Sense of Soul - Creating Connections

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

We welcomed Daniel Gefen,  CEO of Gefen Media Group a booking service that helps inspiring authors sell more books by getting them booked as guests on relevant podcasts. Daniel recently created a successful and easy to use podcast booking online platform called Podbooker, where you can connect by creating a guest or podcast profile. He is a best selling author of The Self Help Addict and the host of NOW two podcast “Can I pick your Brain” and “Grow your Show”, a new podcast about how others made their podcast a success. Daniel has been putting his energy into finding ways to help authors rise up, becoming bestsellers by connecting them with amazing podcast like Sense of Soul. He has blessed our podcast with amazing guest like Dr Hassan Tettah, Randy Haveson and Nate Novasal. Join us and listen to Daniel’s motivational story of his journey! Top-Rated Host: www.danielgefen.com Bestselling Author: The Self Help Addict Host Relationship Manager: Gefen Media Group Podbooker Check out www.mysenseofsoul.com to see our new courses and reading available!! Don’t forget to Rate, Like , Comment and Subscribe! Thank you so much!

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. Today with us, we have Daniel Geffen, the CEO of Geffen Media Group. He is a bestselling author of the book, Self-Help Addict, and the podcast host of Can I Pick Your Brain, where he talks to billionaires, bestselling authors and world-class leaders on how they got from where they were to where they are today and the steps that they took to reach that success. Daniel also has a passion for helping others achieve success, helping amazing authors rise up to becoming bestsellers by connecting them with amazing podcasts like Sins of Soul. bestsellers by connecting them with amazing

podcasts like Sins of Soul. He really has blessed our podcast with amazing guests like Dr. Hassan Tessa, Randy Haverson, Nate Novosel to name a few. And he is the founder of Podbooker, where you can make these connections on your own by simply making an online guest or podcast profile. Daniel, welcome. It is so nice to finally meet you. And thank you so much for sending over all of those amazing souls and guests that we've had. Thank you for just taking the time also so that Mandy and I can pick your brain.

Thank you. My brain is ready to be picked. All right. Well, here's the first picking question. Daniel, what is your definition of success? Oh, man. Well, can't we like ease in? Like that's you start. Wow. Okay. My definition of success. You know, I, oh man, how do I say this? I'll just say it as I said, I hate questions like that. And I'll tell you why. Because it means that I have to now take that and put it in a box. And I hate questions like that. And I'll tell you why. Because it means that I have to now take that and

put it in a box. And I hate boxes. Like when I was in school, I just couldn't sit still. They told me you have to sit and you have to listen to this boring subject that I had no interest in. And that's basically been my whole life is climbing out of boxes, because everyone tries to put you in a box. And I just want to climb out of a box. Now some people, they're just happy to stay in the box that everyone puts them in. But the only box I'm ever going to be put in in a box and I just want to climb out of a box. Now, some people, they're just happy to stay in the box that everyone puts them in. But the only box I'm ever going to be put in is the box they put me in at the end of my life when I'm dead and I'm not breathing anymore. So my definition of success, I don't have a definition. I believe that we're here for a purpose and that we need to do the best that we can. And I think that once you define success,

it's over because now you've given it a box, you've put it in a box and you've buried it. So it always needs to just remain, you need to remain curious and adventurous. And that's the goal in life. Man, I think that's my favorite non-definition of success I've ever seen. Me too. I agree. And who wants to be in a freaking box? You know, there's so many conditions. No box. Hashtag break the box. Absolutely. I love that. Were you always like that as a child? Yeah. I've always been breaking boxes my whole life. I thought your parents were like, oh, he's fun. No, it was very difficult for them. I was, I was a difficult child. I would be running away

into the forest and my mom would be running after me. And then I would, yeah, it was, it was hard. God bless my parents for putting up with me and God bless my wife for putting up with me for 14 years. So you are the father of five children, five children. Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm the sixth child. I'm just another kid in the family. My wife, she takes care of all of us. She's amazing. Thank God for wives. In your book that you wrote, which I got to read a little bit of it, you talked about your relationship with your father and how you were, you know, wanting to impress him. Oh man, we're going so deep, man. We just got started here. And so I'm wondering, is that,

is that part of what lit the fire under your ass was that you wanted to impress your father, make him happy, make him proud? Well, the truth is we're all, we're all trying to impress our father. We all have a, we all share a father collectively uh the creator it's instinctual there's a reason why we have that desire and that then that sort of need to impress the father right there's the father figure because we're all souls right this is sense sense of soul okay so we're all souls that were created. There was, there's, there is a creator. And, and so we want to make the creator proud. There's an unhealthy way to make him proud. And there's a healthy way, you know, the healthy way to have a relationship with a father and a son

is where the son feels good about himself and feels comfortable and wants to have, and has a relationship with his father. And then the unhealthy relationship is where the son feels like he can't be good enough, because he's always trying. And the father just doesn't seem to, to be there emotionally for him. That's kind of my story with my father. I love my father dearly. And the truth is, I totally don't blame him at all for not having that kind of relationship with me because his father didn't have that relationship with him. My grandfather was a Holocaust survivor. He was in 18 concentration camps. He was 13 years old when he first got taken into a concentration camp. He was 18 when he left.

So he was there for five years, five years in concentration camp. He was 18 when he left. So he was there for five years, five years in the concentration camps. He was shot and buried alive at one point. His whole family was shot and murdered and the bullet hit his shoulder and he pretended to be dead so that they wouldn't kill him. And then he waited and he then climbed out.

And at one point he was 10 feet from the gas chambers. And a Nazi soldier was standing next to a horse and the horse made he defecated on his boot. And the Nazi turned around to the person next to him, who was my grandfather, who was standing in line to go into the gas chambers. And he said, you dirty Jew, come out here and clean this up. And so my grandfather came and bent down and cleaned up the shit and it saved his life so when we you know when we complain about cleaning shit we don't know that sometimes that the cleaning of the shit actually is the say it's it's going to save your life so you don't know my grandfather was hung twice on both occasions the sirens went off and he was able to escape and he was finally liberated. So I look at my father and I think,

you know, he grew up with someone who was obviously emotionally damaged, but my grandfather lived and he lived a life of service. He would constantly be giving to people. He was always smiling. If you ever saw him, he was always smiling and he rebuilt himself. He rebuilt his family from nothing. He had nothing, nothing left. And so nowadays, if your Wi-Fi is low or our battery on our cell phones dead, we freak out. It's like, holy crap, why is the Wi-Fi not working? You know, like we get we get we get crazy, but we we forget. Like, it's so important to remember, you know, not so long ago, if you wanted to have light, you would have to go chop some wood, create a fire to get warmth and light. And today you just flick a switch and suddenly, boom, hey, I have light. I have warmth.

And it's so important just to not take those things for granted. Wow. Yeah. I thought you didn't want to go deep. Now you've got me almost in tears. You went there. You took me there. No, thank you so much for sharing. You know, I don't one of my biggest things our listeners know that is is ancestry. So I do a lot of work with ancestry

with myself and with other people. And just healing through that. Because, you know, many of the things, especially with the survivors of the Holocaust, they have passed down this trauma in our genetics, but really just by bringing some awareness of their stories and what they went through can really change somebody. When you heard these stories, were they told to you as you were growing up were you able to ask all the questions that you wanted to ask about that yeah he didn't talk much about it but those are a few stories that he shared as I was growing up I heard the stories for me the tragedy is that I wish there was a book that he wrote you know I wish there was something that he produced in his life that I could know him better by.

And that's why I do what I do in a way. I feel like God put me in a position where now I help other people to share their story and to get their message to the world because it's so important. When I was writing my book, I kept procrastinating about it. I kept pushing it off because I was scared to put it out there. Like, who the heck am I to write a book? Who wants to read my book? Who wants to know what I have to say? You know, those thoughts in your head. I was bullied in high school tremendously. And there was no worse bully than the bully in between my ears. He was the biggest bully of them all. No

one can even get close to that bully. And so I've had a relationship with that bully for a very, very long time. And all those thoughts in your head, what I do now is I see them as little children. So you can't ignore children, right? That's not a good thing to do. And anyway, they get louder when you ignore them. They just scream even louder. So the thing is, is there's no such thing as a negative thought. There's such thing as a thought

that has the wrong time and place. Let me explain. Fear is a good example, right? So let's say you're about to start a podcast. And then you have this fear inside that says, No, don't do it, you know, you might embarrass yourself. Well, that child called fear is actually there to protect you. Right? They're there to protect you, right? They're there to protect you because if you're in a forest and there's a wild animal, the fear is there to tell you, get the hell out. That's dangerous. If you're on the edge of a cliff and you're close to the edge, the fear tells you, don't go. Don't go to the edge of the cliff. You're going to fall and die. So fear is actually a really good thing, but in the right time, in the right place.

So what I do now, if I'm feeling fear as I speak to it, as if I'm speaking to a little child, I say to him, hey, I really appreciate you. You helped me out. But I want you to know that I don't need you right now. Like, this is not the time and place. Like, I want to do this. I want to go and write a book. I want to launch a podcast.

I want to, whatever it is that I want to do, I want to do it. And also you've got to let him know who's boss, right? You're the boss. You're in charge. Children don't, children should not be in charge of the, of the parents. Like, unfortunately in today's generation, things have gone a bit pear-shaped, but you're supposed to be the person in charge. You're the boss here. And so you have to tell your thoughts. I'm in control. That's what I've been on a journey doing is producing and helping other people produce. You know, I loved that part in your book where you talk about making fear your friend. Yes. I want to just go back and say thank you for sharing that story about your grandfather. Those are the type of stories that need to be told because it's that attitude of gratitude that you also talk about in your book. We're so whiny, right? And to think about what he overcame and not only overcame, but then went on

to be of service and to smile. What a beautiful story. So thank you for sharing. I'm blessed to be able to share that story. For me, I feel like it's almost a duty and a responsibility to share it because he's not alive now. And he's living through me, through my storytelling, through my sharing, his life to live on through me. And he's not forgotten. His story's not forgotten. The fact that that happened is not forgotten. And you're right. It's very important. Yes. So Shanna and I started Sense of Soul with the idea of turning pain into purpose. Your grandfather did that. He took his pain and his purpose was to smile and help others. And now you are carrying that same message by taking his pain and it became your purpose by helping people get their stories out

there. That is awesome. Yeah. I was actually saying that when I was procrastinating about my book, so I had the idea to write the book for 10 years. It literally, I actually remember I was sitting in a therapy session and my therapist said to me, you know, why don't you write the book? And I said, well, the book's called a self-help addict and I am the self-help addict. So I can't write the book. And I said, well, the book's called a self-help addict and I am the self-help addict. So I can't write the book because I'm, I have the idea and I know what I want to write, but this is the problem. I'm addicted to self-help, which means that I can't do, I can learn and I can take in information. I could sit on YouTube for 10 hours straight and watch how to write a book or how to launch a podcast

or how to start a business. I've read every book on business and every book on self-help and every spiritual book, but I can't freaking do the thing because I'm constantly, you know, I'm escaping back into that overload of information. And here's the thing is that I call this emotional obesity or mental obesity, where physical obesity is obvious, you see someone that they're obese, right, they're eating and eating, and they're not converting that food into energy. And so they become very heavy and slow. And they get all sorts of diseases and health issues. And you could see it clearly. But you can't see what goes on in someone's head. And there is such a thing as mental obesity, where if you consume so much information,

and you don't convert that information into action, then your mind becomes slow and sluggish, and you start feeling heavy and tired, and overwhelmed. And it all comes because you're not taking action, you're just feeding the addiction. That's the problem. And it all comes because you're not taking action. You're just feeding the addiction. That's the problem. And the only way out is to start taking actions to just produce more than you consume. I have said that same thing. I could tell you everything about codependency and boundaries and exactly how to do it. But like, I was not demonstrating that. So it's kind of like our good friend, Dr. Chris Lee says, he said, you know, you can read and have all the knowledge in the world, but until you put it into action, it's just knowledge. And then when you put it into

action, it's wisdom. And I loved that because you're like, wait a minute, I know all about this. Why is it not working for me? I love the word you used, emotional obesity, because,'re like, wait a minute, I know all about this. Why is it not working for me? Of the word you used, emotional obesity, because my memory, I just feel like my brain is sluggish right now. I'm feeling a little unmotivated, but I had all these crazy enlightened ideas last month. I mean, there was like 50 things that I wanted to do, like write children's books, this program for people in ICU, write my book about my near-death experience. And I just keep jumping from one to another and I don't get any of it out. You have to release that. And because if I don't release it, that's why I'm just slowing down my brain and my body and I'm becoming obese. And I already have a big head. I don't need a bigger, fatter

head. You know what actually got me to write it? What got me to actually take action after all those years? So I made myself extremely accountable. And the way that I did that was my oldest son at the time was nine years old. And I was tucking him in bed one night. And I said to him, you know, I got a very special surprise that I'm going to give you on your 10th birthday. And he said, oh, what is it? What is it? And I said, it's a book. And he goes, book? I don't want a book. I want a PlayStation. What do I want a book for? So I said, no, no, no. I said, I'm going to write the book. I'm going to write a book and I'm writing it for you. And you're going to get the first copy on your 10th birthday.

And he gave me the biggest hug. He's like, I love you, daddy. I can't wait to read it. And then I walked out of the room and I'm like, crap, now I've got to really write this book. Like, I'm not going to let him down, right? I'm going to get that book January 16th. I need to get that book published and printed. And so that was it. That was my motivation. I did it for him. And you know what, for generations to come, my grandchildren, my great grandchildren, they'll have, they'll have that book, they'll be able to read that book that I left behind, they'll be able to listen to this podcast one day, they'll type in my name in Google, and it will come up sense of soul. And they'll hear this, and all the other 60 podcasts that I've been on so far, they'll hear this and all the other 60 podcasts that I've been on so far. They'll hear my stories and what I've what I've shared. And for anyone listening to this, if you're thinking about, you know, well, I don't know if I'm good enough.

I'm not. You'll do it for your children. Do it for your future generations. They're going to want something that you leave behind. There's no better. You know, all the money in the world is not worth the memories that you build in your life. And if you leave those memories behind through the ability to create and produce, you know, God gave us this incredible gift called the gift to create. We can emulate God by creating. If you can meditate on that, I mean, that's the most powerful, powerful realization that we are creators. We are partners in creation. Every time we produce something, it's wild. It's incredible. You know, that's why I got into podcasting. Podcasting right now is the number one best way to communicate and to share your

stories and share your messages and share yourself with the world, with your audience. And that's how I ended up, you know, starting my own podcast and then getting into helping other people get on podcasts. And then, you know, PodBooker came about because I realized that I wasn't serving everyone. I was only serving a very select few people because, you know, when I started my podcast booking agency, it's a high-end agency where I charge thousands of dollars and I get people on the top shows, but I'm only able to work with a select few people. And I thought, well, what about all the other hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people that want to get on podcasts and they can't afford an agency like mine? What about them? And what about,

you know, there's 1.5 million podcast hosts out there, and only probably the top 10% are getting guests from PR agencies and booking agencies. So what about the 90% of podcast hosts are like, where do I get guests from? I don't know how to find guests. And that's when I thought, well, I need to create a platform, like a marketplace where guests can easily find hosts and get booked on their show and hosts can easily find guests and book them on their show. And that's, that's PodBooker basically. That's the whole, that's the whole idea. Speaking of PodBooker, I just want our listeners to know, it's so easy. It's so user-friendly. I'm glad you said that because, you know, my main thing was

making sure that it was user-friendly, that it was super simple for anyone to just get on and within three minutes set up a profile and get booked on shows or get guests on their show and the best feedback I've got is from people saying that within an literally within an hour of them signing up to pod booker they already got three new guests on their podcast or they got booked on four new shows. And to me, that's like the best thing. And you know what? It's free to join as well. And I've kept it that way because again, I want it to be accessible to anyone. Obviously we're going to have, you know, pricing for, you know, features that we bring out, but it will always be free just to be able to connect and be on the platform because I want to have somewhere that people, anyone can go on and do that.

What's also really cool is that I'm excited to launch a new feature that we're coming out with where you can actually get reviews from podcast hosts as well. So you can actually start to build up your profile because the more reviews you get from hosts, the more attractive you are to bigger podcasts to want to have you on their show. So I mean, it's just such an exciting time right now with podcasting because there's over 150 million Americans listening to podcasts and 1.5 million podcasts is nothing. Like if you think about it, there's over a hundred million YouTube channels out there. There's over a billion blogs. So when people come to me and say, Daniel, I think it's too late to get into the podcast game.

Are you crazy? Like 1.5 million is nothing. It's a drop in the ocean. This is, we're early still. And now's the time to get in because it's not saturated. It's not like Facebook and Instagram, which is really noisy. Like, you know, you put up a post on, on Instagram and Susie sitting on the toilet till her thighs go numb, scrolling through the feed,

you know, she blast past your post. Maybe you get like 1.3 seconds of her attention before she, you know, get like, it's just like, I've never had my thighs go numb. I've had my feet go numb, but not my thighs. No, my thighs go numb. My thighs literally go numb. Is that why my husband always like falls on his face when he comes out of being on there on his, you know, ESPN app? Yeah, for sure. But the thing is, is that people are promoting on these platforms. And the funniest thing is, who are you promoting to? You're promoting to someone who's in a very passive mindset and they're not in a position to want to buy your book or listen to your podcast or

whatever it is that you're trying to promote. That's not the place to promote it because they're just not in the right mindset and you're not getting their attention long enough to make an emotional connection. The way to sell anything, whether it's a product, a service, or an idea, or even a belief, if you want to sell a belief, you need someone's attention for long enough to be able to do that. And three seconds on social media is not going to do it. But with podcasts, this is what's amazing. And, you know, over 85% of people that listen to podcasts listen to the whole thing from beginning to end. And the average podcast is 45 minutes long. That's crazy.

45 minutes in today's generation to have that kind of attention. That's a goldmine. People will say, you know, I listen to your podcast like every morning on the way to work. And it's just about the right time for me to get from A to B. But you're right. 45 minutes is a lot to give somebody your time. It is.

Yes. And listeners, thank you so much. Podcasts, you can listen to it while you're walking the dog or going for a run or doing a shopping. Oh, I clean. Yeah. Or cleaning or anything, right? You can't watch a movie while you're driving a car. You can't read a book while you're driving a car or going for a run um you know so that's why

podcasting has taken off and why it's so popular the other thing as well is that you don't have to spend money on social media ads you know i'm on here right now talking about my story and sharing you know pod booker and it's not costing me anything. It's free, right? You guys are doing me a huge favor. And you say that I've got myself in trouble now, but the point is, is that it's crazy how the opportunity right now to get yourself out there for free on, on podcasts podcasts where there are over a million podcast hosts looking for guests. Like this is the time to get on it. You know, I feel like within a year from now, it's going to be a different story because just like Facebook got really, you know, flooded and,

you know, Google and Instagram, it's so noisy now and it's so hard to get on, you know, and to get attention. Right now is the time to do it. it's so hard to get on, you know, and to get attention. Right now is the time to do it. If you're sitting there thinking about, you know, should I start a podcast? Or should I start getting on podcasts to talk about my story and talk about whatever it is that you want to share? Now is the time like I'm urging you to do it because you're going to kick yourself later because you're going to realize, oh, man, why didn't I do it when it was still so young and it was free to do? It's so much fun, especially when we get to interact with our guests, you know, reaching people all across the world and stuff. It's like, this is amazing.

Yeah. I mean, that actually reminds me talking about speaking to people all across the world. So how did I get into podcasting, right? So four years ago, I'm playing tennis. I'm very competitive with tennis, by the way. Anyone wants to play me a game, you come to Israel and I'll take you around the court. But I'm playing tennis and I get the phone call that changed my life. This was the phone call that changed my life. I pick up the phone.

I don't believe in random things happening. I believe everything happens for a reason at the right time. And that was the time that I got this phone call from a stranger who said to me, Daniel, I heard you have an interesting story. I'd love to have you on my podcast. And I'll never forget what I said to him. I said, what the heck is a podcast? I was laughing. I was like, what? That sounds so funny. Sounds like a spaceship or something, right? Podcast. And so he explained to me what it was. And I got really excited because I thought, well, wow, what an opportunity. Like I've never spoken in public before, unless you count the time that I was standing on tables in school and giving my thing there, my performance and getting in trouble for that. But I didn't have a social media following. I was like totally invisible online.

You typed in my name in Google. I didn't show up like nothing. And I get on this podcast and I remember actually I said to him, where do I need to go? He said, nowhere. You just sit wherever you, wherever you want. So I was in my pajamas, which was great. And I put on my headphones and I started sharing my story and I fell in love with the mic. I just loved it. This was like so natural for me. I realized like this is what I should be doing. And at the end, it felt like five minutes went by.

It was a whole hour. And he said, well, thank you, Daniel, for coming on the show. And I said, thank you for having me. And then, of course, I had this question in my mind, which was how many people are listening to this? Like I'm staring at this wall over here in my pajamas. Is it just me and him and his mother? Like, who's, who's listening? And to be honest with you, I kind of expected him to say maybe 20, 30 people, right? Which would have been cool. So when he says, no, Daniel, there's over 1000 people listening. I fell off my chair. I'm like, what? What do you mean 1000 people? Don't be

ridiculous. There's no way is 1000 people listening. There's off my chair. I'm like, what? What do you mean a thousand people? Don't be ridiculous. There's no way it's a thousand people listening. There's like some of the biggest speakers get up on stage. And if they've got a thousand people in the audience, that's a packed crowd. Like I'm a nobody. How is it that there's a thousand people? I said, where are all these people? He said, well, they're all over the world. I'm like, all over the world? Come on. He's like, yeah. And he starts listing all these countries, some of which I didn't even know. And I can't pronounce. And I'm like, this is mad. I need to get on podcasts. Like I need to get into this thing. This is, this is going to be huge. This is four years ago. So two weeks later, I start my own podcast called, can I pick your brain? And I decided I'm going to pick the brains of the most successful people in our generation.

But there were only two problems. Number one, I didn't know any successful people. Who am I going to interview, right? And number two is how do I get people to listen to this thing? Like, what do I do, right? So then I had this like aha moment. I thought, well, one second, that guy had a thousand people listening. And I'm like, there's nobody.

So, I mean, if he had me on his show, then maybe other people will have me on their show. And I'll just go and leverage other people's audiences. Instead of trying to figure out how do I build my own audience, I'll just go where the audiences already are, and just tell them about my show. So that's what I did. And I went on lots of podcasts. And within a very short period of time, my podcast grew to over a quarter of a million downloads and became a top rated podcast on iTunes. And I ended up interviewing some crazy guests, including four billionaires, the smartest man alive, the US memory champion, like crazy, crazy guests. that's basically how I how I grew my show was it was all getting on podcasts like my book became a bestseller only because of podcasts I didn't do anything else that was it wow congratulations that's an awesome story so that's another fun thing I don't know if

you've experienced that Daniel but like the people that I used to listen to at the very beginning now we've had them on as guests and we have relationships with them like oh it's so fun it's almost like a community yeah yeah it's crazy I had some of my big I don't want to call them idols because uh you know human beings they we all sit and crap right we all go to bed at the end and sleep and die so we all do the same thing we're all human we're all human I'm only human yeah right yeah so I uh I had some of these people I really looked up to on my show and it was like this pinch myself moment where I'm like wow I'm like having a conversation like we're best buddies over here and I was reading their book when I was 18 you know although one of them was a bit of a train

wreck because his ego got in the way and it was the most bizarre podcast episode I've ever done. I didn't know if I should publish it or not, but I ended up publishing it because I just put it out there and people said, you've got to publish this. So it was with Robert Kiyosaki, who wrote the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I put it out there and people thanked me for putting it out because they said, you know, you really inspired me. me I was like I inspired you why just because I interviewed this this asshole like how is that inspirational he's like they said because of the way you reacted to him

you didn't react you just you stayed in your zone and I didn't even realize it like I was just I guess in this world of I'm a podcast host and I'm going to just ask the questions that my listeners want me to ask. And I don't give a damn what this bozo is going to say to me or his ego. I'm here to serve my audience, not the guest. And that's it. I'm disappointing too for you. I think most of our guests know, damn listeners, know that Mandy and I are pretty authentic, but I'm sure there are many people out there that get on behind their mic and they're one person and then they turn around and they're another, unfortunately. What else did your listeners say about that episode? Why did they thank you for it? Well, just because, A, I guess I exposed him in a way. I kind of asked him questions that made him uncomfortable

and it revealed sort of the true person behind the mask. And a lot of people, they didn't know that about him and they were going to potentially invest in his products or invest in what he's doing. And so in a way, I kind of gave them the ability to make a good choice, essentially. You know, the beautiful thing about podcasting as well is that you don't know who's listening. You don't know who you're impacting and who you're affecting.

And, you know, people who either launch a podcast and then they kind of feel a little bit like, well, you know, I don't really know if it's worth doing this because there's not so many people listening and I'm not getting so much feedback. And or let's say people get on podcasts and they don't know who they're talking to. I just want to share a story that, to me, it keeps me going. It keeps me going, because it taught me a very important lesson that you never know who's listening, you never know who you could be impacting. I got an email about two years ago, from a complete stranger, who said, who sent me an email and said, Daniel, you don't know me, but I want to let you know that you saved my life. I was

going to take my life this week. And I heard your podcast. I stumbled upon your podcast and I heard your story and I want to give life another chance. And so he ended up writing a book about his depression and about his wanting to commit suicide. And he published that book. And then he went and started a podcast. And today, he's inspiring so many people. Like, what if I didn't put that out there? What if my fear got the better of me that day? And said, oh, I don't want to put it out. I'm scared to put it out. You could be saving people's lives. You don't even know it. And, and, and for that one person that reached out to say that, I don't know how many people, you know, also had that same experience, but they just didn't, they just didn't reach out for whatever reason. Not everybody's going to reach out and let you

know, but it's an incredible, we have an incredible opportunity with technology. Like we've got a, we've got this technology called podcasting. You have the ability today to, to reach more people than your grandparents could ever meet ever in, in, in their whole lifetime. You can reach more people in one day than your grandparents could have reached in a lifetime. Can you imagine that for a second? Like just picture that, like that's a crazy amount of opportunity and responsibility. Probably like five or six years ago, I had reached out to my favorite podcasters, letting them know that I appreciate what they do, you know, because they don't get paid hourly for this. It is a lot of work and their advice was

making a difference in my life. And I wanted them to know, and they both responded, you know, which was amazing. And now having them on and now being a podcaster and knowing how hard it is and how much work we put into it. I mean, hearing from our listeners is just such a reward. It makes it worth every bit of what we do. Yeah. And you're doing this for free. You're not getting paid. That's the thing that, you know, I think anyone listening to this, if you've been listening to this show, just send, send an email. It takes you, it takes you two minutes, but it does so much. I could tell you as a host, whenever I get an email or a message, I know what people are thinking. I know people think, ah, they don't need to hear from me. They seem to have a lot of fans. What's the difference if I, but they don't, you don't

realize it. Every single message really matters. It really does. And so I encourage anyone listening to this and an email and thank them because it's a lot of work. It is a lot of work. Even the rates and the comments and to subscribe. I mean, it gives you that fuel to keep going. Like, okay, they're listening. They're liking it. It's worth it. Let me ask you, who's Rika? Oh, Rika is, she's amazing.

She's actually someone that works for me. Yeah, she, she's a woman. Did you think, you. She's a woman. Did you think you thought she was a woman? I thought Rika was maybe like just some beautiful robot behind a computer or something. Oh, I thought Rika

was a guy. So now I need to go look up Rika so I can put her face with a name. Well, Rika is my... She lives in the Philippines. She's my assistant. She gets done all the stuff that I really don't like to do. And she's great at it.

And, you know, she's a mother of two children. She's on her third now. And she's been working with me, I think, now for the last two years. And she's amazing. And I feel very blessed to have her, to be honest. Yes, well, tell her hello and thank you yeah you know I there's one thing I kind of always regret and that is when we have people on from all over the world which is so amazing I'll never forget the first time Shannon and I logged on

to look at our numbers and we saw that people in South Africa were listening to us and we were like, what? No way. Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, and we love just knowing that there's these very inspiring people from all over the world. Another thing that's been such a blessing for our podcast is during COVID, it's been so refreshing and uplifting to talk to positive people who wanna get into a solution and not stay in the problem

and collectively are trying to do service for the world. It's just been so awesome. But my regret is that I never asked them about where they live, what the culture is like, because, you know, I haven't traveled a lot and I want to know more. I'm very naive to the rest of the world. It would be amazing for you just for a few minutes. Can you talk about the people and the culture where you live? Yeah, I'm in Israel, the Holy Land.

It's an interesting place. You know, it's very interesting because we are a tiny speck on the map. We're actually smaller than New Jersey. It is tiny. We are surrounded by countries that are a lot larger than us, that want to kill us, that want to wipe us off the face of the earth. It's incredible how Israel has survived. It's a miracle. Not incredible. It's not incredible. It's a miracle. There's nothing to talk about. It's a miracle how Israel has survived. Not only has it survived, it's only 70 years old as a state.

It used to be complete desert. It is today probably either the first or the second highest tech country in the world. So after Silicon Valley, you have Israel. Most of the things you own, there is probably something that is Israeli that has a part of that. For example, the phone that you have has a chip in it that was created and invented by Israel. It's a really interesting country. And what's interesting about it is I believe that the innovation has come because of the threat that this country is constantly under, every single Israeli, when they hit 18 years old, has to go to the army. It is mandatory. In the U.S., if you want to join the army, you can join the army as a volunteer.

In Israel, there is no volunteering. You have to join the army because we need everyone to protect the country. We are a country that at any point in time, we could be at war. And we could be at war with any one of the countries that are surrounding us. And so everybody needs to know how to fire a gun. Everybody needs to know how to protect themselves. It's a reality.

Now, you don't feel it. You don't feel it at all. In fact, if you come to Israel and you go to Tel Aviv, it is the best nightlife you will ever experience. I guarantee it. The people here are incredible. We're party animals. Okay. It's amazing. You couldn't believe that these are people who grew up in a country like this where we're always under threat. You wouldn't believe it. The fact that we're coming out with all these inventions and tech companies, I believe the innovation. And I think in general, the best ideas and the best opportunities come from struggle. When your back's against the wall, that is when you push back hard and you make the best breakthroughs. The breakthroughs come after the breakdowns. If you're going through a major breakdown, you be sure that there's going to be a major breakthrough coming because that's what happens. I can look back at my life and I

could tell you 100% that my biggest breakthroughs came when there was a major breakdown happening. And I can tell you now on a global scale where we're seeing it happen, there's a major breakdown happening in the world right now, but that's because there's going to be a huge breakthrough that's going to happen and we need it to happen. And being that it's the Holy land, do you feel like God's presence there more than when you lived other places? And do you feel like maybe that's why you were so protected and you've never been taken down there by these other massive countries? Yeah, there's no question that I believe

that I personally feel God's presence more than I've felt him in any other country. And there's no question that he's protecting Israel. There's no other explanation why it's still there. If you're Jewish and you're listening to this, there is absolutely no reason you should be here. Statistically, the Jew should have been wiped out a long time ago. With all the prosecutions and everything that happened, the Jew should not be here.

But we're here. I believe that everybody is God's children. And when we learn to see each other as brothers and sisters, then we're going to live in a world that we can't even imagine. And that also in the desert where you live, there are people having fun and partying. So it's not your circumstances. It's you. I love your intention. Like your intention behind everything you've done has such beauty behind it. That's why you're probably incredibly successful because your intention is just in the right place. It's refreshing because you don't meet a lot of people like that. Yeah. I mean, I try, I try to do the best I can. I'm not, sometimes I could piss people off as well, but it's not my intention you know being an entrepreneur you can rub people

up the wrong way I had a guy I kid you not I had a neighbor of mine I was walking down the street and he'd go he walks past me and says I just want to let you know that I blocked you on Facebook I'm like oh okay wow I mean thank you for sharing that do you mind I'm always curious do you mind maybe telling me why you blocked me on Facebook did I what do I you mind I'm always curious do you mind maybe telling me why you blocked me on Facebook did I what do I you know I was like expecting him to say like I posted something that was really bad really nasty or negative and he says you're too positive I'm sorry that you didn't like my positivity and that was it like you know he blocked me because I was too positive so you're always gonna step on toes, no matter what you do, whatever your intentions are, even if they're

good intentions, even if they are the greatest intentions, people are going to reflect. But you know, the thing is, I had someone on my show who once said to me something very profound and beautiful, and it stuck with me. What other people think of you has nothing to do with you. It's got nothing to do with you. What they think of you, it's their whole world going on over there that has nothing to do with you. When we realize that, it changes everything because we walk into a room and our instinct is to be concerned with what everyone thinks about me. How do I look? How does this look? Am I standing straight? Am I saying the right things? You know, we're nervous about people

going to think of us. But the reality is, is they don't care about how you look because they care about how they look. Like everyone's just thinking the same thing, right? Everybody just really wants to be loved and appreciated. Everything comes down to the fact that every single person, and I don't care who you are, you just want to be loved and appreciated. And so if you realize that when you walk into a room, your focus, instead of what do they think of me, it should be, they want love and they want appreciation. So if I give them that, then you become the most attractive person in the room. It reminds me of that one saying, people may not remember what you did, but they'll remember how you made them feel. How you made them feel. Yes. Yes. A hundred percent.

And Alcoholics Anonymous, they say, what people think of you is none of your business. That's a nice, that's a nicer way of saying it. Yeah. I want to also just let people know that, you know, if they're thinking about starting a podcast or they've already started a podcast and they're kind of struggling with how do I grow it and how do I get it out there? So I'm actually launching a new podcast, believe it or not, on how to grow your show. It should be on iTunes and all the other places that you listen to podcasts. So it's going to be called Grow Your Show. And I'm going to be interviewing other top rated hosts who have had a lot of success with their podcasts. And they've had,

you know, over 100,000 downloads, and they're going to be sharing their story and their journey of how they grew their podcast. So for those that want to listen to that, they can go to grow your show. Can you also tell our listeners where they can find you, your website, your book? Yeah. Well, podbooker.com is the, what we mentioned before. You can find great podcasts to get booked on as a guest and you can get great guests for your show. So that's podbooker.com it's free to join we do do one thing on sense of soul at the end we ask every guest to break that shit down and now it's time for break that shit down okay here we go This is just coming to me. One of the things that I struggled with a lot was

this concept of balancing being and becoming, right? Sometimes I just want to be, I just don't want to do anything. I just want to be and I want to be okay. And then other times I want to become, I want to grow, I want to do, I want to be in doing mode. So how do you balance the two? And is it paradoxical? And I came up with this analogy. Let's say, for example, my two-year-old, if you asked me, Daniel, do you love your two-year-old? Is he perfect? I would say he's perfect. There's nothing you can change about him. He's perfect the way he is. And then this person says, well, Daniel, guess what? They just created this wonder drug. Okay. You can give him this drug and he'll never change. He'll stay exactly the way he is forever.

I'd be like, get the hell out of here. What's wrong with you? You crazy? I'm not going to give my child the book, but you just told me that he's perfect. So why would you want him to change? And the answer is, is because you're right. He's perfect the way he is now, but I want to see him grow. And there's no contradiction because at every stage of his growth, I'm going to love him the way he is then. And that's how we have to think about ourselves. You are perfect just the way you are. There is nothing that you need to change. And at the same time, we want to grow. We're in this world to grow and to do, but we can grow and do, and at the same time, love ourselves perfectly just the way we are. And the other thing I want to share is that I had a billionaire on my show. I asked him a question.

I said, how did you become a billionaire? Like there's only 2000 billionaires in the entire world. And he said to me, Daniel, I have a big sign in my office. And it says that ideas are welcome here. But execution is worshipped. Ultimately, it's all about execution. You can have all the ideas in the world, you can have all the best intentions. But if you don't create something, if you don't execute, if you don't take action, then those ideas die with you. And so I urge anyone listening to this, don't let your ideas die with you. Create now while you're still here. Go out and go do whatever it is that you've been dreaming of doing. And don't let anyone stop you, especially not that little voice in your head that's telling you, no, don't do it. You're so awesome. There's many huge messages you gave me today, but thank you for reminding me that when you get down on your knees, sometimes to clean up shit,

it could save your life that there could be a beautiful message on it. And that also in the desert where you live, there are people having fun and partying. So it's not your circumstances. It's it's you. Thank youying. So it's not your circumstances. It's you. Thank you so much for letting us pick your brain. Thank you so much for having me on the show. I appreciate it. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.