Episode 203: Extraordinary Opportunity with David Bush

Welcome to the Unstoppable Profit podcast. This podcast will give independent insurance agents all of the tools to grow your business and live life on your terms. Wherever you are today, if you're starting with nothing or well on your way.

To the success you desire, with the.

Right people, processes and promotions in place, you will be unstoppable. And now I'd like to introduce your host, Mike Stromsol.

Foreign.

Welcome to the next episode of the Unstoppable podcast, and we're going to start this century a podcast off with the one and the only longtime friend and colleague of mine, Mr. David Bush. David, welcome to the podcast.

Oh, thanks for having me, Mike. So excited to get a chance to chat with you and just share some unstoppable ideas and some extraordinary stories. For sure.

We're looking to help people. Right?

Let's do it.

Yeah. So, I mean, we recently reconnected again, but let me share with you a little bit of the backstory, and then I want to hear an update and so David can share with everybody a little bit about his background. But way back when, I will date ourselves just a little bit. Roughly 2004. Ish. We were working together. You were my lone guy in the local market. I mean, you needed a home loan, et cetera, et cetera. You were my guy. And we were doing business, and I was working to grow the agency. And I was in the office one day after I did a deal with Dave and, you know, minding my own business. And they bring into this box into the office, and they set it on my desk, and I'm looking at the box. Well, what do you do when you get a big box on your desk and it's addressed to you? Of course, you open it. And so I remember this. I got the scissors out and I slit the top, and the box is kind of pushing open itself. And I'm going, whoa, what's going on here? So it was pushing up and I slowly pulled it back and out pops this balloon. And inside there with the balloon was a tin of cookies and a note from Dave and his team thanking us for the business. And folks, if you know anything about our UPP channels and how we've always tried to wow people and continue to do so. This man has a huge hand in responsibility for enlightening me on a true wow package. And so I remember I went to your event, I said, dave, thank you so much, but where did you get that? And you turned me on to your vendor. And I went to the vendor and I started a program with the vendor. And you don't know this.

I actually did a deal with the vendor. And he came to spoke at one of our early UPP training sessions before boot camp ever became real. And it was awesome. So thank you for that.

Awesome. I'm so glad the ripple effect continues on. It's a crazy thing how one. One extraordinary gesture can begin to create a ripple effect in so many other people's lives. And you have not stopped at those balloons, I'm telling you.

Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And, you know, the cool thing about getting together today is we're going to talk about my favorite subject and David's favorite subject, which is helping people through coaching. And I'm super glad to reconnect with Dave. Recently wrote a book, live an Extraordinary Life, and I started digging into it, and I saw the introduction from Kurt Warner, author of All Things Possible, Pro Football hall of Fame quarterback, Super bowl champion, NFL Peyton, NFL man of the Year recipient, and more. And I'm gonna let David tell the backstory on that. But super great stuff, David. Thank you. Let's help people live an extraordinary life, and let's help them in some way today. Sound good?

Yeah, it sounds great. Well, yeah.

So tell us a little bit about yourself, David. Go ahead.

Yeah. So, you know, I grew up in. In your. Your backyard, the Temecula area. I went to high school there, had a dream of wanting to play professional football. Only problem was nobody else was looking to have me come play for their college at that particular time. So that was my first. Overcoming obstacles and overcoming some adversity. Wasn't a great student, so went on to junior college, got a scholarship to the University of South Dakota. I was just one constant off of going to University of Southern California. But I got in my car, basically drove off 1700 miles, play this thing called college football, and had a lot of passion around it. Had had a big dream, wanted to go play professional football. But after I was done playing with college, I was an all American offensive center, but never really got a lot of looks. I was an undersized offensive offensive center. And even though I was a hard worker and an overachiever, I just didn't check all the boxes for the NFL or the Canadian Football League. And so that was my first sales job. I ended up doing basically dialing for dollars to. I made a list of every team in the NFL, the cfl, the World Football League, if you remember that back in the days.

I do.

There was this thing called arena football that ended up dialing for dollars and basically sent out VHS cassette tapes to promote myself. And that was maybe what. I should have probably put some balloons in those boxes because I didn't get a great response rate. It wasn't lumpy mail at that time, but it was something that I was real passionate about it. I had a big dream and went after it. And through a lot of adversity, I was able to land a starting role with the Iowa Barnstormers of arena football, which some of you may have seen the. The new movie out from Kurt Warner. So I think it's over a year old now, but yeah, so that's where I landed. Played four years of arena football. I was the guy that hiked the ball to Kurt Warner. So if it hadn't have been for me, that kid never would have been in the super bowl or hall of Fame or mvp. So I keep reminding I'm going to be going to see him in a couple of weeks. My son's actually a quarterback. My son wears number 13. And Kurt is actually a guy that's been a major influencer in my son's life. So it's really cool to see how when you chase extraordinary dreams, Mike, unbelievable things happen. I mean, just this small story of how a extraordinary effort on my part has influenced you, and now how many other people are being influenced by your extraordinary coaching and marketing ideas? And Kurt's story impacted my story, except when after my four years of of professional football, I suffered what a lot of experts call a career ending lack of talent. And I ended up getting career transitioned into the world of home mortgages. But Kurt's career took off and, you know, it's been great to see a guy like him chase extraordinary dreams. But my dreams didn't stop at football. I ended up getting into the mortgage business. I never really thought of myself as a mortgage professional, but I wanted to help people. So I started there, made an impact for about 10 years, and then a friend of mine asked me, Mike, and he said, david, do you think you're more successful than you are significant? Wow. And that spoke to me because I felt like I had been doing a great job and I was helping a lot of people to achieve their homeowner dreams or to improve their financial position. But I didn't really feel like I was making a significant difference in the lives of other people. And that's when I started to shift and I started thinking about how I could take my career as a home mortgage broker and I could begin to become more significant in the lives of the people that we served. And we started doing Some extraordinary things. And then I started thinking, you know what, this is really working well. I was being blessed financially and I started sharing it with other mortgage professionals. And so I decided to make a jump. And 2006, I jumped into full time entrepreneur coaching with mortgage professionals. And then I don't know if you heard Mike, but there was a big loud crashing noise from the real estate market in the mortgage business back in 2006, 2008. So I jumped at the wrong time. But that landed me in another opportunity which was to get healthier. I ended up making a decision to get healthier after I had had kind of some bumps and bruises after leaving major income and a major career to have some rocky jumps or rocky starts as a coach to mortgage professionals. And so I ended up getting healthier. I ended up losing £100 14 years ago. And in that journey I was awakened to the idea of inspiring people to create extraordinary health in their life. And I've been coaching entrepreneurs and executives to achieve extraordinary health and live extraordinary lives the last 14 years. And it's been, I tell you what, it's, it's something I wouldn't want to repeat for a plum nickel. But the experience of what I've had a chance to go through and learn along the way has truly been extraordinary. So that's a little bit of background on me.

Thank you for sharing the journey and I, I consider it an honor and a blessing that we reconnected and bumped into each other again, which we all, we bump into each other at least once a year, right?

Yeah. At least on January 12th we share a birthday together. So yeah, we're at least getting some birthday greetings once in a while. Yeah.

But anyway, the conversations that we've had since we re bumped into each other again, we thought we got to bring this to everybody out there and thank you for the opportunity to do that. The other thing is just to share a little bit. I'm looking at the, the last page of your book, which is the most important page. And for those who are on the YouTube visual version, that's Dave and his family. Tell us a little bit about your family. You mentioned your son, but you got a beautiful bride and beautiful daughters.

Yeah, they're, they look like sisters. That's, that's a good thing. But yeah. So my wife and I have been married 25 years in September.

Congratulations.

A 23 year old daughter, Cassidy, lives in Bentonville, Arkansas and we have a middle, middle child, Morgan, who is engaged to be married, be married this September. And then our youngest child is an 18 year old son who's just getting ready to graduate high school and he's going off to my alma material to play quarterback at the University of South Dakota. So lots of cool things, lots of transitional time periods, but they're, they're the ones that I want to be the most extraordinary for. And that's one of the things, you know, I learned in the chase of significance was, you know, not just to be successful in the marketplace, but to be significant in your home and to be known as the extraordinary dad and the extraordinary husband. Because, you know, when you're chasing success, it's really easy just to give what's left of you and not the best of you. And I got into that unhealthy habit and I was chasing wealth and lost my health, not just physically, but relationally and financially in some regards. And I was chasing the wrong things. And that's what really kind of woke me up to the idea that those were my greatest relationships. My, my family was my, my best client and I needed to treat them in such a way. And yeah, lots of lessons to be learned in that whole analogy of treating your family as your number one referral source and your number one client because I, I got those out of context after a while.

Well, congratulations for identifying. Re. Identifying priorities. And as they say in a football analogy, you out punted the coverage, that's for sure.

Yeah. Amen to that. Yeah.

Yeah. So congratulations and I'm glad you guys got back on track and you are on track. Beautiful family, great story so far. And I can't wait to hear more about the extraordinary ending, so and, or advancements, I should say. But anyway, so David, we got a quick overview. Why are you so passionate about coaching other people to live an extraordinary life?

Well, first and foremost, I, I've had my own personal experiences in being coached. You know, there were certain people in my life, whether they were, you know, videos or audio cassettes, you know, back in the day, that's kind of where, you know, I grew up. I kind of cut my teeth on Zig Ziglar and Jim Rohn and was very influenced by those people's lives. And then I had obviously professional coaches that were in the business category, the financial, the relationship, you know, spiritual health. And those people challenged me to raise my level of what I felt like success and significant was. And so a big part of me is, is more along the lines of I like awakening people to a call to an extraordinary life. You know, believe it or not, I know we, we talk about it quite A bit. But I'm amazed at the number of people that have never been called to live an extraordinary life. Many people don't. If I was to ask them the question how they would define an extraordinary life, the definition would be on a scale of 1 to 10, a 3 or a 4, when their capacity was a 10. And so beginning to awaken people to what they could be and what they could do and what they could have, if they could only dream it and begin to unleash the power within, to truly become unstoppable. I mean, you. You. I'm preaching to the choir with you and I talking and having this conversation, but there are so many grown men and women who. Who are, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 years of age or older that have never been called to chase their dream. They've never. They've had maybe somebody or they had an idea, but they never had somebody in their life that shared something with them and challenged them to get outside of ordinary. They just been kind of going with the flow. And. And that's something that's meaningful to me. And, you know, when I finally leave this earth, I want to know that my life was spent awakening people, connecting people to the resources, the ideas, the tools, the strategies, and the people, the people that were actually doing extraordinary things because people do what people do. So those are some of the reasons that got me going. And, you know, I have some spiritual reasons, I have some financial reasons, and I've got some impact reasons of when I leave this earth, how I want to be remembered.

That's awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And, you know, I learned this years ago as well. It was in a business setting, a training or coaching of some kind. You know, what does your eulogy sound like? I mean, what do you want to be being said.

After that day comes? Right, right. And the more I thought about that, the more I really thought through everything. And what the ones that I've heard none of them generally talk about, oh, a very successful business made this much money or anything of that sort.

Right, right.

It talks about the impact and you drop the word. This part of our core purpose here, which is impacting people's lives personally and professionally. Impact. You want to leave that impact and leave that legacy and everything else. So fantastic.

Yeah, I think that everybody should have a income goal, but they should also have an impact goal because, you know, when you think about your life. And that's where I start the whole book out. So I started off with some research done by a hospice nurse named Bronnie Ware. Who basically chronologically diaried the top five regrets of the dying. And if when you look at those five regrets, you find a lot of people in our world that are having some of those same regrets, and, you know, if I can help a person to have less regrets, I feel more significant and I feel more successful. And I. I think that all of us at some level, have some regrets, some things we cannot do anything about, but other things we could. And so just awakening people to the reality that that's out there and kind of get them out of the rat race of just going through life and, you know, scrolling endlessly and just aimlessly through entertainment and things of that nature and saying, hey, you know what? There's an opportunity here to not only make a difference in your life, but to also become the one that the generations that follow you look up to and say, you know, it was this guy, it was Grandpa Stromso that made the shift. And when Grandpa Stromso made the shift, he changed the trajectory of my life and my life changed the trajectory of my generations to follow. And you can break the cycle. You can break a lot of the negativity that's gone on in your past history by becoming the extraordinary one that changes it for everybody that follows in your stead.

So what are some of the barriers? I mean, do you encounter people that have barriers or from an entrepreneurial standpoint or the such that the barriers that actually stop them from achieving their dreams and their goals?

Yeah, you know, I think that there's a couple of. Well, I'd say there's four major categories where I find the biggest barriers. One is motivation. People have barriers to motivation, and it oftentimes is just a lack of clarity. Stephen Covey has the great quote that says, you know, so many of us are so busy driving, we forget to stop and get gas. And I think a lot of people run out of motivation to live an extraordinary life just because of the. The stuff that goes on in the world. And they just get kind of caught up in that whirlwind of, you know, news and bad news and good news and life in general. And they're just reacting to stuff that's happened to them. So having a barrier to become motivated, to become motivated. And many people are waiting for motivation to come get them, and motivation's not coming. You know, Dennis Waitley said it great when he said motivation is a contraction between the word motive, which is an idea, a dream, a cause, and the word action. When you combine motive with action, you get motivation. So a lot of People don't think of it that way. They think, you know, I'm just not motivated enough to go do what it is, that it's exciting to me and to fulfill my life's dreams. And I think that that could change. That can change by just taking action on a particular idea that's meaningful to you. And so motivational barriers are one, and most of those are psychological. They're not real. They're things that we have created. And that's another thing. Mike and I found it, and I'm sure you have as well, is that, you know, one of the most important things that people can come to the conclusion of today is that they're the author of the story. And that's why when I created the Extraordinary Life Planner and the Extraordinary Life Book, I. I wanted to encourage people to become the author of their extraordinary life plan because their circumstances are not the author. The circumstances are the facts. It is what it is. Now you get a chance to create a extraordinary life plan with those facts and turn something into something extraordinary. And that's one of the things that I get people thinking about all the time, is just changing the narrative. You're the author and the narrator. You can change that. And that's a mindset shift. So that's the second area, is that a lot of people are stuck in that fixed mindset. They're sticking the scarcity mindset. And, you know, I'm sure that in your coaching sessions, you expose some of that as well. You say, you know, what's the. What's the number that would make you smile in annual revenue? Person says, a number, and you said, now what number would absolutely blow your mind? And people have a much higher number. And you think, what if I could 10x the number that would help you to blow your mind. They're just thinking so focused on what it is that has been and what it is they think that they can do. They're not thinking about what's possible. So sometimes they just need that outside perspective, that outside coach that gives them a little bit of an awakening before they realize, oh, I had a barrier. I could not see what it is that was right in front of me. And I have an exercise that I do in the book. I'm happy to do it here if you want to do it, but it's a real brain teaser. You want me to do it real quick?

I'm going to be the one you're going to do it on.

I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it right in Front of you. I'm going to do it right on zoom. And I'm going to have everybody that is available to write down something if you can't write down. If you're listening, that's fine too. But I'm going to write something in the chat message and I want you to read it out loud. I'm going to spell it for everybody, and then I'm going to give it to you in writing and it's going to pop up in the chat. So the letters are. I'll give it to. I'll give it to everybody twice, just in case you want to follow along. So grab a pen and paper and write down these letters from left to right in this format. So it is O P P O R T U N I T Y I S N O W H E R E. I'll give them to you one more time. O P P O R T U N I T Y I S N O W H e R E. So it says.

When you read it out loud, what does it say, Mike?

Opportunity is nowhere.

Exactly, if you choose to see it that way. But if you separate the W and the H, it says something completely different.

Do you see what it says, Mike?

Separate the W and the H. And the H is now here.

So when you look, opportunity is now here.

Opportunity is now here, and opportunity is nowhere. And again, it's all a matter of perspective. The exact same facts, but the story was different. And that is the power of coaching. We could end the podcast right now and you got the price of admission. Because when another person has a different angle of seeing something, that's where breakthrough and barriers become overcome. And so for me personally, that was. I mean, when I saw that Dan Miller was the one that shared that with me. I. He was the author of 48 Days and no More Mondays. And. And he shared that with me. And I was so like, mouth, jaw. I was like, everything in my world now became subject to perspective and reflection and to say the facts are the letters were, were in a certain sequence. I chose to see it based how I've always saw it and how I, how I read things and how the letters, even the way that I introduced it, I said it in such a way where I said, N o W H e R e. So when I said no, immediately you were thinking no. So part of it is just how we interpret the facts and how we, you know, overcome them. And then the third area is skill sets. I think that many people are operating on a skill set of maybe a 6, 7, I mean your, your clientele, your people that are servicing or working with are probably operating at a 6 or a 7, maybe an 8. And they haven't had somebody that can take them to a 9 or a 10 or they haven't been able to develop that skill set yet because they have been so good and they've operated so well, they've been able to produce massive wealth. I mean if you earn over $250,000 of annual income, you're in the top 1% or 3% of Americans. And that's oftentimes seen as extraordinary. But you could have 10 times that amount if you were willing to up, level up or what is it up. The process of improving your score and advancing your skill set. And that's the kind of stuff that you provide people with. And I provide people in the area of health and well being. And then the last area is just action. You know, many people are operating at a level of action and activity that is not near what they could. And if they just took the definition of extraordinary, which is to go above and beyond what's usual, regular and customary, they would see more extraordinary results even if they just took their action level from a level six to a level seven. And a small increase can create a huge, huge difference in a harvest. And that's. Those are the four areas that I find are probably the most common. And breakthrough is possible.

100 and there's no breakthrough. Sometimes until there's a breakdown.

Oh yeah.

Or until you break it down. And thank you for redirecting me. It's. I'm kind of thinking to myself why did I see the words that way? I mean, I generally don't enter. Allow my mind to enter into things that are not in the positive realm. But I saw that. Yeah, I didn't see. Now here I saw it the other way. So it's interesting what kind of minds were born with. Right, right.

And part of it's just the, you know, the tonality and how I may have read it to other people when I've done that, they see opportunity is, is now here. But they're not positive people. So it's not necessarily just a matter of do I think positively. A lot of it is just, you know, how I'm reading the letters and if I'm jumping to conclusions. And I think that that's probably one of the biggest things that I found. You know, when I lost £100 14 years ago, I thought that was impossible. And then my coach reminded me that I'm possible and I can become whatever it is that I tell the story that I can create and, and he really just challenged the story that I was telling myself. I thought I was big boned. I thought that I was, you know, always somebody that struggled with, with food. I told him I was a food addict. He said, don't give yourself that identity. You don't deserve it. And I said, but I am addicted. And he says, well, maybe there's some sort of chemical reflection in the foods that you eat that is different than another person. But you know, Dave, you can overcome whatever it is that is the struggle that you're having to create optimal health and well being in your life. And I thought, this is not normal. This isn't how I've been approached. But he brought a different level of thinking to me and that empowered me to radically transform my life, extend the quality and the quantity of my life. And now my family is a healthier family because somebody just showed me opportunity is now here.

That is fantastic. And I do know about that definition of impossible being I'm possible. Dave, I think you mentioned two of the barriers, unless I missed it, motivate. And I love that. Motivate plus action equals motivation. And you know, you, you mentioned Zig Ziggle earlier. One of my favorites of all time motivations like bathing, it's recommended daily. And I've kind of taken that and I add whatever word I feel like at the moment, like learning is like bathing, it's recommended daily, selling is like bathing is recommended daily, etc. So motivation or motivate mindset. Are there any other barriers that people.

From Skill set, your skill set. Okay, good skill set can be, you know, your physical health habits. You know, people have certain skills. You know, this is the question I always love. And this is something that I would just challenge everybody on this webinar or watching this as a podcast, watching this as a YouTube video. How many calories does your body burn every day? Many people have no clue yet. They want to lose weight, they want to be healthier.

How do you figure that out?

Well, a simple calculation of your body weight times 11 was a number that I discovered. That is a simple formula that's not with any formal exercise or activity. It's just a base total energy expenditure calculation that doctors use as a way to calculate how many calories people burn. So if you don't have the skill to know how many calories your body's burning, and there's apps and things that you can put on the watches now that tell you a lot of that information, there's you know, things that you can enter in your, your height, your weight, your activity level, it'll spit out a number. But if you don't have a skill level that allows you to experience a certain thrill level, you're not, you're going to have a barrier. I mean, if you've got skill sets to climb, you know, a mountain in your backyard or Camelback Mountain in Arizona, that's a certain skill level. That skill level will not allow you to climb Mount Everest, which is 29,029ft. So when you have, when you hit your head on a barrier, and this is where people have that breakdown, is they keep hitting their head on this barrier and that barrier could be motivation, could be their mindset, or it could be their skill set. And they don't know how to go around the barrier and they don't see this other direction. They think, I have to go this way. And that's why coaching is so valuable, is because it gives you different directions. And Jim Rohn, you know, one of our favorites has said, you know, the philosophy of an ant, you know, an ant thinks about going against a rock in five different ways that he thinks or she thinks, I'm going to go to the left of the rock, I'm going to go to the right of the rock, I'm going to go over the rock, I'm going to go under the rock, or I'm going to go out there and get some of my aunt buddies and we're going to push this rock out of the way. Many people, they don't think like that. They just keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result, and they haven't learned a new skill set. And sometimes the skill set is us embracing the fact that we're convinced that we need to be right. And I think that it was, oh, who is it? Mark Twain once said, you know, it's not what we know that gets us into trouble. It's all the things that we know for absolute certain that just aren't so. And accepting the fact that we're wrong, especially when we're successful and being humble and putting ourselves into a position to be coached and say, mike, I, I'd like to be open and receptive. As much as it may hurt my ego and my pride. I want you to tell me what are the skill sets that are preventing me from 10xing my business and, and leveling up my business. That's hard to accept when you've been successful to a certain extent, but you won't 10x your business unless you are open and receptive to. To leveling up your skill set. And then the final one was action. You and I both know that high leverage activities dictate outcome. You know, you can't plant 10 seeds and expect, you know, a harvest worthy of 100 seeds. You got to plant 100 seeds. It's just that. So learning to make sure that your calendar matches your goal. If your calendar doesn't match your goal, and you can't expect an extraordinary breakthrough. And that's oftentimes where people have to accept a barrier of sacrifice and commitment and investment and all the things that are extraordinary. And that's why not. It's not very. Not very ordinary because people have to go through a little bit more pain to make it happen.

No pain, no gain, as they say, right?

Oh, man. And good pain is good gain. In my mind, not all pain is gain, but good pain is good.

I like that. I like that. So to recap, the four motivate, mindset, skill set, and action. I love that. And. And one of our internal mantras at UPP is your mindset is your skill set.

So it's that mindset, and that's why I do some of the crazy things that I do. So, Dave, let's help everybody out some more. Thank you so much for dropping the what we affectionately call gold nuggets, which is another ism in turn inside of our UPB circles. So what are some of your best tips for people? You may want to get ready to write these down, everybody. If you're not driving, and if you are driving, go back and listen or watch this again. Okay, what are some of your best coaching tips to help an entrepreneur, for example, to become completely unstoppable in their health, their life, and their business?

Well, I'll just kind of give them an overview of the acronym that I use inside the book. And it's just the word leader. So easy for people that are driving to remember. So the first one is to live your calling. And if you're not sure what your calling is, it would be good to take some time to discover it. And your calling doesn't have to be, you know, immediately identify the day that you sit down and go, oh, I need to live my calling. It's a process. It's not an event. You know, find something that breaks your heart. Find something that heals your heart, and attach your life or some of your life to fulfilling that calling. And that could be a particular group of people that are underserved or a particular group of people that you feel called to serve and support and be there for. It could be your staff, it could be the people in your community, it could be the insurance industry. Find something that is worthy of your time that you can become significant in. Because mission, purpose and calling far exceeds your desire to make more money when you're mission minded instead of measurement minded. I mean, there's so many examples, Mike, and we could go much longer talking about examples of people that made a big difference and became very significant in their life and lived extraordinary lives because they were living out their calling and living a purpose and living a mission that they felt was meaningful to them. And I give some resources in the book that kind of break down how you can clarify your calling, but living your calling would be number one. The second one, B is engage in your dreams. And, and I love Zig's quote, you know, I, I use the example of bathing in your dreams. You know, when I say engage in your dreams, I mean bathe with them. Like, you know, are you renewing your mind daily about the dreams and aspirations and things that you feel would make you live an extraordinary life? Are you bathing in them? Are you nourishing your mind or nourishing your mindset with these things that are so meaningful to you? If you're not engaging in them, if you're not spending time with them, they aren't going to hunt, they're not going to happen, and you don't have to know how you're going to make it happen. But if you're not spending time engaging in your dreams, looking at your vision board, you know, reviewing the list of things that you want to be, do and have in the next year, two years, five years, 10 years, those things are going to be out of sight, out of mind. You know, there is something to be said that I've heard in terms of getting results. Motivation is having a reason to do it. Visualization is seeing it. And if you're not seeing it on a daily basis and engaging in it, you're most likely not taking action to do it. So motivation plus visualization plus action equals results. The third one is the A, and that is to agree to make hard choices. You know, we got to embrace the suck, Mike.

Yeah.

You know, if we have to, if we need to, you know, lose 30 pounds, if we need to, you know, stop drinking as much, we need to quit tobacco. We need to do something to radically transform our health and our life. We're going to have to agree to make hard choices. And, and nobody said that Extraordinary. Living was easy. It's simple, not easy. So what is it that you're agreeing to make in terms of hard choices? What do you mean? If I was just to ask you today if you could name off the hard things that you were agreeing to do, that you would say, pardon the French, suck, what could you come up with? Because if you're not embracing some level of suck and doing hard things, you're not going to have a breakthrough and you're not going to become unstoppable. You're going to be stoppable if you allow the hard things to stop you. So if you say, well, that's kind of hard. You know, the thing that you just did, the. The running thing that you just did, wearing that outfit, that in itself was hard, I'm sure. This colorful outfit that you wore on, this running thing that you did on the leg.

12. Yeah, yeah.

So doing hard things. And again, that's a fun thing. But you did something that was hard. Not everybody else did that thing, but you, you ran in that outfit. That's hard. And that was able to give you an experience that other people don't get. The next one would be is the D. Decide to fail forward. Decide to fail forward. You know, I just finished reading John Maxwell's book Failing Forward. So good. So many great examples of people that have failed their way to success. You know, we need to start thinking that failure is not the opposite of success. It is the bridge.

And if you have the bridge, not the opposite.

Yeah. Who said that failure was the opposite of success? Typically it was the person that never failed, you know, because any successful person has just out failed and out determined and how has more grit than the person that failed and gave up and stopped. And that's the difference between successful people and unstoppable people is the ones that learn from their failures and keep growing. The E is expand your perspective. You know, you don't know everything at 60 years old. You don't know everything at 50. Whatever. If you got a master's and a doctorate, if you got the biggest agency or you got the biggest successful business, then you still have opportunities to learn. Be open and receptive to the new ideas, the new way of looking at it, the new technology. And that's where coaching is so valuable. So get pay for some expanded perspective. I love this story there, the phrase that says, you know, people do what people do. You want to do something, find somebody that's done it and have them show you the way. Don't go out there and just figure Try to figure it out on your own or you may run out of time because the experience of others compresses time. So go find people like this unstoppable crew and get together with them and learn from them and expand your mind, expand your capacity on what's extraordinary, and you will too, will become unstoppable. And then the last one is to resolve. Resolve to achieve your goals. And there's a certain level of resolution. I know that we kind of use the word resolutions, you know, haphazardly now, but there's certain level of resolve. When you have resolve to do something, you actually kill off all the other ideas of all the other options. You get this resolution, this resolute attitude to say, if it's going to happen, I'm going to have to give it everything I've got and I'm going to resolve to make it a reality. And if you haven't made a decision to do something, it will show up in your results. You know, we get what we're committed to. So if you haven't resolved to achieve your goals, you probably are not achieving them because something is holding you back. And you have to come back and resolve to give up some of the things, make some sacrifices. And if you do those things, live your calling, engage in your dreams, agree to make hard choices, decide to fail forward, expand your perspective and resolve to achieve your goals. You'll become a pretty extraordinary leader and climb some pretty extraordinary, extraordinary summits in the the journey of life.

Wow, I love that definition of leader. That is awesome. That's in the book, right?

That's in the book.

It's in the book.

Each chapter is one. One of those. One of those commitments. They're called the six commitments to live an extraordinary life. Yeah.

And you've got a worksheet in there and everything else I got to keep digging in, so. But then what I love, that kind of caught me just now is the. The second E, which is expand your perspective. And I heard you talking about that and it made me think of the late great coach, the iconic John Wooden, who said, it's what you learn after you think you know it all that counts.

So that is fantastic. And failure is the bridge to success, not the opposite. Man, I love that. Do you mind if I share that with others?

No, take it away. Yeah, I'm not even sure. I'm not even sure. Like my dad says, you know, the first time I give credit, after that I kind of forget and it becomes my own. So I'm not even sure if I Heard that from somebody, but it's, it's freely to give to you.

Well, I will be completely transparent here, Dave. And the other word that I was thinking about earlier when we were speaking is vulnerability. I think it's so vitally important. I just was vulnerable with a private coaching client earlier today, and she was kind enough to say, I shared something. And I don't have any issue being vulnerable because I'm. Look, I'm far from perfect and everybody knows it. But with that being said, she goes, thank you for saying that because now I feel more empowered to execute the plan that we just created. Because now I, I don't feel like I have this perfection that I'm pursuing. Because you're just like I am.

I said.

Exactly.

Yeah.

We're all alike. And we're all, in the words of the late Earl Nightingale, we've all been somewhere and we're all going somewhere. And what I was going to add on to that until I squirreled a little bit, you know, there's nothing new under the sun.

Yeah.

So your dad was.

I love that the, the connection between, you know, the mess in our life becomes our message. And, you know, I, that was one of the things I, I kind of held back on the book for many years. You know, I had some ideas of things I wanted to share, but I felt like, you know what, there's so many other people that have already shared them. And the guy that helped me in publishing the book said, dave, they don't have your stories and your stories and your antidotes and the way that you overcame your difficulties. And, you know, he talked about taking your tests and turning it into your testimony and taking your mess and turning it into your message. And, And I think that that's where people begin to see your authenticity. They see your integrity and they go, you know, you're not a guy or a gal just talking about climbing a mountain. You're a guy that I can see is climbing the mountain. And you're not afraid to say, you know, I failed. I mean, I, I started off this conversation saying I failed in chasing my dream to become a coach to mortgage professionals because the industry did not do well and I was over leveraged. I have learned so much. I don't want to go back and repeat that. But I tell you what, that one failure has taught me more than the four years of college I went to or the other kinds of success and seminars that I've paid to go to. It was an expensive mistake. You know, I mean, you had to have some Real honest conversations with friends and family members. You made some promises to that you didn't fulfill. But you know what? On the other side of those failures is that success, if you're willing to cross that bridge. And I've had a chance to not only, you know, become very successful in the world of business and health and lifestyle coaching, but I've also had a chance to help other people. And that's very fulfilling and very significant to me.

Well, my hsa.

Wait. Hard School.

Shk. School of Hard Knocks is what I had to figure out there. Education probably has been a much bigger investment than any university training that I ever could have invested in, so. Exactly.

I just wish that they'd offer football at the School of Hard Knocks because I'd love my son to go play football for the school. Hard Knocks.

Exactly. But I love what you just said. The mess in our life becomes our message and the test in our life becomes our testimonial. I love that. That is fantastic. I'm gonna have to definitely go back and give this podcast another listen or a view or both, because there have been so many gold nuggets dropped by. David. David, thank you.

And I know we were talking last time we connected that there may be a couple people that I'm connected to that may benefit from your expertise, you know, helping people live the extraordinary life personally. So if somebody has heard something today and they want to learn more or connect with you, how can people find you?

Yeah.

Or if they want to get a copy of the book.

Yeah. You can go to the website, the extraordinarylife.com and there's a free workshop on there. I have a extraordinary life Planner that's an 8 and a half by 11 that's a little bit larger. It's some of the same questions. It's got some individual day planners in there, and it's a free resource. It's something I give out to anybody along with the workshop if they want to go through this and go through a webinar. And then if they have an interest in working with us from a health and lifestyle perspective, we'd love for them to fill out a form and let us know that they're interested. And all that's on the website, the Extraordinary life dot com.

Fantastic. Well, that is a great opportunity. Thank you for your generosity there. I just have to ask because this popped into my mind right when I started listening to you. Is this kid friendly as well?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Obviously it's going to take some guidance, but this is one of the things that I really I wrote it in such a way where I wanted to see people go through it and then be able to help other people to go through it. So if you have a small group or if you have a mastermind group or other things that you can do together, I mean, it'd be a great collaborative resource. And again, most of this information has been out there in some form or another. I collected it and I just put it into a process that I thought would be helpful for me to process and to coach other people through it. But, yeah, leverage the resources. Share it with your kids and, you know, especially those, you know, millennials that are kind of navigating into the world of getting married and having kids and things of that nature. They have dreams, they have goals and aspirations, and they want to live extraordinary lives, too. So pay it forward.

Well, I'm not sure your daughter's going to be overly thrilled that this is her wedding president, but.

Maybe a side gift, honey, when you're ready. But anyway, no, I was actually thinking about what I affectionately call the cousins, which is a of all teens that I'm privileged to mentor. And I was thinking it might be a good opportunity. So I'll have to connect with you. Just go to the.the extraordinary life.com and I can find information about that.

Yeah, thanks for having me, Mike.

David Bush, thank you for dropping so many gold nuggets. I'm definitely gonna have to go back and give this one another watch and. Or listen as well. The mess in our life becomes our message.

Wow.

Great stuff. Failure is the bridge to our success. It's not the opposite. It's just a bridge. David, keep in touch and so will I.

Thanks, brother.

You're welcome. All right, if this is your first time on the podcast, welcome. My name is Mike Strom, so I'm widely recognized as a leading author, speaker, and coach for the independent insurance agency industry. You can find out more about myself and everything we're doing at UPP at Unstoppable Profit Producer.

If you're interested in learning more about one of our online virtual events, go to uppfaststart.com available throughout the year, or our live events are at beunstoppablebootcamp.com it's where agents from across the country, independent insurance agents, come to grow their business, create wealth so they can have more freedom to live life on their own terms. Everything we do is designed around that to help you, you. And again, if you want to learn more through our podcast and this is your first time, please go to unstoppableprofitpodcast.com go up to the top and click subscribe so you don't miss one episode of our podcast. And if this podcast has made a difference for you, please pay it forward and share it with somebody that you care about again. Just send them to unstoppable profit podcasts.com go up to the top and click subscribe. And of course our podcast can be found on all the channels out there, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, stitcher, on our YouTube channel. Just search Unstoppable Profit producer, go to videos and it's all there for you. All we want to do is help you and support you so YouTube can become unstoppable. David Bush, you are unstoppable, sir, as well. Thank you again for your wisdom and knowledge and sharing with everybody here.

Thanks everybody.

All right, you guys. Hey, until next time, remember, get out there and make a difference. Be unstoppable, leave no regrets and remember this. You got this. We believe in you. We'll see you on the next episode.

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