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What Would You Do If You Were Fearless?

David Wood is the Founder of Focus.ceo, a coaching company that helps business owners double their revenue by setting clear goals and removing distractions. Before this, David was a Consulting Actuary to Fortune 100 companies such as Sony Music, Procter & Gamble, and ExxonMobil.

In addition to his role at Focus.ceo, David is the CEO of Tough Conversations International and Play For Real. He is also the host of the Tough Conversations podcast and the author of Get Paid For Who You Are: 5 Steps to Financial Freedom, Time Freedom, Location Freedom, and Inner Freedom.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

[0:00] Intro
[1:49] David Wood explains how he developed his passion for freedom and coaching
[6:58] The importance of prioritizing “happiness goals”
[9:41] David’s secret to success: practicing deliberate discomfort and fearlessness
[15:38] Joe Valley shares a courageous message
[24:57] How to deal with naysayers as you work toward achieving your goals
[28:07] Why you should start making the most of your life and career today — regardless of your age or health status

In this episode…

Do you feel like something is holding you back from achieving your goals? If so, you’re certainly not alone — and David Wood has a perspective that might just change your life and career.

Everyone is afraid of something when it comes to pursuing their personal and professional dreams. For some, it might be the fear of being too underqualified to buy or sell a business. For others, it could be apprehension about launching an expensive new marketing campaign — because the outcome might not be worth the money. Whatever it is that’s keeping you from taking the next step toward success, David has some advice: embrace discomfort and be fearless every step of the way. As he says, becoming courageous will help you find freedom from doubt and enjoy the goals you’re reaching for. So, how can you start leveraging this life-changing perspective today?

In this episode of the Quiet Light Podcast, Joe Valley sits down with David Wood, the Founder of Focus.ceo, to discuss the transformative power of embracing fearlessness in your personal and professional life. Listen in as David talks about setting happiness goals, using discomfort as a motivator, and living a full, focused life in every season — regardless of your circumstances. Stay tuned!

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Quiet Light, a brokerage firm that wants to help you successfully sell your online business.

There is no wrong reason for selling your business. However, there is a right time and a right way. The team of leading entrepreneurs at Quiet Light wants to help you discover the right time and strategy for selling your business. By providing trustworthy advice, effective strategies, and honest valuations, your Quiet Light advisor isn’t your every-day broker—they’re your partner and friend through every phase of the exit planning process.

If you’re new to the prospect of buying and selling, Quiet Light is here to support you. Their plethora of top-notch resources will provide everything you need to know about when and how to buy or sell an online business. Quiet Light offers high-quality videos, articles, podcasts, and guides to help you make the best decision for your online business.

Not sure what your business is really worth? No worries. Quiet Light offers a free valuation and marketplace-ready assessment on their website. That’s right—this quick, easy, and free valuation has no strings attached. Knowing the true value of your business has never been easier!

What are you waiting for? Quiet Light is offering the best experience, strategies, and advice to make your exit successful. To learn more, go to quietlight.com, email [email protected], or call 800.746.5034 today.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:07

Hi, folks, it’s the Quiet Light Podcast where we share relentlessly honest insights, actionable tips, and entrepreneurial stories that will help founders identify and reach their goals.

Joe Valley 0:29

Hey folks, Joe Valley here, and this is another episode of the Quiet Light Podcast. Thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it. Today’s episode is brought to you by Yes, The EXITpreneur’s Playbook. It’s a book that launched on June 15. And it’s a full m&a book focused on online sales only. You can find it at exit printer.io. Or just do a search on Amazon. If you own an online business, and you’ve ever thought about exiting, and you want the Ultimate Guide to selling your online business, as Mr. Walker Deibel says, definitely check out The EXITpreneur’s Playbook. Now onto today’s guest. He is a two time guests, we’ve had him on the past. He is a high performance coach, somebody that I am personally meeting with next week to see if I can get better at what I do. And I’m sure I can because there’s a lot of improvement in my world. He’s also the CEO of a company called Focus.ceo David Wood. Welcome back to the Quiet Light Podcast. Thanks, Joe, good to see you again. And so soon after I just interviewed you. I know, I know. It’s this is you and I have chatted with each other, you know, in the last 10 days a couple of times all new to the folks listening now. Can you give them a little bit more background on yourself? And what’s your life and purpose is all about?

David Wood 1:48

Yeah, well, I started in a country town in Australia. And apparently I got really good at left brain stuff. I had some trauma as a kid, watching my little sister die. And I was seven years old and she was five. And what happened and I didn’t know this until later in life when I went to therapy. As I shut down the emotional side. And I developed the left brain. I came top of my school, I got a scholarship, I got paid to go to university. And then I landed a job on Park Avenue in New York, consulting the Sony Music and Ford and Exxon and these big companies. And that’s at the age of 23, 24. So I figured I had it made. And then someone recommended a personal development course because I wasn’t very happy. And I thought I don’t want to be a self help junkie, I don’t want to you know, these people can’t think for themselves. And I just had such a negative opinion of it. But I went along anyway, even though they wore name tags, and they smiled way too much. And they cracked my cynicism. They cracked my heart. And I realized that I knew nothing about emotional intimacy, vulnerability, communication, leadership, transparency, I knew nothing about those things. So the first half of my life was all about getting really good at helping people make money. And the second half of my life has been more about freedom, emotional freedom, personal freedom, location, freedom, time, freedom. And so now when someone comes to me, I say, look, if you just want more money, go to somebody else. There are loads of people who that’s all they focus on, come to me, if you want more money, and you want your life to be better, you want to show up as a more extraordinary entrepreneur and human. That’s where I get excited.

Joe Valley 3:48

And that’s that’s why I’m excited to have my meeting with you next week. You know, I’ve been self employed since 1997, almost 24 years now, partner Quiet Light, a company that now has a total of 15 advisors and growing like crazy. Money is not the issue. It’s managing my time well and doing what makes me happy and fills my cup at this at this point in my career. And I think that’s critically important because I I sense David that, you know, being happier and more focused on what I do. And, you know, this is what you probably work with folks on, I’m actually going to be more productive in the time that I spend on the things that I’m enjoying more. And that’s probably going to help others within the firm do better and be more successful as we help more people and ultimately it’s all going to come back to my pocketbook. I’ll be happier, but happier with the level of money I’m making as well. Is that sort of Am I am I on the right path in terms of what we’re going to chat about next week?

David Wood 4:50

Yeah, what what came up for me is Colonel Sanders and I Brought up this this story for me. He said Colonel Sanders said, had forwards. We do chicken, right? Yeah, right. It wasn’t we do hamburgers, he would do steaks we do you know, sushi. It was it was we do chicken, right. And Colonel Sanders went really deep and had some success, we might say. And so it’s the same for a business owner over the next 12 months, what’s your version of that? If we try and do everything, we’re not going to do it very well. We’re going to be scattered. Now we will have open and we’ll have adrenaline, and we’ll have stress and will feel very busy. But I don’t think that’s where the real gold is. That’s not where the real cheese’s the real cheeses. We’d chicken right. So over the next year, what’s what’s the chicken for you? And then over the next week, what chicken for you? If you’re going to do one thing, right? This next seven days, what is it? And then we can bring it right back till tomorrow? What are you going to do tomorrow? Are you going to try and do chicken and hamburgers and steak and sushi? Or you’re going to do chicken right? And then same for the next 25 minutes. We bring it right back down. We’re doing a sprint. I got a sprint book for two hours. Everything’s turned off. I’m going to dive right in. What are you going to do? hamburgers, sushi noodles? Are you going to pick one thing and do it? Well? So the answer is yes, you had a you had.

Joe Valley 6:39

That’s the that’s the challenge with entrepreneurs is that we think we can do everything. And we’d love to be under pressure. And we get shiny object syndrome. And we have an affliction. It’s called I can do that. And the problem is that we try to do everything. So I like the narrowing of the focus. Part of what you and I have talked about in the past. And we sat down at Blue Ribbon mastermind at one point and some of the advice you gave me at that point, you don’t actually know this yet. So this is news to you. Some of the advice you gave me, has worked its way into The EXITpreneur’s Playbook when it comes to setting goals. And part of it is a happiness goal. It’s not just about, you know, money and dollars, it’s about happiness as well. How do you work with folks in terms of their happiness goal? In regards to the business?

David Wood 7:32

Yeah. Well, when people come to me, the first thing I ask is, what do you want? Now sometimes they know, more likely they have an idea. But they needed someone to ask that question. And then we go into it. And I start with 12 months. Okay, a year from now, what would have to have happened for you to feel really happy with your progress. I also like to ask what would have you do the happy dance? Now, the mind might start with business because that pays the bills. And so it’s a good place to start. Usually there’s a revenue target. Okay, let’s get clear on what that looks like. And if that’s doable? And then I ask how much time off do you want? A lot of people don’t think about that. But if you’re working 40 hours or say 60 hours a week now, what do you want it to look like, a year from now so that you can really enjoy your life? And then I so often they have three business goals. And then I say why don’t you come up with three personal goals. And for some people, that’s a stretch, because the mind resists a little bit. But maybe maybe they’ve wanted to run a marathon, that’s for years, and they never got around to it. Or maybe they want to feel 50% closer to their partner, or have their kids trust them. 50% more. I think these are wonderful questions to dig into so we can find out for each person. What would have you do the happy dance?

Joe Valley 9:04

I can’t wait to have this conversation next week. Let’s talk about some of the things that you know, specifically for the audience. You know, one of the things that we thought we covered today was courage and little line that that you had said how 30% more courage Can you know, help you double your revenue and increase your happiness as well? Can you delve into the courage aspect a little bit for the entrepreneurs that are out there, grinding it out running their businesses, trying to keep up with inventory trying to keep up with content writers?

David Wood 9:37

Yes. One of the one of the things we learned is how to be comfortable from an early age and we you know, we want we want our chair to go back further in the plane. We want our cup of tea to stay hot the whole time. We’re looking for comfort and we tend to shy away from things that are going to be on uncomfortable like telling a woman I’m attracted to when I’ve just met a REIT that might be edgy, and risky and uncomfortable. We’re in the business, we might not go and speak to a group because that’ll be scary. Or we might not ask that celebrity for an endorsement. Or we might not talk to our staff member about showing up late to meetings, because it’d be a bit awkward. And you know, this oh sensitive, maybe it’s going to be a whole thing. So we learn, unfortunately, to have comfort as the default. And the thing is, most of the rewards, most of the good stuff lies in the discomfort zone. Because most people aren’t going there. Yeah. So I like to talk about something called deliberate discomfort, practice deliberate discomfort, and you can do it in your you can do it in your personal life. One example for me is a cold shower. Pretty scary for me. Yeah. Like what’s going on? You know? Yeah, but that’s a really good example. Once you do it a few times, let’s say you do it 7, 14, 21 times, the body starts to get used to it. And it’s now you can have the health benefits of the cold shower and not be so freaked out anymore. It’s the same in our relationships, and it’s the same in our business. So here’s a great exercise. If you want the rewards that lie in the discomfort zone, take a piece of paper and write at the top of that piece of paper. What would I do if I was fearless? What would my life look like? And you can start to paint on a blank canvas, I would call 50 prospects and ask them if they want to work with me. I would approach Richard Branson write the foreword to my book, I would go go and pitch myself as as a speaker at not TEDx. But Ted, you know, I’m making this stuff up. But you write it down? What would it be for you? and include some conversations? If you are fearless, what would you say to your staff? What would you say to someone who’s been annoying you? What would you say to the people that you want more from? I’ll give you an example of an AED. Me, I just thought of it. I’d like to get a housing loan. But my incomes weird with Australia and the US and I’m not sure I can get a bank to back me even though I’m confident making the payments. So I’d like to ask a friend, if he might be open to co signing my loan. That’s edgy. For me. That’s a real edge. And so I think I’m going to do it. I also carried the post it on my I have a smaller Facebook group with just my closest friends. And I thought I could post it there. And maybe someone’s got surplus credit. And they’re like, Hey, I know you’re good for it. You know, particularly since I’d put up not just the US property that I buy, but I have an Australian Property I’ve put up as collateral that the US banks don’t care about. But that’s an example of what I might write down, I could ask my friends to see if someone would want to co sign a loan for me.

Joe Valley 13:16

Yeah, I heard somebody you know, recently that they said basically, your your greatest potential is just outside of your comfort zone. And if you if you live within your comfort zone, you’re never going to reach your greatest potential question, though, is how do you decide which you know where and that discomfort zone you want to be and how often you want to be there because, again, it’s back to that singular focus so that you’re achieving that 12 month goal that 10 months ago, that six month at 25 minute goal. Now, how do you? What do you do first, pick those things you’re gonna focus on or the discomfort zone?

David Wood 13:56

Well, the first step would be a piece of paper I just mentioned, and asking yourself, what would life look like if I was feelers? Now, if you’re working with a coach, or in a mastermind, or in a men’s group, or a women’s group or something like that, you can ask those people? Where do you think I’m holding back? Ask your partner. Ask your kids. Where do you ask your friends? Where do you feel like I’m holding back? I’ve got a friend. I was coaching a little bit yesterday, who wants to create a drone footage company trading videos for real estate companies and whatever. And so I was gonna hook him up with a connection and then he got scared. He’s like, Oh, wait, I’ve got all this stuff in my life that isn’t sorted out yet. Maybe I should do all that first. I said that’s a value or you could do it all. Get yours. You know, you’re not going to work 24 seven. So get your life in order and create a little time to move forward. He was really confronted. So we found pretty quickly where his edge was, I had a podcast interview, a podcast host was was interviewing me. And she asked me for coaching. So I called her and at the end, she realized the thing that was scaring her was really going forward with a book launch. She was playing it so small and holding back because she was that the world wouldn’t really want the book. At the end of the coaching, she said, Wow, I did not realize that fi was running the show. I’m now going to dive fully into the launch. And excuse me while I go and throw up for a second. All right, let

Joe Valley 15:35

me just interrupt no right here that I’m gonna I’m gonna interrupt you right now and give a specific, fearless message to the audience. I wrote the EXITpreneur’s book for you. Please go and buy it, share it with friends and give us a positive review. So that we can reach the goal of a million online entrepreneurs so that they better understand the value of their business. It’s not about me, it’s about you. I want the book sales to produce education and information to help you get more value for your business. If and when you eventually exit it. It works for buyers, too. If you’re a buyer of online businesses, and you buy the book, you’re going to be able to discover instant equity in the businesses that you’re buying. If the person that is selling their business, didn’t research the material in the book as well. Okay. Over I interrupted you to give out my own fearless message and to ask for what I want, which is I want people to buy this book, David, how do others do that? in their business? If they’ve got staff? Okay, go ahead. I need to I need to do something. Go ahead.

David Wood 16:44

Yeah, let’s not let’s not skip over that moment. How was that for you to to ask for what you want to just then

Joe Valley 16:50

I feel like I have to apologize in some ways for asking for what I want, which is weird, right? It’s this. This broker stigma that I’ve always had makes me feel apologetic for asking people to do certain things when the reality is I am just here to help. And I’ve had 8001 on one conversations without printers over the last nine years. I can’t keep up that pace. And what I’ve learned over that process is now in the book. It’s the first of its kind. It’s m&a book focus strictly on online businesses geared towards not the Harvard MBA Wharton graduates, it’s geared towards the bootstrap entrepreneur that all of a sudden woke up. I’ve got my,

David Wood 17:41

my I interrupt you for a moment. Of course, this is your podcast, I want to I want to Well, it’s actually yours, but interrupt because I don’t want to get away from what just the fearless which was you just you realized in conversation, oh, I just found an edge. For me, I just found a little edge, which has just been very clear, upfront, boom, this is what I want you guys to do, it’s going to be great for you is going to be good for me too. It’s going to be good for everybody. And you are self expressed. And I’m excited about that. Because that’s what I want for everyone. Now for some people that are big on a podcast. So the question is, what is it for you? What is your edge? And you just brought up Joe’s idea about staff. A lot of people have some real issues around stuff, there might be some stuff that’s a bit awkward to say to someone, hey, you know you, I’ve asked you three times to do something and it’s not happening. I’m really curious what’s going on? Right? Sometimes that’s the edge. It might be asking you, your wife or your husband, hey, there’s something I’d like in the bedroom. And I’m nervous to talk about it, because maybe you’re not into it. And that’s going to be awkward, but can we have a coffee? Can we have a real conversation about in our ideal world, what we might have in our sex life? That’s edgy for a lot of people. Find out what it is for you I the quickest way that I know of is coaching, coaching, or a mastermind or therapy or something like that. Because it’s in the conversations that we start to go, Oh, wait a minute, I didn’t even see it that that’s an edge. That’s where I’m holding back. Now you don’t have to do everything. Once you realize that you’ve got that that list on your sheet of paper of the things that you would do if you are fearless. I’m not saying you have to go and do all of it tonight. Some of it you may never do. But the first step is awareness because the mind hides these things from us. We want to dig them up and go Okay, this is an edge for me. This is an edge for me. This is a bit scary. This one’s easy. And then you might want to go through the list and just circle two or three things as a just for this week and go and do those to get your feet wet. Practice deliberate discomfort. And you might find if it goes well, and you enjoyed the process, or at least you enjoyed the rewards, you might circle another two or three things on the list. And keep doing that.

Joe Valley 20:13

I am. So looking forward to our conversation next week. You know, it’s it’s funny, it’s so much material is out there and available in book format. Right? There’s the one thing, which is, you know, part of what you’re talking about you focus in on that one thing, I’ve read the book, I’ve read, you know, dozens of self help business books, but I don’t think that any of them can hold a candle to a conversation with somebody that’s in the space and an expert in their field. What I do sometimes find difficult, though, is the idea of the mastermind, when you talk about mastermind, are you talking about, you know, our mastermind focused on breaking out of your comfort zone, in business and in life? Are you talking about that business mastermind, because sometimes, the business mastermind is all about, you know, gaining organic rankings, or if it’s a FBA business might be you know, Amazon hacks? What what type of mastermind Are you referring to when you talk about this?

David Wood 21:13

Well, if it’s a mastermind, that, that confronts you, and that asks you the tough questions, and has you realizing and learning then I think, I think that’s a good mastermind. If it’s one way, you just get knowledge. That’s great, too. That’s great to think it doesn’t have to be either or, yeah. No, I think we could use both, we could use some some source of education. So constantly learning about what matters. I think we can also use talking more as a coach that I’ve followed for some time, and he says, hire cheap hands, and expensive heads. So you know, for doing the actual work in the business, get people at the lowest price you can, but for advice, and for coaching, and for breaking outside of your paradigm. pay good money for that. And I thought that made a lot of sense. Yeah, it makes a heck of a lot of sense.

Joe Valley 22:17

Okay, light bulbs going off here and there. Which is a problem, right? Because there’s so many things that I want to do, but I’ve got to put down on a list. What would I do if I was fearless? I have an idea of what it is. So I’m very Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Looking forward to that, actually, you said you have an idea of what it is? Yeah. You want to share it with us? Sure. The, I believe the book can be a Wall Street Journal bestseller. And that takes five to 10,000 sales in one week, with 10% of those coming from Barnes and Noble. And we’re not doing that on the launch of July, June 15. Simply because the Barnes and Noble sites not it’s going to be open. So you know, openly stating this is this is the goal. There’s there’s two it’s Wall Street Journal bestseller list, because that will just get more exposure and help more people, but ultimately, to sell a million books. And the reality is that most most authors sell about 300 books in the first 12 months. I’d like to sell 100,000 books because it’s helping people out of care if I break even, you know, it would be helping 100,000 people understand the true value of their business.

David Wood 23:37

I love your clarity. You feel like all right. I already know what what to do for me, boom, boom, boom, best seller. I love that. I want that clarity for everyone. We won’t always choose to go forward. That’s okay. I don’t I don’t do everything. I’m afraid.

Joe Valley 23:55

It’s interesting, because, you know, it’s, I’m a little afraid to say it to share the goals for fear of explaining that I didn’t achieve them, in fact, oddly, and there’s always going to be naysayers in this world. And maybe you’ve got some advice on how to deal with in my in my situation, I just ignored them. I I shared the book with someone who has a fairly substantial podcast. And it’s weird. He had me on the podcast, and helped but he also told me that not on the podcast itself. He’s like, yeah, this there’s not a wide audience for this book. Don’t expect it to be a best seller. Like why in the world? Would you say that to anyone? A and B, I’m going to prove you so dead wrong. I’m never gonna tell you that I’m proving you wrong. I’m doing it with the intention of proving right. I think the audience is huge. But how do you how do you deal with the naysayers as you’re becoming fearless and setting goals and trying to achieve them?

David Wood 24:57

I hear about naysayers. A lot. don’t tend to meet them for some reason, like, like my friends a pretty amazing and they’re like, Yeah, man, you go for it. That’s amazing. So I don’t experience it myself.

Joe Valley 25:14

But the lesson there might be to circle is surround yourself with the right people

David Wood 25:19

back. That could be it. I mean, definitely if you’ve got a good mastermind or therapist or coach, they’re not going to be telling you how to do it. Although that’s not true all the time. Sometimes my job is to be a reality check. But you got to be so careful with that. Because maybe I’m wrong. Yeah, no. So I might say, kind of play devil’s advocate, you know, let’s plug in a little bit, see if there’s some holes that I don’t want to I don’t want to quench the fire. We might have to adjust the plan. And we might have to adjust the goals. But I’ve had people say, I think it’s absolutely possible to 10x in the next 12 months, and here’s why. Okay, great. So, but if they’re like, No, I want to 10x you know, in the next 12 months, but they, they haven’t really thought through it, we got to see if this actually has a foot in reality. Right? Right. But yeah, we want a sweet spot. But if someone’s telling you this is never going to be a best seller. I love your reaction. Yes, it will. And I’m going to show you, my mother said that. If she ever wanted to really get me to do something. The best way was to tell me it couldn’t be done. No, yeah. Because I’m like, Oh, really? Yeah, let’s just see.

Joe Valley 26:30

Yeah, yeah, that’s, that’s a, that’s a parenting thing. You know, I was at a track meet yesterday, buddy of mine, and I were talking about his, you know, 17 year old and he wants him to do certain things. But if he suggests it, I guarantee the boy is not going to do it. He’s doing just the opposite. So he has to find ways to lead without letting the teenager know that he’s leading. And I’m sure we have to do that with the co workers and staff and friends and in the business world as well.

David Wood 27:00

Like that with, with coaching. Like, I can give ideas and suggestions. And people want that from me, because I’ve got a lot of experience, I might have some good ideas. But the best stuff, is if I can ask you a question, and you come up with your own idea, it actually activates a different part of the brain, it’s more likely to get stored in long term memory, apparently, versus just what I told you, which could be gone tomorrow. So there’s a whole rationale behind that. That maybe is a little bit.

Joe Valley 27:36

But I think what you do is so necessary and so needed, because a lot of us just wander through this entrepreneurial world aimlessly, guided by people that are no better at painting a clear picture than we are and helping us with that. So it’s really therapy for business. That’s what business coaching is. Oh,

David Wood 27:58

wow. That’s really good. Yeah, therapy for business. Sometimes what I do on short crosses over into therapy land, I had one client hired me to increase revenue, and then got diagnosed with cancer. So, you know, we’re not going to skip over bad. So I did a session with her and her husband. And we went into what does this mean? And what are you going to find now, now that your life expectancy is more uncertain than it was yesterday? What can we can apply? What are you going to do with this information? It was one of my most rewarding sessions all year because that’s what was real. That’s what was, that’s what was coming up. Yeah, it’s

Joe Valley 28:42

it’s an awful thing to have, you know, cancer really set your eyes on how close you are to the end. I was talking to an advisor of mine. He’s been my, one of my mentors over the years. And he’s he’s now 76 years old. And when he was in his mid 50s, or early 60s, he said that he had his own coach. And that coach took 100 yard tape measuring tape, laid it out at the in the conference room that they were at. And all of the people in the room had to go up and stand on the measuring tape from zero to 100, where you are age wise. And first you stand on it looking back at zero, then you turn around stand on it looking at 100 or wherever your life expectancy is. And it made him go. Holy shit, I, I’m I’m near the end here. I really need to focus on what I love and what I enjoy and just forget about the rest of this stuff. So I thought that was a brilliant Visio visualization of it.

David Wood 29:47

What a great way to get people to that realization. Yeah, one thing that happened for me that caught my attention was when my paraglider collapse. I think that will Yeah, and so I already had a couple of accidents in my life as a hang glider pilot and flying a paraglider full collapse of 300 feet and plummeting towards the earth. And it’s too low for a parachute for a backup parachute to work. I walked away from that one. But then a couple years later, I was only 15 feet above the ground and had a partial collapse of the wing and landed on my butt. That’s not an experience you want to have. So it was a good day, though, going to the hospital in an ambulance, and I had fractured my spine. But I look, I just found out a friend of mine has prostate cancer. And he’s doing writing, you know, and he’s he’s like, my, he’s younger than me. I think I’m 52. I’ve realized that the illusion of I’m going to be around forever is really just that. And I don’t know, between you and me and all our listeners, I don’t know if I’m going to make it another year. I think overall, my chances are good, but I don’t know. I’ve I’ve missed a car accident by like an inch. I’ve been in a car accident. It could be a disease, it could be COVID. It could be there was a shooting in Boulder last month. All right. Yeah, shooting a ball that six people kill. It really is an illusion of safety that we have. And I want that illusion because I want to be able to relax my nervous system. But I I don’t know if I’m going to make it through the year. And that impacts my choices. Instead of I’m not going to buy that Oculus virtual reality headset, I might say, I don’t know if I’m going to be around a year from now. And it’s not a huge expense. I think I’m going to do it. Instead of saying, I’m not going to tell that person, that woman I’m attracted to her. And I’d like to date her. Sometimes it’s like, you know what, I don’t know if I’ll be around next year. Why not do it? Let’s do it. So whatever gets you there, whether it’s his tape measure, or near death experience, or listening to this podcast with Joe Valley. Let’s live so that when we are gone, we could look back from the afterlife or wherever we are and say I gave it everything.

Joe Valley 32:26

I love that is fantastic. David, this has been enlightening. And I always feel good after talking with you. Last time we had on the podcast, my breakfast or lunch or whatever we had done. In St. Pete’s it’s always good to talk to you, man, I really appreciate it. How do people learn more about you get in touch with you that type of thing.

David Wood 32:47

Thank you, I’ve created a gift basket of goodies for listeners. So one is a cheat sheet on how to achieve twice as much in half the time. There’s a six minute video, which will take you deeper into it. So you can actually apply the cheat sheet that doesn’t take you a lot of time and you’ll be reaping dividends on that for the rest of your life. If you want to get on a 15 minute call with me and identify the low hanging fruit in your business, I’m happy to do that with people because it’s how I find the right clients to work with. And you can do all of that plus, join the Kickstarter campaign for the name that mouse book. Because the elephant is not the only animal in the room. And it’s all about courageous communication. It’s about you being the badass leader and human people want to be around. And I do believe this book is going to change the world. So you can get all of these at one special link that will take you to a hidden page on my site. It’s myfocusgift.com

Joe Valley 33:51

myfocusgift.com I will make sure that’s in the show notes as well for folks to go back to if they can’t remember myfocusgift.com myfocusgift.com. Awesome, David. I really appreciate it. I’m looking forward to being part of your Kickstarter and getting your book when it’s all said and done. Thanks, Joe. Good to see you. You too. Thank you, David.

Outro 34:11

Today’s podcast was produced by Rise25 and the Quiet Light content team. If you have a suggestion for a future podcast subject or guest Email us at [email protected]. Be sure to follow us on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.