The Code To Winning - PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING || DAN CLARK || EPISODE 005

Episode Date: June 15, 2024

PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING #005   Our guest Dan Clark – Educated in Psychology, founder of a multi-million-dollar International Communications Firm, New York Times Bestselling Author of 37 books - and a primary contributing author to the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, University Professor, American Patriot, YouTube and Podcast Host, Gold Record Songwriter, Film Maker, and an Award Winning Athlete who fought his way back from a Paralyzing Injury that cut short his Football Career. Dan was inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame - named one of the Top Ten Motivational Speakers in the World - has been featured on Oprah, Glenn Beck, and Jimmy Fallon – and in the Mayo Clinic Journal, and Sports Illustrated, Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Millionaire Magazines. As a master storyteller, Dan has been published in more than 50 million books in 40 languages worldwide, and has delivered more than 5500 speeches, to Millions of people, in 75 countries, to most of the Fortune 500, Elite Associations, the United Nations, World Champion Sports Teams, and to our Military Combat Troops around the globe. Dan was named An Outstanding Young Man of America, has received America’s three highest Civilian Awards from the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Air Force. Most significantly – Dan was named Utah Father of the Year! Episode Dan Talks about his injury which changed his life forever for the better. Talks about perspective how things happen for us and not against us. Talks about what really is depression and how it times is confused and misinterpreted. Talks about we don't really hit rock bottom and what that actually means. His experiences in being in so many stages and so many different. Talks about what matters most. THIS is a MUST LISTEN Interview.

He's Dan Clark. He's changing the world. One story at a time. Whenever we face a tough time, no one ever hits rock bottom. We hit rock foundation. We hit rock belief. We hit the core values on which we were raised. The words we choose to describe beliefs are what actually change and up-level our performance. This first one is a self-help book.

By Dan Clark. Dan broke his neck twice and fractured two vertebrae in his back, broke his nose, left arm, both thumbs, hands, and little fingers. We're going to think. We're definitely going to feel and perhaps even shed some tears and we're definitely going to laugh out loud because of my crazy illustrations that I use to illuminate profound principles of truth. You see, if I'm nervous, it means it's about me, but seek to bless, not impress. If I'm excited, it's about other people. And if we lie about where we are, the directions won't work. We must succeed in doing that which is necessary.

Yeah. Whoa, man. We've killed it. Yes. The Code 2 winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today we have a very special guest known as the most interesting person in the world. I'll give a brief introduction of our guest today. It goes by the name of Dan Clark, all right.

Educated in Psychology, founder of multimillion-dollar international communications firm, New York Times best-selling author for 57 books and primary contributor, author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, University professor, American patriot, YouTuber and podcast host, gold record, songwriter, filmmaker, and an award-winning athlete who fought his way from the paralyzing injury that cut short his football career. Dan was educated in the professional speakers' Hall of Fame, named as one of the top 10 motivational speakers in the world.

He has been featured in Oprah, Glenn Beck, Jimmy Fallon, the Mayo Clinic Journal and Sports Illustrated, Forbes Entrepreneur, and Millionaire magazine. As a master storyteller, Dan has published in more than 50 million books in 40 languages worldwide, and has delivered more than 5,500 speeches to millions of people in 75 different countries. To most of Fortune 500, elite associates, the United Nations, World Champion Sports Team, and military combat troops around the globe.

Dan was named an outstanding young man of America, has received America's three highest civilian awards from the President of the United States and the Secretary of Air Force. Most significantly, Dan was named Utah Father of the Year. It is our great honor to have a special guest today in the studio, Dan Clark. Thanks, KG. What an honor, sir.

Thank you so much for coming today to the studio, sitting your time aside. I enjoyed that introduction. Could you now say it in English, please? I just got back from a two, a two, tour in South Africa. So that's my 76th country now. Oh, wow. Kenny, Kenny. And as we talked about you growing up in Johannesburg, this is an honor for me to just be with you. I love your accent. I love your passion. I love your personality. I love your vision. So thanks for having me, man. Thank you very much for your time, Dan. I really appreciate that.

And, I mean, I own lie, I felt, you know, I don't usually feel this way, but I felt so inadequate, considering, like, the credentials you have and the experience you have. and just the time you took to actually come to the studio, we're very, very grateful to have a year as well. My pleasure, and I know the illustrious list of guests that you've had. I've been on Dave Meltzer's podcast and Bradley's podcast and Keaton Hoskins podcast. I'm going to be doing a live event with Andy Elliott coming up pretty soon. Those are all my first four guests.

I know. It's an honor for me to be included on your repertoire. And Bradley, for those of you who have actually had a chance to see the episode, I always have to kid him and make it a public announcement that I'm a songwriter. And I always tell Brad I'd write a song about him, but I don't know what rhymes with stud muffin hunk of burning love. So I'm going to have to keep working on that one to pay tribute to my bro. Awesome. I want to know personally for me, considering all that you've done,

I want to know the grassroots where it all began. Can you tell a bit more about like Dan Clark, the beginning stages as well, if you don't mind that? That's a great question, KG. You know, I grew up in a very interesting home. I love my parents. Neither one were athletes. I had two older siblings, a brother,

and a sister, and a younger brother. And they were so academic, not real into sports or athletes. athletics, and the expectations of my home were to be more like them. You know, without throwing them under the bus, it was almost an environment of conditional love. I remember following my two siblings to high school, and they were geniuses, and my brother now has four degrees from major universities. That's a little overdone. And I remember coming home from high school with a report card.

One time, it had four Fs and one D on it. My dad's response, son looks to me like you're spending too much time. on one subject. And my mom thought I cheated. So it was one of those families where it was tough. But in that environment, it forced me to figure out who I was. But it also motivated me to always believe that I wasn't enough. And in our day and age, most conversations that go to that place,

so I'm not enough, I don't feel like I'm enough. They think it's a negative. But Sigmund Freud, although he was full of crap, and 99% of what he published, his law of sublimation is completely true. And what he described is that our pain is deep. And while most people let anger and hurt and discouragement and disappointment and failure hold them down and defeat them in the law of sublimation, he says use it as a motivator.

When someone says, you can't, you see, oh, yeah, watch me, and then be willing to put in the work, the sacrifice, the preparation, to prepare yourself to succeed. And so that's been my M.O. my whole life. I battled throat cancer when I was eight. That's the first recollection I have of resilience, where I remember the doctors. I remember I couldn't lift my head up off the bed.

I was in the hospital for so many days. And it was on the wall of my esophagus so that it had it continued to eat through my body. For one more day, it would have destroyed my vocal cords and I would have never been able to speak or sing, which are two of my obviously passions away. I've made a living. I was bullied as a kid, you know?

A lot of people made fun of me, and I just had to figure out a way to just hang in there. But athletics was my release, and I started on every team, even though I might have started this season in third string as a wannabe. I figured out how to start by the first game and was fortunate to be able to star

in every one of my sports, football, basketball, baseball, and track. Got some accolades in high school. Went to college on a football, baseball scholarship. And I thought I had the tail, you know, the bull by the tail or the bull by the horns or whatever you say in South Africa, you know, the Cape Buffalo by the saddle. I don't know. Lying by the main, I think. Thank you.

Thanks. And then all hell broke loose. You know, I thought I was on my way to being an end. NFL superstar and a major league baseball superstar and I was paralyzed in a tackling drill. I guess we could talk about that story, but I've been babbling for too long, asked me another question. No, I'm very, some of the stuff you mentioned I wasn't even aware of. I knew about the NFL one after Kelly and I had spoken.

However, it's, I've been watching and reading a lot of the book, obviously we know the secret, but also think and grow rich of how, you know, many of those. stories are just people that are very similar to you that overcame the obstacles and challenges that were faced as well. And my personal question to you is, what kept you going, though? Like, after trial, after trial, you just seemed to overcome that next one, the next one. What kept you going through all those trials that you were facing? Another great question. I think maybe I could just explain my story because I've told it so many times from 5,500 stages that it's kind of consolidated. As songwriters, we learn to edit so

every word pays its own way, if you will. Maybe I could just go back to the beginning. I played football for 13 years total. What position? I was all over the map in high school. I was a tall, skinny kid, you know, 6, 372 pounds. I was so skinny. I had to jump around on the shower to get wet. I was a state 100-ard dash champion. And I was recruited. And I was recruited at a, I, high school is a wide receiver, defensive back, and it was also a baseball pitcher. But then first two summers after high school graduation, I grew two and a half inches taller and gained 87 pounds, kept my speed, so I was moved to defensive end stand-up linebacker. And I was a projected number one draft pick by the Oakland Raiders into the NFL. And I had an invitation trial by the

Kansas City Royals out of high school as a baseball pitcher. So everything that I was, everything I thought I was who my identity was all wrapped up in being an athlete and one day in practice football practice coach blew the whistle and another player and I ran full speed into each other in a violet head-on collision smashing my right shoulder into the cutting edge of my fiberglass pads and we slammed to the ground and when Lyle got off of me I had compressed the seventh cervical vertebrae in my neck I had severed the axillary nerve in my right deltoid muscle and I'd suffered a great great level two concussion, which is pretty serious, if you Google it. My eye drooped. I had loss of speech. I couldn't talk anymore.

My right side was paralyzed. My arm dangled helplessly at my side. Leaving me paralyzed for 14 months, physically and emotionally and spiritually. God, how could you let this happen to me? I mean, my whole life just fell apart. I thought I was a football player when in reality that's just what I did is not who I am as a man. and when we identify ourselves in terms of what we do instead of who we are, we become human doings instead of human beings, which is unacceptable if significance is what we seek. So I stayed paralyzed for 14 months.

I went to 16 of the very best doctors in all of North America, and 15 told me I would not recover. I would never get any better. So it's good to pause for your viewers, your listeners on the podcast. How many of you believe that? How many of you have heard that? How many of you believe it? what happens if you believe it, you never get any better.

And my life spiraled downward, in a rapid spiral downward, until I hit what I thought was rock bottom. And now that I fought my way back to a 95% recovery, my right shoulder is still totally numb, I could never generate the muscle mass to continue my dreams in professional football and baseball. But now that I've recovered, foremost frequently asked questions are these

that I think would be beneficial for the viewers. You know, anytime we get in a program, when we hear a motivational speaker, you know, I don't want to be a motivational speaker. They say the stupidest things. Like, we become what we think about. That's not true if I was trying to have been a woman by the time. I was 12 years old.

I want to be an inspirational speaker. But my recovery was not a raw, raw. You can if you think you can. That's not what this podcast is about. That's not what the code to winning is. is even remotely about. We know that. Question number one,

what do you mean you thought you hit rock bottom? I was going to ask that, actually. The answer is very profound. If you don't, if no one remembers anything else I say today with you, no one ever hits rock bottom, no matter how bad or how our heart it gets, no one ever hits rock bottom.

We hit rock foundation. We hit rock belief. We hit the baseline core values and governing principles on which we were raised. Everything believes, everything starts and continues and sustains itself based on belief. Question number two, why did you keep going to so many different doctors? And the answer is really important.

I kept going from doctor to doctor until I found one who believed I would get better. That's powerful. Who reminded me, and I remind the world in every speech, that knowledge is power, but it has no heart. We don't learn to know, we learn to do. all the information in the world is going to make a person successful just like the guy who has three PhDs, one in philosophy, one in psychology,

one in sociology, doesn't have a job, but at least he can explain why. Moral to the story, reason leads to conclusions, but it is emotion that leads to action. Think about it. Facts tell, stories sell. We sell with emotion,

we close with logic. Reason leads to conclusions, but it is a motion that leads to action. That's the only way we're going to get back up and go again. They say the dog will not move off the nail until the, the dog will not move off the nail until the nail starts to hurt enough. And so we have to have a reason which brings me to the third question, Clark, you must have been depressed. The saddest thing was I had friends who were in medical school, I had physicians, I had doctors who recommended me to this psychologist, to this psychiatrist, because I was down. I was suicidal.

I had lost my identity. I was just, I crawled in a cave, stopped talking to people. You know, the typical male, I got this, I got it, I don't need any help. We thought it was a sign of weakness to reach out for help. Be a big boy, don't cry. And one of the things we have to do, gentlemen, is break that stereotype, break that stigma, that it's a sign of weakness to reach out for help when in reality it's a sign of strength. And if you, you know, my body's atrophied, since I've way too.

78 and that was a stud. But every single time we go into the gym, we go with that mindset to create discomfort on purpose to put a little bit more weight on the bar today than we had on it yesterday. But the only way we can go for a maximum lift is if we ask for a spot. It's not a sign of weakness to ask for help, guys.

It's a sign of strength if we really want to become the best version of ourselves and push ourselves to that ultimate capacity of potential as a human being. So they came up to me, you must be depressed. You take this medication. You must be depressed. I want to prescribe this. And thank heavens I had the wherewithal

and the internal, the raw guts to say, I am not depressed. And what I learned and share with the world, there's a huge difference between being disappointed and being depressed. There's a giant difference between being discouraged and being depressed. Most of the time when we feel down and someone wants to call it depression,

we're experiencing halts. We're hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or sad. And when we're experiencing any one of those five emotionally distorted conditions, we can't listen, we can't feel, we can't love, we can't forgive, we can't function at the highest level possible. And that's why we need to understand that when we take medication, it flatlines our human spirit. and every one of us was born with that fight or fight experience where the gift of fear,

the gift of stress, the gift of whatever is not going right is our gift to fire us up and allow us to just step it up and rise to the occasion. Under pressure, you don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of training. Oh, wow. That's why we train and prepare and practice so hard. So people need to understand. pressure is not something that's naturally there. It's created when you question your own ability

and when you know what you've been trained to do, there's never any pressure. Stop making excuses. But the reality now is the fourth most powerful and frequently asked question was, Clark, what took me so long to recover? What took you so long to pivot out of COVID? What takes us so long to get up and go

with just so much intensity? it's the key to the code to winning, I really believe. And the question is, what took me so long? The answer is I stayed paralyzed for 14 months because I was asking the wrong questions. Wow. I was asking the doctors how to get better when I should have been asking myself why.

And once we answer why, figuring out the how-to becomes clear and simple. And here's the science behind this, so no one thinks it's a raw, raw recovery. What we know is that if you only focus on the what and the how, you only engage the head, you only engage the brain. But when you add to that a passionate why and a compelling want, which is your personal why that has to be bigger than your why not,

physiologically proven, our blood pumps more rapidly, our brains fire, and our muscles engage, which maximizes our performance. Wow. And if you really are serious about taking yourself from where you are to where you want to be, it's important for us to learn the lessons from on purpose, from creating discomfort on purpose. And that's why my favorite theme that I speak on as a keynote speaker is creating and leading a culture of resilience. I love that.

Because that's what changes about. That's what growth. That's how you accelerate growth. That's how you accelerate your personal brand. That's how you accelerate your code to winning. Now that we've kind of dissected my version of your code to winning, what we have to do is engage with the right people who will inspire us to keep going, which validates Jim Rohn's statement that we, in fact,

become the average of the five people we associate with the most. One of my favorite quotes. Which means we must be willing to pay any price and travel any distance to associate with extraordinary human beings, even online in a podcast. Yeah, I love this live. I flew into Vegas just to be on Dave Meltzer's podcast. The live experience is so different than just Zoom.

Yeah. And I hope I was able to touch some lives just to kind of consolidate my little rant here. As I look back now in my experience, the code to winning is illuminated in the fact that my football injury became one of the very best things that ever happened to me. Wow. Because it taught me that nothing happens to us, everything happens for us,

that my football injury is the reason why I'm here today. And it's not really what happens to us. It's how we respond. It's what we do with what happens to us that defines who we are. And that allows us to really finally tweak our MO, our personal motivation, our personal modus operandum that says this is why I keep going. And that's why I kind of tie that into my, my original question, my youth. As far back as I can remember, I've had to figure out a way to get back up and go again.

I've broken so many parts of my body, broken my heart, shattered my dreams. But for some reason, when you're why's bigger than your why not, and mine suddenly became to make a difference in the world. If you really think about it, KG, I spent so many years of my life, at least 13 years of my life, sacrificing and working hard and following my passion to be the best athlete I could be. How shallow is that, that I only focused on what matters at the moment. But now I'm spending the rest of my life focusing on what matters most,

which is what lasts the longest. Wow. Oh my gosh, I love that. And I brought up one of my 30. I think you said I had 57 books. We have to, you know, you inspired me to keep writing because I only have 37 in the introduction. I think you said 57. Maybe it could have been my accent. I'll get to work.

I want to work hard. 20 more. Come on, Dan, you're slacking. But my flagship book is the artist's significance, achieving the level beyond success. And when I finished that book tour, I realized that number one frequently asked question was, what's the difference between success and significance? And maybe it's worth it and put that in this part of the conversation. It stems from a.

conversation I had with the football teammate. He was drafted in the NFL in the second round by the Philadelphia Eagles. After two years with the Eagles, he's traded to my Oakland Raiders. After four years in the league playing at the highest pro-bowl status, one day he walks out of practice, quits never to play again. Why? He loved being a football player, but he hated playing football. He loved this celebrity perks and the fame and fortune that allowed him to live this life we call successful, which is competing against others. Nice house, nice outfit, nice car, nice title, nice income, nice holidays. But because his inner voice and his true purpose in life was misaligned with who he was and he didn't agree with what he had to do to get to that level of success,

he would never live a life of significance and he would die with regrets and with his music still in him. So bottom line, successful people get what they think they want by folks. focusing in on what matters at the moment. But those of us who are striving to live lives of significance want what we get by focusing on what matters most, again, which is what lasts the longest so we don't die with our music still in us. That's so powerful.

I wanted to go, I loved when you spoke about pressure a little earlier on, and I wanted to share, I know people often talk about the saying that Damien Lillard, when he spoke about pressure as a privilege, I actually first heard that from a football, European soccer coach, very prominent, very successful,

one of the best, in my opinion. He goes by the name of Jose Marino. And what happened is towards the end of a game, his team lost. And at this time, there was pressures on the media about him getting sacked and being fired from his job. And they asked him,

hey, listen, Jose, Jose, do you currently feel the pressure of being fired? And he gave a very sarcastic look like pressure. What pressure? Pressure is a woman who's struggling to feed her daughter somewhere in, you know, in maybe West Africa or like South America.

Pressure is somebody trying to figure out how they're going to pay the mortgage the next day. Pressure he went, gave about five or six different example of what pressure is like, me in his accent, I feel no pressure. I love it. And I think perspective is everything in life because sometimes we often take what we think are big problems, not really seeing the bigger picture of what bigger problems are as well, which leads to my next question. May I may.

Yes, sir. The famous pro golfer, Lee Trevino said pressure is when you're standing over a put and your bet is for $50 and you only have $10 in your pocket, that's pressure. I never thought about that. That's actually a good one. I haven't heard about that. I like that. My question was going to be talking about, I've,

been touching a lot on these topics with a variety of different guests, but I felt like when we spoke about the depression and anxiety, you kind of went deep into it and kind of like going to the grassroots and fully understanding what it is and sometimes what we think it is, what it actually is as well. Do you feel what the rising cases of anxiety and depression specifically among men, do you think it's perhaps a lack of purpose, a lack of a why? What do you think stems to the reason why men today are just struggling with the crazy rates of depression. So that's one of my hot topics, bro. So are you married?

Yes, sir. What's her name? Alita. Alita. And let's just say she's two hours from here, from your studio. And we get together with your staff and with other people in this beautiful building. And after we close up this podcast, we decided, we're going to go out and you're going to teach us all the soccer moves,

all the football moves that we need to know. And we're all pretty good athletes. And we're doing our thing. And we divide up into a very competitive two-team, two out of three game series playing soccer. And you put on some Pele move and blow out your right knee. And you lay on the ground and it swells up to the size of a basketball. and you're kind of one of those wimpy guys just trying to fight the tears,

but you're still going, so you're bothering us. So we just moved the game over to a different field because you're such a wuss. And we finished playing the game, and then we come back to check on you, and you're like, oh my gosh, I don't know what to do.

Your entire livelihood is based on your ability to travel. You heard this loud snap in your knee. You know you're going to need surgery. You're right knee. You can't drive. You are like, oh my gosh, I have no idea what I'm going to have surgery. Now I'm going to be out six to eight weeks. I have such a heavy travel schedule. You have no idea. And we help you come back into the building and we prop your leg up, get you some ice, get you a little ibuprofen. And we go across the street to the sports bar. We're going to watch a game, have some fun. And your part. partner, Zach, says, hey, KG, he calls you up. KG. Why don't you come across the street and just enjoy some drinks and hors d'oeuvres with us? We're just getting together with all the guests that you've had the last week on your podcast. And you say, I can't. I'm too tired. My knee's so blown out. I'm so worried about the future. I'm too tired. I can't do this.

I am in so much pain. I can't do this. Zach says, come on, man. You said, you're mad. You're mad. Didn't you hear me? I can't do this. so you hang up. Ten minutes later the phone rings. Is this KG? Yeah. This is Officer John. Is your wife's name, Alita?

Yeah. We just heard that she was in a serious automobile accident. And she was out with some of her girlfriends, and she's three hours away from now. If you don't get in your car right now and get to her bedside as fast as possible, there's a good chance you might not ever see her alive again. And he hangs up.

Suddenly your knee doesn't hurt anymore. Suddenly, Kant isn't in your vocabulary. Suddenly, you call Zach. I'm in the group. We're like, let's just get over there. Everybody, even strangers, are there to volunteer to drive you to your beloved Alita because you can't drive at your right knee.

You don't worry about the future. You don't care about surgery. You're going to just do everything you know how to do to get to your beloved wife's bedside. And as we whip out of the parking lot, your phone rings again. It's Officer John. Cage, yeah, I'm so sorry, man. Some of your buddies put me up to this.

They paid me $500 to call and yank your chain. Your beloved Alita was not in a serious automobile accident. Everything's okay. I'm sorry I did this. Bam. In 30 minutes, you have gone from, oh, whoa, me. I'm too stressed out. I have so much anxiety.

I can't deal with life. you don't understand. I was dealt this. Life's not fair. To, oh my gosh, I'm so worried about the future. This is my livelihood. I can't. I'm in so much physical pain to,

wow. I have no pain. Get me to my wife. To I'm going to find every one of my buddies who called this police officer and I'm going to kill every one of them and willingly go to prison because they were such dickheads. That's the power of. of the mind, my friend. So when I talk to somebody who's stressed out, especially a guy,

I can't deal with this, my anxiety, I need medication, I can't handle it. Come on, bro, let's talk about when you're why is bigger than your why not and you understand the brain chemicals. And I've studied those. In my book, you know, I've got my 37 books, but one of my most powerful books is called story selling because I took the time to dissect and illuminate every aspect of the six brain chemicals that as communicators we can control. When we index our stories and choose the right story at the right time and the right place for the right reason, we can literally trigger that brain chemical in the person or the giant huge audience that's listening to us and actually influence their decision making based on what they're feeling and experiencing from the brain chemical.

Adrenaline, that's what you just experienced. That's what your listeners just experienced. I just laid it out. This is adrenaline. Get me there. I don't hurt. You know you don't have to help me down the stairs. I got this. Let's get in a car. Let's get the, let's get out of here. That's adrenaline. It's the urgency drug. It's addictive because it doesn't stay in our body. endorphins. You also experience endorphins because we've laughed. And because you're an amazing world-class soccer player, we know that the adrenaline wears off.

We can rise to the occasion second wind, but the endorphins continue on. That's why we crave long-distance running. That's why we crave exercise. It's also a drug that doesn't stay in our body. Dopamine, anytime you tell a story, you trigger dopamine. If you want to give somebody a larger shot of dopamine, tell a better story that's more Iraqi.

You experienced dopamine when I was sharing my recovery from my football injury. I did. So those three brain chemicals are the addictive brain chemicals, and they don't stay in our body, as I mentioned. So the purpose of a leader is to grow more leaders who believe which you believe not generate more followers. And in sales, as my mentor, as my buddy, We have the same publisher in Penguin Random House, Simon Seneca.

We've been on the program many times together. As he reminds us, the goal is not to do business with everybody who wants what you have. The goal is to do business only with those who believe what you believe. So they choose you, not just somebody who does what you do. So now let's figure out how to get people to choose you. The competitive advantage is never created by doing more than your competition. competitive advantage is always and only created by doing what your competition is not willing to do. Now let's go reverse engineer.

If you're engaging in someone in a sales presentation or in a motivational speech, or if you're engaging just as a friend or in a networking event, and you refuse to be transactional, which means you only talk about the what and the how, and you become transformational, which means you add to that what and how, the passionate want and the compelling, I mean the passionate why and the compelling want. That's how you go from transactional to transformational. But what happens here, my friend, is

because these brain chemicals are addictive, these first three adrenaline, endorphin, and dopamine, when you engage in a conversation using stories, those individuals actually feel something and they actually embrace and connect and engage with you at an emotional level so when you're gone because it's addictive and those brain chemicals leave their bodies,

they want to be in your presence again. You leave and they say, I like me best when I'm with you, I want to see you again. I like me best when I'm with you, I want to see you again. It's the secret to dating. It's the secret to networking. It's the real code to winning because they have experienced a brain chemical event with you

and they want it again. And they go, wait a minute, I didn't get that from him or her or from him. or her or from that product or that service. I got it from KG. I want him back in my circle of influence. Let's talk from sales. 44% of sales professionals quit after the first sales call.

24% quit after the second sales call. 14% quit after the third call. And 12% of sales professionals quit after the fourth sales call. That's 94% of sales professionals who quit by the four sales call. And yet 85% of our sales are closed between the fifth and the quilt sales call. So if you want to gain that competitive advantage, if you want to figure out how to get people to choose you, not just somebody who does what you do, we have to figure out a way to make ourselves more compelling to be around, more fascinating to talk to, more qualified to listen

to. Wow. And the way we do that is to tell stories, to engage individuals that actually, in a methodology that actually triggers the brain chemicals, especially the first three, which are addictive, so they want us to come back into their circle of influence five to 12 times until they close themselves. Oh my gosh. And the last three brain chemicals, serotonin, it's, well, adrenaline's the urgency drug. Endorphins is the motivational drug. Dopamine is the performance drug. Serotonin is the recognition drug. When we actually reach out and make someone feel so significant, so important, it's critical. And you can share stories. about doing that and doing this and doing that.

And then oxytocin is the love drug. And depending on the story you tell in the right situation, I've raised millions of dollars at Gaelas by sharing the right stories. I've signed people up for all kinds of contracts based on the right story that you share when it comes time for them to close themselves. And then the sixth brain chemical is cortisol, which is negative. It's created by guilt.

It's created by remorse. regrets. And so you want to avoid that conversation at all. In sales, you want to always get people to come to yes in parenting, in leadership, in coaching sports teams. Why go negative when you can go positive? And it's all about, you know, releasing and triggering the right brain chemicals and the right minute at that particular time in your conversation. And that allows you to rise to the occasion in any aspect of your life. Wow. And I love when you spoke about those specific principles of storytelling, which was going to go to my next question as well, considering the fact that you've traveled to a variety of different countries. How do you ensure that your message and what

you're portraying resonate deeply with people with diverse cultural backgrounds as well? Such a great question. So I've taught public speaking at the university level for 11 years. And my online course that I'm really proud of is called Speak Like a Pro. So I gather together. Group calls, 90-minute calls once a week for six weeks, and I take them through a 293-page workbook study guide. It's all digital. It's edible. If anybody's interest, that would be awesome to participate, because that's kind of my legacy coaching speakers, people to become better communicators, teaching them about the brain chemicals. But in my courses, what I remind my students about is just the goal is to seek to bless, not impress.

Wow. It's never about the audience. If you're nervous before you speak, it means you think it's about you. But if you're excited before you speak, you know it's about them. So if I dazzle the audience and I take them on an emotional roller coaster ride and conclude by lip-syncing three Taylor Swift songs, so they'll never be the same, whatever the case may be, if they leave impressed with me, I completely blew it. But if they leave impressed with themselves, that they have a way to tap into unrealized potential, to break through limiting of beliefs, if they know that they now have the mental mindset, the mental toughness and mindset required to create a culture of resilience in their own life, in their own family,

on their own teams, in their own companies, then I've succeeded. You know, everybody says that the number one fear of people is the fear of speaking in public, and I completely disagree. The number one fear of people is not speaking well in public. So I challenge everybody to sign up for my course. so affordable and I get results.

And you don't have to want to be a paid speaker. But I'm in the national speaker, the Professional Speaker's Hall of Fame for a reason. And it's a long answer to your simple question. So when I speak in 76 countries, South Africa being my 76 just as of the last couple of weeks, Johannesburg to be exact. I realized something.

Like, for example, when I spoke in Russia for the first time, 1991, Glass Noss, the collapse of the Soviet Union. I'm part of a 15-person United Nations leadership training team. And I'm the keynote speaker. I produced the shows. They don't give a rats-walk-a-zoodle about American football. They don't understand basketball, baseball. So what did I have to do? I had to learn about their cosmonauts. I had to learn about their dancers, the Beresnikovs, from the Leningrad ballet. I needed to learn the history of Bolshoi ballet, downtown Moscow and the names of the prima ballerinas. I needed to know some of their superstars. I needed to understand the exchange rate between the ruble and the U.S. dollar.

I needed to understand that they still hated America and they despised capitalism. What they wanted me to talk about was entrepreneurship and leadership and trust and vision and risk reward, which has nothing to do with communism of the 72 years that plagued their So when I showed up and I'm a government, I'm introduced to the government issued translator, and they sat me down and said, they will not laugh. It's a sign of weakness. They will not clap. It's a sign of weakness.

And they just shared everything that would put in my mindset and my heart set, why I would not succeed. And I rose to the occasion and we laughed together. We cried together. gave me a standing ovation, it's because I learned seven phrases in Russian to start my speech as an American, and that just, they're like, are you kidding me?

Whoa, even the translator's blown away because she had to translate my Russian into English, and everybody's laughing. So, for example, I spoke in Thailand. There were seven Asian countries represented. I learned, memorized, about three to four different salutations and conversational pieces,

in those seven different native languages. Philippines, Thailand, Korea, Japan, the list goes on and on. That was the quickest way I knew to endear myself to them so they knew that I was going out of my way just to connect. And then using a translation after that, it was okay. But it's important for us to know the audience, to make sure they know I'm there for them. It's not about me.

It's for them. And so I do the research. I understand so South Africa, as we were talking before we came on the air, I learned a whole lot about South Africa because I was talking to some of the biggest leaders in South Africa, a room full of billionaires who are convinced that they can change South Africa. They can take care of the corruption and the infrastructure breakdown and focus on workforce development and their beloved country to get investors coming in and getting their best and brightest to stay in country to build. the beautiful South Africa and it was my pleasure to lead the fireside chat and deliver two different keynote speeches but I

wasn't there to talk about America I was there to talk about universal principles that work in any business in any culture in any language. Wow. Wow I was using examples of Nelson Mandela and quoting him using examples of

superstars and having become friends with Ernie Ells. I didn't hell, that didn't hurt, you know, the big easy pro golfer. Kevin Anderson, amazing superstar professional tennis player. Gary Player met him, talked to him so many times and he's just beloved in South Africa. And let's not forget Demi Lee who married Tim Tebow, who was Miss South Africa and Miss Universe. These individuals I could talk about because I'd met every single one of them, that's how you prepare to connect.

And by the way, in sales, you can figure out a way to do due diligence with anyone you're going to go have an appointment with so that you show up knowing something about them, their family, their dogs named, their superstar hero, what is their favorite form of recreation? Turn it into a game. If you're going to go in for a job interview, find out what that person's hot button is who's going to interview you

so that you can talk about something that matters most which lasts the longest way before you get into the job interview. Wow. The Winning Store. In collaboration with my podcast, The Coat Winning, I have started a merch store called The Winning Store. We sell high-quality merchandise in terms of shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, caps, phone cases, high-quality tumblers as well. The best part about the winning store is that we believe in delivering nothing. less than excellence. With the keen eye for quality and a passion for style, we curate products

that ensure that you always emerge victorious in your fashion game. Are you ready to win? While shop right now today at winning.store, remember in this game of life, the only way to lose is to stop playing. Here at the winning store, we're all about playing to win. So visit us today, winning dot store. Get your merchandise today and stay victorious. I think we should just end the podcast right there and then that was powerful.

I love the way you see podcast. If I had your accent, my speaker's feet would triple, dude. Man, you're so, you're so charming, my gosh. Now I want to go back. I'm glad you spoke about the course that you're doing.

The reason I feel like something that my best friend and I were talking a lot about. I want to know what does your course go deep into, like, does it talk about body language? Does it talk about 80% of it is nonverbal? Like, are these specifics or are there types of courses you do? And then the next question I was going to ask is, can you share any experience of a person that you've mentored in the public stage

that we might not even know that you're probably mentored as well? Yeah. So when someone comes to me and says, you know, Clark, are you going to write another book? I'm like, no. And I've said it all. I've said what I want to do until I have something new to share. And I say that because we don't need any more lousy speakers.

There are thousands. There's probably hundreds of thousands of folks who claim to be motivational speakers or leadership gurus. anyone who owns a phone thinks they're a guru and that just has always started to bother me and it's starting to come to that level of frustration where I started my speaker program I speak like a pro speaker coaching communication coaching program because of all the fakes who are out there who are just taking advantage of everybody who thinks they're ready to start sharing their story with the world.

There's a group out of Las Vegas. I'm never going to use names to throw anybody under the bus, but this guy is a complete shark. This guy's so dishonest, and he has such a horrible reputation because he promises unrealistic goals that you can't accomplish. There's someone else who tied in with someone huge in the country, and his big thing is, I will show you how to win stages.

No, he won't because if you're not a great speaker, no one's going to ask you to speak. 100%. And if you don't have a message we're sharing and haven't perfected and edited so every word pays its own way, if someone does ask you to speak because you spend a fortune on bells and whistles on your website or Instagram and social media that makes you look like you're a guru

when you haven't had one flip in life experience at all, you'll have that one stage experience but reputation is king and no one will ever ask you to speak on a stage again. So I don't say I can help you win stages. I don't give you the names of 200 event planners with a little script that you can memorize to phone up to email and say, hire me as a speaker. They're not going to open your email. They're not going to read your email. They're not going to hire you to speak because you haven't done nothing.

There's another group that charges so much money and their promises, I will get you your website. Well, if you look at it, it's just one of those lame templates that are available for free online. You know, we'll show you how to create your own demo video. We'll pull out your phone, hold it horizontal, and speak into the lens for two minutes about why someone should hire you as a speaker. No! What my program is all about is just getting results. and it takes us all the way back to the very beginning. Who are you?

Who are you? So one of the examples I would use is, let's say you and I KG were roommates in college, and we collectively decided that we were going to wake up every single morning at 5 a.m. to go to the gym and push ourselves to our ultimate capacity and potential as human being. And then we'd leave the gym and go into the library

and study so hard to prepare ourselves for the exams of the day. Well, if you and I do that, we're accountability partners, but that's not who we really are. We're just accommodating one another. But if you wake up every morning, KG, at 5 a.m., regardless of I do or not, and go to the gym and push yourself, and then go to the library and push yourself,

regardless if I'm there or not, that's who you really are. That's your true nature. You can surgically remove the stripes from a tiger, and it's still a tiger. In country music, no matter where you go, there you are. It's one of my favorite lyrics. So we begin at the beginning. If you're serious about taking your communication skills to the next level,

and you're kind of shy, you're afraid to be on a podcast, it's because you don't know what you believe. It's because you don't know who you are. I showed up, we've never met before. I'm like, ask me anything you want, because I know who I am and I know what I believe. So we begin at the very beginning. Who are you? You know, the other day I'm walking through the, I've told this story many times,

walking through the mall with one of my buddies and someone bumps into him. And he spilled his cup of coffee on the floor. I said, what happened? He said, I spilled my cup of coffee. I said, no, you didn't. He said, you didn't spill your cup of coffee. You spilled what was in your cup. Had you had tea in your cup, you would have spilled tea.

Had you had water or orange juice in your cup, you would have spilled water or orange juice. We can only spill what's in our cup. So if you're negative and the economy, economy bumps into you. If you're negative in COVID attacks, if you're negative and a personal relationship goes south, if you're negative and a business, a business person screws you over, if you're negative, what spills out? Anger, resentment, intolerance. I can't believe you did that. Watch where you're going. It's anger. And what do we know when we hold a grudge if we hold anger? It's like us drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It's more harmful.

to us than forgiving the other. But if you're positive and something bumps into you, if you're positive in a personal relationship or financial situation bumps into you and they bump in you, what spills out if you're positive? Forgiveness, love. And I've been there before.

Yeah, I've taken my pants to the cleaners before I can do it again. No big deal. Just clean it up. Just get back up and go again. So it's important for us to know who we are. The next process is content creation. There's four places we find our content.

Our life experience. Get somebody to interview just about growing up about life. Second, transitional experiences. Going from something to something else. Going from elementary school to middle school to high school to college. Falling in love, falling out of love. Having your heart broken, excuse me, my gosh. Breaking someone's heart.

Divorce. Loss of a love, loss of a job. These are transitional experiences. If your parents are in the military, you were forced to move every two and a half years, so probably you didn't have a lot of close friends because you knew you were going to have to say goodbye pretty soon. Those are transitional experiences. Third source of content are significant emotional events. That's my favorite.

We all have them. That's what this podcast really is about. The code to winning is about identifying our significant emotional events because those are the moments in our lives where we learn the greatest lessons that change our stars forever. So a significant emotional event, S-E, is an experience that we can measure and actually quantify how we believed, what we thought and believed, and how we behaved before it occurred, and how we now think differently and behave differently because it occurred. Wow.

So the two operative words are before and because, before and because. So not just a divorce, but a devastating, ugly divorce. my football paralysis, the death of my father, you know, unexpectedly. We all have significant emotional events. And then the fourth source of content, bucketless.

You know, this is all about networking. I hope we can talk about that before we click off the hot button today. But it's about not who do you know, but who knows you. It's about your story about meeting Michael Bloomberg, about being one of the 40 in the internship program, and you're the only one that got to meet Michael

and how that understanding of the six degrees of separation just inspired you to start this podcast and start reaching out to the muscle and to the melters of the world. And that's why I'm here because of a referral. But I'm also a professional speaker because of the six degrees of separation, which might be a very quick, interesting story.

Anyway, make a bucket list of people you want to meet, places you want to go, experiences you want to share with the world. Well, you've got to have it before you can share it. So what are you going to do about it? And now back to that quote, we must be willing to pay any price and travel any distance to associate with extraordinary human beings

in order to attract an extraordinary human being. Remember, a lot of attraction, we don't attract who we want, we attract who we are. Powerful. In order for us to attract that extraordinary human being, we must first be an extraordinary human being. And that's where we start figuring out a way to embellish ourselves and find our

stories that are worth sharing because of the life lessons that we learned. So we go through content creation. We talk about this eight elements of how to craft a Hall of Fame speech that listeners love. So we go through all the elements outside introduction. Why should I listen to you? Inside introduction. What's your first impression? What's your brand?

The thesis. What are the benefits of listening to me? The structure. Social proof, the stories. Visual aid data. database research proof and the conclusion call to action. So we have a structure. We also teach them how to find their signature story that no one else can tell

because it's that story that really molded them into the person they are to do. I love that. And everything is about, and then we get into the platform skills. Oh, yeah, punctuating pauses and gestures and all those skill sets, listening skills, but we don't promise that they're ever going to get a speech. The folks that I have, hundreds and hundreds of people I've coached, all have been able to become better leaders in their organizations. They were recognized with different leadership skills,

sudden leadership skills, so they climbed the leadership ladder. They were given more responsibility. They became better spouses and significant others, became better lovers because their communication skills are so finely tuned, better parents, better coaches. So in my process of helping them become a professional speaker, they become the best human being they can possibly be. And once they have that speech in a position where they practiced it

and really feel comfortable when sharing their stories with the world, I will share my experience and all of my connections to help them get on the stages that they dream to get on because I now know they're qualified. I'm throwing my reputation on the line that I've personally coached this person and they are ready to take your stage by storm and I'll back them up 100%

because I've worked with them, I've listened to them, I've connected their passion, creativity, and imagination and they're just amazing, eloquent communicators. So, yeah, speak like a pro. I guarantee the result. I guarantee it and that's my passion. I don't want to create any more mediocre speakers and promise the world that they're going to be this amazing motivator for the rest of their life.

That's the biggest bunch of crap. 100%. And what we'll do towards the end in the description section of the podcast will actually add all the details there. So there will be a link there that you can end up clicking, which will take you to the website as well. And then you can actually like follow the procedure continuing forward as well, right? Yeah. Now I love that you mention all of that from everything that you've achieved and everything

you've accomplished and how much you've traveled and the books you've written, people you've spoken to you, to you, what is the most fulfilling out of all of those that you've done? When I have one person out of a 10,000 person arena come up to me with tears and said, you know, I was going to go kill myself and I decided not to. That's powerful. To have an email from a parent. that said, you know, you really help my son, you help my daughter, just have someone go out of their way to acknowledge that they noticed me kneeling down to greet all those who are special needs or in wheelchairs or physically challenged and not blowing them off to go and try and talk to somebody who's more famous or someone who seems to be more popular, but to take time for that person who, who, who,

really seemed to have listened and got something out of my speech. You know, out of the 5500 speeches, I've been doing this for four decades, my friend, and I've never missed a speech. Wow. I'm so proud of that. I've had flights canceled, and I've had to rent a car. One time I drove seven hours. I was on, give you the details.

I'm in Grand Junction, Colorado. My flight's so late. I land in Denver, and I miss my connection to Rapid City. South Dakota. And so I refuse to lose. And I scramble. I'm running around trying to find a different carrier. And I finally found this mail run in a little single-engine six-passenger plane that would

get me to a little town in Nebraska, which is the closest I could possibly get to Rapid City, South Dakota. And so I didn't have my bag. And it was checked on the connection. But I'm still in my coat and tie from the speech in Grand Junction. I hop in the back of this plane. We'd landed about four times. we finally land in Nebraska,

and I get out, and the airport's about the size of this studio, and I realized I don't have a rental car place, I'm screwed. But there was a Ford dealership right next door to this little miniature airport, and I realized, you know, back in the day with the yellow pages, there's a phone booth, and I looked it up and saw, well, let me look up this guy's name. Well, obviously, he's not going to have a business phone. I called the number of the Ford dealership, and this dude answered.

I told him my dilemma I needed to rent a car, and I bring it back from Rapid City. He says, yeah, so he gives me this big tuna boat, this Imperial Chrysler. I still remember it. And I drove seven hours through the bad lands of Nebraska, and I arrived in Rapid City, South Dakota at about four o'clock in the morning. I didn't have my luggage. Basically got the little travel kit from the front desk with a toothbrush, and I didn't have any clothes to change into. So I just laid it on my bed in my suit, so I didn't wrinkle it any more than it was. and I wake up the next morning at 7 a.m. to go to the ballroom for my pre-speech,

and the lady at the door is sobbing. It gives me this giant hug. The man is in tears. He's giving me this big hug. I'm the only speaker in a three-day conference sponsored by South Dakota Healthcare. I was the only speaker in a three-day conference that showed up because of inclement weather. Wow. And I've never forgotten that. But I don't want anybody to think I'm such a noble man that I would refuse to miss a speech when flights are canceled. That's no big deal. It's just a new challenge. But my motivation is this, KG, I know for a fact that there's at least one man and one woman in every single one of my audiences who is hurting as badly as I was, who's lost their identity, lost their true love, lost their whatever. And if there's something I could say,

if there's lyric from one of my hit songs, if there's a story that you're a story that you're a that I could share if there's just lots of laughter that they deserve, that they need some comic relief in their life at this point. It does not matter to me. If something I say or can deliver can help that person last one more day, then it's worth my time, guaranteed,

because I've been there. And I can look every single person in the eye who's thinking about suicide and just say, don't do it. And I have four beautiful children, four and a half grandchildren, because I didn't do it. I didn't pull the trigger. And there's always a better way.

One of my hit songs in two more days tomorrow's yesterday. You know, just hang on. And that's always part of my message. Not in the dark side. I'm a humorist. I love to make people laugh and feel and shed some tears. But at the end of the day, it really is about what matters most.

And that's life and love and our relationship with heaven. And, you know, the belief that everything's going to be. be okay and if it's not okay then it's not the end the best part about all the questions i've been asking is that you've been answering 10 questions for each question so i do appreciate you covering so much a detail for that and i know i want to go into um networking because i think it's very very important before we kind of segue and go into that i wanted to figure out um from the 37 books that you've written that you were an author for is there any specific one that perhaps holds a special place in your heart. If so, why? If there is one. That's another great question. You're

one of the best interviewers I've ever been around, my friend. Thank you so much. Yeah, again, I think it has to be the art of significance achieving a level beyond success because it's a 30-year project. And when I sat down with Adrian Zachim, the most famous and powerful publisher in the world from Penguin Random House, intermediate. in New York City, he said, so how do you know there's 12 highest universal laws? How do you know there's not 21? How do you know there's not 9? And it got kind of emotional. I said, I've been studying this for so many years. I've cross-referenced scripture. I've cross-reference prophets. I've cross-referenced psychologists. I've crossed referenced everything I can possibly

find and think of to make sure that I know for a fact there are only 12 highest universal laws. And every other law in the universe is predicated on these 12 laws. It doesn't matter what you say. So, for example, law number one in the art of significance is obedience. And when I bounce it off my four kids, one son, three daughters, they're very intelligent, very opinionated. I'm so proud of them. My middle daughter, she goes, Dad, you can't tell people what to do. That's a bad word.

Don't talk about obedience. And I said, well, what you're validating, my dear, is. is that most parents think obedience is controlling their children. You know, and it's not controlling our children. It's not control at all. Obedience is the highest law of the universe. So one of the most interesting parts of this book is that I begin with my adventure soaring to the edge of space.

Everybody needs to do that. I don't know if anybody's going to get a chance to do that, but I had that rare opportunity. and the idea I'm not drawing a blank I'm just trying to figure out what kind of detail I should give you let me just cut to the chase so I had a chance to soar to the edge of space

in a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft and it required a presidential signature so I was kind of excited when that came out from Obama and I had to intensify my training I lost 29 pounds I checked on at the base. Everybody could Google my, it's about a 15-minute documentary,

kind of watered down because it's a classified mission, but you can see it on YouTube if anybody's curious, and you can read about it in my book, The Art of Significance. But I checked on to the base for a full day of orientation. I was fitted into my 130-pound space suit. I was introduced to my commander, and we climbed aboard the aircraft, and rapidly climbed to 17 miles above the Earth's surface.

where for five hours I sat on the sounds of silence looking at the breathtaking curvature of the earth, gazing the endless blackness of the universe, pondering eternity in my place in it. And with an unobstructed view of Mother Earth, you should see the pictures, the videos, oh my gosh. I teared up as an eyewitness to the words of Einstein that although the concept of a master organizer

and supreme being is complex, we must embrace the mindset of a young, child who walks into a large library and says, surely someone must have written all these books. And within minutes, I became an expert, eyewitness of some words of a dear hero of mine. His name is Uckdorf, who said, we're more than mere mortal beings living on a small planet for a short season. And it was easy to embrace. I think it was

you'll have to look up the quote but he basically I'll think of it before this podcast is over I got a brain crap but he said the mind once stretched can never return to its original dimensions oh well doesn't matter who said it I should just give Zig Ziglar

because if you didn't say it he would have anyway so when I landed I became a stupid of the universe, student of astronomy, student of astrophysics. I read everything by Warner von Braun, the father of NASA. And here's what I discovered. It's really important.

And it's the code to winning. The universe was created and organized by a specific set of laws. And when we identified that specific law and obey that specific law, we reap a specific reward. and when we disobey that specific law, we suffer a specific consequence. The highest law of the universe is obedience.

So if you just want to whip out the casual list of universal laws, law of gravity, think about it. If you disobey gravity, you die. All other universal principles are governed by the highest law obedience, which is chapter one, which is law number one obedience. Powerful. So the master organizer, supreme being, I prefer to call him God. He organized and created the universe by a specific set of laws.

To test our obedience, he gave us what is called free will agency. So that we always had a choice to go left or right to do this or that. And if you disagree that, obedience is the number one law of the universe and that everybody ought to be able to just use their free will agency and do whatever they want to do, visit a penitentiary and understand that the reason why these individuals, these convicts, are incarcerated and locked up behind bars is because they misuse their free will agency. The only thing that protects our free will agency is obedience. So obedience, our Heavenly Father, he

He allowed us to test our obedience by giving us free will agency. To ensure that our free will agency would always be in play, he gave us what is called an opposition in all things. You have to have darkness to appreciate light. You have to have sickness to appreciate health. You have to have justice to appreciate mercy. You have to have death to appreciate the sanctity of life. And because God gave us our obedience, I mean, sorry,

because God gave us our free will agency in a world of opposition in all things, he didn't want to leave us hanging, so he gave every single person who was born into this world an inherent ability to discern right from wrong, truth, from error. We commonly call this ability our conscience, which means our conscience will never fail us. Only our desire to follow it decreases as we continue to do the wrong thing. So we think about it.

If the four of us here in this beautiful podcast studio left and went into a room next door and the room stunk so bad that we were so repulsed that our eyes started to water, our noses started to bleed, our ears started to ring, if we stayed in that smelly, repulsive room for five minutes, it would no longer smell. We had become desensitized and it was now our new normal. What happened to all our world? What happened to our friends? What happened to our neighbors?

It's what happened to our states, our country during COVID. We became so desensitized. And now people say, oh, let's rush back to how it was. No, what part of how it was is even worth rushing back to? We have to understand that we are in control of our sensitization or desensitizing. And once we understand that that's the law of the universe, we realize that law of gravity, law of resonance, energy, vibration, and law of attraction.

Law of the harvest, we reap only that which we sow. The law of physics, the law of mathematics, the law of relativity with Einstein. All of these famous universal laws are all governed by the number one law, obedience.

If you disobey any one of these universal laws, you will die or suffer the consequence. So I have the 12 highest universal laws, and the final 12th law is forgiveness because it's the bookend. and I highly recommend that book. I'm so proud of it. It kind of defines who I am,

and it's a 30-year process that culminated into some pretty good wisdom, some pretty good stories, illustrations, and some good laughs and cries along the way. That's so, so powerful. I know as we are about to come and conclude our podcast, I wanted to really talk a lot about just one last section of networking.

I remember a phrase when I first flew in, I came through from South Africa to JFK. I kissed the floor and I'm like, this is going to be my American dream. I'm going to write my own story as well. And ever since then, I have went out my way to network and that's brought me out of my comfort zone. I've, you know, to unlock new relationships to learn from very successful people to just hear their story, put it in like a form of content and just give it out. what I've found to be very significant and important is that I've actually learned way more from that

than perhaps some of my guests because I feel like I'm getting taught each step of the way from each question, different answer, giving a different perspective and a different understanding as well. So which leads to my question, how significant and how important is networking today?

That's what it's all about. It's, I mean, I'm even stammering. That's the word. It's networking. The code to winning is networking. So in a nutshell, I was paralyzed plan ball. Been going to doctors. I'm heartbroken, disappointed, discouraged, not depressed, disappointed, discouraged.

Definitely experiencing halts, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or sad, multiple times, maybe even during the same day, struggling. And a phone call comes into the coach's office, hey, we want somebody to come and talk to our team. and the coach says, Danny, I want you to go do this. I'm like, it's not me. I'm not a speaker. I'm not, that's not me. He goes, I want you to do this.

I said, no. He goes, I need you to do this. And thank God, he saw what I needed. He knew that I needed to re-engage. So I said, okay, and I drove the 45 to 60 minutes up this canyon into this rural town called Morgan, Utah. and I show up and I go into the stadium and all the athletes are just kind of laying on the bleachers,

helmets off, very undisciplined, lack of daysical, talking about the dates and the prom, you know, they'd been to the night before. And I'm just broken hard and I'll never play again and I don't want to talk to these cocky guys. They have no idea. I'd give anything to just play one more play and they're taking it for granted and I just wasn't a bad mood.

And all of a sudden they all sat up in attention, put on their helmets. Definitely quiet. And their football coach comes cruising in through the gate entrance under the track in a makeshift golf cart wheelchair. His name is Coach Jan Smith. He's got multiple sclerosis. And these players had so much respect and admiration for their coach

that I knew for a fact right out of the shoots that they were playing for him. They were running for him because he would never run again. He had been an all-American football player. That they were doing it for him. And I spoke before to the, team. He ended up inviting me to speak, and I spoke before seven out of their eight games that year, and they won the state championship. I still have my Morgan High School State Championship ring. They gave me at the awards banquet. The principal heard me speak. He said, would you come and

speak to my student body? I said, yeah, I didn't have a lot of confidence. I feel like I had about seven minutes of good material, so I invited four of my friends to go with me. And we put on this high school assembly, made a little slideshow. He called four of the high school principal friends that year, we spoke in five schools. And now I'm working at a sports mall, newly married, trying to figure out what to do,

how to come back from my injury. And I'm thinking, could I take this motivational assembly statewide? And that next year we spoke, not five as a group of five, but five as a group of four, we spoke to 13 schools. And I'm like, I'm on to something.

There was no such thing as a motivational assembly. So I go to my crew, I want to take this statewide and nationwide. They said, get your head out of the clouds. Again, back to the law of sublimation. They said, Clark, you can't. And I'm like, oh, yeah, watch me. So I basically said, screw you.

I'm going to do this. And I made an appointment with Lila Bjorkland. I'm dropping these names on purpose. I honor them. Lila Bjorkland, who was the president of the Utah school board. There was only seven members, and anybody in their dog can get on the program for 15 minutes. I got on the program.

I shared my motivational assembly. They voted unanimously to endorse me. She makes a phone call to Warren Pugh, who was the Speaker of the House of Representatives at the state of Utah. He invites me to come to the Capitol building to speak to the entire legislative group and deliver my 45-minute motivational assembly.

They voted unanimously to endorse me and fund me for $100,000 to speak to every single. high school in the state of Utah. Then they renewed the contract the next year and embellished it to speak to every high school and junior high middle school in the state of Utah and up the Annie. So there's 140 school days in the school year.

I had all those schools done so fast. What am I going to do with the rest of the time? So now I had the head of the Utah School Board Association contact the University of Utah, and it was so surprising because the vice president of the University of Utah had been an educator in the state of Utah before he went to the University of Utah. He knew of my football and baseball career, and he pulled me into his office, and he said,

Dan, I know you're still struggling. I want you to listen to this cassette tape by a motivational speaker by the name of Zig Zigler, and I thought, whoa, his mom ran out of names. So I plugged it and I listened to it, changed my whole life. And that was the catalyst that I was lacking to take me over the edge to rehab. That's what I needed. I'm sharing my story. I'm engaging with the public again.

I'm fired up. And I still just didn't know if I fully believed I could get better. I knew I wanted to. But Zig Zigler's words, pow. So now, fast forward. Zig Ziglar comes into Salt Lake City, Utah, the University of Utah as part of the PMA positive mental attitude rallies. So I position myself backstage afterwards, and he comes off stage, and I said, Zig, you saved my life. I want to take you to dinner.

He says, I'm leaving. I'm coming back to Salt Lake in three weeks. Call Lori Majors in my office and just tell her what you want to do, and I pled with her every single day. I hounded her. Finally, she said, you can pick up Zig at the airport, take him to his hotel. I'm like, that's 15 minutes if I get lost. But by the time I pick him up at the airport and drop him off at the hotel, he says, is there someplace I can see this high school motivational assembly?

I said, yeah, I've rented the little ballroom off the foyer of the hotel. I've got a slide show and everything. He thought that was kind of crazy that I had that much confidence that I could have convinced him to listen to my speech in 15 minutes. I gave him my full 45 to 60 minutes speech. He stands up crying, I stand up. He gives me a standing ovation, flies me to Dallas, Texas the next week to speak to his company. The next week he sponsors me in the National Speakers Association.

I meet him in Chicago, had to take out a loan, had no money, spent a whole week with him in Chicago. The next week he invites my wife and I down to Dallas, Texas, for our first seminar experience. He invites us, obviously he comps it, his born-to-win seminar, and that changed our marriage. and it just kick-started our relationship in a completely unbelievable way. Wow. And it was there that he introduced me to somebody who introduced me to Nancy Reagan, who invited me into the Reagan White House to take Mrs. Reagan's Just Say No Program to all 50 states. So between 1983 and 1989, I spoke in thousands of schools in all 50 states to millions of teenagers,

180, I mean, excuse me, 140 school days a year. three schools a day, 15 a week for 140 school days a year, do the math when most schools averaged about 2,500 students apiece. And then I did about 75 to 100 college university campuses and about 100 teacher in services every Friday afternoon before I hustled home. That's how I kickstarted my career. And in 1991, I made the transition into the corporate arena, and the rest is history.

So before I stopped babbling, I had a phone call come in from a football coach who didn't know me. I had a football coach who said, Dan, you need this. So I trusted him, and I went and did my thing. It took action. So I spoke before seven of the eight football games. They won the state championship. So then the high school principal heard me speak and invited me in, and he called his high school principal friends.

They called theirs. End up speaking five schools, 13 schools the next year. Then Zig Ziglar comes into town. I make a move, networking. To introduce myself to Zig, he comes back into town, blah, blah, blah, blah. So if you think about my career, Hall of Fame career, the top 10 motivational speakers in the world, I've got Norm Gibbons,

who was the vice president of the University of Utah, so let's drop his name. But you've got basically a high school football coach, a high school principal who is responsible for all the other networking. Norm Gibbons who introduced me to Zig Ziglar, Zig Zigler who introduced me to Nancy Reagan. And my Hall of Fame career is really about five to maximum six key people in my mesh of network. Six degrees of separation. and I've made millions and millions of dollars doing everything I've ever wanted to do.

Flying in space flew all the fighter jets and bombers in the United States Air Force, been downrange eight times to Iraq, Afghanistan, firing up the troops because I've given over 350 free speeches to the military and the commanders know what my speaker's fee is. And eventually they say, Clark, you just keep giving, what can we do for you?

I want to fly an F-18. No problem. I'm like, really? So if any of you've seen Maverick, Top Gun Maverick 7 times like me, I flew that exact same jet, did everything you saw in the movie. No ways. I've taken off an aircraft carrier landed, I've flown all the fighters. I was upside down so long I think I'm the only human being who's ever thrown down. Instead of throwing up.

Sorry, if I'm going too fast, yeah, I ejected bananas I'd eaten the night before. In fact, I think I ejected a box of milk duds I'd eat in a movie. when I was nine. I mean, it was an awesome experience flying all of them. I've done all those things because of service before self, because of networking. So let me just challenge everybody. The next time you go to a networking event, most people show up with business cards and a personal agenda. What can I get out of you? What can you do for me? I challenge you. That from now on a forevermore, if you show up in a networking event with, how may I serve you, tell me a little bit about you.

where are you in your life and again how may I serve you the law of reciprocity is real karma is a real deal what goes around comes around and when we can always be of service and use our passion creativity and imagination to position ourselves

as someone who really has connections worth getting to know because we can help you and I will help you and you will hook me up and together we rise changes the world that's so so powerful oh my gosh now we finally come to the final question.

You know, the co-to winning our motto is the insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Can you repeat that? The insight today is... Insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. I love it. Okay, keep going. So considering with literally experience achievements, everything you've come across,

you pretty much the epitome of the American dream right now. So which leads to the last question, in your definition, what defines winning. It is not enough to say I will do my best. We must succeed in doing that, which is necessary. That's a mic drop right there. Thank you so much. Winning, you have to determine.

Is it winning against someone else or is it bettering yourself? We don't compete against others. We compete only against what we're capable of. I love that. I love that very much. All right, Dan, if you could perhaps let the audience know how they could get a hold of you, which social media platform, email,

like what's the best way to communicate and get a hold of you? Yeah, I invite you to visit my website, danclark.com. It's so simple, and you can snoop around with my offer. See how I might serve you. And you can go to meet Dan and find my music page, listen to some of the songs I've written and recorded.

I'm really proud of that, even though I don't highlight that in anything. My books are available in the library section. so many of my books are old. They're out of print, but I've still written 37, so why not just put it on the tab? But I guarantee at least one of my books will put a smile on your face

or help you teach you the tools required to take yourself to the next level. My email, isn't that crazy? Maybe I just give you my email, which is I might have thousands come in on my email. Maybe that's a bad idea. But follow me on Instagram. Dan Clark Speak.

Follow me on Facebook. Dan Clark Speak. Follow me on LinkedIn. Dan Clark speak. It's a pretty simple handle, and I'm really working on my YouTube channel. I haven't taken that stuff seriously because I've been a professional speaker. I'm a spoiled brat. My phone just rings off the hook, and that's what I've always enjoyed doing the most. But please follow me. I've had my own podcast called Power Players with Dan Clark. I put it on hold for a little while. I had some significant, amazing guests. I'm really proud of.

And so I'm starting to crank that back up again. But check out YouTube and just follow me. I just appreciate that because this is my legacy. It's trying to change the world, one story at a time. And again, if you really want to fire me up, sign up for my Speak Like a Pro course. And you can find that detail on my website, Danclarc.com.

Just look up training. And I guess in the show notes or whatever we're going to do, we'll just give the link to where people could actually sign up. And I start these classes. They go six weeks at a time. So if I started on a Monday and you wanted to join on Tuesday, I would just have you join the next class. And they're 90 minutes every single week, one day a week for six weeks.

And you get copies of my book's story selling. My book Speak Like a Pro, my quote book, my joke book. That's my favorite book. Humor Files. and you get the 293-page workbook study guide. Again, even if you don't want to be a four-paid speaker, it's time to share your story, and I want to be that person who can help you gain that confidence

and that eloquence to make sure that you are that communicator that people expect you to be. My mantra for my Speak Like a Pro is, when you're going to make a presentation, when you're going to tell your story, and now you know you're ready to share your story with the world because you know it can save a life, save a marriage, build a business. People expect you to share your story

at the same level of excellence that created it. People expect you to share your story at the same level of excellence that created it. So if you're a great athlete and you can't talk, you don't want people to think you're a stupid idiot. increase your communication skills. I'm telling you athlete to athlete, it matters. It matters more than anything.

And obviously, Warren Buffett said you can increase your value in the marketplace by 50% simply by becoming a better storyteller and public speaker. I want to be your coach. Speak like a pro, Dan Clark. Dan Clark, the man, the myth, the very legend himself. Thank you very much, sir. Thanks, Gage. You have made it this far.

Grateful, thank you very much for joining in in the Code to Winning podcast. Please click the like button. It helps with our algorithm as well, including subscribing to the channel and putting the bell notification as well. Like I said, really appreciate you just joining us and tuning in the Code to Winning podcast. The Code to Winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow.