Dom Fawcett, a former police officer turned author, describes the moment he nearly shot an armed suspect but saw the man's children and holstered his weapon instead. That realization led him to quit policing two weeks later. He advises knowing your personal story, focusing on one strength, and treating early relationships as service exchanges.
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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.
Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Dom Fawcett with us. He's a best-selling author and speaker of Think React Lead: When Success and Accomplishments Aren't Enough. So welcome to the show, Dom.
Thanks, man, I'm happy to be here.
Of course, thank you for joining us and we'll dive right in. The first question that I have for you is what's the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Best story is going to be— so my ex-cop and I'm prior military— was when I had— I was in a position to take somebody out. I say take somebody out, pull the trigger, kill them in a law enforcement capacity. And I'm standing there about to take this guy out, and a Glock 19 has approximately a 5-pound trigger pull. So I'm about 2.5 pounds of trigger pull into this, uh, in engagement. And long story short, and I'm about to take this guy out, he's standing there in front of me with a knife, we're going back and forth. I hear a voice behind him that says, "Daddy." And I, I, I kind of just canted my head to the side, peer over my, um, my rear sight, and I see a child. He's about 7. And behind him is another child and behind him is another boy. So it ranges between 3 to 7 years of age and there's 3 kids, they're crying. The dad's crying and at that moment I just, I holstered my weapon and I just said, you know what, I guess I can't take this guy out in front of his kids. That would suck for them. And I'm okay if we fight, I get stabbed or, and die. I'm okay with that. So we ran into each other and as he jumped off the porch and long story, obviously I'm still here. So I affected the arrest. But what I learned from that was that my life is more, right? There's more to Don Fawcett. I was put on this earth not to take lives. But to positively impact them. And that changed me because 2 weeks later I put my 2 weeks notice in and I left law enforcement for good.
Wow, man, that story is wild. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, man. And the next question is, what's the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Valuable piece of information. I'm a speaker and a speaker's coach. I'd say the most valuable piece of information is that you need to know your story. I don't care if you're in sales, I don't care if you're an author or speaker, whatever you do, you need to get very dialed in on that, that one thing that stops you from having confidence, stops you from being the best version of self, whether it be something that happened to you in your childhood, something that happened to you during a relationship, whatever that is. Get dialed into that story and be okay with sharing, whether it be on a social media platform, be a live podcast on stage, because the more you talk about it, the more you'll get over it.
And what's your best piece of overall business advice, so not necessarily industry-specific?
Best piece of business advice is do the one thing that you're good at, pay everybody else. And if you can't pay them, build relationships And maybe do in the beginning of your career, your entrepreneurship, you exchange services to start building relationships and only do the one thing that you're great at.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Don't listen to your older self. Be okay with making the mistakes because you're gonna need them to be where you're at as your older self.
Yes, I love that answer, dude. That's the first time we got that answer. In your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
It's like, what is the key to not being hungry? You eat. What is the key to happiness? Not being sad. Happiness is a choice. You can choose to cry over spilled milk, or you can change every hour of the day and say, you know what, I'm going to do something that makes me happy.
And what's the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. In short, it's not about you. Make people feel good about themselves and they'll do anything for you.
And what's your favorite quote and why?
"Get some." I first heard it when I was on my first deployment in the military. And for me, that just means like all the training that you've done, everything that has set you up for success, today is when you implement it and you will succeed. You just got to get some.
Mm, thank you so much for coming on, Dom. The last question I have for you before we let you go is, where's the best place for people to find you online?
Online website, thinkreactlead.com. Facebook, Dom Fawcett and Think React Lead. Instagram, very active on both social media platforms, is Dom Fawcett. And then there's Snapchat as well.
Perfect. Thanks again for coming on, man. We appreciate it.
Yeah, brother, have a good one. The podcast you just heard was recorded with Anchor. If you want to make your own, download the Android or iOS app completely free from anchor.fm/podcast. That's anchor.fm/podcast.
