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Shine On Success
Shine on Success is a dynamic, story-driven podcast where extraordinary entrepreneurs, visionary leaders, and resilient change-makers share their journeys to success, revealing both the challenges and the strategies that led to their breakthroughs. Each episode offers a unique blend of inspiring personal stories, practical business insights, and actionable advice, allowing our guests to connect with an engaged, growth-oriented audience ready to be motivated and uplifted. By joining us, you’ll not only have the opportunity to showcase your expertise and inspire listeners but also to be part of a powerful platform that celebrates ambition, innovation, and the courage to turn dreams into reality.
Shine On Success
The Relentless Power of Never Quitting
What does it take to keep building when life knocks you down? In this episode of Shine on Success, host Dionne Malush dives into a story of grit, resilience, and unstoppable drive. From creating multimillion-dollar companies to rebuilding life after a traumatic brain injury, today’s guest proves that success isn’t about luck; it’s about refusing to quit.
You’ll discover mindset shifts, time-management frameworks, and the kind of stubborn perseverance that turns setbacks into stepping stones. If you’ve ever hit a wall in business or life, this conversation will show you how to break through and keep going.
Connect with Dave here:
Website: AOKMarketing.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davebburnett/
Connect with Dionne Malush
- Instagram: @dionnerealtyonepgh
- LinkedIN: /in/dionnemalush
- Website: www.dionnemalush.com
- Facebook: /dmalush
- LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/dionnemalush
What if the secret to massive business success was simply refusing to quit? Today's guest built not one, but multiple companies from the ground up, including Achieverscom, which sold for a staggering $110 million. The Dave Burnett story isn't just about money. It's about resilience. After suffering a traumatic brain injury in 2018, he kept leading companies in 15-minute bursts between rests. Six years later, he's still building, still leading, still pushing boundaries. Dave is the founder of AOKMarketingcom, the visionary behind PromotionalProductscom who even knew Like I love promotional products, a domain he pursued for 16 years and a coach to entrepreneurs through Bloom Growth. He also co-runs Valleywood Capital and helps business owners turn traffic into real revenue. If you ever hit a wall in business life or leadership, this episode will show you exactly how to bust through it. Dave Burnett, welcome to Shine On Success. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm doing very well. Thank you for the great intro. I appreciate it, and when you put it all into the one intro like that, it makes me think, okay, maybe I've done a thing or two, which is nice. It's good to get reminded every now and then.
Speaker 1:Cool. Well, I would like to start with this one question what do you want people to know about you beyond your bio and all that stuff we just talked about?
Speaker 2:Well, what do I want them to know about me? I think I want them to know that, no matter how much adversity you face, for me there was just never the option to give up and quit. I don't think you know. A lot of people ask me with some of the things that I've gone through, did you think to quit? And I don't. Maybe I'm just got hit too many times in the head, but I just I just never. It never occurred to me to stop. So the one thing is to to realize is that I'm really really super stubborn, but you know, it's, it's been a great journey and I wouldn't trade it, despite all the challenges I've had.
Speaker 1:I felt the same as you. Like, I don't feel like I'm ever going to quit, and you know, obviously I haven't been through a traumatic brain injury, but I've been through a lot too, and I feel like there is just I don't want to stop. I just want to keep going and going and going and, like you, like, you have so many things going on and I was so excited to hear about the promotional products, because I had a graphic design business for many years and promotional products was a big part of that. So to think that you waited so long to buy that you know to buy that URL, is just amazing. So let's get back to this, because I think this is really important what's the most powerful mindset shift you've had in business and how did it change everything?
Speaker 2:Well, the most powerful mindset shift that I had was actually that I needed to take care of myself first. So I divide my life basically up into four main categories personal, family, business and community and just about everything I do falls into those four buckets. And so the biggest shift that I had to do is I had to take care of me first. I had to fix some things about me in order to be able to function in this crazy environment and everything that's gone on, so that was the biggest thing. I needed to start by looking in the mirror first, and so the way that I do that is I actually have a morning routine. It's a it's. You know, some people have like four hours in the morning they spend. For me, it was just really all about gratitude, and so I do what's called the 10, 10, 10, and this was inspired by my mentor, warren Rustan. So a great thing. If anybody out there can get a mentor who's been there done that, I highly recommend it, but I'll come back to him later.
Speaker 2:But what I do is 10 minutes of gratitude, 10 minutes of inspirational reading and then 10 minutes of inspirational writing, usually in terms of journaling, about what I've realized. So it's you know. Then I exercise and eat and then get started with my day, and so those 30 minutes the 10, 10, 10 start off even before that, with intention, as I get out of bed is what is what is my purpose for today. What do I need to do today? Like today, I needed to be a great podcast guest, so I will do my best to be a great podcast guest, but you know it, it might just be need to be a great dad, it might be I need to show up for work, I need to be a great negotiator, I need to be a wonderful community participant because we've got some event coming up, or whatever it may be. It's just what do I need to do that day, and if I do that one thing, then I consider my day a win.
Speaker 1:So that's the key. So it's kind of taken off that 5 am club by Robin Shermer. Right that he says that 2020, which I like yours better, I like the 10, 10, 10. I think that would be easier to start, especially if you don't have a morning routine. It makes a lot of sense and I think it's important that you have what is good for you, right? You have to make it easy, because 20 minutes, 20 minutes, 20 minutes is hard for some people. So thank you for sharing that. I think that's a really important nugget that they can take away already. So you've been in coaching. You've coached a lot of business owners. What's one blind spot? Most entrepreneurs don't even realize they have.
Speaker 2:I have to narrow it down to one.
Speaker 1:I mean, this might be difficult.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, the main one that I think people have is they don't realize. Just honestly, it took me a long, long time to figure out the fundamentals of business. You know, business can be broke. Any business can be broken down into kind of three main sections Acquisition, delivery and admin is the way I think about it. So acquisition, sales and marketing delivery is delivering your product and service and you know whatever that may look like. And then admin is everything else HR, finance, legal, all those different things.
Speaker 2:So the biggest blind spot is that people are often really good at one thing. So they may be a really good operations person, so they're really good at delivering, but they're not good at the acquisition, they're not good at sales, they're not good at marketing and they may even be really good at HR. They might be good at recruiting people, which is kind of a superpower, a meta skill where they can have people on, but they often hire themselves. So the biggest kind of blind spot that I see is, first of all, people don't understand what their business is missing because they look at everything through their lens. If they're a highly process-oriented person, everything can be fixed with process. If they're a highly marketing and salesperson, they'll just keep selling, even though the product that they deliver.
Speaker 2:It leaves a little to be desired and kind of customers fall out the back end just as fast as they can bring new customers in. And then the other thing is you know people who just don't do the admin side of things. They never get paid. They wonder why the bills come due and all that kind of stuff. Where's my cash flow? So it really is. For me is the blind spot is figuring out what you're not good at and then finding resources or people or third party vendors who are good at that thing and bringing them on that's.
Speaker 1:That's really the blind spot. That makes a lot of sense because I was one of them, that one of the business owners that used to try to do everything myself Right, and now, like, I've learned to, to delegate and to be OK with it. You, they're gonna make mistakes, they do, and you know it's just like you're like. The first initial thought is like, oh my gosh, they made a mistake. And then you're like, okay, it's okay, it's okay, we'll get through it. You know what, if you're like what?
Speaker 2:happened yeah absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we like that all the time. First of all, it's not good for you, it's not good for them and it's not good to retain people. So, yeah, so, so I learned a lot about that, so thank you for sharing that. So you had a traumatic brain injury? Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Sure, from what I can remember, basically what happened was I was doing some home renovation work. I was out in the front moving a big limestone that was basically a patio stone and I was lifting it up because we wanted to save a few of the stones for another patio or lining our path that we were doing, and I was turning and I was putting it down on a trolley and it weighed about 175 pounds and so as I was bending over, I was like I'm going to hurt my back, so I let it go and I dropped it and it landed on the trolley, funny, and the trolley came up and hit me in the side of the head, so it was basically a metal bar to the side of the head. And and hit me in the side of the head, so it was basically a metal bar to the side of the head, and so I I you know kind of went down on one knee and I was there and I didn't go unconscious or anything, but I'd been hit a lot of times. I played hockey for years.
Speaker 2:I've been hit in the head a few times and this one felt a little different uh, hard to explain, but really kind of felt different and I then continued moving the stones, was more careful with the other stones I was moving. I went inside and spoke to my wife and I was like, yeah, I hit my head and she's like, are you okay? Like what's going on? I'm like I, I think so, but I'm not sure. But it turns out that I really wasn't, because I woke up the next day and I just I couldn't function.
Speaker 2:I, you know, I I own a digital agency, as you mentioned and I couldn't stare at a computer screen for longer than 15 minutes. So I was awake for 15 minutes and then I would sleep for 45 and then wake up and do it again. And I I did that for three months and I was running two businesses. I had great people working for me who did amazing things during that time, but I don't remember it. So that was December 4th 2018. I don't remember anything right through until basically September of 2020. So almost yeah, 18 months, longer than 18 months. And so everybody I mean I'm the only guy who can say this is like I don't remember the pandemic.
Speaker 1:I don't remember the beginning of the pandemic.
Speaker 2:No, I was concussed at that time and so I don't. I wasn't able to put anything really into long-term memory, so I don't remember 2019. I don't. I wasn't able to put anything really into long term memory, so I don't remember 2019. I don't remember half of 2020. I mean, as I was coming out of it and healing near the end of 2020, I did some alternative therapies. That was actually an audio based therapy that actually fixed my brain.
Speaker 2:It did Difficult. I went through the traditional medical system, saw the doctors did all the things and none of it worked. Psycho analysts, psychotherapists like the best money, the best the money could buy and nobody could fix me until I went to this audio therapy that really helped me fix my concussion. And so in 10 days it was a 10 day treatment I was back and people were like, yeah, so I can remember again, starting from September of 2020, basically stuff.
Speaker 1:How did you successfully run a business? How did you know what to do? Did they do it for you?
Speaker 2:Oh, a lot of people on my team stepped up. I mean, it was amazing for sure. But like I would have client calls, so I was the primary breadwinner rainmaker salesperson. So I would have sales calls, and this was before all these wonderful AI assistants we salesperson, so I would have sales calls, and this was before all these wonderful AI assistants we now have. So I would record the calls, have them, have a transcript done and through a third party service, and then I would reread the transcript right before I got on my next call.
Speaker 2:Like so I didn't, I wouldn't remember, like I wouldn't remember this conversation 10 minutes after we had it. Apparently, it was like every time we would drive somewhere I'd pass the same, whatever landmark, and I would tell the same story about the same landmark to my family over and over and over again. So I was fully able to function. You would be. You wouldn't know that I was concussed, like cause my Ram, like you think about it, like a computer, my long-term storage. I had nothing going into long-term storage, but my Ram was good so I could carry on a conversation, except for where my brain was injured, where I lost some words. So I paused every now and then. I still do it now, where I'll just completely mix up the word or I will pause because I don't remember the exact word I'm looking for.
Speaker 1:So when you talk about being grateful in the morning, how grateful are you for that natural alternative right I?
Speaker 2:am grateful that I'm even here right now. I hit my head so hard that brain damage is not something that you ever want to wish on anybody. But until you lose your mind, you don't realize it literally right literally.
Speaker 2:So no, and I'm very grateful for my family to have been with me through that process my kids, my wife is amazing. I don't know if I could have put up with me. I'm hard enough to deal with as as it is, let alone having the same conversation with me 10 times, my same bad jokes and all those different things. So it was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that would be a little bit difficult. For sure I think so, and just being a caregiver myself now for a while, it's so hard and you see sides of people that you maybe don't always want to see, but you see anyway, you know, and yes, so that would be difficult and I have to give credit to your family because I know how hard it is being a caregiver and you know they, they're, they see you. You look fine, like Jason, my husband looked fine and he was so sick on the other side of it, you know, and like people would see him and they're like he doesn't look sick, he's sick, you know. He's got a liver that's dying inside of him and he doesn't drink. They're like he never drank.
Speaker 1:I'm like, I know, like it's not about alcohol, it's about the biggest drug of all, which is sugar. So, yeah, so I get it, and I can't even imagine, like I think about all the things in my life that I go through, if I couldn't remember something. It's hard enough as you age, the things you forget, right? So, yeah, I give you a lot of credit. And so do you have any like memory loss from the previous, before the accident, like before that happened?
Speaker 2:No, I, this was my fifth or so concussion and so like, but a couple of them were. When I was a teenager playing hockey, I got into a couple of car accidents and where I also, you know, had concussions, but it was the first one I'd had in I don't know, 15, 20 years and it was. It was a pretty bad one. And then I went back and, you know like, started playing hockey again and did a bunch of things and then I had a collision in hockey. After I after I was, after I'd gotten better from my my accident I had a collision in hockey where I ran into a guy so hard that I knocked him unconscious and then but I didn't go unconscious, but my wife was like you, what happened to you? You're back again to the way you were. So I went back for more treatments and I was okay.
Speaker 2:And just just so you know and I don't know if it's helpful to anybody who listens to this but the the technique is called CERESET, it's C-E-R-E-S-E-T and what it is is they basically put a cap on your head that analyzes the brainwaves of your brain, and the front two hemispheres should be in electrical sync with each other and the back two should be. And what they do is they basically put a headset on you and then it judges, it tracks your electrical signals and you have tones just like tones on a keyboard in your ears, and that balances. Your brain compensates for the different tones and it balances the electrical signals between the front two hemispheres and the back two hemispheres, and that fixed it so non-invasive. You sit there with a thing on your head, you know, like a space cap.
Speaker 1:I'm shocked.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was not what I would anticipate. I was always a traditional medicine kind of guy, Like you know. Go to the doctor, get your CAT scan, see if your brain is still there, your MRI, whatever, but this is the only thing that worked.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you a question what college did you go to?
Speaker 2:So I went to. I'm based out of Toronto, Canada, so I went to a college that's about an hour away. It's called Sir Wilfrid Laurier University.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm kind of wishing I was at your college when you were having some kind of beer sampling business in college. Tell me a little bit about that business.
Speaker 2:No, that was my first business. I had 50 employees. I was in third year university, I was a junior, I guess is the other way to put it and you know, I'm sure people love me for my personality. Not because I had a minivan full of beer, of course. Of course it wasn't that. So I that was my first business I got Bacardi as a client, labatt's, which is a brewing company, as a client and I was running around from from different bar to bar and basically buying the entire bar a round of drinks. I'd walk in, we would supply the bar the beer. The bar would have to buy the beer through the distributor. But then I'd walk in and I'd be like, okay, first round is on me, and I would literally buy the entire bar a round for whatever new product it was that we were promoting. So all of a sudden I had lots of friends.
Speaker 1:That is such a great idea. Yeah, I've never heard about anybody doing that. Did anyone ever do it again, or is it something that?
Speaker 2:Oh, it was just a variation. You know, if you're going to Costco and there's people there giving out the free samples, it was that just just with beer, right and and hard liquor. And so here in Canada, in Ontario, there was actually only two places that you could buy beer previously or buy beer and liquor. One was actually called the LCBO, which is the liquor board, liquor control board of Ontario, so the liquor store, and the other was literally called the beer store. You could only buy it at the beer store or the liquor store, and so that's where we were doing sampling and different things. So there are people who still do it to this day. I got out of that business back in the last century, so it's been a while.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the big thing Achieverscom. What a huge win, right?
Speaker 2:Well, it's one of those things where this was both a great story and also a bit of a heartbreak partnership story. So I was the co-founder of Achieverscom back in 99. And for those who don't know, achieverscom is a basically a rewards and incentive company, and we were the very first people to put a rewards and incentive company online where you could get points, go in as a an employee, give points to your peers and redeem points for prizes online. So we did that. We were the first like totally dating myself, like before Google was around. So we did that in the late 90s, early 2000s, and had some great clients and, unfortunately, me and my partners had a falling out in the early 2000s.
Speaker 1:Not shocking a partnership that went bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it's difficult to believe and so, as a result, I left that business. Um, so I can't. I can't take any credit for all the amazing growth that they had and all the amazing things that they did. And then that business got sold to private equity a couple of times, but the last one was in 2015 for $110 million. So, uh, it sounds like a great big number. Unfortunately, I didn't see a lot of that, but it's an amazing, amazing achievement that they did and I'm very happy to have been involved in it, as I was.
Speaker 1:It sounds like it's really cool. And then this, the 16 years you wait to secure a domain name, which is funny, because I have one domain name story that I think is kind of cool. But was it worth it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean back in 2002, I guess I was a little bit ahead of the game when I was in the promotional products business as well and I reached out to the guy who owned promotionalproductscom a guy named Charles, really nice guy and so I said hey, charles, I want to buy this from you. And he's like well, dave, sure, no problem.
Speaker 1:If it to you and I was like I don't have any money, he's like, well then it's not gonna work.
Speaker 2:So you know, the number back then was you know, I don't remember, it was like 25 000 or something like big number right back then. So couldn't do it and then kept in touch with him. You sure you don't want to sell it to me, sure? So, 2003, no, so I called him every six months for the next 15 years, consistently just every six months, I had like a calendar, Consistently, Consistently, Just every six months.
Speaker 2:I had like a calendar in my calendar, Like it would be like call Charles. And so I'd call hey, Charles, it's Dave calling. How are you doing? Just seeing what you're doing with pro-sportscom. And then he was like no, actually, you know, I'm keeping it for my son no-transcript. Every year, same thing. Finally, I called him in 2017 and he's like Dave, my son doesn't want it. You've kept in touch with me for all these years. Here, here's my number, if you want. And it was more reasonable and I had more funds at the time. So a combination of things is like here's the number and if you want it, it's yours. I said done, how are we going to do this? So we, so I ended up doing a transition and acquiring the domain name from him.
Speaker 2:And the best part was, after I acquired the domain name, I thought I'm in Canada, I want to get the ca right, that's the Canadian. So I looked up who the who on the ca and it was actually happened to be a public listing. So I called the guy up who owned it and I was like hey, I'm Dave. Blah, blah, blah. I want to buy a promotional productsca from you and he's like Dave. I'm sorry, it sounded like a nice guy, but I'm waiting to buy thecom and I just started to laugh. Week Damn it. Okay, fine, I'll sell you the ca. So within a week I bought the com and the ca. That is so cool, and the ca was way cheaper. Just so we're clear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's funny because I don't think people understand. Sometimes you have to wait it out and you keep doing the thing right, keep doing the thing and someday the thing will come to you and I love that you did that. So a couple of years ago I was wanting to buy a URL was wespeakrealestatecom. So I went on to your daddy and it was $3,800. I'm like, absolutely not. And about a couple of months ago I went on it was 11 and I was like, oh, I got it, I'll take it right. Like I'm like I don't know how it went from that, but I thought it was really cool because I have a saying we speak real estate in 15 other languages at our company, so like we speak your bitchcom is, I think, was just really cool for 11 bucks. But I have so many domains I'm addicted to domain buying.
Speaker 2:It's there's something wrong with me, but you open up your GoDaddy and be like that's a, that's a huge number. I shouldn't own that many domains or whatever your, whoever your provider is.
Speaker 1:It's silly, but every time someone says words I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going to check that one, you know. And then I looked at my nameai and I didn't grab it. And then next week someone took it. I'm like are you kidding me, dion? How many anybody has my name? How did Dionai go away? So yeah, I'm still mad at myself over that one, but that was really cool, cool story and promotional products business. I loved it so much and in fact, I was recently thinking about getting back into it and I thought I got to get through this real estate thing and then someday when I you know, when I'm not in real estate anymore, maybe I will enjoy that again, because it is a great business and I had a lot of fun. We did a lot of cool things here in Pittsburgh with it, so I did some amazing, amazing stuff.
Speaker 2:I love that well, you know, you know a guy who owns from sparkscom. You know the real estate thing works out really well for you. I, you know we can always talk. I'm not keeping it from my son, so there you go.
Speaker 1:That is so funny, but all right, so let's see. Okay, then I want to talk to you a little bit about the hundred squares a day. What does that mean and what is that?
Speaker 2:so okay. So this is how I got through after my concussion and started to get through. My day was very, very carefully analyzing my time and I apologize if I put anybody to sleep for this part, but this is really, really important that I discovered. So if you sleep for seven hours and 20 minutes, you're awake for 16 hours and 40 minutes. If you take 16 hours and 40 minutes and divide that into 10 minute chunks, there are 110 minute chunks in a day. Are you kidding me? No, it's just the way the math works out.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, with your 110 minute chunks, I literally, I literally plan my day out. So you know, usually I'll get up at you know, five o'clock, five, 30, depending on what it is, depending on the day is, and then my first three chunks like first three blocks are my ten, ten, ten, and then you have getting ready and you have working out and all that kind of stuff. So, because there's there's basically ten, if you take a look at the hundred, you know a grid. There's ten, ten rows of ten blocks, so I call each of those a full chunk. So, in rows of 10 blocks, so I call each of those a full chunk.
Speaker 2:So I would spend, I basically spend a full chunk in the morning on myself, which is an hour and 40 minutes. It's a hundred minutes. So I do breakfast, I do working out, I do my routine, I do everything else. That's one chunk, so I still have literally 90% of my day left. And then what I do is I block off times for, you know, breakfast or sorry, for lunch, which is usually 20 minutes. I block off times for, you know, breakfast or sorry for lunch, which is usually 20 minutes. I block off time in the evening for my family, which is from 5, 30 till 7, and then the other things is okay. Where does the rest of it fit? So I I've broken down my day into 10 minute chunks and track my day by 10 minute chunks so let's build that.
Speaker 1:Like did you build a form that you fill out every day?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah I literally built, and then if I'm looking around, of course I've cleared off my desk, but I do have, I do, I literally have a chunk. So there was, um, interesting, yeah, so start. Uh, wait, but why are you familiar with the tim? I forget his last name. Uh, wait, but why is his website? So wait, but why is? Is it? And Tim Tim Urban.
Speaker 1:That's what it is. No, I've never heard of it.
Speaker 2:So Tim Urban is uh, he's got some great articles and what he basically did in one of his articles is he broke down your life into kind of a grid If you're going to live a hundred years. He basically had a grid paper for a hundred years and so taking a look at where you are and just crossing off where you are on your journey on the hundred year grid paper for 100 years, and so taking a look at where you are and just crossing off where you are on your journey on the 100 year grid paper and really realizing that and he had some really interesting takes on things like if you're going to be spent, if you raise children and your children live at home until they go away to university at 18 or 19 years old, you spend something like 95 percent of the time actual physical time with them. If they move out and go to university and then continue away on their own Something like 95 percent of the time actual physical time with them. If they move out and go to university and then continue away on their own, something like 95% of the hours you're actually going to spend with your kids, you've you've spent with them for the rest of your life. So when you take a look at it it's like, cause, think about it. You have a long weekend or you go on a trip over, over holidays or something. That's like a week, one week out of 52 and out of how many years, right? So it really made me gain great perspective.
Speaker 2:Just taking control of my time was so freeing, because once I was then able to allocate and prioritize my time take a look at what my number one objective is, what my number one priority is and you just work on that one thing for a chunk. To actually physically concentrate for 100 minutes on anything is shockingly hard. Like, yeah, like I mean, it's just like this. This podcast will be 40 minutes long, like I'm grateful to anybody who listens to it, but it's like to do another 60 minutes after that, another full hour on one thing. It takes a lot and but the the more you can concentrate on the one thing, you can get so much done. So At the beginning you asked, like, how do I do so many things? How do I run multiple businesses, how do I have a family and you know all these other things? I'm heavily involved in some charities and things. So it's like, how do? I do all that. It's just spending my time the way I want to spend it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it makes so much sense for someone like me who's creative and always moving. I can't seem to sit still long enough. You know I can't seem to sit still long enough. You know I can work on something, but you know that whole squirrel disease squirrel and so having that blocks of time may be a really great thing for me, because I think I could do that easier than the calendar. When you look at my calendar it's overwhelming and I look at it like. I don't even look at it now until the morning because if I do it before I go to bed I'm like, oh my gosh, I have so much to do tomorrow, so I don't even do it until the morning, but maybe I can look at your system. It sounds so much better.
Speaker 2:So what I do now is I've actually over multiple quarters, so a quarter being three months of the year. So now I'm about a year into this process where I don't have any meetings before 11 am. I spend the first. So because I'm usually up at 5, 5.30, I spend the first five hours on me and like it's not just okay so for clarity, I'm not just like doing my hair or whatever Like it's my priority.
Speaker 1:You have to go and do their hair.
Speaker 2:still Look at her Like it's my priority. When I say on me, I mean my priorities. So what is important to me? Because an inbox I've now changed like I'm fully addicted to my email inbox, just so we're clear, like if it was like I'm in it all the time. I've literally I literally had to hire somebody as an assistant so that she she actually is amazing and she sorts my inbox so that's always empty Cause I find myself with like that addictive looking at my inbox. It's always at zero. She sorted it to be like stuff I need to do, people, I need to get back to internal communications, whatever it may be, but I work on whatever. My main priority is up until 11 am and I want to get it to noon. I got next quarter. I'll get it to noon, but that way I'm spending the entire morning, the first five hours of my day at least, on whatever is important to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you definitely don't want to see my inbox. There's hundreds of thousands of emails. I've never get rid of any of them. Yeah, so it's merciful right when you look at it and you're still like the tabs. Actually, last week I literally shut down all of my tabs because I have I've actually had a computer built so I could have more tabs. So then I'm like I'm padded enough, like it's so crazy. They're everywhere, I can't even look at it anymore and I just hit all the buttons and I said I have to stop this. So I appreciate you sharing that. I'm definitely going to take a look at that idea. If you can share one of those sheets with me, that would be awesome.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and it's literally just a grid paper. I'm happy to share it with you. And then you just like it literally right at the beginning, like I got up at whatever time you get up at. I mean, some people got to get up super early, but whatever, some people work better at night, some people work better in the morning. You need to get enough sleep.
Speaker 2:I learned that with my brain injury, that you like sleep is super important. So you know, seven hours and 20 minutes is not necessarily even enough all the time. So if you're not the type of person who can get by on that much sleep, if you got to do it slightly more than you just cross off a couple. I had to sleep in a couple. Right Like it's not the end of the world, right Like there is no okay.
Speaker 2:So what I've found is the most difficult thing to do is to be able to forgive ourselves for any transgressions against ourselves.
Speaker 2:If we make a deal that I'm going to get up at 5am and then you do that for I don't know a week, two weeks, whatever, until the inspiration goes away, and then you're now up at 515, you're up at six, you're up at 630. And all of a sudden you start to feel really guilty about not doing that. We have to be better at forgiving ourselves and being a little more kind to ourselves, at least in my case, because I would be so hard on myself and then feel bad, and then you get in this spiral and then it's just awful. But if you're like you can have a little grace, like if somebody slept in, you're like you shouldn't sleep in, okay, fine, then it's over, right. But if it's yourself, it's like oh, I'm a failure. I couldn't even keep getting up at 5 am. How miserable, I can't do anything, right. You know, like as soon as you go into that spiral, it keeps going. So everybody can be kind to themselves. If they try something like this, do it until it works for you and then just do that.
Speaker 1:I can talk to you for so much longer, but I wanted to ask you a marketing question and I'll get to some of my last questions. But digital landscape right, that's important. Everybody's online now. You know, when you were talking about websites and like before, google, that's amazing. I remember AOL when it used to ding like that was a big deal. I remember AOL when it used to ding like that was a big deal. Yeah, you've got mail. Yeah, you've got mail, like what's in my mail? Now there's a. I can't even look at my real mark, but anyways, where should a small business owner focus their marketing dollars first?
Speaker 2:So the biggest thing that people have an issue with is that nobody knows who they are, especially as a small business owner and if you don't have a lot of budget, there's basically only four ways that you can get known, and this is from Alex Hermosi's $100 million leads. Highly recommend it. You can, you know. You've got warm outreach, so reaching out to people who know who you are. Cold outreach, which is cold outbound, making people aware of who you are. Posting free content, like this podcast, and then there's paid ads you can do by yourself, you can run them on yourself, and there's a million YouTube videos that are amazing to be able to do that. So those are really the only the four ways, if you are by yourself, that you can get known.
Speaker 2:If you're going to expand beyond that into having other people do that for you, you can hire agencies like ours, like AOK Marketing. We do paid search and SEO. You can also do. You can hire employees who can do the outreach for you. You can hire affiliates who can, you know, basically have your product as part of their offering, or you can have customers refer you business right.
Speaker 2:So those are kind of the main ways that you can do it, and so, from all those things, the very first thing you have to do is get known. So, whatever you're doing, if you're a small business and you're having troubles with growth, the very first thing you have to do is get known. So, whatever you're doing, if you're a small business and you're having troubles with growth, the very first thing you have to do is ask yourself what am I actually doing to get known? Because if you're answering a hundred thousand emails and you're doing all these different calls and you're doing all these different things, where is the time that you've allocated to actually having people be aware of where you are, who you are, what you do? Because without awareness, people can never buy from you. It's just the honest truth you have to be. They have to know who you are to be able to buy from you. That is the very first step.
Speaker 1:That is such great advice and I feel like for the last year I've been really focused on that personally and it's affecting my business in a great way. I can see it, you know, like we're getting amazing agents because they're getting to know the real person you know and obviously going through something like I'm going through and sharing that with everyone has been really amazing. So you know, people love storytelling. They love it. So social media gives you an opportunity to do it for free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's that's the amazing thing Like these platforms that we have to advertise for free cause. That's really what this is. It's an amazing way that you're giving back and making people aware and but, at the same time, people are becoming aware of what you do. It's just an amazing way to do it. So you know, and you're doing good by doing good.
Speaker 1:So you're doing good by doing good. I love that. So my last question for you is you've done so much already, what still drives you to keep going?
Speaker 2:When I couldn't remember yesterday, it really made it important for me to improve today by 1%. So I made it my mandate just 1% better every day. Just 1% better, like a little win, the tiniest win. And then, 18 months later, when I could remember again, I was just so grateful. I'm like I have been given a gift to be able to remember and build.
Speaker 2:Like I had no platform, I had no foundation, I wasn't able to build on yesterday to be today, and so there is no stopping because I'm just trying to reach my own potential at this point. Like I'm not, I'm never going to stop and I would wonder why anybody would want to stop unless they're fully realized, their potential. Like there's always more that you can do, there's always more that you can give, there's always more that you can be. There's always areas of improvement, and the older I get, the more things on me break, and so you know that I have to keep improving to keep up and even be equal to what I was 20 years ago. So there, it's not the money, it's not anything other than me wanting to be the best version of who I can be. And if that means coming on this podcast and if one person listens to this and does something in the right way, then that'll have been worth it.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent I agree with you and that's why I started this just to share our stories. And you know, I know there's two types of people in business those who fold when it gets hard and those who fight smarter. And I believe that you're fighting smarter and it's a pleasure to be in your company. I have to tell you and I know, you've built companies, you've survived brain trauma, you've chased a domain for 16 years, which is amazing, but you still wake up hungry to help others grow. So I think that's not hustle, that's purpose, and you're fulfilling your purpose and I think it's awesome. So thank you for being on here today. So if our listeners would like to find you, dave, how can they find you? Yeah, find you.
Speaker 2:Dave, how can they find you? Yeah, they can find me. I mean, the best place is on LinkedIn. That's where I've got the most. If you want to just actually hear some of my actual thoughts. There's two places for that. One is just X. Find me on X, you know Twitter. Twitter's got a noise problem, I get it, but I just brain dumped there a little bit and then I built something for my kids called Algorithm for Life. So it's algorithm for lifecom, and it's just where I share some of these lessons that I've done with for them. But other people seem to get a little bit of value out of that too, so maybe there's something there too.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Thank you so much for being with me today.
