He was a third-generation pro athlete and was still rejected by over 850 colleges.

[01:18]

"Yeah, so in a nutshell, I I got very lucky to be honest and to grow up in a world where I'm a third generation pro athlete and a sixth generation college graduate, so Champions on both academic side and the athletic side."

[02:42]

"So part of my new Mission now is to share that, like I said, but my journey, when I first started off, you'd think, with this great family Legacy, that I'd be ISU. In fact I got rejected by over 850 division one colleges and over 10,000 Scouts."

[30:32]

"I said you should always have a learn list so you always should be reading, you always should be studying, you always should be around other people that are going to challenge you in some kind of way to help get you better."

Full transcript

[Music]. Well, welcome back. This is our Pro alete interview series and this is brought to you by the family office club, and today we have David and David, how you doing today, I'm doing wonderful. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, well, thanks for coming. And in case this is your first time, you know, either checking out the podcast, or maybe your first time seeing us at an event, or maybe you're one of our 13 million social media followers, we, we do the deep Dives, whether it's with dentists, doctors, investors or professional athletes like David, and a lot of times we'll bring them up on stage.

We, we do these podcast interviews to sort of find out where they came from and how they got to where they are now. And that's what we wanted to do by bringing David here and sort of to find out how he became in the top 1% of won the professional athletes space, but now in his professional career after. And so, David, just thank you for taking the time and being a part of the show today. Oh, you're very welcome.

Look forward to helping serve. Uh, that's my new Mission now to help uh share all the great gifts that I was given to other people. So I'm ready to rock. I love it. Well, we're ready to rock right with you and I guess, why don't we get started? Why don't we find out a little bit about what you did in the professional athlete space and that way we give a little bit of background of sort of where you came from and what you did, sort of up to today?

Yeah, so in a nutshell, I I got very lucky to be honest and to grow up in a world where I'm a third generation pro athlete and a sixth generation college graduate, so Champions on both academic side and the athletic side. Uh, my dad played for the New England Patriots. Grandfather, my mother's side played for the Boston Bruins, the big bad Bruins. So, uh and my dad played against the 85 Bears.

So I was around all those sports champions. Uh, growing up, I was born in a game day. Fact: they have the game ball. It's uh still have it. Oh, really have the game ball right here. The old school ones.

We got to had the paint, you know, on the front, but I was given that, uh, when I was born, I was born in a game day. Patri beat the saint, so, figur, I'm good luck. Yeah. And you know, that's the athletic side. Academic side, I have three College presidents in the family. Currently my uncle's the president of ruer.

So I'm a huge, uh, Scarlet Knights fan. Now go areu um. But I was born in that that world with so many champions, um, that helped lead, that help shape that, uh, that really made a huge impact on not just, you know, their teams, but it went far beyond that and the lessons that they gave me and gifts. They always said it's not fully complete unless it's shared.

So part of my new Mission now is to share that, like I said, but my journey, when I first started off, you'd think, with this great family Legacy, that I'd be ISU. In fact I got rejected by over 850 division one colleges and over 10,000 Scouts. Well, lot of rejection, you know. And so I had to find my own way, even with all the greats I grew up around.

You know Bo Jackson and BOB Y and all these Superstars that were around me my whole life. Now was my turn. Everybody's saying: who are you? You're not. You know big enough, you're not fast enough, you're too small. You don't have your grandfather's toughness, you don't have what it takes in sports.

Maybe you should do the academic side, so many champions over there too, which wouldn't have been a bad move. But you know, something in me was like you know what? I still want to do this. So I decided to walk on to University of Maryland and didn't get a scholarship, for you know, it took me about a year and a half and you know, when I first got there, I was getting laughed at because I was a triple digit.

I was one of the 336s, um, Adam podh and Allan Grantham or the other two 36 is there. Uh, I couldn't eat with the team. New dining facility can't go if you're a walk- on. So I had to run to get my food, and there's so many other stories that I could tell you. But I came in as a linebacker with a vision and a dream.

Anyway, weighed about 187 pounds, way too small to be a Lineback. You got to be around 250, otherwise just gonna get tossed around, which I did, you know. So I got laughed at in the beginning. Fast forward, you know, three years following my vision, lots of hard work, and in the middle, that you know more, getting laughed at, walked by like I wasn't even there.

I became one of the best in the country and that didn't happened by accident. That was by clearing proper design and that's part of what I share now as a motivational speaker. As you know, I have a book coming out soon. So I'm in that expert space where I'm sharing some of my insight, sharing some of my wisdom, sharing some of the secrets, the tactics that I use to go from somebody who's getting laugh that couldn't eat.

You know all the above as a supreme underdog. Now people are asking how you did it and now people are. You know, I found out later, people are dropping out of school to come to the University of Maryland to try to duplicate what I had done. I mean, we were, we were, you know, uh, one of the best defenses in the country beat Florida State for the first time in school history.

We were doing, you know, the beginning, early 2000s. Maryland was doing pretty well, you know, ACC champion ship, Orange Bowl, all these things, um, but all that happened and there's a blueprint. Then, you know, like they always say, greatness, success leaves Clues, and a lot of those crumbs. Not only did I follow from all the greats that came before me, but I left some there as well to now.

So many other Walk-Ons were able to get an opportunity. People that dropped at, as you know, their colleges to come were now able to do it and it became. You know, I'm used, used to being behind the scenes. You know, nobody knew who I was and now you know I'm out in front of you know, thousands of cameras, people, stories watching and post all these things and they're asking me to share.

You need to share your story, your journey. It's inspiring all these other great things and I, you know, was one of the guys in the locker room. I was pretty quiet, didn't really say much, said hey, I'm going to show you and Lead You by action there. Not too many words in there, but as I grew and matured as a leader, and just listening too, to people around me saying you got to do it over and over and over again, I was like, you know, let me take this seriously, let me study this, let me figure out, uh, what other speakers I could learn from.

I went to you know boot camps and seminars. Where was two, three days with some of the greatest speakers in the world that did Ted Talks, have millions of views and learn the art of being on stage, learn the art of you know using your body language in your voice and your tonality, and all these different things. That not only helped in my speaking world world but my overall life in general. When it comes to Skilling up.

It added a lot of things. So that's kind of where I'm at now. That's the kind of funnel, uh, really, really quickly into this. Um, to give you a little context: who I am, where I come from, what I stand for and what value that I want to bring to you, the listener and everybody else I come in contact with.

No, that's. I think that's a great story. A lot of times I I feel like a lot of stories where it's all right. This is the one thing I, you know I only had Sports. I had nothing to fall back on. You know, I didn't have any family or, like you had some family that you could fall back on.

Or, let's say, you had the academic side that perhaps you could fall back. I'm like what, what was it that you're able to do? I mean, I know we talk about visualization practices and you know mental mindsets, but as much as you were a walk- on, many people in your same shoes could have just walked right off. Right, they could have decided: you know what I don't get to eat with a team I I just can't do this.

I'm not going to be able to put on the pounds. I'm not going to be stay in the mental mindset that you need to do to actually stay on the field. So what was I know? Sometimes it might just be this is who I am as a person, but is there anything that you sort of can look back and say, oh, it was these things that I definitely did that made me like stick to it, that made me not choose this other direction?

That would have been probably easier if you would have gone that that other route. So much easier. I mean, you know, 18 years old, you're getting tossed around the field, you're not getting into practice. I was on the six team so I couldn't even get into practice some days and I don't know. I mean I've been in Arizona, I've lived in Miami.

Probably the hottest I've ever been is just sitting in full equipment just watching practice for like an hour and a half. That's back when you could do doubles back to back to back. So it was miserable. Everybody asked: you know, do you ever think about quitting taking the easy route? Hell, yeah, it did. I thought about the second day.

I looked up when I didn't get into practice. Then we have to watch film of practice and I got to watch it all over again. Didn't see anything. I did except stand there there and bake. I was like man, this sucks, why am I here? And I found, you know, I I reverse engineered it when people asked me why and how.

I was like you know, let me really give people some takeaways that they can use to help them in whatever situation they are. And I go all the way back to the foundation. I used to stay up late at night, like most kids, and I would just dream and I wouldn't have any, um, you know, outside noise affecting you. I take my journal quiet time.

I would block time almost and just write down exactly what I wanted to do. Didn't get to pick, you know I didn't get the scholarships. Everybody else, you know a lot of people in the family did. So I got lucky enough to where I could. Hey, I could choose where I want to try this. You know I could pick my location.

So I got very detailed, went, visited the University of Maryland had a feeling. I was like this is the place that I'm going to be and that foundational piece, going back in pen and pad writing down exactly where you want to go and you know, yes, that's part of a vision, but I I do trainings on this. I do half and full day trainings. Where is actually?

Uh, five steps to properly crafting a vision where I share the five steps that I did and the first one I I just shared with you, as simple as taking a pen and pad and one of the things I've learned as matured as a speaker and as a trainer, executive coach: you have to distill a lot of wisdom and give it to people and easy, actionable steps. So that's what I did, where I took my five steps and I said: if you follow these five, you're GNA, have a properly crafted Vision that's going to allow you to have that forward, lean and pull in life to get you past all those obstacles. Because if I didn't have a Promised Land, a vision of something greater out there, that got me excited, why am I doing all this stuff? Why am I getting up and working out early before the team?

Why continue to get laughed at every day when you're in college? This is supposed to be your golden day. Is this supposed to be the most fun you know? You ever had your four life, your four years, one of the best experiences of people lives. Why is it miserable for me? And I had to learn on my own some of these techniques.

I didn't go to my family and run to them and say, hey, help me all the time with this, this and this. I wanted to kind of go through my own journey and carve out my little identity and my pieace. So a lot of the stuff I learned on my own and techniques I developed from you know what they taught me and then I molded it and modified it. Now I teach that.

And visualization, one of the most important things you do. Having a vision is one of the most important decisions in your life that you can make and so many people take it casually. So many people you know, oh, we'll have a vision board party and they're putting up all these things that have nothing to do do with them personally. You know they want to put up Arnold Schwarzenegger and these sports cars and all these things like.

But what does it mean and do you even want that? And when you get to that destination, are you going to be proud of who you are? There's so many different ways. Uh, that doesn't get taught and a lot of times it's not good or bad Vision, it's trained or untrained a lot of times. And I tell people, your vision should be so clear that I could be a to ask you: what does the environment smell like?

And you should be able to tell me exactly what it smells like, the sounds, the colors, the shapes. You should, I should be able to jump in your life and say hey for this piece of your life, for this architecting. You know you're architecting your life as you go through this. Otherwise you're just taking whatever life throws at you.

Nobody wants to do that. We want to architect and build and continue to visualize the life we want to live. So if I asked you, jump through the lens or into your living room, wherever you're watching this or listening to this, and I sat down and said, hey, explain to me, like a movie director, what your vision of your bigger future is. Whether that's your personal life, whether that's your work life, whatever that is, you should be able to explain it to me in such detail that I can picture everything that we can make a movie, we can make a storyboard, BBE, of exactly what you want to do.

And until it's that clear, it's not going to give us that forward, lean that forward, pull that pulled me past all those obstacles. You know getting laughed at all. That stuff seemed like a mountain when I first saw it, when I first walked up to it. But the more I worked on my vision, the more I did the visualization, the more I, you know, read and continue to skill up and educate myself, the stronger I became mentally man.

That obstacle became so small that I could step over it and say, hey, even if you asked me back then, what are you doing here? I would have like straight at you, straight into the camera, and I said, Not only am I going to play here, but I'm going to be one of the greatest that ever did it. And I wouldn't have blinked. And that was only because of the vision which is, to me, a foundational piece of who you are.

My Foundation was so strong that the storms of life, the catastrophes of Life, the naysayers, the doubters, the haters, all the people that Tred to chip away at me, my foundation and my vision, was so strong. I'm heading there anyway. You know I'll see you at the top, all these things that are happening to me now. Yes, I might not have the skills yet, I might not have the toughness yet, I might not have the size and the strength and the speed yet, but, man, if I get enough time, it's a coming and when it comes, you're gonna see me rise to the top and I, you know, I'm gonna wave to you on the way.

And if you got to compete against me, you better have a vision that's sharper than mine. You better have something else out out there, because I ain't stopping, I'm, I'm going to the top baby. So how do you? So I guess a good, a good question would be: so you can visualize and you can write down these things and let's say for yourself, at home with your book and your Journal, let's say you're like I know exactly what my vision is.

How are you able to, let's say, block out someone else's vision of you? So, whether that's the coaches, the players, some sports newscaster that's watching you, all of them are going to have a different perspective and you might know where you want to go and might have that visualization, but they're the ones that, let's say, didn't see you on that video, as you guys are watching the plays. But you know that you could be on that lineup. Like, how are you able to sort of Shield out, and maybe it's just like just going back and just re honing?

This is my visualization, this is my goals, like how are you able to sort of block out those other things or how do you make sure those don't affect your own Vision? Yeah, I, I want to answer that in this way because I I think the the root of that is: how do you deal with other people's opinion? Other people hate other people's. You know the way they see the world and how you fit in their Vision.

Um, first of all, if you read the book U, there's a book top five regret of the dying, and one of them is: I wish I spent more time building a life, a life of my own, that I didn't listen to the people of telling me what I should do, and to me it's like: hey, man, we get one shot and we're all participants in the game of life. I don't care if you're an athlete or not. This is our time and I don't know about you, but I want to carve out and craft the life that excites me, that I feel like can give you know my skills and what I want to do and the impact that I want to have, not anybody else's. So, first, that's a mindset.

The second thing is: how do you deal with them, the opinions, the hate and everything else. I I'll share this with you and this is a technique that I used. Okay, and if I didn't use this, I would have been one of the most miserable people that you'd ever met if I took everything in, all the hate U because, like I said in the beginning, I was getting laughed at a lot and when you're an athlete, it sucks to get laughed at. I was getting laughed at almost daily.

I was getting embarrassed all the time. You know it was not fun. This was in my career. You know this was pretty much Rock Bottom. When you're not, when you're a benchwarmer, in practice that's, it's hard to get lower than that. So here I was, in all these criticism and negativity and people walking right by me and using me as a, you know, a tackling dummy or all these the ways that you know this guy doesn't even really matter.

Let's give him a triple digit because who cares? In those moments, and I share this with people, when you get hate, when you get other people's opinions, you get things that you know that that sting. Sometimes a lot of people will tell you to forget about it or ignore the, the haters, which doesn't work. It didn't work for me.

You can't ignore some of those things. You know, we're all human. We have emotions and all the personal development reading everything I do. I'm still a human. At the end of the day, there's still things that are going to bother me. Now the time that you know I get over it is way shorter now and it's done much more graceful.

But what I I'll tell you is this, and here's what you do. It's a simple technique called throw it in the bag, and I invite you to try this. If there's a moment where you just, you know, you just, feel the hate coming or you feel someone dissed you, you feel off your game, whether that's personal life, work life, doesn't matter. Something's really bothering you.

I invite you to take that moment, remember it. Uh, what, what? People in almost take a screenshot, a snapshot of that moment. But I want you to take that, visualize taking it, putting it in the bag, tying it shut, and you're GNA, move that to the side. So you're almost, you're feeling it for a moment and then we gonna say, okay, this is happening, all these feelings, I'm going to take that, store it for later.

Uh, so, because if you don't, you're going to waste any energ that you need to get to where you want to go. Uh, you're going to waste energy of the day. There's so many energy vampires out there that this is something that you have to do for your own sanity and protection sometimes. I know everybody listening can relate to that.

So what I did in those moments I was like, okay, take that moment feelings I feel I'm not going to ignore them, the, the, the, the tension or the anger that's building up. I'm going to save that for when I need it and when I would go work out when I didn't feel like doing it that day, whenever I needed that little energy boost or even a rocket boost if I was doing well, I said, man, I'm going to that bag and opening it. I'm remembering all the feelings, everything that was said, the, the, what the person was wearing the look on their face and ref that energy and that's going to give me that fuel, that dark energy, to keep going, even when I don't feel like it, even when everybody else is quitting, even when, um, it's hard because it's going to get hard, it's going to get tough, but when you can use your energy, your power when you need it, man, that gives you such a competitive Advantage than someone else that is letting everybody else shoot them with their arrows, the hate, and now they're leaking, and you know it's your energy, it's your power, it's your, uh, your motivation, your, your positive feelings about who you are in the day they're letting everybody else just shoot them and let it, you know, drip out.

I'm telling you to take those arrows, put them in a bag, save it for when you need it. Man, that'll give you energy at any point. Now, do those, do those? Does that bag start having less and less effect and you have to fill it with new ones? Or how do you, how do you use that bag with?

You know the way social media is and everybody else having their opinion today, that bag can fill up real quick. That is true. That's true. And the important thing is you know, yes, this is a a blueprint outline of how I used it. I tell people to take that and add to it. Add your pieces to it.

Don't be like you see so many people every day, oh, this is the new style, let me do this, or this is what this group does, and I want to be part of that. So let me dress like this: get these shoes, get this water bottle, all these things that people are just copying each other over and over again, which is fine, I get that, but always add a little, a little flavor of your own to that. So you know you're more of an individual, you're a little more free thinker, you're a a little bit uh. You know you're not following all the time that you're always adding in some a little bit of part of your leadership into that.

So that technique: throw in the bag, use that as a foundation, but add little pieces to it. What do you want to put in there, how much you know? Is there a point where it's getting too much and you gotta let it out? What are some of the healthy ways you like doing it? I've always advised to do it.

You know working out in some kind of way. Because how can you skill up? No matter what profession you're in, you work on your health and energy. You know, protecting your energy doesn't matter what age you are, you know. But again, we're only given one body, only get one shot. It's up to us to protect it, to preserve it, to continue, as you get older, to take care of it, to do the rehabs, to do the strengthenings so you have more energy, so you can enjoy more of this thing we call life.

No, I like it. I like it. Well, let's do this. What's like what's a $1 million doll lesson? Or what's like the most costliest Financial mistake that that you've personally made? And, and you could just give a general one, or, if you want to give a very practical, specific example, but for any professional athletes that are out there, like: what's a $1 million do lesson that you learned perhaps a hard way?

Or financial mistake that you're like man, I wish I didn't make this, but don't make the same mistake. Yeah, they all come down to the same thing and that's just. I reached a point in Life, or my profession, or financially, where there's. I'll give you two things. One is when I got to a point where I feel like I made it.

Mhm, that was a danger zone for me. That was a million dooll mistake in those areas, because now I have no vision of you know what I want to head to next and it's nice. Yet when you reach the top of a mountain to celebrate, to eat the food, enjoy the riches that are up there, you don't want to be there too long. First time I got there, I was there for way too long and I started to decline.

And those are moments of my life that I can't get back, moments where I wasn't on my aame, or I wasn't taking care of myself the best way, or I wasn't doing the research, I wasn't learning, I wasn't serving people around me. The best way I could wasn't paying attention to a lot of the foundational pieces that got me to that point. And what I always tell people is when you, when you're, when you're, when you're out for self-mastery, you, when you're about to make it to that next Vision, or when you're there, you immediately start C crafting a vision for another future. Uh, and if you don't, you're going to make a lot of mistakes.

You're going to live in a place where I call the land of mediocrity. I I give this analogy. I said you, on the field of of Life, the court, the ice, you know, your office, whatever it is professionally, uh, whether you want to relate it to your, your family life, you're on the field of life, that field, and it's your job to go out there, suon The Best of You are, become the best, share the best, give the best and live in, lead the best quality of life you can. That includes having a great foundation.

So the life's not knocking you, pinballing you all over the place. So when you're there, you have a vision. You're on top of your aame, you're. You're kicking ass, taking names. You're making wise decisions, you're connecting with the right people. You're not ignoring your health.

You're not ignoring your positive relationships, because that can easily get burned when you're heading up those mountains of greatness or success or Excellence. You're on the field of life and you're playing full out. You don't have a vision of greatness. Life hands you a ticket to go sit in the stands and watch, and in those stands it's very, very comfortable and it's very deceiving.

Oh, you're here, you made it, congratulations. Let me pull up a chair. What do you want to eat? You know what do you want to? Uh, for, you know the, the five course meals. What do you want to drink with that?

Can I get you a pillow? You know, are your nails done? You know what? All the things that you know in your comfort zone and, man, you don't have a vision for a bigger future. You, you made it and now you're just sitting kind of coasting somewhere deep inside. Man, you feel like something's off and you feel like man.

I just just I don't have that, that juice or energy in the morning. I'm doing all these great things. Everybody thinks you know I'm the man. I got the million dollar smile, I got the clothes, the house, everything's going good. Something deep down is chipping away at you and that's what I call the stands of Life, the, the land of mediocrity, and I've been on both.

I've been on the fields and the stands a lot more than I'd like to admit, and those are moments in my life where I'm going to have regrets, you know, forever. Those are moments I can't get back. I was man if I could have just getting off the field, all out of the stands, back on the field of Life, start reconnecting in with you know my vision of who I want to be. You know what I want to learn, who I want to be around, what I want to share and do.

I didn't have that, and that's when I made the million-dollar mistakes. That's when I made the time mistakes of, and relationship mistakes and all the other mistakes you can make man. I was there and I was in it. In the land of mediocrity, and there's a quote I like that says: mediocrity prevails when good men and women do nothing.

And to me what that means is when you do nothing, you're in your comfort zone. You don't have a vision of your bigger Future. No Matter What age you are in life, you're in the stands of mediocrity. Nobody wants to be there. That's when you're making all the mistakes and that would be my lesson is to always have a vision of your bigger future.

If you're asking the question, you know, is this? You've made it to the top of the mountain. You're asking: is this it? You know that's a dangerous place to be. Or you come to retirement. You're like man, what am I gonna do now?

That's a dangerous place to be. If you stay there for too long and you know you're just getting, especially as athletes. You know most people's career. You can do that the rest of your life. As athletes, your career is done, your 20s or 30s, and you know there's so many people that get stuck there or remember when they get stuck in that convers.

That isn't the best all the time. So, even if you've had an amazing career, you're top of that mountain. Always have another one in the future. You, I forget who said this, but it's another great quote I like, that says: when life's and comes to meet you, let it find you, you know, reaching and climbing towards that next Mountain instead of rolling, you know, on down an old.

I like it well. Well, normally we ask people you know for, like, a final question like: how do you, you know, become a 0.1 percenter in your field, whether professionally as an athlete, or now professionally you know, let's say, as a speaker or investor, what they're doing now, and I feel like we've covered a lot of that, to sort of show what you've used, what practices use visualization techniques, some of those different stages, I know we only covered a couple, but I know you do trainings on on all five of them and I know I think you're coming out to a couple of our events that we have out at the super Summits in New York and out in Florida. But do you have any last tidbits of advice that you give to any athletes now are looking to make the transition, or perhaps they're currently staying in? They're like I got five more years in the game.

Like what? What final tidbits of information or advice would you give them? So I've already given you the foundational piece of the vision. That's number one, because that allows you to have Clarity, and Clarity is power. When you know where you're going. Man, you have so much power.

You know where not to invest your time and energy because you got something out there that you got to fight for. Um, so you have that foundational piece. That's obviously number one. If I wanted to, and I shared with you, throw it in the bag technique, another little small step that's going to help you. If I had to give one more, and it's one that I had, you know it was a wakeup call for me.

I'll tell you a quick story. I was out in Arizona, played for the Cardinals, helped them Reach the first superable franchise history. Another big Underdog, Kurt Warner, who's, uh, everybody asked: is he just as good as a guy is? He looks like yes he is. He is the man. We're still friends today.

I just saw him. His son was playing quarterback. They played ruers, so saw him there. Anyway, um gave you the foundational piece when I was there in Arizona. I had made it and I was like, is this it? And one of my mentors who got lucky enough to be around and brought me back, you know, into reading again, learning again, and it's something that I would leave with everybody, I said you should always have a learn list so you always should be reading, you always should be studying, you always should be around other people that are going to challenge you in some kind of way to help get you better.

One of the biggest regrets I had was, throughout college and most of my NFL career, I had stopped reading on things that I was interested in. I was so focused on who I was and my identity as a football player, which, uh, one of my good friends, who, Sean Stevenson, who was a trained therapist and a speaker, who I learned how you know the art of speaking and storytelling from. He shared with me that, hey, you're not an athlete, that's not your identity. You, you are much more than that.

That's just part of what you do, and I was like man. It was a breakthrough for me. It sounds very simple, but a lot of times the breakthroughs happen when you become aware something that you were never even aware of before. I wasn't aware of it, that I had lost touch, lost connection, all these things, these hobbies that I enjoyed.

So, through my mentor's advice of you know reading and continue to learning, I started learning a second language. I started picking up, uh, hobbies that I always wanted to do: playing the piano, um, doing all these different things that allowed me to have a more enrich life that I had stopped doing. So if there's one piece of advice I want to give everybody out there is to continue to build you know, your learn list, whether that's for your profession or one of your hobbies. Never stop learning.

You know my, my mentor, who put me on all these you know readings and seminars and stuff, he always still said: named Joe, polish founder genius Network out in Arizona. Yeah, great guy. He says education is never out for the pros and even though you graduate do doesn't matter, education is never out. I am never going to stop learning, you know, finding new ways to enjoy life, finding new ways to sharpen my intellect, because that's what I was taught, and when you do that, you skill up.

You know, like they say, the analogy: the water: when the water, the tide comes in that lifts all boats. That's part of what happens. It lifts you and all the people that are connected to you. Again, I just got very, very lucky to be put in the position where, you know was around this foundationally Excellence, people that you know thought bigger than just their profession, that wanted to continue to have a bigger impact, no matter what their achievements were in the past.

They want to make their future even better. So I was lucky to be around all these great people and, again, I don't take that for granted. I understand that I was, you know, lucky to be put in this position, where I was able to be around amazing people. Yeah, part of who I am is, you know, I'm always curious to learn, so I was always drawn to that.

But one of the things they taught me, like I said in the beginning, was that the great gifts are not fully complete unless they're shared. Who you know what, what good as it do, if you have all this knowledge and wisdom and expertise, if you're not sharing it with those who coming. You know those around you and those coming up behind you. And the last thing I'll say on that is this: we all have, you know, a sports analogy here in our Arenas of life, our family, friends, arena positive relationships.

We have Arenas and in the top there's banners flying high of people that you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, a lot of giants that came before us that we stand on the shoulders of that. You know the spotlights are there in our Arenas alike and, man, when you're up there, you want to shine as bright as you can. One of the ways to do that is, to share your best and highest practices, and that's what led me into what I do now, uh, as a trainer, as a motivational speaker, as you know, an executive coach, to share these great lessons that allowed me and so many other people in my family to rise to that 1% and then to get to the top of the 1% of the 1%. You know, education, that's a way out of so many things.

So, continuing to learn to K, to continue to have a to learn list, you know the beginning of the year, everybody talking about the New Year's resolutions, what's on your what to learn lists for the month, for the year, for the quarter, whatever it is, that's the key. I love it. Well, David, thank you so much for being a part of the show today and I I I can't wait till I actually meet you in person, have you up on stage at our event, and I just appreciate the time that you took for myself and then also for our audience. Absolutely, uh, I enjoy what I do now.

I'm never going to retire from it. I'm going to continue to learn. I practice what I preach and I can't wait to be on stage and help uh people in different ways, remind them of their personal power, to give them key takeaways so they can enjoy their Journey even more, so they can get to the top of that mountain, whatever they're climbing, even faster. You know was great to be here with you today.

Hope it served you guys. Oh, did for sure. Thank you so much.