David Bush has personally coached almost a thousand individuals to achieve their goals and was recently honored as one 1% of the top 1% of health coaches and coach trainers out of 20,000 coaches nationwide. David currently coaches a select group of entrepreneurs to achieve their physical, mental and financial well-being goals and do motivational and coach training presentations nationwide.
David graduated from the University of South Dakota with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Mass Communication. After graduating from college, he pursued his dream to play professional football and played for the Iowa Barnstormers of Des Moines, Iowa in the Arena Football League for four years.
Shifting from football to the sales field, David entered the field of home mortgages where he quickly became a top producer and then became an owner of a regional mortgage company with 18 offices in Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois.
After leaving the mortgage business in 2006, He became a motivational speaker and a peak performance coach to entrepreneurs from all over the U.S. In 2009, he received his designation as a certified health and lifestyle coach by the Villanova College of Nursing and the Health Coach Institute.
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Ready to become fearless? We can help you become fearless in 60 days so you accomplish more in your career Schedule A 15 min Call with Umar[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:06
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone. This is Umar Hameed, your host and welcome to the No Limits Selling Podcast where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how to make you better, stronger, faster. Get ready for another episode.
Umar Hameed 0:36
Hello, everyone. I am privileged today to have my friend Dave Bush, a performance coach on the program today. Dave, thanks so much for joining me.
David Bush 0:45
Oh, so excited Umar, totally privileged and pleasure to meet with you and to share with your guests.
Umar Hameed 0:51
So I want to take you to a pivotal time in your life, oftentimes that the universe gives us you know, a tap on the shoulder, you know, pay attention, pay attention. And many times we don't do that, then the universe gets serious. And in 2007, the universe tapped you, not so much on the shoulder, but on the back. So tell me about that experience of, you know, having that wake up call.
David Bush 1:14
Yeah, that was a really challenging season in my life. And I don't think I've ever gone through that kind of a season ever before. So it was somewhat unexpected. I didn't necessarily prepare for such a tragedy in my life, but and I was working as a peak performance coach with top sales executives and entrepreneurs and I was talking to them about living an extraordinary life. And one of the areas that I really struggled in was my own personal health and well being. I was successful in terms of finances, had a nice house, beautiful kids, you know, beautiful wife, relationships were on point. But the one area in my life that kind of was in that in the background, in my mind, it was hiding Umar but in most people's life, or most people's view, it wasn't hiding because I was 100 pounds overweight, and I'd always been a big guy because I played football. So I kind I grew up being celebrated for being, you know, a 300 pound guy, but as a top sales executive, and you know, top performer and peak performance coach 100 pounds overweight wasn't really going very well.
Umar Hameed 2:11
Yeah. Let's stop there just for a second, because it's really interesting that, you know, we have these different versions of ourselves. One is we show the outside world and in your case, you know, look at me, I'm going to show you how to be a peak performance individual and get a full, vibrant life. And then we have that second place where it's the internalist, right? And what the reality is, it's amazing is how we can delude ourselves on our own reality and just focus on the image we're creating that creates stress and discord within us. So to talk about that.
David Bush 2:46
Yeah, well, I was always a big time just like you, Umar. I was a student of personal professional growth for many years and I studied a lot of things and I remember Jim Rohn, saying, you know, everything affects everything.
Umar Hameed 2:57
One system mind, body, spirit.
David Bush 2:59
Yeah, I mean, I, but you know what I, I knew it intellectually but I didn't know it experientially,
Umar Hameed 3:06
Yes.
David Bush 3:07
I, I could say it to people. But I didn't understand how it was impacting my life. But in 2007, I had a back injury, playing basketball of all things. I played professional football, college football, high school football, never had any major injuries, but playing basketball pickup basketball game, something popped in my back. And from that point on, I was in significant pain. And I went through the process of the medical system of trying to diagnosis trying to resolve the pain and, you know, the healthcare system puts you on Medicaid medications to basically resolve the...
Umar Hameed 3:08
Anything, everything.
David Bush 3:10
...of season
Umar Hameed 3:40
Take a pill.
David Bush 3:41
And then, you know, I basically went through the whole physical therapy, chiropractic, and at the end the time I was just in constant pain, and that's where I began to become awakened to the fact that everything affects everything because beginning that the time I got into pain, I was beginning to see more and more of my performance dropping off. I was no longer are able to do speaking events and writing in airplanes. And, you know, just in talking to my coaching clients, it was really difficult. And I went through a back surgery in April of 2007, and then had another one because I re-injured it in November of 2007. So it was a really hard time. And I went through a kind of a spankin machine physically, mentally, financially, and paid a really heavy deductible. And it was just one of those wake up calls where I said, you know, what I have to figure out and this is the key and if you're watching or listening to this right now might be a jotter down is that I had to learn how to live a healthy lifestyle, and enjoy it. So it was like to live an unhealthy life so I could live a healthy lifestyle, but I didn't enjoy it, but I would do it for long enough to get rid of some of the pain, but I never learned to enjoy it. And that was the missing ingredient.
Umar Hameed 4:45
I used to have a radio show called Life Changing Breakthroughs. And one day I was talking to a friend and I said, Hey, Jim, have you ever had a life changing breakthrough? He said, yeah. When I died in Singapore, he was on stage had a heart attack literally died for two minutes, and then they revived him. And it was a life changing event for him. And it took him down a different path of being more holistic. And so the next question I asked him was, is a telling one? I said, you know, that's one hell of a wake up call. Did you have any signals before from the universe that you need to stop doing what you're doing and start changing? He says, none that I could see. But after I had the heart attack, they will billboards with flashing lights that I totally did not see before. One of the things you do is you work with high performers, and you help them integrate that whole being. Why don't you share one of the insights you got that took your game up to the next level?
David Bush 5:38
Yeah, well, the first thing I had to do is I had to stop and just reflect on where I was in all areas of life, physical, mental, financial, kind of just kind of a life assessment because I think when we do take a more holistic approach towards our life, it can, you can give us a bigger picture of the areas that need improvement and we can really start to drill down on some of the areas that are in most the need, and you know, 72% of Americans are overweight and obese, it's become normal. It's become kind of accepted and comfortable for people. But most people don't realize how much it's costing them in their own personal life and the mental life. When they go out there on sales calls, they're not as confident if they're not feeling that healthy lifestyle as a part of their normal routine. And so all of the things that I began to see is that my performance was suffering because I was living an ordinary health, I was not pursuing extraordinary health. I was not pursuing extraordinary health and my physical and mental and financial well being. And that's where I began to start to identify what are the areas that need to improve in each one of these areas mentally Umar, I could not tell you 10 things off the top of my head that were a healthy snack. I couldn't I mean, I could give you an apple. I could give you an orange a banana, but I couldn't think of things that were portable and convenient that I could buy in an airport and I just was educated in what it would take to become intellectually and experientially a healthier person. So doing that reflection, evaluating where I was, and then really getting specific about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do and have and setting some big, you know, hairy, audacious goals, in all aspects of my life was a was a real big awakening for me.
Umar Hameed 7:22
So one of the things a phrase you've used, a word you've used several times now is reflect. And I think the universe gets us to a place if we're not doing the right thing. And whatever that event is, whether it's cancer or back injury, or marriage dissolving, the universe holds up a mirror to us. And we get to see ourselves as we really are, I think it's so important to pay attention to what's going on. And the reason people live that unhealthy life is because they're getting more pleasure out of the food they're eating, or that complacency. Then they are what might be something you to do. And what you provide people is that bridge that makes it safe for them to step into new areas. So tell me how you build that trust with clients and really get them to say, okay, Dave, you're probably nuts, but I'm going to follow you. It's because so hard to do ourselves, right?
David Bush 8:19
Right. Well, I mean, not everybody has to go through a painful experience like I had
Umar Hameed 8:23
Yeah.
David Bush 8:23
before I have a dream or a desire to get healthier. So some people have you know, a big event or they have something that's really meaningful to them in 2020, you know, they 2020 has kind of been used as the year of vision,
Umar Hameed 8:35
Oh, yeah.
David Bush 8:35
I have a vision for their health or their life that they want to accomplish. And so oftentimes, that's where I'll start with is that I'll really help them to gain clarity and vision. Because a confused mind does nothing and so if we can really laser in on what it what it is, what does it they specifically want to be doing have. Most people have a healthy weight in mind, but they don't have a lot of other things that they'd like to be do and have that are crystal clear. That could actually the end, the healthy weight is the means to the end. And so I really helped them to get clear on the end, because that's what I went through. I had a coach that guided me through that process. And it's not normal because normal in America is overweight and unhealthy. Most Americans don't even exercise for 10 minutes a day, there's a whole bunch of things that people aren't even aware of the things that it's affecting them. If you were to ask a person today, are you healthy? They'd say, Yeah, I'd say pretty much because they
Umar Hameed 9:31
If I'm not in pain. They think [garbled] health.
David Bush 9:33
Yeah, they think that healthy is non-sick. But healthy could be described as a whole different language if you were willing to look at it differently. So I start really challenging the way that they look at things Umar and say, you know, what are the things that if you could do what you wanted to do, if you could be what you wanted to be do what you wanted to do have what you wanted to have, what would you want, and then once they get crystal clear on those things that really helps them to drive down their why. And then we come back and begin to identify, okay, where are you at now in comparison to that, and that's when they give me the pain, the problems and what's going on in their life. And then what we do is we just simply develop a plan of action that will be reasonable to them trying not to fit everybody into the same box, but meeting everybody where they're at. So and I've coached very successful entrepreneurs and sales executives that were 100 pounds overweight. And people think, well, they just need willpower. You don't understand those people oftentimes have deeper wounds and deeper pain. That is the reason why they have gained that extra weight. It's not because they didn't have willpower because they're very successful in the sales and business field. So they have willpower there. It's just that they're having a hard time with making that transition just like I did to go and put that into their life. And then I've coached women with you know, 20 pounds to lose that just want to get the last 20 pounds off. And when they do, they feel more confident they feel more pretty. They start giving themselves a wink in the mirror in the morning and it changes every Everything in their sales and marketing or business?
Umar Hameed 11:02
Absolutely. I had this client one she was overweight, maybe 30 pounds, and she had willpower tried everything, and nothing seemed to work. And this my area of expertise is just mindset. So it's not weight loss for her. It was like, Okay, tell me about a particular time you were beating yourself up that you were not losing enough weight and she thinks of you know, is yesterday's every day, but yesterday morning, I was looking in the mirror. And I just felt that, you know, oh my God, I can't believe you let yourself be like this. So we took her back that moment and had her see herself in the mirror here, whatever inner thoughts she was having. And those two things, got her to feel the feeling that she was feeling. And so the thing was, you know, why can't I do better, and she gets that feeling that connects with it. So we used that feeling and connected it to our unconscious mind that records everything. And when we connected it, it led back to a memory that 10 years ago your her husband had this life threatening medical conditions. had to be flown to Boston from Baltimore, for this number one surgeon in this particular area, and the surgeon came in and said, Look, we're going to do the surgery, it's gonna work out great, but you are going to lose about 50 pounds of weight during this healing process. She said not on my watch. And sure enough, her husband only lost 20 pounds instead of the 50. But somehow she linked if I stop eating, the love of my life is going to die. And that was the belief that got set up 10 years earlier. And that's what was driving this whole thing. So we got her to change the belief around that. And then she started losing weight because she was working with someone like you to do that. But that mind the body the spirit is one system, all interlink. Dave, tell me about a particular client like change the name to protect the innocent, that when you got them for the real reason why they may want to lose weight to get to that sometimes it's not that easy, right? So tell me about a client that had difficulty really understanding that and how you got them to The realization that becomes the foundation of getting better.
David Bush 13:04
Yeah. Well, we teach a lot of the same principles in the work that we do. We teach about mindset, skill set and action.
Umar Hameed 13:12
Nice.
David Bush 13:13
So oftentimes the people that come into our coaching relationship, they don't have a mindset for success. They have a mindset for I need to do something to resolve a problem and a pain. But it's that emotional conflict that is reduced while you're in that process that lowers your motivation, so you don't stay doing the things that you started doing. So this one, two individuals name's john and john ended up coming to me and he's 100 pounds overweight, and he's a very influential guy had a large following. And, and he was basically at a point where he was embarrassed that he could not figure out how to eat healthy and he would even call himself and I know that you deal with this as well. He called himself an addict. He called himself a food addict, and I tell people that very Few people are ever addicted to food, actually, the physical connection of addictiveness. Most people are mentally addicted to food. And what we did, what we talked about was, is that not putting our labels on ourselves. So we started out with just reframing the mindset and start talking about, let's not call ourselves a food addict, let's call ourselves a person that's creating health and well being in our lives that's ready to live an extraordinary life. And let's start talking about it in a different frame.
Umar Hameed 14:29
So let me pause you right there for a second because I think it's a really important thing that you did. So at one level, what you said, that sounds like bullshit. But what it does is, brings an awareness in so you get a different focus, and you start focusing on the positive and you know, how can I do this healthy thing? Because when you're a food addict, you're looking at the dark side of that and you start attracting it so so please go on because I think it's a vital thing to open up their lens to focus on something different.
David Bush 14:59
Now why why I was so impressed with the work that you do, because you you talked a lot of the same language that we do with people that need that reframing. They need to take take that limiting belief or that self doubting concept, and reframe it into more of a positive outlook and having just a shift in perspective. And that's where I think that the coaching piece has been very helpful for a lot of people is just having somebody that has that belief in them, that reframes it for them, because they don't oftentimes believe it for themselves. But this is what I tell people Umar, is you in our model, you do not have to believe it, to achieve it. You do not have to have it all thought out in the future. You simply have to understand that there's a process and you have to have faith and you have to have a willingness, not a spiritual faith, but you have to have faith in a process. And if you have the faith in the process, and you have something that's meaningful to you, beyond like this particular person, he had grandkids and he wanted to be a good role model for the you know, team of people that was following him and so he wanted to take more action. And he felt like that it was beginning to hamper his ability to be a good leader. And so but he did all this stuff in isolation because he didn't want to tell anybody that he was struggling mentally with this. What he perceived was a food addiction, that's where we started out with. And then what we did was we basically came up with some really good reasons of why he would want to change. And then we came up with a plan of action, which is not overly complicated. I mean, getting healthy is not super complicated. It's simple, it's just not easy. And when people look at it, sometimes you know, they have to count calories, count carbs, count points, you know, they have to plan purchase, prepare portion size, exercise,
Umar Hameed 16:37
Good job.
David Bush 16:38
so there's a lot of stuff to take on. But when a coach can give it to you in a step by step process, and there's daily accountability, that moves to weekly accountability that moves to more of a spread out, you know, opportunity for accountability and feedback. You can actually make extreme progress in a very short period of time, so Jeff ended up losing 100 pounds. In about seven and a half months, and again, not everybody loses 100 pounds, and everybody has to lose weight that fast. But Jeff's body type and what he was willing to do for exercise and activity, along with a very specific nutrition plan, we don't put a bunch of supplements and give people a bunch of drugs, we just teach them to eat the right amounts of foods, the right amount of proteins, right amount of carbs, fats, that whole thing. And we make it very simple. And a lot of people that are in our line of work, we do a lot of social eating and a lot of social drinking. And so we have to figure out how can we go about living our lives and not feeling like we're becoming you know, socially inept, because we can't enter interact with people? And what are they going to think about what we're eating or what we're not drinking.
Umar Hameed 17:43
Right.
David Bush 17:43
You can actually get them a plan that can work for them and they can six and stick with it and have faith in it. They'll start seeing the progress and that's when they bust through that you know, the ceiling of complexity or the ceiling, the mental glass ceiling that they've put on themselves. It says my I'm too old to lose weight or I can't do exercise. And what happens is people just have more and more mental breakthroughs. And then what happens is, is that they now believe in something that they never believed before because they just have faith in the process.
Umar Hameed 18:11
It all comes down to the faith in you as the coach.
David Bush 18:15
Right.
Umar Hameed 18:15
Build that trust, something kind of amazing happen. They've got the National Kidney Foundation, and they had this repel where you repel down a building. When I was on the building in the hardest before I got to the edge of the building. I was thinking, why do I trust these people to make sure I don't die. And it occurred to me because I trust the executive director of the Kidney Foundation, that I was leveraging the trust for her to these people. And doing that, I think similar thing happens when you have this coach, that the trust in the coach gives you trust in the process. Whereas in the past without that trust, they wouldn't trust in the process so you become that foundation support person that lets that happen.
David Bush 18:59
Well in In your business model, the No Limits concept is, you know, really a lot of what you talk about. And the reality of it is, is that most people have set limits on themselves. And we need to help them to bust free from those limits. And so sometimes if we believe in another person that is bust through a limit, and they're willing to help us to bust through a limit, yeah, we don't have to believe we can do it. We just have to have the faith in that person that's going to help us to create the breakthrough. So for me personally, a couple of different No, no limits thinking as I have been a guy that has done cannonballs my entire life, because I stopped trying to do the flip off the diving board.
Umar Hameed 19:37
Right.
David Bush 19:37
I was that I was a heavyset kid, and I would end up getting my back smacked on the water and...
Umar Hameed 19:42
Oh, yeah. That hurts.
David Bush 19:43
...the failure was too great. And so for me, what happened was is that when I got healthier, and I started to lose this weight, I shifted and started to think about myself as being a flip guy. And I went out there and started to try this new way of failing my way forward. And rather than looking Yet it as you know, a one and done I looked at as No, I'm going to become a flip guy, I'm going to become a healthier person, it became my belief system. And that's when the day changed where I became the flip guy, not just on the low dive, but on the high dive. And in all other areas of my life, that's when we're talking about when people don't take advantage of, you know, a healthier lifestyle, they are going to put limits on their success. It's going to be in their financial life, their physical life, their mental life, their relationships, and every area will be impacted if they if they don't keep breaking through limits physically and mentally.
Umar Hameed 20:37
So I like that concept of the flip guy, because oftentimes, life's too complicated to do the whole shebang. But if you can focus on one thing, it gives you the permission to go on that journey. Like sometimes it's, it's a father who wants to make sure the father daughter dance at her wedding. They do a phenomenal job, and that gives them that one thing to do but many things are changing on journey. So I love that that you could give yourself, I want to be the flip guy, just that one thing simple to focus on. And if you can do that, all your weight and health stuff comes along for the ride.
David Bush 21:12
Focus on six specific habits is the first one, nutrition and hydration is second. So we introduce one healthy habit at a time we don't tell everybody to change everything in their physical health journey. We get them to start thinking different habits of a healthy mind. So whatever we...
Umar Hameed 21:26
Healthy mind?
David Bush 21:26
...think about, dictates, our appetite. And so if you're thinking about in the food industry is really good. It's a multi billion dollar industry. They're constantly marketing to you. So you're by just reacting to the world you're going to see more messages about fast food, you know, tasty comfort foods and things of that nature. So it's beginning to change the way that you think and you're changing is basically renewing your reasons of why you want to get healthier and what it is that you want to accomplish in the future, making that to be a steady diet of the mind. And then moving to habits of health and nutrition. And hydration, you know, having that extra water most of the time 30% of our hunger pains or hydration pains, not just hunger pains. So getting people to drink more water, non caloric beverages, teaching them to eat healthier meal plans that are lower glycemic meal plans that have lower calories, they get that weight loss, and then teaching them how to do it in a very simple way with more frequent fueling, so they don't feel hungry in the middle of the day, and then moving to healthy motion. So Umar you might not want to go out there and run you know, a marathon or maybe you might be an avid runner. Everybody has a little different comfort level with what they're willing to do for movement. I'm standing up right now, not everybody's willing to stand up for interviews, but I chose to do that because it burns an extra 30 to 60 calories an hour. So finding little things that people can do to move more, be more active, have more...
Umar Hameed 22:47
Right.
David Bush 22:47
...hobbies have more an active life. And then we move to healthy sleep, healthy support and healthy stress management. Once we put those macro habits installing them as almost like a software system, upgrading them, then basically they have new health 2.0 in a matter of, you know, 90 days or less.
Umar Hameed 23:05
Brilliant. There's a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, one of my heroes, you know, your body is a sacred garment. You gotta look after it. And if you do that, it gives you the energy you need to connect with your family, your business, your life, and most importantly, connect with yourself. Dave, we're going to put all your contact information in the show notes. Any last words before we part company?
David Bush 23:29
Yeah, why this is a life changing year for many of us. And I would just ask you right now on a scale of one to 1010 being extraordinarily healthy one being unhealthy. Where are you today? And then just to find out what is the 10 look like? If you're not attend today, what would attend look like? And then who are you surrounding yourself with to help you to get to attend because we become like the five people we spend the most time with and if you don't have [garbled].
Umar Hameed 23:55
We gonna change friends.
David Bush 23:58
Well, you might just need a health coach tomorrow. That might be the first time. But we can't just get rid of great friends and family members just because they're unhealthy. But we can understand who our accomplices are, who contribute to an unhealthy life and who our companions or partners are, that are going to help us to create the life you desire.
Umar Hameed 24:15
And you get to be that lighthouse when you start getting healthier, you inspire other people that go, you know, hey, if we can do it, and it gives them permission to go on that journey.
David Bush 24:24
People do what people do since I got healthier back in 2008. That was the year of health for me. I've had a chance to coach 1000 other people including my brother and my dad, friends, family members, and it wasn't because I had a desire to coach people on health from when I got out of college. Once you have light in your life and you have hope and you have health and you have help available, you get happiness, and that's something that I like to give to other people. So if people use the show notes to contact me, I'd love them. I love to just reward them for being a great follower of yours, Umar and give him all kinds of free recipes, free resources and healthy coach consulting. Just to help them do start living their best life as best as we can help them.
Umar Hameed 25:04
Thanks for spending time with me.
David Bush 25:06
Do better tomorrow. Thanks so much for having me.
Umar Hameed 25:08
Cheers.
Umar Hameed 25:14
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to iTunes and leave a five-star rating. And if you're looking for more tools, go to my website at nolimitsselling.com. I've got a free mind training course there, that's going to teach you some insights from the world of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and that is the fastest way to get better results.