David Wood, Founder Of Focus.ceo | Impact Of Life Coaching On Modern Businesses

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About The Guest

Talking Points

• 00:00 – Introduction.
• 01:02 – David Wood’s Origin Story.
• 08:34 – Breaking The Psychology Of The Rat Race. 
• 17:17 – What Is The Blind Spot That People Are Not Aware Of?
• 22:58 – How Important Role Mindset Play In Our Lives?
• 27:17 – What Does Courage Mean?
• 31:59 – What Are The Exercises That David Does To Keep Himself Relaxed?
• 34:08 – What Is The Goal Of David’s Work?
• 41:16 –
• Why Playing It Safe Is The Most Dangerous Thing You Can Do.
• 46:50 – Where Do People Connect With David?
• 48:17 – The Biggest Challenge Of David’s Career And How He Overcame It.
• 49:05 – Who Is David’s Mentor?
• 49:19 – A Book Or A Podcast Recommendation.
• 50:05 – One Thing To Tell Your 20-Year-Self.
• 50:42 – What Does Success Mean?

Show Links

• https://www.myfocusgift.com/
• https://twitter.com/_focusceo
• https://www.instagram.com/_focusceo/

Podcast & Newsletter Sponsors

FEEDBACK LOOP – https://go.feedbackloop.com/success

GRIN – https://grin.co

ATHLETIC GREENS – https://athleticgreens.com/success

HUBSPOT – https://hubspot.sjv.io/successstorypod

 

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What is the Success Story Podcast?

On this podcast, you’ll find interviews, Q&A, keynote presentations & conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.

The podcast is hosted by entrepreneur, business executive, author, educator & speaker, Scott D. Clary.

Scott will discuss some of the lessons he’s learned over his own career, as well as have candid interviews with execs, celebrities, notable figures, and politicians. All who have achieved success through both wins and losses, to learn more about their life, their ideas, and insights.

He sits down with leaders and mentors and unpacks their stories to help pass those lessons onto others through both experiences and tactical strategy for business professionals, entrepreneurs, and everyone in between.

Website: https://www.scottdclary.com

Podcast: https://www.successstorypodcast.com

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Machine Generated Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

life, world, shopify, person, people, coaching, question, athletic greens, business, coaches, success story, sales, speak, feedback loop, helping, gave, wire, find, started, real

SPEAKERS

David Wood, Scott D Clary

Scott D Clary  00:00

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I’m your host, Scott D. Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. The HubSpot Podcast Network has incredible podcasts like the salesmen podcast hosted by wil Baron. Now if you work in sales, you want to learn how to sell or you want to peek at some of the latest sales news and insights, you need to listen to the salesman podcast. The host will Baron help sales professionals learn how to find buyers and win big business in effective and ethical ways. If you think any of the following topics resonate with you, you’re gonna love the show, how to find and close your dream job and sales 12 essential principles of selling digital body language, how to have better zoom sales meetings, or how to tell a remarkable sales story. If these are topics that would interest you. Go check out the salesman podcast wherever you get your podcasts or at hubspot.com/podcast network. today. My guest is David Wood. David is one of the largest life and business coaches in the world. He was a former consulting actuary for Fortune 100 companies, he built the world’s largest coaching business. He became number one on Google for life coaching, and he was coaching 1000s of hours in countries around the globe. As well as helping others He is no stranger to overcoming challenges himself, he has survived the collapse of his paraglider, he survived a fractured spine, he survived the witnessing the death of his sister at the age of seven, anxiety and depression, a ton of things that have shaped him to who he is. Today, he coaches high performing business owners to double their revenue and their time off by focusing on less and being 30%. more courageous. In their business and their career. We spoke about his story, how he pivoted from working with businesses, as a consulting actuary to being one of the top business life coaches in the world. We spoke about how 30% more courage can double your revenue and your happiness. We spoke about why playing it safe is one of the most dangerous things we can do. We spoke about how to push yourself out of your comfort zone, we spoke about what is available to you in your life and your work. If you practiced real daring, he’ll explain what that means more often. So this is a pure business professional life mindset interview. He’s an incredibly inspirational person. If you listen to this, it’s going to light a fire, it’s going to get you off your ass, and it’s gonna get you doing whatever it is you have to get doing. And honestly, he’s a remarkable guy. So let’s jump right into it. This is David Wood. He is a high performance coach. He’s the founder of focus dot CEO, and he is one of the number one business life coaches in the world.

 

David Wood  03:06

Well, I’m a bit of an unusual coach in that I think most coaches choose either business coaching, or they do personal slash life coaching. And I’m unwilling to choose one or the other. I work with a whole person. And I think it’s because of how I started. I had a tragedy when I was seven years old, I lost my little sister and I and I watched her. I watched her die in a traffic accident. And at the time, we didn’t know about therapy, and you know that you should take the kid to the funeral and all of that. So none of us really knew that there was a big impact of that. And I think what happened and I learned later in life, I shut down my emotions. I got really good being left brained and cerebral and logical. So I came top of my school, I got paid to go to university had a scholarship got transferred to New York and at the age of 2324. I’m a consulting actuary to Fortune 100 companies. So I’m going to Sony Music and Ford and Exxon, working for one of the biggest consulting firms in the world, and helping them helping these companies to improve their bottom line and make more money. So I was really good at business numbers and systems. I didn’t realize until a friend said why don’t you go and do this personal growth program, which I really resisted because they all wore name tags and they smiled way too much. And I’m like this, this can’t be real and they’re just a bunch of sheep. They’re mindless sheep who can’t think for themselves go into this, you know this bullshit. Fortunately, they cracked my cynicism, they cracked my heart open and I discovered that there are people who’ve dedicated their lives to making the world better. It’s not just about money. I didn’t know that. And so I generated a new pulse ability for myself, which is really helping people, not just helping huge companies make money, but helping people have their lives be better. And I realized, too in that course, I didn’t know anything about emotional intimacy, about vulnerability, about true authenticity and showing who you are to the world. Instead of hiding 90% of it. I also didn’t realize that these things were critical for leadership, and true influence, you know, funnels through to sales and all sorts of things. So the first half of my life was all about numbers, systems and money. And the second half has been a real deep dive into my own journey of learning all the things I didn’t get as a kid. And so now, I call myself a business coach. People come to me because they’re already successful, but they do want to grow revenue faster, and they want more time off. That’s great. I’ll start there with you. If that’s all you want, you should go to someone else. Because the really juicy stuff is when we get into how are you showing up in the world? Are you expressed? Are you asking for everything you want? Are you saying no, when you should? How you’re handling your tough conversations? How’s your connection with your kids? How’s you connect with your partner? And the real test? If you were to lie on your deathbed, tomorrow afternoon, and I hope it’s a long time coming for everybody. If you were to do that, would you be able to look back on your life and say I gave it everything? I truly lived? I melt it? Or would you say? No, that was not how I really wanted to live my life. Let’s ask those questions now. And not wait until it’s too late.

 

Scott D Clary  06:49

I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode feedback loop. Now, if you’re a product person, entrepreneur, startup guy like me, you have at some point in your career tried to take a product to market, you’ve tried to come up with a new idea, and it fell flat. It’s ultimately failed 85 to 90% of all new products of all new startup ideas fail. Why is this basically it is really hard, really expensive and really time consuming to validate product market fit with your potential consumers or customers. Old Style market research is way too slow, too complicated, too time consuming for dynamic, fast moving teams that want to build great stuff. But what if you could test out your idea your product with your target consumers whenever you want before you invest in the money time energy effort that it takes to actually develop a product? Well, that’s what startups all the way through to Fortune 500 are using feedback loop for you get quality feedback from your target customers early and often. Feedback Loop is the test before you invest product research platform. It has built in expert templates for concept testing, user discovery, prioritizing features on your roadmap, and much more, you can create your own test in minutes and get quality insights from your target consumers in hours, they set up a special link for everybody who’s a success story podcast listener to test it out to try it go to go dot feedback loop.com/access You get three free tests. That’s go dot feedback loop comm slash success. You can try it out for free, you get three free tests. So if you want your next product idea or feature to be a hit test before you invest, build based on data, not opinion, and launch with confidence with feedback loop, check it out right now. And I’m curious as you work with these individuals, I feel like a lot of people get caught up in the rat race, which is something that you probably were caught up in when you were first starting your career. Like you mentioned your first half year career was numbers and business and revenue and and then you started to understand some of the importance of I guess self awareness and and truly understanding what you can bring to the world and yourself and whatnot. But how do you break? How do you break that cycle of rat race of needing to make more money of needing to get the next promotion or needing to get the next round of investment? How do you break that psychological cycle? Because that’s how we’re all wired now and everything just reinforces that.

 

David Wood  09:17

Yeah, it’s really tricky for us humans because, you know, making money to feed ourselves and to feed others and to house ourselves into clothing is a is a biological drive. It’s an evolutionary trait. And so that’s good and valid. Man, I’m hustling. I’m hustling all the time. I just created a and I don’t think hustling is a bad word. It’s just you know, your hustle to make a living. The trap is, as you’re pointing out, we can get into that patent we can get into that groove. And we can forget to ask how much is enough. We can also forget so All right, this is great. It’s bringing up some powerful questions that we forget to ask. And my invitation is to everyone to ask these questions of themselves. And you can write these down on a piece of paper. So first question is how much is enough? How much is enough for me to be comfortable in life? And then how much would I would I really like to make and have in the bank? That would, that would probably make life better as a two as a four numbers, actually, so you’ve got an income amount that would have you comfortable and an amount in the bank that would have you comfortable, and then you’ve got what you would like. Now many of us go to pass that I’ve got one client I’m working with now who set a goal of bringing in a company making a company that’s worth about two or $3 million. And then he achieved that, and then automatically thought, well, what’s the next goal? Okay, or get it up to say 10 or $20 million. Now, that’s not fun for him. He’s not having a good time, it’s harder to go from, from the three from from, say, 1 million to two or three, then it is from three to six. That’s what he’s finding. And he’s not having a good time. And so we’re really diving into these questions. How much is enough for you? And I asked another great question last week, and he did he did his homework. If money was not an issue, you won the lottery, someone just gave you 30 million? Or someone gave you 5 million. Right? For many people, that’d be plenty. if money wasn’t an issue, what would you do? And he really had to dig deep and, and things came out, like he’d love to be on the beach, more just taking walks on the beach, swimming in the ocean, more time with family, playing tennis, loves to train, loves to be learning something, also loves to be building. So he might still be in business, even if money wasn’t an issue. So it’d be really good, I think, for all of us to work out our core values. Three of his core values were passion, creativity, and love. And so we’re looking now at how he can create more of that in his life. And to your question of like, how do you bump out of the rat race? Well, you ask yourself questions like this. And even better have someone else ask you questions like this, because it’s hard to do it for ourselves. He can’t read the label from inside the jar. Sometimes you just need someone else. I’m about to hire a nutritional coach, because I can do a lot of it on my own. But I won’t do a lot of it on my own. And she’s going to spot things that I wouldn’t spot. And even in our first session, as as we’re talking, my brain started coming up with new things. She didn’t, my my brain came up with it. But because I was in a coaching session, and I started writing down all the things that I knew I should be doing, but I was sliding on. And so just out of that one session, I went and joined a gym and committed to three squash games a week, I committed to being in bed by 11 instead of 1230. Stopping television by 10. I booked a singing lesson. And now I’m taking singing lessons. So all sorts of things can come out of someone else saying, How could life be better? What What would that look like and digging into it with you? And maybe it’s a friend of a friend’s willing to show up once a week for you. Sometimes it’s hard to get friends to do that. Maybe it’s a therapist, maybe it’s a mastermind, maybe it’s a men’s group, maybe it’s a women’s group? I hope that answered your question. It does. And

 

Scott D Clary  14:01

so it’s getting somebody to sort of just take a they can be invested in you but invested in you in in a way that they don’t see things through your lens. So an unbiased view an audit of your life, so to speak. And that’s what’s going to help you understand that may be everything that you’re investing yourself in. Some of its going to be very good. Some of it does move the needle, some of it has to be done for the career for the job for the business.

 

David Wood  14:29

But yeah, what’s up? What’s your mind is on? Yeah, we’ve got blinders, and that’s fine, right? we’re creatures of habit. We’re living in our own personal matrix. If you’ve seen The Matrix, we’re living in that and if that’s going well for you, if you’re loving it, and you’re and you’re inspired by what you’re doing, and you’re moving at the pace that’s good for you think great. Don’t change anything, but there’s a reason that people leave like Bill Gates, goes and gets a coach, and the top athletes at the top of their game have coaches. Because we can’t read the label from inside the job. I consider myself. This is a reveal. I consider myself as a very intelligent, very self resourceful, and motivated, independent person. And so the biggest thing for me to watch is my arrogance. I often assume I’m the smartest person in the room. And in many rooms, that’s probably going to be true. But but the the shortfall, the real problem, pitfall is that by assuming that I’m that that leaves me closed, and not open to wait, maybe there’s a better way. Or maybe this would help. The I just got coaching on the promotion that I’m that I’m doing right now. And something obvious that I should have spotted, was pointed out and like, oh, okay, that’s really good. And then there were four other things that that I hadn’t thought of. So yeah, outside input can be absolute gold one, because in that space, just someone else being in front of you asking these questions, more things are going to come out of your brain than would have come out before. And then there’s the accountability factor, when you know, you got to show up once a week. And you got to say, if you did what you said you’re going to do, it’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to say, I didn’t do it. Right, don’t feel good about yourself, you’re embarrassed in front of someone else. So the next week, you probably do it, and then you feel good. Hey, I did what I said I was gonna do, it wasn’t easy, but I got it done. I feel proud. Now you’re now you’re building a positive cycle. And if you keep doing that, you get in the habit of a wait, when I do what I say I’m going to do. It feels powerful, it feels good. And look, I just got these results. So I’m a big fan of building positive reinforcing cycles. And fortunately, we get into some very unproductive habits and cycles. And it’s all about this is changing.

 

Scott D Clary  17:17

So let’s so I want to and you made a good point there you said, you know, for in most rooms, you could be the smartest person in the room. And I’m sure you work with a lot of people that also have that mindset. So if you’re working with a lot of high performing individuals, they all think that the smartest person in the room Oh, yeah. Until they’re not. So what’s what’s the one blind spot that is there a one blind spot that you see a lot of people have, that are super high performers think they’re self aware, think they figured out life. But when you go in and you do that audit, you notice there’s a one thing that potentially keeps repeating that they don’t, they’re not aware of that’s a huge detriment, and really inhibiting their success or happiness or growth, whatever it is.

 

David Wood  17:58

Yeah, we’re gonna go deep here. So the biggest thing, and this is for high performance, low performers, this, this seems to be for the human experience is. And I’ll use the movie The Matrix again, we’re all living in our own matrix, but we don’t know it. It’s like Neo before he took the blue pill. And I and I believe this is what the great teachers allude to when they when they talk about waking up, and I don’t pretend to be enlightened. I’m a student of this. But we live as if this is our reality, as if, oh, he’s a nice guy. She’s a bitch. He’s a jerk. This person likes me, this person doesn’t like me. I couldn’t do that, because I’m not good at it. You know, one of my limiting beliefs right now, I’m, I’m not a good singer. We have this. And yet, we don’t question these things. And, and this is evolutionary, too, I believe, you know, you’re not going to put your finger on the hot plate every single time to check if it’s hot. You got burned as a kid, you know, that damn things hot. You don’t have to check it again, right? That’s called stable data that we have. But when it comes to humans, including other humans and ourselves, we make all these assumptions. So now we’re living in our matrix. This is how it is. And that’s fine while you’re having a good time. Live in that dream world. Byron Katie says no story, no world. If you’re not making up stories and beliefs about about the universe, you have no world so it’s fine. But when things are painful, I think most of us don’t most of us don’t realize the suffering is coming purely from what we’re thinking. It took me a long time to get that. I was always wondering, why is this man who’s burned and in a wheelchair

 

19:59

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21:12

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David Wood  23:14

A massive difference in the world and seems lit up speaking to groups saved a mountain in Colorado. And yet this other person who’s rich, and famous and successful just took their life. I was always curious about that. And then Byron Katie was able to explain it for me. It’s what you’re thinking. It’s not what you have. So the good news is that can be hacked. The thinking can be hacked, our thinking gives us our world. I’m having I’m having a good day to day. And it’s because I’m believing a bunch of things about my day, believing that my energy is the right level, I’m believing that it’s going to be a fun film shoot. Later on today, I’m believing all these things. So I don’t go this deep this fast with clients generally. But when they’re upset when they’re stressed, when they’re unhappy when they’re suffering, maybe approaching burnout. I know that they’re in a matrix so I can start looking at what they’re believing and start poking holes in that. And then, you know, maybe nothing in their external world changes but their internal world does and now they now they’re having a good time. Now they’re not freaking out anymore. I know someone right now. Not a client, but this person has a has a stalker getting violent death threats. Now, I can barely imagine what that would do to someone’s nervous system. I know my nervous system is pretty fragile. So just living with someone sending vicious death threats and having to look over your shoulder. Now, though, that can be approached two ways. One way is all the practicals. Great. So I went over, sat down with this person and said, All right, I’m going to fire off like 30 questions, I want to know what you’ve tried. I want to know what you what you’ve considered and discarded. And then I got 10 ideas. Let’s brainstorm some things. So we did all the practicals. But I was clear that equally important, was how are you holding this? Are you against this person? So you’re in a fight? Can you bring love and compassion to this even as you set your boundaries and protect yourself? So it’s kind of strange in coaching, sometimes we’ll just roll up our sleeves and get practical, alright, you got to do this, this, this and this. And sometimes it’s like, Hey, your mindset seems like it might be causing some suffering right now. It’s causing a fight with you and your business partner. It’s causing a fight with you and your fiance, and it’s having you lose sleep. So yeah, let’s spend half the session on the practical things you can do. And let’s look at what you’re believing that’s giving you such a difficult time right now.

 

Scott D Clary  26:12

Mindset, obviously, is something you keep coming back to, which I don’t think anybody can disagree with is not important for not only happiness, getting out of your own head, I love the way you framed the matrix. That’s, I love that. I love that analogy. Because that’s, that’s that’s quite literally what we all are in every single day just stuck in our own heads. And to take it to an extreme that can impact your relationships, but it can impact your health, the the way that you view your job and your position in life and your financial situation and your relationships that can lead to cortisol increases, which can lead to heart attacks, and all these health, detriments and whatnot. So it’s like a big thing that probably isn’t, I would say probably isn’t really focused on enough really focused on health.

 

David Wood  27:03

It’s a massively undervalued. Yeah. When you said, when you said I, no one can really argue with mindset. I was thinking, but we do including me. You know, if I see oh, there’s a course on mindset, my I don’t need that made a course on on more money, or I need a course on finding a partner or whatever. But fortunately, someone introduced me to Byron, Katie, and I read the book, I read a book loving what is and it didn’t really stick. I’m like, Man, I don’t know. And I didn’t really buy it. I didn’t buy it, that the mind was everything. I didn’t buy it. I didn’t know that my whole reality comes through my five senses. It’s the only way that I know of to experience reality through my five senses, and the interpretations of my mind. That’s the filter. So my whole world is actually in here. It’s not out there. It took me a while. Finally I went and did a course with her and I was like, oh my god, this is the holy grail. And she says the worst thing that can happen to you is a thought.

 

Scott D Clary  28:12

Now I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode grin now grin is the number one Creator management platform, helping ecommerce brands connect with their audience through the power of creator partnerships, now influencer marketing it’s easy to get lost in the spreadsheets and busy work combing through a messy web of communications looking for content wondering about campaigns are they delivering were the data points have you shipped the creative yet? Have you shipped the product yet? Have they build have they invoice all of the headache that comes with managing creators and influencers that’s where grin comes in. So grin is an all in one software that allows you to treat your creators like your brand revolves around them. Even though you’re actually saving yourself a ton of headache. Grant helps you find and recruit the perfect ambassadors for your brand streamlines the communication process collects all the Creator content in one spot tracks ROI in real time. So you can create smarter campaigns that drive sales with grin one person can do the work of an entire team you can find them recruit influencers communicate with them ship product, aggregate create a content measure ROI all in one spot you are maximizing every dollar you invest in influencer marketing and you are eliminating all of the headache all of the busy work brands like liquid IV First Aid Beauty movement, they all run influencer marketing campaigns at scale and work with 1000s of creators at the same time. They’re all using grin. So you need to treat your creators like your brand revolves around them because in the Creator economy it does. Experts believe that influencer marketing will become a $15 billion industry by 2022 So this isn’t going away anytime soon you have to figure out how to use influencers and creators at scale. Find out how grin can help you grow your brand. Watch the demo@grin.co that’s g R i n.co influencer marketing is easier with grin. Find out why at grande CO that’s g r i n dot C Oh yeah, I want to I want to speak about mindset still. But I want to speak about some of the things that you’re focused on now. Because when we were chatting before the show, we were smoking. We were speaking excuse me about courage, and which is another mind set thing. It’s another thing that we have. It’s not tangible, but has a major impact. So you speak a lot about courage. What is courage mean? People say, Well, I’m you know, I’m courageous. I jump into things. I do this, I do that. But what is it? What is real courage? And how does it actually impact your life? What would you say to somebody who says I want more courage in my life? What does that actually mean? It’s not tangible for me. Yeah.

 

David Wood  31:14

Well, yeah, I think there’s two big questions here. One is, do I actually need more courage? Like, would that change my life? I think you know, because I think we should address why. Why would you? Why is that even important? And then, how do you do it is I love that practical question. So firstly, the why I think the reason I talk a lot about courage is because, as I when I looked back over my life, in fact, I was in a therapy session, and the and the psychiatrist said, you’re almost counter phobic. And I’d never heard that word. But as soon as he said it, I got what he meant. If I’m afraid of something, I will generally go and do it. I almost have to do it. Because I think it’s because as a kid, I did let fear run me. So if I was being bullied, and I was bullied a lot, I didn’t stand up to them, I would back down. And it stung every single time. And I wish to this day, I wish I’d just punched a bully on the nose and taken a beating. Right, or who knows, maybe I would have come out on top. But I just let fear run me. And with with with girls at school, I didn’t ask them out, I was terrified. And it felt horrible to live like that. So as I got older, and I went into this personal growth program, and I got coaching, they would constantly nudged me and encouraged me and pushed me in the direction of doing scary things. And their version of scary things. We’re making a list of everyone in your life that you’re feeling complete with, that you hate, that you resent that you feel guilty about anyone you would not want to see on the street. And initially, it was hard. I couldn’t think of anyone and maybe one name two names. But as we kept going, more and more and more names, and they’d say, Great, now call them. I’m like, hell no. You what you want me to call the bully from school that I’ve hated for 20 years? No, you want me to call the the girl who dumped me twice and gave me the cold shoulder. And who I still resent now, but with coaching? And we’ll get to the how, like, how do you find the courage for that? I went and did it and I found oh my goodness, the results were mind blowing heart opening. That bully said at the end of the call. He said Well, what can I say or do now to help us move forward? That was the jerk. And the and the girl I called said, and I said I don’t need an apology or anything. I’m just letting you know, I’m letting go of it. And I wanted to I wanted you to know that. And she said I am so sorry. I was such an idiot. I was so unkind. And I’m just so sorry that I had that impact on you. It was amazing. It was amazing. So what I learned is that almost every time I lean into my fears, and I face it, I feel better afterwards. Don’t feel better doing it. No, it’s often terrifying. I went on national television in a kilt to sing and I can’t sing. And I literally peed my pants a little bit. It was terrifying. But boy did I feel good afterwards. I felt good afterwards. And then other things became easier once I’d done that, and so I want that for the world. The risk if you don’t do it, is that you’ll have regret. And I don’t want anyone to have that. So I just checked to see if you want to say anything before we get to the house.

 

Scott D Clary  35:13

No, no, no, I’m just listening. I’m just listening, man, this is, uh, this is great. This is really great. I think that’s I’ve never had to do some of those exercises, I think I would probably calling calling people that I wasn’t on good terms within an elementary school in high school. That’s difficult. That’s very difficult. So that’s what that’s what you did to psychologically break yourself out of this, this living in not fear, but like living with these, these things that are weighing down on you. And now you did that a few times. And then you understand what’s on the other side? And then now that’s something you can you just do in your life, I’m assuming,

 

David Wood  35:48

yeah. And because I’ve done so much of it, I think that gives me the street cred. Like I’ve done things, I’ve done some things that I can’t share publicly, I’ve done, I’ve gone and confessed to, to something I did. That was illegal when I was a kid, and could be prosecuted for, and I risked prison to apologize to somebody. Now, I’m not saying you’re going to go and do all of these things, I’m saying, what I want for everyone is to find the things that would make a difference to your life, even if they’re scary, and then decide if you’re going to do them. And I’ll rattle off some examples just to pop some ideas into people’s heads. So it might be telling a co worker that something they’re doing isn’t working for you, it might be saying to a team member, that it bugs you when they’re late to meetings, and you’d like them to be on time, it could be asking for something sexual in the bedroom, it could be making a confession to your kids, asking a celebrity to endorse your product, calling 10 people and ask them if they’re interested in working with you. You know, whatever it is for you. This is where courage comes in. If you don’t, you’re going to play small. And if that’s comfortable for you, and you’re loving it, great, don’t change a thing. But if you want to know what’s on the other side of those fears, then let’s talk about the how. So maybe we can use the acting example. I just started telling you we find

 

Scott D Clary  37:23

a good example. I think it’s a really good example not the second, you started telling me about that. Now all the stories coming together, why you do some of these things. So so that’s going to the acting example what you’re working on this afternoon, actually, when we’re recording this,

 

David Wood  37:35

yeah. So for years, I’ve been thinking, I just love to find out what happens if I really dive into acting, I’d like to try it out. I’d like to learn from my own personal growth, to get in touch with emotions. And I just, you know, I’d love to be the lead in a major movie. That’s what I you know, that’s a lifetime goal of mine. But I didn’t tell anybody I just that was kind of in the background, like one day. And then three months ago, I thought, You know what, I’m single at the moment. I’m mobile with my coaching. And I’m in the US. I think when my lease runs out, which is may one next year 2022, that might be a time to move to Los Angeles. So I started saying it, which was quite scary. Because what if I don’t do it? What if I tell people and declare it. And by the way, I’m declaring right now on this podcast, may one next year, I’m moving to Los Angeles, to devote myself to the art of acting full time for the minimum of one year. So I started saying it and then you got to be careful what you say, because a friend said, Well, I’m going to an audition for a play. Dracula. Do you want to come and audition with me? Now, a big part of me was like, no, because I don’t know how to act yet. I haven’t even done a class. And I don’t know how to audition. So no. But then another voice said, I think this is the sound the universe makes when it’s knocking. This is that sound. This is that opportunity. And what? And so here’s another hack. What’s the worst that could happen? That’s a really great question. Ask yourself, once you’ve got the awareness of what you’d like to do, ask yourself, how could it go badly? How could it go? Well, so important, the mind is really good with that first question. So it could go badly I could, I could be embarrassed. And they could say, what’s this guy showing up for? He’s got no idea what he’s doing. I could be embarrassed. How could it go? Well, I could get a part in the play. And the next question is if it did go badly? How would you handle that? So I said, Yes, I’ll go and do it. Now another thing I did to help myself with the fear, and also with the possibility of success, I didn’t just show up to this thing. I went and bought the script. So I had to fork out like $17.95 on this script, read the whole script. So I had the context, because that was suggested to me. So did that. Very few people at those auditions had the whole script. Second thing I did, I memorize the lines for the audition, because I sent them to us ahead of time, I was the only person I saw there, who didn’t have to keep looking down at the at the script. And I could actually give it my full thing. I had friends of friends come over to the house. To read lines with me. I Googled how to do a German accent. So I could speak like this and be German. And you know, Van Helsing, I want you to do this. And I’d learn how to do a German accent in like two hours. And I probably hour and a hire an acting coach for an hour, I paid 50 bucks to have someone run me through the four parts. So not only read that had to learn the lines for one part, but for different people. And then I showed up and I gave it, I gave it what I had. And lo and behold, they offered me the lead. So now you’re looking at Dracula, and in a paid professional production. So I now call myself a working actor. Others can argue with me, that’s fine, but I’m a working professional actor. And, and I think it’s because I, I did the hacks to prepare myself and get myself to it. And sure I was nervous. You know, if I think a lot of us think we have to be confident before we’ll go and do something. That’s a trap. Because if you’re gonna do something new, something cool something with huge upside, you probably aren’t going to be very good at it. When you start like learning the piano. You got to be willing to suck. I was willing to suck in that audition. And I said, I will read. And if they like it, I’ll read some more. And that’s how it’s panned out. I end up reading a lot because I you know, five weeks of rehearsals, we got 12 shows to do. Every weekend, man. I got the things out. So amazing

 

Scott D Clary  42:39

I just want to take a second to thank the sponsor of today’s episode, athletic greens. Now I’m super happy that I partnered with athletic greens because I literally use them every single day. Now I’ve known about athletic greens for a little bit only because I tried them about two years ago way before they decided to sponsor the show. And I noticed that in winters when I didn’t take athletic greens, I would get sick as a dog. When I did take athletic greens, I wouldn’t get sick at all. So it turns out that when you take one scoop of athletic greens, you’re taking an absorbing 75 high quality vitamins, minerals, Whole Foods sourced superfoods, probiotics and adaptogens. So this is incredible for your immune system. And a special blend of all of these ingredients supports your gut health, your nervous system, your immune system, your energy, your recovery, your focus your agent, so I take it one scoop every single morning. It’s lifestyle friendly, meaning whether or not you eat keto, Paleo vegan, dairy free, gluten free, it’s going to fit that diet which is important for me because sometimes I like to go a little bit low carb if you’re already taking a multivitamin this can completely replace that is born to choose a high quality vitamin with ingredients that your body will actually absorb Athletic Greens definitely takes care of that. And it’s way cheaper than actually getting all the different vitamins, supplements ingredients. If you’re going to buy them separately to make it easy athletic greens is giving you a free one year supply of immune supporting vitamin D and five free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athletic greens.com/success That’s right, that’s a special URL they put together just for success story podcast listeners. Again that is athletic greens.com/success to take ownership of your health and pick up the ultimate daily nutritional insurance there. So you’re living it you’re living it this is what people have to do. I want to I want to I want to ask just one more question just get some one more piece of information into this story. One thing that I’ve seen you speak about a lot when you when you do podcasts you say playing it safe is the most dangerous thing to do. Why is that? For somebody who is playing it safe?

 

David Wood  44:48

Regret regret. Firstly, playing it safe can get the playing is safe staying in the comfortable zone. The comfort zone can get very annoying comfortable. If you’re there long enough, right? You’ll get five years in a job and go, What the hell am I doing? I know this, I know how to do it. For 1520 years I served coaches. I help coaches build their practice, I was the coaches coach, I was the guy to go to, I was the largest provider of the coaching industry in the world. But I was in a tent 10 years too long. Because it was comfortable, I knew how to do it, I’d said everything I wanted to say, say and I was like, dying slowly, inside. So that’s, that’s the risk. I think, I know, speaking for myself, I need something new. In my life, I need something probably that I’m not good at, and that I have to have some humility with. Or I’m just slowly dying, I just I’ll go to television, smoke weed at night. And and just get it just get bored. Now, it could be it could be ping pong, and take on ping pong and have someone over two, three times a week and just train and get good at that. It could be that I’m taking on squash right now. Last night, when I stopped TV, I did an hour of singing exercises. Right? That’s something for me. That’s exciting. And then learning the craft of acting as exciting. In business, you might be like, I’m going to get three celebrities involved in my business that might be exciting for you, or I’m going to double revenue in six months. Pick something that’s a stretch, and maybe you’re not even sure how you’re going to get it done. How enlivening is that. It’s like, I don’t know exactly how to do it. But I’m, I’m committing to it. And now I’m going to find a way and I’m going to play that game.

 

Scott D Clary  46:52

I’ll tell you one thing, if you do, if you do do that, and you stick with it, you will start to map out the steps that you need to get in take to get there, it will start to manifest, you’ll start to figure it out. If you just keep that vision and you just stick with it long term, there’ll be there’ll be things that will start to appear in your life and in the people that you know and the things that you’ve you know, that you’ve done that will allow you to get to where you want to be and it’ll it’ll be funny how your life will move in that direction.

 

David Wood  47:19

Yeah, and and even if you don’t get that holy grail that you’re shooting for at the end of the road, the journey is so much more fun. I I am successful now as an actor, because I’m, I’m having a good time. That’s my definition of success. I’m having a good time. If I get no more gigs. And I just got another one this morning. I’m going to be a news announcer announcing a zombie apocalypse. Man, I’m made for this guy, you know, pretty dry. So much fun, right? I’m having a good time. Sure. There’s more. Yeah, I’d love to network with with, you know, some of the big stars. And I’d, I’d love to be able to call him friends. And I’d love to do a musical. I have other goals. But it’s a win. Now. If you create a goal, say 12 months from now. And you are loving the journey towards that goal, then I would say you can call yourself a success. That’s that’s the test. I had a friend say recently, if I won the lottery, I’d still be pushing this product that I’m trying to get to market. This is what I’d be doing. And I was like, What a great test. If I had unlimited money, I’d still be doing this. Yeah, that’s a great test and listeners if you do decide to work with me, that’s the test that I’m going to put to you.

 

Scott D Clary  48:55

I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today’s episode HubSpot. Now, the new year might have you thinking ahead to what you want out of your career. So when you think about your success story, what do you actually picture? Is it retiring early with a beautiful view of the skyline? Is it leaving a legacy with your name on it? Or maybe it’s helping influence and change some of the world’s most pressing issues? Whatever it is writing your success story starts by working smart because when you work smart your success story writes itself. A HubSpot CRM platform helps your marketing campaigns work harder and smarter. With intuitive visual workflows and bot builders. You can create scalable, automated campaigns across email, social media, web and chat so your customers hear your messages loud and clear. Are you tired of your content not adapting to mobile making it difficult for your customers to absorb your message a HubSpot CRM platform optimizes your content for multiple devices so that you can reach your customers wherever they are, which is just smart. Learn more about how you can transform your customer experience with a HubSpot CRM at home appspot.com

 

David Wood  50:02

I want to know if you’re successful and

 

Scott D Clary  50:05

I want to do I want to do a couple rapid fire to close this out before, before we pivot. I need your socials where people are going to go find you, websites, anything that you want to drop in the show. And it’ll go in the show notes too, obviously. But if people want to view,

 

David Wood  50:22

super easy, I create a one link. That’ll take you to a hidden page on my website. And it will give you a couple of resources that I offer to people who want to get twice as much done in half the time, there’ll be a link to my podcast, extraordinary focus, if you want to listen to me, as well as the amazing Scott. There’s a link to request a coaching session if something resonated for you, and you’re like, you know what, I can fly higher, faster, further with with outside input, request a session, and we’ll see if we’re a fit, I’m not a fit for everybody. And not everyone’s right for me. But usually, I can work that out in about 15 minutes. And you can do all of those things at my focus gift.com. Because I would like to give you the gift of focus. So my focus gift.com will take you straight to that hidden page on my site. And in the Met navigation, you can find my social links, if you want to follow me on Instagram and all the other regular places where amazing people hang out.

 

Scott D Clary  51:27

Awesome .Okay, so let’s do a couple rapid fire just pulling out some last insights from your career. Biggest challenge you’ve had, what was it? How’d you overcome it?

 

David Wood  51:37

Biggest challenge, you know, I’d say anxiety and depression. My my system, I’ve been dealing with this for 20 something years. And it’s sometimes it makes it hard to just get through a day, or to keep a date that I’ve made or, you know, we’d go into prisons here in Colorado and teach the inmates and it’s been hard for me to say yes, to that. I found ways to manage it. But definitely learning how to live with that. And to live the kind of life I’m living now with that has been the biggest challenge that I have both overcome and still deal with on a on a daily basis.

 

Scott D Clary  52:20

Amazing. One person who’s been incredibly impactful on your life, there’s probably too many, but you have to pick one. Who was it? And what did they teach you?

 

David Wood  52:28

Byron Katie, the worst thing that can happen to you as a thought, I love that.

 

Scott D Clary  52:33

And then a source a book or podcast, you’d recommend people go check out

 

David Wood  52:42

a book or podcast Well, this is not a business resource. This is just my book in the world. And I, I would even drive over to the author’s house to help him write the third one because he’s been like eight years, we’ve been waiting for this third book, and he’s having trouble with it. The book is called The Name of the Wind, the Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. And I just whenever I finished listening to the audio book for the third time, I’m sad because I miss I miss the main character, and I just want to hang out with him every day all day. Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

 

Scott D Clary  53:21

If you could tell your 20 year old self one thing, what would it be?

 

David Wood  53:25

Sometimes, it’s going to seem so hard that you don’t even know if you’re going to survive it. You don’t know if you’re going to make it through. But you do. You’re much more resilient than then you think. And I forget who said it, maybe it was real key. Feel the joy, feel the terror? None of it is final quote,

 

Scott D Clary  53:54

I don’t know who’s I’ve never heard that quote before. That’s a really good quote. And last question, what does success mean to you?

 

David Wood  54:06

Having a really great time. If you’re having a really great time consistently, I think that’s everything. That’s everything, whether it’s feeling love for you or feeling inspired, feeling energized or, or making a difference. If you’re having a great time in the world that is success. Yesterday I said to myself, I don’t know how I’m going to face this day. And then my mind said, Why do you have to face a day? Why do you pick that chunk of time? Why not? How am I going to face this next 30 years? Or how about how am I going to be in this moment. So fresh, hot off the presses.