Dave Rebro: Technology Therapist And #1 Bestselling Author | The Business Blast Podcast #457

Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode. All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Dave Rebro with us. He is a number one best-selling author, technology therapist, and practicing expert helping professionals eliminate emotional resistance while creating high-impact mental and work habits with the assistance of technology. So welcome to the show, man.

Hey, thanks a lot, Tyler. Happy to be here.

Of course. Happy to have you. We'll dive right into the first one, Dave. The first question I have for you is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

Yeah, you know, I made a big shift in my business a few years back, and I started off my business, Tyler, as a contracted system engineer, basically an IT professional. Then went out to businesses. I was contracted, I was routine, and I did that for quite a long period of time. Well, as time went on, I kind of lost the, the excitement of being someone who went out and set up networks and computers and servers and all that geeky stuff. And I began to have a passion to want to teach and coach and help people apply technology in their business and how they work and help them work more efficiently. So I decided to cut this lucrative contracted work and go out on my own and totally go to a whole different audience and shift the way that I was serving in my business. Well, unfortunately, when I did that, I just ran into so many new things I had to learn and prepare and, and learn how to market and sell where I wasn't doing that before. And I truly, truly became overwhelmed. And almost to the point where I was just plain stuck because I just didn't have everything in order. I was not prepared for this. Well, long story short, I got to a point, a breaking point in my business where I actually, Tyler, walked out of my home office into my living room, laid on the floor. I was so frustrated, so stuck that I was either going to just quit right there and say, forget it and go back to a 9-to-5 job, or go ahead and move forward and change the way I was working in my business. And long story short is I'm not a quitter, so I decided I had to make some changes in my business. So what I ended up doing is I had to change and realize what my true purpose was with my business. When I started my new business venture, I had a purpose that I want to fulfill, but because I became stuck and overwhelmed, I lost connection with that. So the underlying message is, anytime you're in your business and you're frustrated, you're stuck, you're overwhelmed, always come back to that true purpose. And once I did that, it turned around things for me. It gave me clarity. It gave me enjoyment and joy back to what my work was. And I was able to move forward in my business and accomplish some amazing things. So finding my purpose and realizing that and being mindful of that was very important to me.

And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

Yeah, as a technology therapist, you know, I work with professionals who really want to raise their game or get to the next level in their career or business. But a lot of these people are, are stuck themselves. They know they need to be more organized. They need to know— they need— they, they know they need to be more efficient and maximize their time. However, they're lacking something, that they're missing out on something. And what I found is a lot of these people just do not do one simple thing in their business or career, which is plan their day out. Now, I know that sounds very simple, but A lot of people will go into their day and just try to figure out what to do throughout the day. And I've got a saying is, if you start your day without a plan, that's a guaranteed waste of time. So my, my expertise suggestion, or what I find, is that make sure even the night before, spend some time and actually plan out your day. And I don't mean plan it out where you make a to-do list. Actually figure out what is important to move projects or tasks, move them forward. So, and then once you do that, actually schedule on your calendar, block out time on your calendar to do these things. Because if you don't control your calendar, someone else will. So imagine this, Tyler, if you were Say you were blindfolded and airlifted into a forest and you were dropped down in the middle of that forest and let go and you take off your blindfold and there you were. You had no map, you had no compass, no phone. You would pretty much be lost. You'd probably start to get a little anxious. You'd probably start just wandering around. Well, that's what people do. A lot of people do throughout their day. When they don't have a plan. So again, it's, it's really important to spend time to really plan out your day.

Yeah, I agree. I'd probably have an anxiety attack, to be honest with you. I was like, I was visualizing that.

What's funny, Tyler, is that's kind of why I'm the technology therapist, because a lot of professionals come to me and they're kind of in that state where they have that anxiety going or they're overwhelmed. And just having a simple plan to plan out your day really resolves a lot of that and puts you in a productive flow.

I agree. And what I've found, I just wanted to kind of piggyback on that, is the night before for me has been like transforming. Like that, like planning the next day the night before. And I know it's like, it's kind of tough because like at the end of the day, like you're kind of burnt out a little bit. So to like think like, oh, now I have to plan the next day, but it makes it so much easier —then rather than that being the— for me at least, I'm just talking from my experience, like I like doing it the night before rather than the morning because then when I wake up in the morning I'll have like a little anxiety knowing that I have to plan it out, whereas if I wake up already knowing like this is the plan, it's just a fresher wake-up. So that's my experience.

Yeah, I actually, Tyler, I actually schedule on my calendar 9 PM the night before to actually do my preparing, planning for the next day.

Yeah. Oh, nice. You schedule to schedule. I like that. And I actually set an alert.

Now I do this every night, but I set an alert. And what this does is it develops a habit. And you want to create these productive habits to go ahead and be able to prepare and plan. So a productive habit is going to help you out the next day. And you're right, it eliminates that morning anxiety of, Oh, what do I have to do today? You know what I mean?

Definitely, man. I like that. The next one I have for you is, what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.

Yeah, you know, the best advice that I could probably give is, you know, besides your time and your health, I think the most critical, after that, the most critical commodity that you have is your professional and personal relationships and communities. And really, without them, it's very difficult to succeed within your business. So I suggest that you really concentrate. And then I'm going to step back and say schedule time to do this, and I'll give you a little tip in a second, but schedule time to build and grow and foster and nurture the relationships and your Community, because that's really going to be your life thread moving forward. And I do a little something. I like to be organized with, with my tasks. And I know it's important for me to, to always be present within my Community. So I actually schedule time on Tuesdays. In fact, I theme my Tuesdays Keep in Touch Tuesdays. And I schedule time on Tuesdays and make sure that I reach out to all different types of members of my community. Well, in my community, I have members that are clients, prospective clients, inactive clients. It could be, uh, partners, joint ventures, associates. Uh, it could be other people that play various different roles within the community. So I actually make a log. I use an app called Evernote, but I make a log in Evernote where each Tuesday I make sure I try to reach out to at least one person in those different categories in my community and give value to them. So I'm not just reaching out to say hi. I want to give value. I want to give to my community. I want to be an influencer in my community. So taking time to give and foster your community will, you know, the old saying says You know, once you give something, you get it back 10 times fold. Well, this is kind of what your community is for you. You give and give to your community because it's always going to come back to you in some way or some manner, probably 10-fold of what you can even imagine. And I'll end with this very quickly. I can't explain how important or how, fruitful it is. Each Keep in Touch Tuesday, when I reach out, I always have someone come back and say, you know, I was just thinking about you. I'm so glad you sent me this, or whatever. I've got a friend who needs your help. Or, you know, I was thinking about you, I need some help, and I'm glad you reached out. I get more business and more opportunity just from reaching out to my community than I do just do cold marketing out there. So I would say that was probably my best advice.

I absolutely love that. That's like another level of follow-up. And also another thing kind of like triggered for me, which is kind of just like, I think interesting maybe, is like in the subconscious of people, they may start to like associate you with like Tuesday. So like if you like follow up with them enough on Tuesdays, like by the 6th or 7th time, they're like, okay, it's Tuesday. Like Dave is about to hit me up, man. Yeah.

In fact, what I do is in the subject of an email or a text or whatever, I'll say it's Keep in Touch Tuesday. So my community knows that I do this. So you're right, they almost look forward to it.

Yeah, yeah, man. I really like that. That is— I would just say that's like follow-up on steroids. I really like that. Yeah, it really is. So if you could give your younger self now one piece of advice, what would that be?

Yeah, I would say to myself is Don't try to do everything yourself. When I started out in business, I was just jacked up and ready to go out and it's my business, I'm gonna do everything myself, I'm gonna learn it myself. But the problem with that is you spend a lot of time and effort on things that you could learn from other people. And I would say to myself is go to those people, identify the people who have experience, who have gone through it before and simply just reach out and ask. Don't be afraid to ask people for help or for advice. People by nature want to help out people and they want to give back. And if you come in authentically and ask it and tell them why you're asking, they will help you and guide you and advise you and mentor you through things that you would probably spend a lot of time, a lot of effort trying to figure out yourself. So that would be my suggestion back to myself is really take advantage of the experience and the knowledge of people who've gone through it before.

I agree. I always tell people too that I think like the giver receives as much fulfillment, if not maybe more, as much as the actual receiver in the transaction, if you will, if you want to call it a transaction. So giving it— so what I mean by that is like when you ask somebody for help, they actually feel good giving it to you. So maybe that will relieve some of the potential anxiety or stress of like asking somebody who's maybe, you know, a little bit above you, if you will, in business. Yeah. So I really like that. Now, going kind of down a little different path, in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?

Yeah, you know, happiness is, you Now, if you think about happiness, happiness is really just an emotion or a feeling. You know, if you think about what makes you happy, maybe it's a smiling baby or maybe it's a walk in the park that just makes you feel happy. It's really your response to something. For me, to keep happiness going, and the key to it is really authentic appreciation, gratitude, and really for me, faith. And consistently keeping that. And what I do is in the morning, I have something, part of my morning routine, I have a morning routine and I do a little something called my daily focus. And in my daily focus, I write down gratitude statements. And the reason why I do that is when I was going through my shift in my business a while back, I wasn't happy because I was stuck and I wasn't focusing on the things that really made me happy. And what really mattered to me and what I was thankful for. So in my daily focus, and I write down these gratitude statements and I create a log and I do that, but I don't, Tyler, I just don't write them down. I try to feel the gratitude for those statements I write down. And what that does for me is it really sets the tone for the day for me. It kind of puts me in my, It kind of puts me in an attitude of appreciation as I go through the day. And even though we can have rough days and even though we can struggle, as small business owners or professionals, we know we get that all the time. Going back to gratitude, remembering the small things that are most important to you really brings out the happiness in me. So I would suggest really focus on appreciation and gratitude on a daily basis, but do it authentically. And do it with feeling.

And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?

Yeah, there's a book by Dr. Joseph Murphy, which I absolutely love, and I keep reading it over and over again. And the name of the book is The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. Now, this is an older book, but Dr. Murphy really in this book talks about the deep understanding and awareness and the incredible power of your subconscious mind. Most importantly, if you understand that what you think— so the mental images in your mind, then united with how you feel about those images— really trigger an innate power that you have in your subconscious mind. And he talks about all these different scenarios of how this works. But truly, the number one thing I got out of this book is make it a practice. To be aware and be mindful of really what's happening inside your world within, because your thoughts, your imagery, your feelings, your beliefs, they really truly make what happens outside your world. So if someone's really looking to improve a relationship, maybe your health, your wealth, your career, take this book and read it. And in fact, like I told you, I read it over and over and over again because I keep on getting more you know, golden, fruitful nuggets out of this book. So, The Power of the Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy.

And what is your favorite quote and why?

Yeah, I've got a quote from Joseph Campbell that states, "The cave you fear to enter holds the treasures you seek." Now, the reason why I like that is, you know, our biggest fear is the fear of the unknown. And in business or in life, a lot of times we hesitate to do something because we don't know what's going to happen, or we make up things of what could happen. And because of that fear, we hold back. So for me, I always keep this present. In fact, in that morning routine I tell you about, I go over my inspirational quotes, and this one is always there. I review it every morning because Fear really holds us back from growth, from achievements, from accomplishments. When you put fear aside and you trust and you have faith things are going to work out, that's where you get growth and this is where you can move forward. So I really love that quote.

I love it too, man. Thank you so much for coming on, dude. This episode was awesome. The last question that I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find and connect with you online?

Yeah, so people can find me at my website, which is drc-sam-solutions.com. That's drc-solutions.com. Or if they want to reach out and just connect with me and, and build a professional relationship with me, and maybe, uh, we can be members of each other's communities, feel free to find me on LinkedIn. So search for me on LinkedIn, reach out, and tell me that, uh, you heard me on this podcast and you just want to reach out.

Perfect, man. Thanks again for joining us. Really appreciate it.

All right, Tyler, thanks for having me. The podcast you just heard was published with Anchor. Got something you want to say to the creator of this show? Send them a voice message using the Anchor app, free for iOS and Android.