David Hampson In the Limelight with Clarissa Burt

Welcome to the In the Limelight podcast, where authors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders step forward to share their ideas, stories, and strategies. I'm Clarissa Burke, inviting you into thoughtful dialogue, refined insight, and an esteemed way of living.

And we are back in the limelight with yet another extraordinary author and entrepreneur. Lots going on here, so let me just read kind of give you an overview of what's going on. Um, this gentleman has inspired audiences with The Truth About Business Purpose and The Journey to Rainbow Gold. Here's his book right here. So we're going to be referring to that quite a bit in our chat. And, um, Rainbow Gold really is about building a business. It's both a journey and a destination. So without further ado, I'm going to bring on David Hampson. There he is. Yay!

Oh, Claire said hi.

Hi. Well, one of the most important things I think we need to mention is that you are in the plane insurance business apart from writing books. I don't know how you found the time, but that's pretty extraordinary. You sent me your card and that was, that's really kind of cool. So we'll talk about that too. I did want to understand better though, what it means from, you know, that the business's journey and the destination, which is really, really cool because obviously with planes, we're always arriving at our destination, right?

That's right, exactly.

Give me a little background on that.

Yeah, so basically it's a concept that when you're building a business, it's building it to last. It's more taking more of a, you know, long-term approach of, you know, creating something that's a legacy that's meaningful not only to yourself and to your family but to your community. Um, and, and it's something that's, that's gonna, gonna build— it's built to last, basically, as opposed to like these days, most of the media sensationalizes the the concept of like scaling up fast, the hustle culture. Let's get to an exit. Let's get a big exit multiple.

Oh yeah.

You know? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I mean, everybody kind of wants to get to the destination, but I don't know if that's— there's that big of a hurry. What is that? Let's start with the scale to sell myth. What is the scale to sell myth?

Well, that's the myth that to be defined as a successful business owner, entrepreneur, that's, you know, you need to scale it up to get to that exit. Now, You need to have some sort of endgame, of course, because everyone's not going to live forever. At some point, someone might want to retire, but that doesn't necessarily mean you need to scale something fast to have an exit. You could, for example, alternatives to that are obviously perpetuating your business to your family if your family ends up being involved in it, or you could create an employee stock ownership program where eventually you could perpetuate to your employees and continue that culture. That you had in the business that you had, or you could find somebody who had similar values to you that wanted to buy it from you and perpetuate it that way. Maybe it would be a key employee that was working for you or someone from the outside that came in, but it's not the only way. And I think the problem with the skill to sell a mindset is that it ends up affecting culture in a negative way and that you don't want to invest in your employees and developing them. You necessarily want to do the hard things it takes to build culture, because building a good culture is a long, slow process.

It doesn't happen overnight. Sure.

You know, and that's, you know, because that— we're just thinking about, you know, a top, a top-line growth and bottom-line profitability and try to get the highest number and maximizing that. You're not going to take the time to do those other things that create a great company that lasts.

Yeah. Moving on, in your book, you talk about burned out but successful. Question mark. I mean, is it really worth the burnout? I guess it's what you're talking about. All that success, is it really worth what you have to go through to get it?

Right. And then also too, like, let's say that you do that. Say, okay, fine, you, you know, you get a very profitable business, you exit, and you know what, and you may be really excited, you got a big payout. When you wake up the next day, is that— you gain that, you have that, you have great satisfaction. It's a quick adrenaline rush, but I mean, have you really created something that's been meaningful You know, beyond just, you know, getting a lot of money, is it meaningful in your life and other people's lives? Is that something you can feel good about? I mean, maybe some people that money's enough, but for a lot of people it isn't.

Yeah. And then I guess it's always now what?

Exactly. Exactly what you do next. I mean, you know, obviously you're going to want to move on to something else perhaps. But, you know, but then, you know, you— I mean, it can— a lot for a lot of business owners, a business is such an important part of your identity as well. As well. And when you can perpetuate that and create legacy with it, it's a beautiful thing. You know, that's how you can almost get to a sense of like self-actualization in your life when you've been able to, you know, do something that's been successful, not just financially, that's part of it, but also successful in making such a difference in people's lives. I mean, it's amazing as a business owner, when you can see one of your employees started with you at a certain point and see them grow in their career and become more financially successful. More confident and just, you know, be more happy in their life, you know, by working in your company. That's just awesome.

Yeah. Yeah, no doubt. And I guess it's really, you know, we say it's really like an exit strategy for business, but a re-entrance strategy for your life, right? Because you put so much in the business, it's like, again, great, sold it, big payout. Now what? You know, and so have we taken the time to really understand what's going to be next? And that's really important, I think, you know, as we move into our latter years, you know, that we want to really live them in fulfillment, you know, and happily. So, and that's a whole nother show probably. But anyway, all right, so moving right along. This I, I really needed some more explanation on, as why the move fast and break things would get you grounded in aviation.

Well, you know, in aviation there's many things that we have and we do that are, you know, They're meant to manage risk. Risk management's a huge thing. Obviously, insurance is as well, but we have checklists to make sure everything's working on the airplane. There's redundant systems as well if something breaks. If you just ignore the checklist, you can have catastrophic effects. I've seen many insurance claims as a result of that. But a lot of times in business, we're talking about that hustle culture, that scale to fast exit. You're just moving at such a breakneck pace that, you know, if you're not— your company could break. You know, you might make bad decisions, you make decisions too fast, you're not paying attention to culture employees. And, you know, you might, you might make it, but your business might break as well. And, you know, I see so many companies that are so focused on scaling up top-line revenue. Yeah. That in the hope that they're going to get someone else to buy it. Right. And, you know, maybe 5 years down the line, they're not even expected to be profitable, but they have a high top-line revenue number. And if someone decides not to buy them, they're not making any money, and eventually they're just going to fail, and they're going to fall apart, and they're moving so fast something's going to break. And that's, and that's, you know, contrary to, of course, what we do in aviation. So I think sort of like thinking of that sort of aviation pilot's mindset of like, let's make sure that— let's, let's take one step at a time, let's go through the checklist, make sure we're doing all the, all the things we need to do, you know, to make— give us the best chance possible we can be successful.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. The 5 ingredients of sustainable success in business are what, David?

Glad you asked that, um, because I came up with an acronym and it's PRIME. I've since added one though, so I just recently changed to PRIMER, and I'll tell you what those are.

Should we make them 6 then?

We can make it 6 now. We'll make it 6 because, you know, things are always evolving, right? And I'm always evolving too. So I had this one that I missed, so I had to change it to 6. So the first one is— the first one is passion for P. Right. And I do believe that, um, it's really important to be passionate if you're going to embrace a business and have it for the long term. You want to be passionate. That's important, right? It's not the only thing. I mean, people have plenty of passions and you can't make a good business out of it, but that— it's a passion. Passion helps you get through the hard times. You want to keep going. The next one, R, is risk management. And that's having kind of what I talked about before, having a risk management mindset. It does not mean avoiding risk. Not at all, but it means thinking about what sort of risks are acceptable, what could go wrong, right? Could go wrong, exactly. And, and is that— what could go wrong, is that a tolerable level of risk for you based on where you are? And that can be different between different people, and it can be different in different phases of your life. But risk management mindset, something you have to think about. The I, um, uh, the I is interpersonal relationships, critical. And I think by that I mean Yes. So important.

Yeah.

You know, relationships with your employees, with your vendors, with your customers, clients, you know, you need to have that. And, you know, I think a lot of business owners understand that, but some people don't recognize how important that is. You know, the people that will be there for you, um, if you're there for them and you have that sort of partnership with all of those.

The banks, potentially even the banks, right?

Banks, a huge one. Absolutely. Yes.

Yeah.

Um, and then, and then M is money sense. Money sense refers to, um, accounting principles, tax strategy, sales, and any business that's important. A lot of people, I think, sometimes they're really good in specific field, like experts in their field, but they don't have the financial, the money sense, and then they make— end up making some mistakes. They don't know how to run the financial side. Oh yeah, if you don't— if you don't know, that's okay, just learn it. Like, there's plenty of resources. You can— you can get mentors, you can take courses. We need to know account— accounting principles people's money, sales, right? And then, um, the other E is environment, and that is having a healthy culture within your company. It's also purging toxicity. Like, you know, you could have toxic employees or even toxic clients. Not every client is a good client. That's sometimes early in business, that's hard to know that, to understand that. But it's purging the toxicity in your organization and creating a positive culture, the environment. And the last one that I missed was they've now added is resilience. And that's, and that's grit, having a growth mindset, you know, uh, having the, the, the capacity to keep going when things are difficult, to get back up.

A friend of mine, a friend of mine would call it the stick-to-itiveness.

Yes, exactly. That's, that's a great way to describe it. And, and any, I think any successful business person has that to some extent because you're gonna No matter what business you have, you're going to face tough times and you need to have that mindset to be able to go through and learn from your mistakes, right? You're going to make some terrible mistakes and you can, you know, let that affect you in a negative way. Or you can say, you know what, let me take what I've learned from this and use it to catapult me to something better.

Sure. Let me go back to your original P for passion. What makes you passionate about plane insurance?

Well, you know, I'm very passionate because I love aviation. So I, I've always loved flying since I was a young boy, and I didn't take flying lessons when I was younger, but I always loved airplanes. And then one time in, um, about 14, 15 years ago, my wife, who knew I loved aviation, she got me 3 gift certificates for some flying lessons, and that reignited my youthful passion. And I, and I kept going and got my pilot certificate I was already in insurance at the time, right? And I thought, well, how can I combine this and take my knowledge of insurance with my passion for aviation? That's what led me hence to aviation insurance. But I mean, it's great. I have a small airplane. It's called the Cirrus SR22.

Where is—

where are you? Where are you? I'm up in New Hampshire, Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Okay, very good.

Northeastern. And I fly it up and down the East Coast. Uh, I'll fly from, uh, Portsmouth, New Hampshire all the way down to Fort Lauderdale, Florida in it sometimes. So that's— it is awesome. You know, yeah, clients and going there with the fam. It's really fun.

Yeah, absolutely really fun. But so I would think that you'd be really, you know, kind of the passion piece would be keeping people safe in the air. That would be—

well, that's also, that's also passionate about that too. I mean, that's what's rewarding. That's what's rewarding is, is, you know, what I do is, is, is providing people with that protection, um, and knowing they can have the peace of mind.

Yeah.

When they're operating aircraft, have an aviation business, they're going to be And even giving clients the risk management advisory services of telling them, like sometimes they'll talk about, you know, what can you do to improve your safety to avoid an insurance claim? What sort of things can you implement? We talk a lot about that as well.

This is very interesting. Moving forward is why most corporate DEI programs are performative theater. And you say what?

I say that most, most of them, a lot, most of them are, have been because they don't necessarily really have it ingrained in their culture. It's somewhat controversial, I understand. But now you look at like a few years ago when, you know, all these companies— it was a popular thing to do to have these DEI programs. So all these companies implemented this and they had DEI officers and departments and this and that and pilots.

When somebody said, do you really want a DEI pilot or do you want a guy out there that knows what he's doing? You know, two guys up there.

Well, that's the thing, you know, and it's so— it's— but You know, but they were doing it because it was what was popular and what was perceived to be something they should be doing and to look good. But, but had they really changed anything in their culture and done it the right way? And that's it. And I don't think they had, because then a couple years later, you know, there's changes of politics, administrations, and suddenly they're getting rid of all of that. They're all— none of them have it anymore. And they, they fire the people, they get rid of the people that would— they were doing, you know, departments are shut down. It's like, well, were you— were you— did you have that DEI in your culture or did you not? Like, why is it all going away now? So I do believe it's, it's important. Like, I I do believe in the concept of diversity, equity, inclusion, and finding ways to promote people and— In an equitable way. —bring up in an equitable way. Exactly. And give people those opportunities. Absolutely. But it should be something that you do because part of your culture, not something you have to be performative about. You have to be performative. If you have to convince someone too hard, then it's like, why do you protest so much? You know, why are you trying to convince, like, you know, so it's something that's internal that you do. And, you know, that's what I think is missed. And, you know, and sometimes it becomes, it becomes window dressing instead of something that's real is what it should be.

Right. Okay. Moving on. We've got something you said, insurance is the DNA of capitalism. I love the way you word things. This one is especially, let me think about that a second. But what you say is why modern economics, entrepreneurship, and innovation wouldn't exist without risk transfer. Yes. Yeah.

And, you know, um, if you think about it, think of all the things in your life, right? So think about driving your car or starting any sort of business, manufacturing your product, attorneys practicing law, doctors practicing medicine. If there was no insurance, how could they afford the risk of loss, you know, if they were sued and something went wrong? Um, you know, mortgage companies wouldn't give you a loan to buy a house. Let alone a loan to buy a business. So it's kind of glue that keeps the economy together by, um, you know, allowing risk sharing so that collectively a large group of people is sharing in the risk of life or the risk of business so that, you know, you know, you can sleep, you have peace of mind and sleep at night knowing if the worst possible happens, you know, you have that, that backstop to protect you with that insurance.

Yeah. Well, it would also be nice if insurance, you know, companies would ramp up a little bit their payouts, but that's another show also.

Yeah, that's another— that's definitely— that's a whole other All right.

Is your 401k actually your worst investment?

Yeah. And that's somewhat controversial statement. I know. So that, um, this, that's specifically with business owners I'm referring to now, employees, you know, it's a little bit different, but for a business owner, if you're putting lots of money into 401k, it's probably not going to do nearly as well as if you invest it in your own business, if your business is a good business doing well. Quick example of that. Let's say, for example, that you had, um, you're doing an advertising campaign, right? And you invested a bunch of money in that. All that would be tax deductible, just like a 401. There'd be no limits on it. If it increased your revenue and your profitability, the enterprise value of your business would go up, and you wouldn't have to pay taxes on that increased business value until you sold it. So it'd be tax-deferred increase in value, just like a 401 is. And whatever profits it generated each year from that. Yeah. You can either pull those profits out and use them and distribute them to yourself. Yeah. Or you can reinvest them again and get the tax deduction and grow your business more. You have that flexibility, right? Versus having all those restrictions where you can't, you can't do anything with it until you reach retirement age. And if you do, you get penalized. And of course there's fees on 401s for the investment managers. So yeah, business owners. So, I mean, myself personally, so much, I've done so much better reinvesting in my business, then I couldn't afford a 401. So that's, that's right. That's what, that's what I'm referring to in that. And it has all the same benefits tax-wise, you know. Again, as long as your business is a good business, if it's not, if it's not making money, it's not doing well, then it could be a different story.

Do you really need to go to school, to business school, to be an entrepreneur, David? Absolutely not.

Um, I didn't— I, I say all science courses in school, I would study physiology and nothing. I've never taken a single course in accounting or finance or marketing, nothing.

Um, nor have I. Yeah.

You have something else. So you understand that, right? But you do need to have certain areas that you try to master. And I talked about some of those in my PRIMER acronym. You need to know what you don't know and learn it. A lot of times you can learn a lot more practically by doing it outside of business school. Some of it could just be running a small business. My first business was a restaurant I ran in South Africa. And that was my— I would say that was my business school. I learned everything about business doing that. Yes. I've never been there. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful place. Amazing, amazing country. But, um, but you know, that's how I learned a lot and I continued, I always continue to educate myself and, you know, I've worked with some people before who've, you know, been to business school or they even if you've had an MBA and I found that even though they have that education, a lot of times they have a lot of trouble applying that to the actual real world running a small business. You know, most business schools are designed to teach people people to be a good corporate drone, not actually to really practically be chief cook and bottle washer when you start running a small business and have all the different things you have to do. No doubt.

So good debt versus bad debt. Why is bad debt as bad as dangerous advice? Is debt bad? Yeah.

So that's dangerous advice because for the consumers, of course, that can be— consumer debt can be bad, of course. But for businesses, that leverage is critical because If you just take this no-debt mentality and try to save up paycheck by paycheck to buy a business or start something, you'll probably never be able to start the business you want to start. Whereas if you can use the leverage with debt, you could get 20% for a down payment and then have a bank finance 80% of it and leverage that to have a business that could eventually, when you pay off that debt, you'll have a huge asset and get into it much sooner. And I've used good debt a lot through my career and it's been so valuable. Like you mentioned, the bank is such an important partner, if you have a good banking partner. And you can grow your business and as you're paying off that loan, you're building equity that you could never do if you're just trying to save it up. And as long as a business generates enough profit or cash flow to service the debt and have enough excess to also provide income for you too, then, then it's essentially a money tree, right? You're using other people's money to, to, to create that asset for yourself, and you're able to pay it off and generate excess beyond that. I mean, why wouldn't you? It's a beautiful thing. Why wouldn't you want to do that? Of course, different though if you're buying consumer products. You buy expensive car or, or something else, so expensive vacations you're taking, debt, credit card debt, that's a totally different story, not what I'm talking about here. But people sometimes have trouble distinguishing between those two.

Yeah. So let me remind everybody again, uh, there you go, it's Rainbow Gold. There's his book, Building a Business That's, uh, Both of the Journey and the destination. And you say this is really a blueprint for something that is real and something that lasts. What's next for you, David?

Well, you know, I would love to, um, just to, to work with more business owners to, you know, to help them, you know, understand these concepts I've spoken about. So I've started a consulting company called Rainbow Gold Advisors to help other business owners. I also offer some board of directors services on a select basis to private companies. So, so So that I'm continuing growing my company. And I love, obviously I love my aviation insurance business. We're going to keep growing that, right. You know, like on that trajectory as well. Um, so maybe it'll be, maybe there'll be a second book as well. I just, I started thinking about it. Like I, the first book was more, um, aspirational, inspirational, and I've already thought of a second book, which would be Rainbow Gold, how to build a business that's both the journey, the destination, how to guide, uh, sequel to— there you go.

So where can everybody find your book, Rainbow Gold?

You can find my book on Amazon, of course, that's probably the best place to get it. Barnes Noble as well. I also have a website, um, which is www.myrainbowgold.com, and you can find it on there as well as contact information for me also. Very good.

Very last question, and I ask this of most of my guests, especially the entrepreneurs, and you cannot answer marriage and you cannot answer children. But up until now, up until now, what would you say has been crowning moment in your life? The crowning moment.

I would say that the crowning moment in my life is when, um, was the day that we, that we, that we signed the purchase and sale agreement for the business that we have today, the aviation insurance business, because that was a, I just remember that day.

You got your first plane.

It wouldn't, it wouldn't even be that because That was an important date. I probably rank it as like number 2 after marriage, kids, and this. But that, because I knew that I was going into something, I wanted to have my own business in this space of aviation insurance. It was like a dream come true combining my passion with an area I had a lot of experience in. And I just had the sense that, unlike the first business venture I had, there was a restaurant, I had a sense, I did have a sense from the very beginning this was going to be successful. This is going to be something that's going to become the pinnacle of my career and just catapult me to success because I felt like I couldn't go wrong with something that I was so passionate about. And it's proven to be true. Like, you know, now it's 11 years later. So yeah, I'll never forget that night that we signed that personal sale agreement. I was just on cloud nine.

That was it. That was it. Just pinch me, pinch me, pinch me, right? Yes. Everybody, again, David Hampson, there's his book. Rainbow Gold. He's already told you where you can find it. David, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Great information, great advice. Let me know if you write the second book. We'll see each other again. Sounds good.

Thanks, Clarissa. I enjoyed it. Bye, David.

Bye. Bye-bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the In the Limelight podcast, intelligent media for the savvy entrepreneur. You'll find my video interviews on YouTube and clarissaburt.com, and the audio version of the interviews you can get wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget to connect with me on social pretty much anywhere, and do stay well until we meet again in the limelight.