The Power of Giving and Receiving

In today’s episode, I share how building a community of people who support one another creates lasting value in business and life. I explain why receiving help is just as important as giving it, and how asking the right questions can strengthen relationships and open new opportunities. Drawing on the experience of losing over $100 million in 2008, I reflect on the faith and perspective my mother helped me develop when everything seemed lost. I also discuss the importance of clear expectations in strategic alliances and why genuine abundance comes from giving, receiving, and asking with the intention of helping others. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  For me, my whole ecosystem fear is about strategic alliance. My belief is that you need to have a community of people that buy from you and sell for you for life. Uh, and yes, I do sit on some pretty big boards. I do investments. The buckets that I have and what I want to teach you to have is the majority of what I do is for free, just like Bill. And then I have group, then I have one-on-one opportunities, business advisory and investment. That's what I do and that's what I teach people to do, to build a community of people that buy from you and sell for you for life. And to pay attention to the frequency of the people you surround yourself with.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  To really understand how intention works. Uh, so I bring in a spirituality and awareness to what we do. So it's not just pragmatic business coaching, it's understanding how energy works and how it flows. Teaching you a paradigm shift of I'm part of the infinite, what am I doing to interfere with it? Not like other people teach, how do I go get it? And I know Bill talks about the major shift in his life when he started to realize this is about what I can do for other people. And like many other people, uh, he shifted his paradigm. So how do we do this? And my mission for those that don't know me is to join our strategic alliance.

• 1:23Speaker 00

  Uh, and so Bill has an event in Newport Beach this week, Orange County. Uh, next week, uh, my offices and podcast studio are at SoFi Stadium. We bring speakers like Bill Walsh, last week was Wolfgang Puck, uh, the CEO of Bugatti, the CEO of Masterclass, the CEO, uh, of, um, the founders of Drybar. Um, so we're up there at SoFi and if anybody joins our alliance group, you can cut into my mastermind for free at SoFi next week. Uh, so please join us and we have intimate dinners with people like Bill, Tim Story, Reid Diamond, Bill, uh, Brian Tracy, uh, Kevin Harrington, we had, uh, last week, Les Brown, just a variety of things that we're doing

• 2:07Speaker 00

  to put you in the right frequency and awareness. Uh, so how does it all work? You know, there's a simple value understanding that people spend billions of dollars trying to figure out, how do I articulate value, right? Not just how I give, but how do I receive? Well, one of the key shifts that I want you to understand is you can't give what you don't have. And most people have a problem receiving, not giving. And the reason that is, is that when we give, when we're able and capable of helping others, we are closest to God. You are closest to God when you're able and capable of helping God. That's why being a parent is so rewarding and fulfilling, even though our kids are a pain in the ass 80% of the time.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Because we're able and capable of helping them and we feel closer to God, we feel our higher self. So here's the irony of that in business is most people don't receive. They're cheating all the people in this room. If you don't receive, you're cheating me, for example, because I'm able and capable. Bill, for example, he's able and capable of helping everyone in this room. And if you say, no, no, not for it's okay. I don't need that. You know, my mom raised six kids on her own. My dad left when I was five. All of us went to great schools. They all went to Harvard, Penn, Columbia, graduated student cum laude, extremely successful. But it killed me when I was little, I couldn't understand it. We had wealthy relatives and they would say, oh, let me buy the boys a car.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  No, no, no, we don't need a car. Well, let me give you some money. Let me, you guys live in a two-bedroom apartment in Akron, Ohio. Let me move you out to California and give you a bigger place to live with your family. No, no, no, no, we, we don't need that. Yes, we do. And you cheated my uncles and you cheated my family from their higher selves. You never allowed them to be able and capable of helping us. And I promise you, it would have felt much better for them to do that than to buy their second Ferrari or another third or fourth home or whatever it is, instead of helping us. And so if you want to understand how you build this community, it's not just giving more.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  It's not just understanding what we're given, right? Which is another lesson of what we teach in our, our groups is you need to recognize that there's no evidence and the evidence is contrary to you want to be. I'm looking at, you know, my entrepreneurs in the front row here that I know. And I'm thinking, there is no evidence that this guy is going to get to where he wants to be or be ever. I know John here, there's no evidence today. Most of the evidence is contrary that you'll ever get to where you want to be. Well, I'll tell you this, I lost over a hundred million dollars in 2008, including my mom's home. Only reason I wanted to be rich was to buy her that house. And there was no evidence that day that I'd be here 18 years later. Worth more money than I ever dreamed of, helped more people than I ever dreamed of

• 4:58Speaker 00

  and having more fun in my life, getting to do what I want, when I want, with who I want, for as long as I want. That's freedom. And it's not a matter of having a lot of money, it's understanding that's what I want with my life. To do what I want with who I want for as long as I want. And so when you're looking at the evidence today, and the same is true with me, there's no evidence today that I'm going to get to the next level of where I want to be. In fact, most of the evidence is contrary. That's why faith is so important to me. Because what I've learned, when I walked up to my mom's door to tell her I lost everything, including her home and realized, when you lose everything, you wait till the very last minute to let alone tell your wife, but you don't tell anybody else. It's a slow drip that you have effed up everything.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  So my mom went from, this is my golden boy, my nickname Midas. Right? Bought her three homes, cars. Anytime anything ever broke, it was brand new dishwasher, brand new this, brand new that. All I was, I actually entitled my own mom to walk up to her door and say, mom, could barely talk. I lost everything, including your home, you need to move. And I thought that was going to be the end of my mom, that that surprise would, is all she cared about at that time. But it wasn't. My mom's first initial reaction is, are you okay? The next thing she said is, do you need money? I then told her that why would God punish me and you? Why would he do this to me?

• 6:24Speaker 00

  And my mom smirked at me, just realized, she just realized her son lost over a hundred million, including her home and she needed to move. And her reaction to me was, God doesn't punish anyone. Here's her quote, and I want you to think about it when there's no evidence or the evidence is contrary to where you want to be. My mom said to me, God is promoting you. He is protecting you. He is loving you and he's perfecting you. Son, you're almost 40 years old. It's time you grow up and get to work and I'm here to help you. My initial reaction, in tears, I don't believe in God. Her reaction to that was a huge smile and a hug and whispered in my ears, sweetheart,

• 7:07Speaker 00

  you believe in God, you just believe in the wrong God. Let's get to work. And I got to work. I got to work to understand value was really simply the ability to articulate three things to people. After you find out where they're at today, what they're interested in, subject matter, topic or expertise. You're a solar person, I want to know three things. What do you like and don't like about solar? What's working, what's not working for you with solar? And what do you know and don't know about solar? Once I know that, this is to everybody in our strategic alliance. I create overlap agreements for the thousands of people in our strategic alliance group. Every Monday I'm there, you could ask these guys, every Monday I'm there to answer questions

• 7:50Speaker 00

  and to make personal introductions with my spheres of influence for everyone. But all I'm concerned about is what is it that you're interested in, subject matter, topic or expertise? What do you like, don't like, what works, doesn't work? What do you know and doesn't, doesn't know? Because I know one thing, I now have ammo to say, would it help you if I gave you more of what you liked? That's value. I know I could say, would it help you if I gave or take away what you don't like? That's real value. I could give you more of what's working or take away what's not working, even more value. And I can give you more of what you know and take away what you don't know, which is true quantitative value. And I also could ask you the other question that reverts back to what I was saying earlier.

• 8:33Speaker 00

  I could also ask you, do you know anyone that could help me? If you're going to take away two questions, it should be, would it help you if, and do you know anyone that can help me? I've just given you an offer to be at your higher self. Because when you ask someone, do you know anyone that could help? Bill, do you know anyone can help me? I'm looking to invest in this or do this, or I need a friend to do this, or anyone to help me. Bill's thinking first, how could I help David? That's the way Bill thinks. When I ask him, do you know anyone that helped me? He's first he goes, simply this person I know is standing in front of you, Dave. And 90% of the time when I ask Bill, do you know anyone that can help me? I'm looking for, it's, it's Bill. 10% of the time he's like, you got to meet my friend so and so. And if you know Bill, that's the truth.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  But you've given him an opportunity, like most of you have given me an opportunity to be able and capable of helping you, feeling closer to God more and more and feeling my higher self, giving you more comfortability and confidence in doing what I do to share with more people.

• 9:33Speaker 01

  At Lowe's this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic MyLowe's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  If you don't have some sort of memorialization of your strategic alliance, your community or network in your neighborhood, you're making a huge mistake. Let me give you an example how important what I call overlap agreements. And it could be an email, but it has to be codified. So I memorialize what you do. And I memorialize what you can do for me. A memorialization, right? So he owns Signal for Sale. He can help me generate leads on LinkedIn. And anyone, Sylvester Raymond here, anyone that I bring to Sylvester, he will give me a commission on. And he says he's going to try to give me, and just for an example,

• 10:44Speaker 00

  he will try to give me a 10% commission every time. Notice what I said, I've codified how he can help me. Two, he will try to give 10% commission. And I, if he gets me a speaking engagement and my cost, look at my website, I'm 100 grand to speak, unless I'm doing a favor for Bill, right? I'm 100 grand. When they fly me somewhere, I'm not going unless it's six figures. And I will give him 20%. I will try to give him 20%. But if he introduced me to Bill and I'm speaking for free for Bill, now you get caught in this weird thing because he finds out from someone else, Dave spoke at Bill Walsh's event and he didn't give me 20 grand. And all of a sudden, my relationship is ruined when the full intention was we were what?

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Trying to help each other or know people that can help each other. And this happens all the time when you don't understand time, emotion and value changes in all relationships. So you need to be a memorializer, a non-binding person with good intentions and say, hey, man, I heard you spoke at Bill. Was there, was there any cut for me? Well, actually I did it for free. And actually I cost him a fortune because I brought 20 people and he had to buy everybody lunch. It's kind of hard for me to, you know, give you a commission, bro. Oh, cool. Cause I want you to help Bill as well. So I have these conversations all the time. The other side is with technology, I can search, my friend moves to Tennessee, true story. Before I have the memorialization idea and I had the normal referral agreement,

• 12:13Speaker 00

  I had a deal with a dentist in Nashville. Everybody's moving to Nashville. He said, Dave, all these families you know moving to Nashville, anyone needs dentistry. I will give all your girls a Starbucks card if you bring me a family. I'm like, cool. You give me a speaking engagement, I'll give you 20%, right? My perceived value is 100 grand. I won't take any less than 25 to speak anywhere except for friends, but, or charities, right? And whatever it is. So here's what happened. I referred him a family. They came back to me bragging about this dentist, six people in their family, said he was amazing. And so kind of joking, I called him, I'm like, bro, thank you so much for helping my, my friends. They love you. I said, but I didn't get the Starbucks cards.

• 12:58Speaker 00

  And he's, oh, he's, oh yeah. He goes, you know what, Dave? He goes, I'm really sorry. He goes, the family came in and they were financially, had moved and they were having financial difficulties. So I just comped them because they were your friends. And I gotta be honest, in the back of my head, I'm like, that mofo?

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Like at the beginning, right? I was calling him like, it's a few Starbucks cards. I'm not going to send him any more business. He feel the scarcity, right? Instead of with the new approach that I have, an overlap agreement, a memorialization of how we can help each other with the intention of giving each other, whatever it is for helping each other, the intention of it. And then evaluating time, emotion in value and saying, hey, man, not on this one, but, but thank you. And finding, it's a whole different energy. So we have thousands of people in our strategic alliance group that meets on Monday, watches the replay, interacts with one another and has overlap agreements that we all have the intention, what? To buy from each other and sell for each other. I'm going to repeat that.

• 14:00Speaker 00

  The intention of a community, a neighborhood, a frequency is to buy from each other and sell for each other for life. No better way to make money. Help people and have fun. You have all these sources with technology. This was impossible to do even five years ago. But it's something that I promise you will change your life. And here's the thing, my, my strategic alliance group, I charge people for, but I guarantee it. I guarantee for any reason, you have financial difficulties, you don't like my haircut. Maybe you don't like the color of my eyes anymore. Maybe you don't like the fact that I'm in better shape now and you used to like fat Dave. I don't care. You need your money, it's coming back. Why do I do that? Because there's two things I don't want in my group. I curate the group, our community.

• 14:44Speaker 00

  And Bill's been a great help to me. One is if you can't afford to the $497 for the year, you're not ready to join that group. Come to my free Wednesday training, my Friday training, my Ask Me Anythings, Bill Walsh's events where I speak for free, whatever it is, until you're ready. But you know, in that group that we've curated it to people that at least can afford $497 for the year. Number two, if you're not going to be engaged because you know it's guaranteed and you can afford it, you're not going to want to join. So you'll come up with an excuse because in the back of your head, you're like, eh, that's not for me. I'm not going to show up. I'm not going to watch the replays. I'm not going to create overlap agreements. I'm not interested in Dave's frequency, his neighborhood, whatever it is.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  So I'm curating the room with this qualifier and you should be doing the same thing. Curating your neighborhood, your business within the context of mine and Bill's communities as well. Because I promise you, it'll take you at least the 35 years that I've done it, or 40 or 50 years that Bill's done it and millions of dollars that we spent doing it. You might as well leverage all that. For those of you that are younger and those of you that may don't, haven't had millions of dollars to build a community with, you might as well leverage everybody else's community. And so I find within receiving, a lot of people don't leverage other people's community. They feel bad. Not Bill and I, we're looking at each other's schedules going, hey, man.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  And like in all fairness, like I blew it today. It's, you know, my, my anniversary was Monday. I'm closing a penthouse downtown and my wife's birthday is today. And I literally was moving so fast, didn't realize what this really was. I should have had everybody here in the morning. So do me a favor, make sure Bill gets your contact. You look at his information. I'm his biggest fan. I sell for him. He sells for me. He buys from me. I buy from him for life. Massive. Yeah. And Bill brought me into that. And I brought a whole bunch of other people and he brought other people. That place, I don't think Bill, just in all fairness, would have been where it's at without me and you, with the people that we brought. And that's just because we have the neighborhood.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  You might as well leverage that. So I want to stress the idea of giving. The more you give, the more you're given. Not the more you give, the more you receive. I didn't know all that I was given that day that I lost everything. I, my mom knew because she has wisdom and faith. I didn't have wisdom or faith. My mom had wisdom and faith and she knew that day what I was given. I couldn't see it. And I'm sure a lot of you may have struggled to see it at that time or in a certain time in your life. But the more you give, the more you're given. When there's no evidence and the evidence is contrary to where you want to be, the more you will receive. Especially when you know when you're receiving, somebody else is at their highest self.

• 17:36Speaker 00

  And then it gives you the ultimate example of faith. It works as, you know, faithful people give more. Faithful, faithful people are given more. Faithful people receive more. But true faith is those who ask for more. Because God, your God, not mine, your God says there's more than enough of everything for everyone. But you gotta ask for it by doing, saying, thinking, feeling and believing aligned with your divine direction and figuring out what you're doing to interfere with it. You gotta ask for it. When people ask, they're literally illustrating their faith that I know God, there's more than enough of everything for everyone. And I know that my intention for the sake of what am I asking is to what?

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Give more than more, to be given more than more, receive more than more and ask for more than more than more. So instead of living in this terrible zero sum game that my mom lived in, where she would give more and receive less, that she thought somehow with the man-made constructs, that if you give more money and receive less money, that somehow that wasn't going to end up at zero? Let me just tell you this, bullshit. I'll tell you, anything that's infinite, you give, more will come back. Love, infinite. Forgiveness, infinite. Kindness, infinite. All of these things, they're infinite. You get, give all you can, kindness and joy and forgiveness and love. It will come back to you. But I am telling you, money is no different than this pepper shaker.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  If I sat here like people think with money and I told you, the more pepper shakers you give, the more pepper shakers you're going to receive. You guys would literally think I'm insane. But when people tell me the more money they give, the more money they're going to receive, I know that a pepper shaker is the same as money. It's a man-made construct. It's not infinite. The energy is, but the actual man-made construct, the $5 bill, the $10 bill, the $100 bill, it's the same as a shaker. There's no way any of you would believe that. But most of you, before you came in this room, I guarantee if I told you the more money you give, the more you're going to receive, right? Oh yeah, my mom taught me that. The more you give, the more you receive.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  She wasn't referring to salt shakers or money. They're referring to kindness and love and forgiveness, all the infinite things, inspiration. I promise you, all those things will come back to you. But don't live in a zero sum game. My motto is to make a lot of money for the sake of helping others and having fun. Because I'm on a mission to empower over a billion people to be happy. And I've never met anybody, including me, that makes a lot of money for the sake of helping others and having fun that isn't happy. And I promise you, we can teach you and help you with our neighborhood, our frequency, Bill and I, and our programs, whether they're free or group or one-on-one or business advisory or investment. We can help you do that.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  We have plenty of people around us and we're willing to give you our time. We're old enough and far enough along. We want to do this. Cause remember, I don't do things I don't want to do, when I want to do them, with who I want to do them. If it wasn't Bill Walsh, I would not be here. Because that's who I want to do this stuff with. Here with you as well.