046 David Pride - Bumps, Bruises & Setbacks

At 19, you're supposed to be enjoying your freshman year of college or your first real job, right? Well, imagine yourself at 19 and getting a diagnosis of terminal cancer. How could it get any worse? That's what David Pride found out, and he found a way to deal with the bumps, bruises, and setbacks that each of us are gonna face from time to time. Today, he'll give us the steps to take when trying to survive a difficult season in life.

Welcome to Walking the Walk. The program for people who want to become better leaders and leaders who want to become better people. Start walking the walk with your host, renowned leadership speaker and author of The Sensei Leader, Jim Bouchard.

Let's talk about when you first found out you had cancer.

So when I was about 19 years old, I was a freshman in college, and I remember walking into the gym to work out with the soccer team and, uh, laying under the bench press there and rubbing my collarbone and felt this lump and Uh, when you're that age, you— when you're that age and playing soccer, especially college sports, you get bumps and bruises all the time. So I didn't think anything of it. And then a few months later, flew to Houston, Texas for a completely unrelated surgery, and a 45-minute surgery turned into a 3-hour surgery. And woke up and this guy was freaking out, staring at me, and knew something was wrong. And I asked him if he did the surgery. He said he did. And I said, well, then, you know, why do you look so freaked out? I, I thought maybe I was pregnant, but he said that, uh, he said that, well, we found a 6-inch tumor around your heart and you have cancer from your neck to your groin. And I had no signs and no symptoms, and I was sitting there with stage 3 Hodgkin's disease lymphoma cancer.

Now, the reason we're sharing the story is not just to elicit sympathy for people that have a diagnosis like that, right? David Pride is emerging as one of the, one of the most remarkable speakers on the circuit today, and he speaks for a lot of speaking for, for schools, for educational facilities and whatnot, right? Yep. But now you're doing a lot of work in the corporate as well.

Yeah.

Because your message and the techniques that you share— everybody gets stuck sometimes. Everybody gets to a place where they say, you know, things are just too overwhelming, I don't know what to do. And really, that's at the heart of your message, right?

Absolutely.

And if you want to tie it into, you know, how did you get out of that mindset, you know, that— I'm cheating because I know the story, right? But tell us a little bit about the mindset you had when you get that diagnosis and how you found your way out of that and how that relates to you know, people in everyday life too. You don't have to have cancer, right? Right, exactly.

Yeah, yep, yeah. I used to joke around, say you don't have to be somebody's testimony in order to inspire people. Um, but yeah, I know, I know, for me, when I was diagnosed, um, you know, the, the thing that I realized right off the bat was, was these, these challenges that all of us face— and some of us it's cancer, some people it's ALS, some people it's, you know, just having a crappy childhood, other people it's you know, a tough job. Some— all of us have different challenges, and all of us have different setbacks in these, these various long seasons that we go through that we don't really know what's gonna happen.

You know that now, but when you were 19, you were a kid, right? What was going through your head when you first got—

I mean, so, I mean, back then, the first thing I, I was wondering is like, okay, well, am I gonna die? And then, then we figured out that I, that I wasn't going to die. Um, I remember talking with my mom about it, um, and she kind of encouraged me just to continue you know, looking forward and deal with things day by day and, and continue to focus on, on where I was headed. Um, the challenge of it is, is when you're going through it in the, in the moment, is you just kind of, you don't know when that period of time is going to end and you don't know how it's going to wind up.

I think, you know, that's, I think that's the position that a lot of people get into, even though it might not be something as serious as a diagnosis of cancer, but it might be For instance, it's interesting because I was talking to somebody this week who had a situation at work, very tough situation at work. There's an office bully, to keep things simple, making things miserable for everybody, causing people to quit, right? And the pressure and the stress. And the people in the office, a lot of them feel, some of them could leave, but some can't for whatever reason. I'm not going to judge, right? I mean, it's easy for us to say, you know, get the hell out of there. It's not a healthy situation. But there are reasons people stay. And they, like I said, they feel stuck. They feel like, I just, this is just overwhelming. And I know that you draw a lot of parallels to that in what you're talking about, especially like I said, we're relating it to the workplace. How did you first find a way to just say, look, I'm not stuck, I can move forward?

Yeah, for me, there's a few things that factor into it, whether it be when it was cancer or other major challenges. 'Cause for me, cancer was just the beginning of an extremely long season in my life of, of real heartache and challenges. Because, you know, it was directly after cancer that my mother came down with chronic Lyme disease, which then led to early onset Alzheimer's. And at the same time, my wife came down with chronic pancreatitis and she was sick for the next 6 years. And all of this was on the tail end of cancer, which spoke directly to the opposite of what everybody wants to tell you, which is, oh, well, if it's this bad, it can only go up from here.

Yeah, and things can always get worse. Yeah, and they can, but right, not really what you want to hear.

And people sometimes want to believe that, like, well, if I made it through this, then it can't get any worse. Or if I'm going through this season in life, then it's going to get better. So I can just kind of start thinking positive and just hoping, when in fact in life sometimes we're going through dark seasons and it doesn't get better immediately, right? And we have to be mentally prepared for that, or at least have a— have some sort of plan. And for me, the one of the biggest factors was the people I was hanging around and having good mentors that I could talk with, that even though at the moment I couldn't take action on my goals and dreams, you know, especially after surviving cancer, I needed health insurance. I always wanted to be— back then, you know, I was, you know, 15 years ago, I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I needed health insurance was the reality of it. And so I couldn't just go and jump and chase after my dreams because I'm some inspiring cancer patient, um, even though other people, you know, at the time might challenge that, that mindset and say, well, you know, just just take the risk when sometimes—

easy for them to say, right?

Then there's reality that plays into these seasons in life, um, that we can, we can hope and wish and think positive, which is all very good, it's useful, right? But oftentimes there's delays that are going to happen, and it doesn't mean you suck at life, and it doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It just means we gotta, we gotta slow down, take stock of things, and strategically make our next decisions. We know where we want to end up. I knew when I went through cancer, and then when I was caregiving for my mother and for my wife, I knew where I wanted to end up, which was as an entrepreneur, as a professional speaker. But in that season, I couldn't abandon my family and say, oh well, you know, fend for yourself, wife, go get your own health insurance. I got dreams to follow. That's, that's not— some people can maybe, but that's not who I am.

No, no, thanks, thanks for, thanks for saying that. Thanks for putting in that perspective because you I don't like to be Pollyannaish about it. Too many people subscribe to that idea that all I have to do is fill in the blank. Think positively, set my goals, just go for it, damn the torpedoes. And that's all fine, but there are realities. Especially if you have dependents, especially if you have children, you have things like that that you're dealing with. Or like you said, the need to have some health coverage, right? Because to absorb that on your own would have been huge. Not to say you wouldn't have done it. The thing is too, in the spirit of full disclosure, the first time I heard David talk, I was blown away and it had nothing to do with any of this. He was talking about social media marketing. Right. Okay? But there was something about him that really connected and I just felt he had a bigger message and it turns out that he did. And then the last time I saw him talk, I do some work with incarcerated youth and he came and talked to our group. To say he's inspirational would be selling him short. And not trying to build that up, but I think what differentiates you from a lot of the people out there that are doing— I hate that word motivational speaker, right? But someone who's really delivering an inspirational motivational message is that you gave some very concrete, call them techniques, some steps that you can take to keep moving your life forward, and you shared that with the kids, and they're still talking about it. And this is months later, right? They're still talking to talk about the guy with the hair. You're gonna have the guy with the hair come back. Uh, but anyways, you know, that, that's what it's all about. Can you give a couple, you know, a couple of steps or a couple of maybe case examples where you've worked with somebody that was stuck and say, here's where they were, here's what we did, and here's where they ended up later?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, I can think of one guy specifically that I've worked with, um, quite a bit who came from in his situation, came from a really tough childhood where he had parents who were just kind of tearing him down all the part, all the time. And he kind of had those parents that a lot of us have friends who are like, who the moment we have a dream or a goal, they want to push play on our highlight reel of failures and remind us why that won't work. And, and that's kind of how he grew up. And so he started sharing with me some of this stuff, and what was fascinating for me is is he would share with me what he wanted to be doing in life. He had these great big goals and dreams, and then everything was always followed up with either an excuse or a reflection on his past.

Yeah, I'm not worthy. Wayne's World, right?

Exactly. This is why I can't do it, or, but my parents tell me this, or, you know, like, I wasn't brought up like this, or I come from a family of losers. Or, and, you know, for him there's several things we identified, and one of the easiest things that I think most people could identify is what is it that you're putting into your brain. So what are you reading at home? Are you Are you sitting at home and just reading the newspaper and, and filling your mind with negativity all the time?

That'll kill you these days.

Exactly. Or are you investing in, in books that can help improve your thinking, help you think more strategically, uh, look forward to the future? And I think what's so important in my opinion about reading consistently, especially from books that build you up, is that if you're going through one of those seasons in life where it's several weeks, several months, or in my case several years Sometimes books are the only positive escape you have from that. And that 15 or 20 minutes a day of reading from an author who's helping you think more strategically or think about the future, even though you can't take action on that right now, what you don't realize is you're equipping yourself for when you can take action.

That's what, you know, that's one of the big things I like about your message and the way you present it, what you're doing in workshops, right? That it doesn't— everybody's looking for that lightning bolt.

Right.

Right? And it doesn't really work that way. You know, what did Lao Tzu say? Every journey begins with— every journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, right? I've learned, I think you've learned through life, the rest of the journey is a bunch of single steps too. People lose sight of that. Today, right, we're looking for that instant fix, that lightning bolt. Yep. And I can't reinforce what you said enough. Sometimes the smallest step later on— you know, there was one time when one of the darkest moments in my life, I was working in broadcast at the time, And a friend of mine was sensitive to my mood, you know what I mean? And he walked into work one day and he threw this beat up, tattered copy of Zorba the Greek on my desk. And he said, "I shit you not," he said, "Read this, it'll change your life." And I said, "Oh yeah, right." Yeah, like this is gonna change my life at this point. I don't wanna get into all the details, but it was pretty dark, you know? I went home that weekend, read the book, 'cause you can read that in a weekend. And it really did. I didn't notice it as much. I noticed something right away, but later on, and it's ironic because I'm just rereading, there's a new translation of it. I've read that book half a dozen times probably, and I've given— the reason I never have a copy is because I'm always giving it away. Right. Right. But that's true. It sounds like such a small, insignificant thing, but just the process of reading that and having a story to relate to started to shift my mindset into something that was a little more clear anyway. Nothing great happened right away. Just my mind changed. And you know I'm the last guy to say, "Oh yeah, just change your mind, everything will be great." No, no, but it's an essential step. All right, so we get— oh, go ahead, yeah.

I think what's interesting is I talk a lot of times with employees where you hear a lot of speakers who are inspirational who crap all over jobs. Like, "Oh, you don't want to have a job. You need to start your own business. You need to get off on your own and be a millionaire, get your Rolls-Royce, blah, blah, blah." they're rich. Exactly. And they're making money by telling you that.

Yeah, exactly.

But also, I think what people don't realize is many times I talk with people who are employees who have dreams of someday owning their own business, and then we'll talk about, well, here's some things, you know, you could be reading these books, or you could be listening to these speakers, or you could be attending. And they'll say, well, I can't take any action on it right now, so what's the point of me getting my hopes up?

That is the action.

Exactly. And what they don't get. And what I didn't understand is, as a young man, when I was taking care of, you know, my mom and taking care of my wife and working a job— actually, at one point, 3 jobs at the same time so we could get by while my wife was sick— that entire time, I was still reading and still investing my time with mentors and people who would authentically believe in me. Not people who were making money by believing me because I paid them $149 a month, right? These were people who believed in me and understood my priorities and what my goals were in life. And what I didn't get is, once I finally made it through that long season, I now look back on all that investment I made in myself, and I'm so thankful because when I was finally ready to take action, I had done so much of the groundwork. Yeah, I had no idea that what I was doing in that period, in that like really dark period of my life, when I was reading these books and hanging out with these people and and continuously trying to learn and just doing my best to just not lose that burn in my belly for what I wanted to be doing, I had no idea how much that was actually preparing me for when that dark season lifts and I was ready to rock and roll and I could hit the ground running. And it wasn't like, oh, now I gotta stop and read a book, now I gotta go find 3 Minute Manager or whatever it is. Like, now I'm ready to rock because I've been investing in this for so long. Now that this season has lifted, let's roll.

It's like those people that say, you know, now they say if you have a child Save, invest $1 a day. $1 a day, right? Sounds like nothing. But over time, by the time that kid graduates college, they'll have, I think it's almost $3 million in the bank, right? Just from $1 a day. It's those little steps that build the compound interest. So, that's really cool. The other thing about it, too, yeah, I like the idea that you're not— you're one of the reasons that when I heard your story, I've lost If I ever had— I guess I had some faith in the law of attraction. I'd rather call it the kind of genuine, general tendency of attraction, because you're right, things happen. Oh, I got cancer through my whole body at 19, and then my wife got sick, and my mom got sick, and on and on and on. Those things do continually happen. That's why I like Zorba. Zorba talks about that. It's the continual— I didn't just pick that out of a hat. You're here, Zorba's here. Um, you know, he talks about facing these challenges of life every day. It's just part of it, right? The full catastrophe, right?

Yeah. And how to embrace it and how selfish it is of us as humans to think that for some reason we wouldn't suffer.

We're exempt from it.

Like, this is, this is what blows my mind.

Well, people get a lot of money for, right, helping people buy the exemption, right? Exactly.

And I, and I talk with people about what they want to be doing in their career or what they want to be doing in life or what they want to be doing in school and they identify all these challenges as if that's unique and as if that's a sign that they're doing something wrong.

Yeah.

When they have— they have no realization of the suffering is part of it. It's the burning of the chaff, so we're preparing for what we're going to be doing. And it's that, that testing ground. And you know what, sometimes very Buddhist testing ground continues.

Yes, always, always.

Yeah. And so we shouldn't be thinking that, oh, we're making it now that it's easy, because for most people it never gets easy. So that struggle you're facing is life. That is— so we continue to operate through that period because we're going to meet other people, yeah, facing that same struggle, and we can help them if we're not the ones who give up and say, oh, I threw in the towel, it got too hard.

Now that brings us back to, you know, kind of bringing it back to grounding in the, in the workplace, because I know, like I said, you're starting to do a lot more work with corporations and Sometimes people say, "Well, how does this type of message fit in there?" Well, it's essential. I mean, I've told you this before. Every workshop I do, there are people in that workshop that need what you're offering, what you're sharing. And one of the things is, I know you talk a lot about entrepreneurship because that was your life, but you've also been an employee. How about these guys that— there's a lot of people, and this is great. I mean, people that want to make a career inside an organization. And how does that organization support this mindset, right? How do people— you don't have to adopt this mindset just to go off on your own and do business. There are very successful people that move up, for lack of a better term, the corporate ladder, or work, right, work within organizations of any size but are very, very happy not being the owner, not being the entrepreneur, but being key players at every— to me, it's at every single level. I don't care if you're the janitor or the CEO, right? If you have the mindset you're talking about, you're going to be successful, you're going to be more happy, you're going to be productive at whatever level you choose to be at, right?

Absolutely. Yeah, it's funny you, you mentioned employees and entrepreneurs. I just talked to someone the other day who was telling me that they kind of felt like a loser, that they didn't want to be an entrepreneur, like they felt like they should want— and what I said to him is I said, you know what, I wish I didn't want to be an entrepreneur. You know, like there's so many great benefits to working for an existing company and being able to contribute.

I wish I could have been a better employee, then I might not have become an entrepreneur, right?

Exactly. But I think as far as the attitude,, you know, of someone in working in the workplace. And is that inevitably in your job or in your career as you're moving up, you're going to face these seasons in life of, you know, the economy's gone down the tubes all of a sudden, or you lost a product line or a huge client, you know. And it comes down to how do we navigate these really challenging times while still respecting each other, while still treating each other with civility, while still considering each other's journey. And so, because we can get so caught up in our own drama or our own things that are happening within the workplace that we forget that other people has lives outside of here too. So maybe that email they sent wasn't meant with the attitude that we read it in. And maybe a face-to-face conversation—

Exactly. That opens up two kinds of lines of challenge, if you will, right? First of all, because our focus is on leadership, right? There's people that, you know, they say it's lonely at the top. Well, it shouldn't be. If we reach out. But it does get that way. There's a realism to that. You know, you join the them club. You're not an us anymore, you're a them. And there's no way around that. I mean, there's ways to manage the relationships there, but that perception is ingrained. It's natural. It's part of us. Now, first of all, how does that person in the leadership position, in that position of authority, they've got people reporting to them, how do they break out of that idea to do exactly what you just said, to be aware, because it's not a luxury, right? If I'm a manager I'm a manager of even a small division. I can't afford to be wallowing in my own tears. I've got other people that are depending on me and depending on my attitude and depending on my perception and my decisions, right? And then the same thing, if you're talking about people— I hate to use these words, you know, subordinates, right? But the people that are on the lower ends of the org chart. Today everyone's talking about leading up. How do you do that? How can you be sensitive? Because one of the things I think I'd love to have you come into workshop to talk about this with some of the C-suite people, right? When they say, God, I'm working so hard, I'm doing everything, and these people just don't appreciate me, right? You know what I mean? So there it is, it goes, it flows both ways. How do you help people open up to that, to be able to share and help one another, right? Up or down the ladder, right?

Yeah.

You know, for me, I believe it's all about that personal relationship and, and being willing to be curious with people, being willing to get, no, get to know people Being willing to ask questions, looking for those opportunities to serve. And I realize you have a huge company, you can't get to know everybody's first name and that type of thing necessarily.

Globally, but you know, whenever I hear that, I ask people, you know, "Oh, I can't get to know everybody. I got 10,000 people." I say, "Well, how many people do you work with in your area? How many people are direct?" "Oh, 12." "Okay, let's start there." Exactly.

And I'm amazed by how much difference a thank you makes to people. That's completely forgotten. And I'll remind people that, and they're like, oh well, they know I appreciate that. Well, so what? You still tell them. They still love to— they say, you know, I tell people all the time, people never get tired of being complimented. They never ever get tired of being— and so if you can offer someone an appropriate compliment that has something to do with other than the way they're dressed, but if you can offer them a genuine compliment, people never get tired of that. And the trust that builds when you build other people up, you're building up that relationship with them. And guess what happens when you show other people appreciation? They begin to appreciate you because they now believe you actually care about them. But the challenge is we get so selfish of, I feel bad that I'm putting in 90 hours, no one realizes I'm doing it, and all they do is complain that healthcare costs went up this year. Well, if you took a moment away from looking in the mirror and said, boy, well, what's going on that's great in this team? What's a unique way I can make them all feel special? Now, it doesn't have to be— maybe it's not bonuses, but it could be simple things that you can find that make someone feel— I remember when I worked for a big company here in Maine way back in the day, I had a boss once who every once in a while would buy me a coffee and surprise me with it. And you'd be blown away by my loyalty to this man, right, right, by the time he did that. And it was a buck 25, but to me, what it told me is he was out of the office and he thought of me when he was at Starbucks or wherever. And I didn't even care about the coffee as much as the fact that my boss thought of me and that did something nice. Yeah. And so a handwritten note— you want to blow someone's mind, you take a moment and you use your hand and a pen to write a handwritten note instead of an email and give someone a compliment. And you'll be amazed by the loyalty and the appreciation that reflects back on you, right? The second you take your eyes off—

no, the research backs you up entirely on that. And what I'm What I'm really taking away from what you said too is the emphasis on the word genuine. It's easy to just go, oh yeah, that's a nice jacket you have to— you know, that's nothing.

Exactly.

A person's choice of a jacket, right, or their haircut that day, that, that's, that's just stupid.

Yep.

You know, every—

everybody does those things. It's to find something— I think you use the words unique, right? Something unique. What is that person doing that's a little above and beyond? And everybody's got that.

Yep.

I mean, everybody's got that, but A leader has to— that's part of the job of leader. You have to do the work to notice those things, right?

Right, exactly. That's not always easy, but see, you know, and one of the tricks I know, um, I had a client who used to do this, um, as he got to know his employees. He had a section on his phone in the notes where he put the employee's name, and when he learned his employee's wife's name, he'd write the wife's name, the kid's name. And so if he knew he was going to run into that guy, he could look at his phone if his memory wasn't that great, and he could see I still remember, oh, his wife's name is, you know, Jennifer. I can ask her how Jennifer— and it's just the intentional effort of, I want to care more about these people. How can I do it? Maybe I need to make some notes periodically to remind me, because I am a busy person and I do have 400 people working for me. But there's ways—

my memory is not that good, right?

Exactly.

That happens to me. Yeah, but you're right on. I remember one of our Walking the Walk guests, uh, Darshan Chandra, who runs one of the biggest corporations in Eastern Africa, He got about 10,000 people, you know, working for him. And we got talking about that. He's, you know, can you get to know everybody in a company? Because 10,000 is one of those iconic points. I don't know everybody, I got 10,000 people. And he said, well, of course, by name, no, but I try to, right? And the difference was, when he walks on the floor— we heard other stories about this— when he walks on the floor and meets somebody, his first question isn't, hey, how's the job going? How many widgets did you put out today? Right? It's exactly what you said. Do you have kids? Geez, how many kids do you have? Oh yeah, are they in school? What are they doing? They like sports, right? He approaches them as an individual, as a human being, not as an employee, not as a piece of equipment, right?

Right, exactly.

And you're right, it makes a huge impression.

Yep.

Yeah, especially, it's funny, because sometimes people at the top feel more distanced. Right. But if you'll take that time, that impression is magnified because of your position. Whether that's justified or not, it's just the way it is.

Yep, exactly. Yeah, one of my mentors had a very large company here in Maine, and I remember when I first started meeting with him, I was 15 years old, and at that time his company was doing about $30 million a year, and they had a few dozen employees here in Maine.

Yeah.

And I remember asking him about, well, how do you make your employees like stick around? Because everybody's so loyal to him. It wasn't even the company, it was you asked them if they liked their job.

Yeah.

And they're like, oh, we love Mr. And they would say who they like. And he would tell me that, well, David, every day I'll walk through the factory and just say hello to guys and greet them. And he said, and then when we have great years, he said, I'm very open and everybody gets a bonus.

There you go.

And he said, and if it's a great year, then I tell everybody, every— and he said, from the janitor to me, all of us sharing it. And he said, and we have a bad year, I tell them and they know, okay, well, we might not be getting the bonus this year, because this— but he said, I'm transparent and I genuinely try to care about every single one of my employees, whether that's just by greeting them in the morning or handing them a paycheck at the end.

Yeah, well, that's a good segue. We mentioned paycheck because one of the issues, you know, it comes up— both of us work in an area that's described by technical management people as the intangible areas, right? Which is kind of bad. I mean, I know sometimes they say soft skills. I hate that word. It's the same thing in martial arts. There's soft arts and hard arts, and the soft arts are sometimes the most powerful Powerful, right? You know, that's where flexibility and timing is really much more of an issue. Leverage, you know, those types of things. Imprints perfectly into the business world, right? So I don't like the idea of soft. I mean, if you don't, if you don't have your head screwed on straight, soft skill, right? What the hell are you going to be able to accomplish? What process? What hard management, uh, you know, tactics you're going to be able to employ? You just can't. It just doesn't work. So at any rate, as we're talking about those things, you know, there is a dollar value. I see a hard dollar value to what you do. I see increase in productivity, right? I see less wasted and lost time, more focus, these types of things. Less sick time.

Loyalty.

Loyalty, right. Less turnover. That's a big issue these days because of course some people are going to leave. You can't help it. They just want to be somewhere else. Nothing to do with you. I want to live in Arizona. I'm sick of Maine. You know, something like that, right? When we're dealing with the people where we can do something about it. And I think that's the example. One of the biggest takeaways I get from your story is that you always focused on what you could do. And if I'm guessing right, it seems that that helped you not worry about as much about the things that you couldn't do anything about, right?

Exactly.

Is that at the hardest? And is that— to me, I think that's really where the hardest turn is to translate to— I hate these terms— ROI, return on investment, right? If you can get people to focus on what they can do, what does that do to them for productivity? What does that do overall to the organization, right?

Well, you know, you energize people when you help them focus on the things that they can accomplish and what they have accomplished. I think many times, especially if you're facing a major challenge, what wants to happen in our head is that highlight reel of failures all of a sudden goes on repeat, you know. And so it's like, oh, well, we got this big challenge. Well, I wasn't able to hit that quota last year, and I didn't hit the year before, then why the heck would I think— and but what we never stop to do is say, but Okay, well, we may not have hit that quota, but look at all the other victories we did have last year. So if we take stock of that, that's pretty incredible, all this progress we made. Now, in the moment, those felt like little teeny tiny steps that didn't matter. Yeah, but look at what it added up to. Why on earth wouldn't we think we can push forward through this? And what are the changes we need to make in order to make it happen?

Yeah.

And the— I think the energy level and the camaraderie of people who are focusing on what they have done and what they can do pushing forward, um, can, can subtract from that the fear of, okay, I wasn't able to do well last time, then, you know, I'm not gonna knock it out of the park this time, right? And so, and instead, folks, look out, look how far I've come, and, and here's— we're going to use that energy to continue making progress.

Yeah, I don't remember the exact term for that, but it's one of the fallacies, one of the great fallacies in logical thinking, right? I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call it the performance fallacy for— because I can't remember the exact term. But that idea, "Oh yeah, I just hit 3 home runs, so I'm going to hit another one." No, it doesn't work that way. Or, "I just struck out 4 times, so I'm going to strike out again." It doesn't tend to work out that way. If you struck out 4 times, you're probably more set up, if you can keep your head straight, to getting your hit, right? If you hit 3 home runs, you probably hit enough right now. You can't live in either extreme, right? Now, I'm really excited. We got a couple minutes left. I'm really excited about the areas of focus that you're working on for workshops. And some of those, I think, translate right away, where someone can say, "Yes, you know what? I see, I see a direct return on this one. I know communication was one of them. Can you highlight some of those areas that you're working on, some of the specific workshops that you put together so people can take advantage of? Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. So what we're focusing on is one, of course, is, is right off the bat, helping people navigate these challenging seasons. And so, um, and that could mean where we're walking through goal setting and setting up plans. And, um, you know, equally as important as a plan to reach that goal for your team I believe is also a plan on how to deal with the people who are going to tell you that you can't.

Good.

So, right, I think it's very important for people without violence, maybe. Exactly, exactly.

Which I wouldn't be against in certain ways, maybe throwing some erasers.

But, um, I, I think it's important for people to realize the moment that they set their goal or, or what it is that they're going to want to do, that there's going to be, um, people who are going to always cheer you on and there's going to be people who are always going to tear you apart, and then there's going to be just disinterested others. And I think it's important to be able to not only just mentally but literally identify these, these people so that you know what to expect as you're, as you're moving forward, especially through these seasons where some of us have friends or co-workers who always want to remind you of how bad it was last year and why that's going to repeat.

Usually because they suck.

Exactly right. And they're probably not the people you want to talk with about what you're doing.

I don't know if misery loves love's company, but a lot of people, uh, think that if they share their misery, somehow they will have more company.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And so also we're talking about generational change, and so talking about generational change in communication. So those areas where, you know, my father's 80, yeah, I'm 37, there's some major communication changes that have happened since then. And even in, in between the ages, you know, if you're looking in the, the '50s, when a 50-year-old man or woman is communicating with a 27 or 29-year-old woman or man, The, the changes of whether it be via email or face-to-face or things that's the language, right?

Just the language.

Exactly. And the way that, um, the way to earn a young person's loyalty isn't just by saying, hey, we're going to pay you more. Many times you can earn someone's loyalty who's my age or younger simply by appreciating them.

Yeah, we're talking in abbreviations or, you know, going and buying the latest, uh, slim fit jacket when, you know, that's not I'm not gonna look like an idiot, right? But people do that.

Exactly.

Yeah. No, these are cool areas, and I'm gonna jump all over that because, you know, again, I see that need every single workshop that we do. I really think that, uh, you know, people, people need to give you a shout. They need to figure out, you know, exactly how, exactly when they're going to bring you in, right? Right. So let's talk, let's finish up with that. Let's talk about how people get to get in touch with you. Yeah, of course, uh, we got to give a plug for Armstrong Speakers. They can always get to you through Armstrong Speakers, right? Alex books both of us and Go ahead. But get— how do they get to you directly? And what are some of the— because you have some blogs going, some stuff like that going on.

Yeah, so you can find me online at davidpridespeaks.com, uh, and then I'm on all social networks as David A. Pride. And so, um, you can find me on, on all, you know, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, all of them David A. Pride. Um, and so, uh, but through the website is where they can read about some of these different offerings or, or certainly contact Armstrong and Uh, go that route also.

What's— what's— is there something that you just want to leave people with, just the thought that kind of summarizes what, what your philosophy is, and they can walk away and say, hey, I could put that on coffee mug today?

Yeah, you know, I think that people need to learn to embrace these seasons that we see as setbacks, that in actuality is a delay season, and recognize that delays aren't negative. Delays many times are that period where we're working out, we're getting stronger and stronger, and if we just don't let our mindset slip, and if we just don't give up doing those daily things that we know are adding to where we're trying to get, then that delay is actually a growth period. It's just we're not gonna see those results until we push through that moment. So these dark seasons, these challenging seasons we face in a career or in life, those aren't bad seasons, those aren't unique to you. Those are just periods where we're learning how do we push through this, how do we strengthen so that when we're ready to rock, we are ready to go as fast as possible.

Well, you just, you just put me on the right path today. I appreciate it. David, David Pride, thank you so much for being with us.

My pleasure. Thank you.

Thanks for listening to Walking the Walk. Please share this episode. We encourage you to download and share the program with both experienced and aspiring leaders in your network. We also encourage you to suggest guests for future episodes. Complete information at walkingthewalkpodcast.com. Jim Bouchard is in high demand presenting keynotes and workshops for conference, corporate, and community audiences all over the world. To book Jim for your next event, meeting, or retreat, visit thatblackbeltguy.com or call Alexandra Armstrong at 207-751- 4317.