out there by themselves.

So self awareness, how important is that?

It's such a difficult topic to speak about because I had a

client say to me this week, he said, well, I'm, I'm conscious of that.

I'm doing that.

And I said, well, hang on, you're conscious of what you're conscious of,

but you don't see what you don't see.

So how do you know how conscious, how do you know how aware you

are when it comes to this?

This, this was on the topic of checking in to see if people are

still listening and still interested.

And he said, Oh yeah, I'm aware of it.

And I'm thinking.

Yeah.

I don't think you are, but you can't see your own limitations.

If I said to you, Hey, I know a course, it's about a thousand

bucks and three full long days.

And it's probably going to increase your self awareness by at least 20%.

Some people say that's a great deal.

That's a great deal.

I'm going to do it.

If they value that, Which I think everyone should, but, but some people

go, ah, three full days, thousand bucks.

I don't need that.

But if I said, I'll give you a thousand dollars.

and take away 20 percent of your self awareness.

Would you go for that?

No one in their right mind would go for that.

The things you finally learned about yourself, I do this, this is a limitation,

I tend to talk too much, I'm arrogant.

You've got to know that stuff so that you can relate with people.

And spot your limitations.

So I think it's crucial, but I don't really know how to have

people value it and, and seek it.

And I think coaching is one way to become more aware because you can get feedback.

But if you're not listening or your ego, your self defenses are so

strong, you're not going to hear.

A bunch of it anyway.

I personally, the strongest thing I've found to crack through people's defenses

and help them see things they never saw about themselves is that course

that I originally did back in 1996.

I still send people to it.

My family, my clients, it's called the Landmark Forum by Landmark Education, and

they've dialed something in like the ideas that you pop and you see stuff you never

saw before through all the interactions with all these other crazy people, you

may not see it in yourself, but you see it in someone else and go, that's, me.

That's what I do.

Now, if you're not self aware, think of a friend, think it's not even a friend.

Think of an acquaintance who's kind of bumbling around through the

world and has no idea that, they get people offside or they have no

idea that they talk way too much, or they think they're super responsible

and they're completely deluded.

Well, we all have some of that, but you're not going to know it until you do.

So are you going to invest time, money, energy into trying to learn more?

I've been on this path since 96, when I did that course, I got hooked.

And so I've gone and sat with teachers and done courses and done things to

try and see what I wasn't seeing.

And I've been doing that for 25 years.

I know other people, it's their full time job.

They want to wake up, they want to be enlightened.

I'm not that hardcore.

I want, I want to have fun playing pickleball and have fun with my friends.

And, it's, it's more of a, I just, I like hanging out with the

people who are on that path now.

And we, like I say, I'm not hardcore about it, but three times a month, I have

people at my house and we sit and do a process called circling, and Where you

speak about what's real for you right now.

Right now, I'm feeling nervous and right now I feel attracted to

you and I don't want to say it.

Right now this and we do that for an hour and a bit and I don't consider

that hardcore anymore That's just life.

That's just a lifestyle.

But each time ideally I'm gonna learn something Something about I'll reveal

something and people ask questions and then it's kind of like therapy on

steroids I'm a big fan of self awareness.

I don't know.

I wish I could get everybody in the world excited about doubling their

self awareness, things would change pretty quickly if we could do that.

I, I don't know yet how to do it.

Yeah.

You mentioned people that are hardcore and I, I think I've observed, and I

think I was this way at one point I was somewhat addicted to, this is a

general term, but self improvement.

And I love what you brought up because now I believe that I have just integrated

improvement and being better into my life style, into my regular life.

It sounds like that's kind of what you're doing because pickleball, you

said you want to enjoy pickleball, but see, that's part of it.

That's part of, I think that process and, and journey.

So I like that.

One of the things that I've heard you, I think I've heard you use this word

twice and that's the word arrogant.

You've kind of used it to describe a portion of yourself.

And I have used that to describe myself also.

And I think if we were to take most business leaders, people that have done

great things, we may have some degree of arrogance, confidence, we could kind

of maybe interchange a few words there, but how does one discern, determine, be

aware of the difference between healthy.

Arrogance and unhealthy arrogance, because I believe there's times in

my life where it's been healthy.

It got me to places that I would not have gotten to otherwise.

And then there's times I think it blinded me to being self aware about

something I needed to be more aware of.

So any comments on that?

I'm going to look up the definition of arrogance.

Okay.

and I'm flashing back now to 2007 when I sat with this guru and

He said all these things to me and then he said, but what's your arrogance?

And I said, what do you mean?

And what does that mean?

And he just said, look it up.

So I'm looking up.

Arrogance is overbearing pride or haughtiness.

Attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in

presumptuous claims or assumptions.

So you said healthy arrogance.

I would maybe use the word confidence versus arrogance.

So you can be confident like, Hey, yeah, I'm really good at this.

Okay, that's fine.

I don't think that's arrogant, but I tend to be biased towards

assuming that I'm right.

When I may not have checked it out.

I may not even be looking to find out.

And I'm just like, this, this is right.

And then I find out I'm wrong.

I'm often assuming I'm the smartest person in the room.

And that may be true in a bunch of rooms.

But there's gonna be rooms where it's not.

And so I like this bit about presumptuous claims or assumptions.

And one of the key tenets of authentic relating is to assume nothing.

So we start in our circling, we speak in different language.

We say things like.

It seems to me, I couldn't say, why are you sad?

Cause now I'm making an assumption that you're sad.

I see tears streaming down your face and I see you're scrunched up and

your shoulders seem a little tense.

I, it seems to me that you're sad.

Is that true?

We actually get to practice dropping the arrogance and the

assumptions and the being right.

And so I, we have to say things like, I have a story.

I have a story that you did this because of that.

Is that true?

It's a good practice to check arrogance.

So I would say arrogance versus confidence.

Confidence is great.

Arrogance might be you, you're making assumptions.

And then the overbearing thing, that can be quite annoying.

there's a pickleball guy who I'm told knows a lot about the game, but I

can't stand him telling me what to do.

There's a way he says it, like a, like a school headmaster or

something that just gets my back up.

And he might be right, but I don't want to hear it.

It seems quite overbearing in the way it's done.

humility is probably still one of my life lessons, and the universe

I think has given me plenty of chances to, to learn humility.

Maybe I just have to pay attention.

I think, I think life, as we go along the way, I've, I,

I love what you said about the, landmark forum that you send people

to, to kind of help them get to this.

My experience has been, there's two ways that people make, I

will say significant change.

And I don't know, this is theoretical.

This isn't, hard to prove it out.

It's just my experience.

One is.

They make a decision and they go through process like you talked about, or like

we just were discussing life deals them some event, some catalytic event

that forces them to make some change.

I know a lot of this.

I know, a lot of these things too.

My biggest changes have typically occurred when there's some form of a.

One outside my control, the 2008 downturn showed me that I wasn't always

the smartest person in the room where I thought that I was, and I was a

business person and things like that.

So that was, that was interesting.

And so I, I, I like that we're tying this together.

One of the things, David, that comes out of what you do is a lot of,

I'll call it practical, but let's just call it communication skills.

And I like where we've gone with the conversation, because if we were just

to talk about communication technique, I think it's just that technique.

But to me, I'll go back to the arrogance thing.

I notice when I am fatigued and tired, I will slip back into

believing and using tones that come across as I'm a know it all.

I would be like the guy on the pickleball court if I'm tired and not well rested

and not, not sitting in the lazy boy, but if I am not resting well, and so

what I'd love to do in the last couple minutes we have here is, is what can

you tell us now as we've led to talking about a lot of big picture things.

To the practical difficult conversations that people have in

this world, because I don't think a lot of people are having them.

I think a lot of people are shirking them.

They're avoiding them.

A lot of it could be because of some of the things we've been talking

about, but just in a couple of minutes, I'm going to ask you to give us a

quick mini communications seminar, anything that you want to share on

that after the conversation we've had.

Well, that's a big question.

And I.

If we had more time, I'd love to get into it and I think, if you're

up for round two, I'd be happy to do that sometime because it's a

whole big topic in and of itself.

I think whatever I say is going to come across as a tease, but I will say I wasn't

taught growing up that it was okay to say what was really happening for me.

I wasn't even taught to take a look.

And, and work out what am I feeling, what's happening

in my body, what's going on.

So there's so much I think many of us have learned to bury.

We don't even, you mentioned self awareness.

I wrote a book called Mouse in the Room, which is about firstly

identifying what's going on for you.

What am I feeling?

Why am I resentful?

What do I want?

That's a win, just that you know it.

And then secondly, if we did know that, saying it to someone

else can be quite scary.

What if they have feelings?

What if they leave us?

What if there's some consequence?

What if I have to deal with all this emotional red tape now?

What if I step on a landmine?

Because I'm not really trained in this.

So I understand why, I think I understand, see there's the arrogance,

I think I understand why people, why we generally shy away from truth.

And difficult conversations.

And I found that when we're willing to have the courage and take a shot,

be brave, that's where the goal is.

That's where we might learn something about ourselves,

something about the other person.

There's a chance for us to go deeper.

There's maybe a 10 percent chance things will get worse and not get

better, but I've found, there's often a chance for around two and around three.

And if you stick with people while they get through their emotions, and

if they'll stick with you while you.

While you get over yours, then you come out stronger.

So just like I'm a fan of self awareness, I'm a fan of real communication and

sharing what's actually happening and taking those kinds of risks.

Someone asked me yesterday about risk assessment and like how to decide

what's too much and what's not enough.

Cause he was quite risk averse.

And I said, humans are idiots when it comes to risk.

We'll take.

Risks with no upside, like not wearing a seatbelt or not wearing a helmet and

driving a motorcycle or smoking nicotine.

Like we'll take risks like that, but tell your partner that you made out with

somebody a year ago at a Christmas party.

Oh no, that's too risky.

Can't do that.

And I disagree.

I think it's risky to not tell it.

So there's my mini treatise.

Is it treatise?

Is that a word?

Maybe, we're, we're using some big words here, yeah,

last month.

I've never used before.

I don't know where they're coming from.

but

I'm, I'm going through a process of learning some

new things just from a, anyway, but we, we won't get into it.

David,

well, let me just say if, if, if people want to up their

EQ, their emotional intelligence and increase their self awareness and, and,

and speak more of what's real mouse in the room, you can find it on Amazon.

It's 12 95.

and I think.

Particularly if you've got a partner or kids, it could be

gold for everybody to read it.

So you'll have a common language and go from here to up here

in terms of authenticity.

I'm not saying it'll always be easier, but I think it's easier

than not talking about it.

We'll include that down in the links.

David, I was going to ask one of my last questions, but there's one more question

I want to ask that when I get someone who has, number one coach in the world on

their, on their bio, and I'm a coach, I consider there to be value in coaching.

But what I'd love to ask is almost my last question is what is The value of coaching.

What does, what does coaching bring to the table for people?

What are your thoughts on that?

And, and then there's a couple of things I want to ask before we wrap up.

Why coaching?

Firstly, I do not call myself the number one coach in the world.

To clarify, at one

With the, with the whole conversation about arrogance.

at one time, someone pointed out to me that it seemed

I was the largest provider to the coaching industry in the world.

And that felt worth mentioning because I'm proud of it.

Again, you're, you're thrown in these really big questions that

I don't have the time to answer.

The short version is when I'm working with a coach, I'm going to show

up in a completely different way.

business and for my life.

I'm going to put my attention on the stuff I want to change and I'm going

to get into action in a different way.

If my coach has some suggestions and ideas that I hadn't

thought of, that's pure bonus.

Same with pickleball.

I want to get better at pickleball.

I can take five years trying to work it out on my own, or I can

get someone who's been through it.

And there's a video on YouTube that I just launched in the last month,

which is the, something like the five unexpected benefits of a business coach.

So if anyone wants to look that up, they can, they can go and find it.

It's a much, obviously a much richer conversation, but there's my short answer.

Very good.

David, how can people connect with you?

If someone says, Hey, I'd like to connect with David, get more

info, get a coaching session.

How can they do that?

Thank you.

Well, there's a bunch of free stuff on my site.

I send out a couple of videos once a week, so you can go and subscribe at focus.

ceo.

It's not dot com.

I actually got the dot CEO extension.

so you're welcome to that.

If you're interested in working with me one on one, and you're a business

owner who's already up and running successful making revenue, and you

care about more than making more money.

cause we can start there, but that's not where we're going to finish.

You're welcome to apply for a coaching session.

and the same site focus.

ceo and something I mentioned to you earlier, Tim, that I've been experimenting

with, I used to just charge a flat fee.

It was 2, 000 a month, no matter where you're at in your business.

And I realized recently that some people, if you're not earning a quarter

of a million a year in revenue, Yet, I probably wouldn't recommend you

pay two grand a month to a coach.

I'd say go, go get a cheaper coach.

so I've just started experimenting with a sliding scale.

And so instead of charging a flat 2000, I'll charge you somewhere between 300 and

2000 if your business isn't at the point where it makes sense to pay my full fee

and the way to do that is go to focus.

co.

Apply for the coaching program.

It doesn't commit you to anything or me to anything, but you'll then

get access to my intake form, which will have you spend 10 minutes.

Really thinking about what you want out of your business and your

life and where your roadblocks are.

It's, it's gold.

Even if we never spoke, it's a great intake form.

and then it'll take you straight to my calendar to book a 15 minute call.

Just make sure you mention in the form, seek, go create and sliding scale

so that I know that it was from this podcast and I know to honor that offer.

And if we both agree that I can help you.

If we think that that's likely, we'll pick a number that feels good for

both of us and we'll get started.

Very good.

Thanks for that, David.

We are Seek, go create here.

Those three words, David, my final question.

I'm going to, I always say this, I'm either going to ask you to pick one

of those three words or force you, whichever you want to, however, your

personality wants to look at it,

Create.

I

and, and why

think that's the nature of coaching.

I think we're creating.

We can just go in default mode and respond to the world, but we have willpower.

We have something that, most other animals don't have.

We have the ability to create.

What do you want your life to look like?

What do you want your relationship to look like?

What do you want your body to be?

And I love that game.

So I choose create.

David?

Thank you for this conversation.

I've enjoyed it.

It's been very rich and I think it teased so many deeper things that we could have

talked, talked about, but I've enjoyed it.

Thanks for listening in here at Seat Go Create.

We have new episodes every Monday.

We release on YouTube and all the.

Podcast platforms.

If you would like to support what we're doing here, I invite

you to go to seek, go create.

com forward slash support.

You could actually contribute comments there, or you could

contribute financially.

We welcome that.

So go take a look at seek, go create.

com forward slash support.

We're going to include all of David's coordinates and what

he mentioned down in the notes.

So go check out all of that.

I recommend you take him up on a conversation.

Thank you And to me, it seems healthy just to even go through his intake

form, just to get the thought process.

I think that would be extremely healthy.

So I appreciate David being here.

Thanks for joining us until next time.

Continue being all that you were created to be.