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.
[Podcast Transcript Using Artificial Intelligence]
Umar Hameed 0:01
Are you ready to become awesomer? Hello everyone! My name is Umar Hameed, I'm your host on the No Limits Selling Podcast, where industry leaders share their tips, strategies and advice on how you can become better, stronger, faster. Just before we get started, I've got a question for you, do you have a negative voice inside your head? We all do, right? I'm gonna help you remove that voice and under 30 days guaranteed, not only remove it, but transform it. So instead of the voice that sabotages you, there's one that propels you to much higher levels of performance and success. There's a link in the show notes, click on it to find out more. All right! Let's get started.
Umar Hameed 0:41
Hello, everyone, welcome to another episode of the No Limits Selling Podcast. And today, we have David Bush, he's a friend, he's an extraordinary coach and he's got a new book coming out is called Live An Extraordinary Life. And it almost sounds like a cliche, but most cliches is something that you know, happen all the time. But living an extraordinary life is extraordinary, and we have the capacity for it but so few just put their finger on the ledge and pull themselves up. David, welcome to the program.
David Bush 1:11
Umar thanks for having me, it's a privilege and an honor. You have an amazing show and have some amazing guests. So I really feel honored to be here with you today.
Umar Hameed 1:20
So when women give childbirth is awful and horrible. And then very shortly they forget about what happened and then they kind of move on. And then when they're pregnant again, it's like, "Dammit, I'm not sure how I got here." And the reason I mentioned that is we're in January, and people have forgotten all the failures from all the years in the past. And this year is like, "As God is my witness, this is the year I'm gonna live an extraordinary life," and they truly believe it, and desperately want it for about 14 days. And then they stopped going to the gym and they go back to their old lives. So A, why does that happen? And B, what can we do? And what does your book teach us to keep going and actually build an extraordinary life, it's not that difficult, but it seems insurmountable?
David Bush 2:01
Yeah, it's a great question. And I think that it's different for each each individual person that I've spoken to, you know, for some, it's fear. For some, it's a lack of belief. For some, it's a lack of support. But you know, for each and every one of us, it comes down to a decision. And you know, one of the things that I have found just from my own personal experience, and from the testimonials of others is that there were these six commitments that were common in all of the stories that I spoke to. So I interviewed a tremendous number of speakers, authors, leaders, and just everyday ordinary people who have lived extraordinary lives. And what I found is there's some common clues, you know, I love the quote that Tony Robbins says, you know, success leaves clues. And I do believe that we're all just one clue away from that breakthrough. It's just a matter of staying consistent and believing that that clue is out there. And that we can find it in a short period of time. That's what keeps people hopeful. That's what keeps people interested. And that's why people should be listening to podcasts like yours and reading books and going to seminars and attending events. Because that clue Omar is just right around the corner, we're just one clue away from unlocking the the treasure chest of opportunities and living an extraordinary life.
Umar Hameed 3:19
So two things there. Number one, you said, you know, you need to decide what you're going to do. And so take people that smoke, this smokers and most smokers have given up smoking several times. But it's that last time they quit. There's something about making that decision that has divided life into smoker from nonsmoker. So the illusion they had was when they decided previous times that that was the decision, but it wasn't. So what do you think is the difference between the decision and ones that we think we're making it but we're not fully committing, like, how can you tell the difference?
David Bush 3:55
Well, as I've learned, just there's really three different choices that we make, right? There's the goal setting choice that we make, which is oftentimes something that happens at the beginning of the month, beginning of the year where we feel compelled to accomplish something. And then there's the action, action step choice that we make where we know that there are certain habits that we can do or not do that can create the life that we desire. And many people play in that area of goal setting action steps or habits or just choosing not to do something. But many people don't leverage the third area, which is the deeper area and that's the fundamental choice.
Umar Hameed 4:35
Right.
David Bush 4:35
So in smoking, I think that many people that struggle with quitting smoking is because they've never made the fundamental choice to become a nonsmoker. You know, they say, "Well, I'm I'm trying to stop smoking." But they've never really made the decision to say, "I'm a nonsmoker. I'm choosing to not smoke. That's just who I am. That's what I'm doing." So the idea of conflict, manipulation or conflict motivation is where you're taking this pain or this, challenge this problem that's in your life and you're trying to remove it from your life. Rather than creating an outcome in your mind of I want to be a nonsmoker. I want to be a healthy person, I want to be able to have the vibrancy of living a healthy life so I'm choosing to become that person today. And every day thereafter, that's who I am.
Umar Hameed 5:22
So what's kind of interesting is what you're describing is one way is pushing away. And the other one is a break, embracing a new way of being. And being doesn't require effort pushing away requires effort to do haven't got it, right?
David Bush 5:38
Yeah, I kind of look at it is that you know, we have this mountain, we're climbing whatever is extraordinary is uphill, right? Whatever, whatever is extraordinary is at the summit of the mountain that we're climbing. And most people have never made a fundamental choice to decide to become a mountain climber. They are choosing to not be in the valley of complacency, or they don't want to be in the river of an ordinary life, or they don't want to be in the river and ordinary healthy choices, that are making them kind of go over the waterfall of an unhealthy life. That's kind of the analogy that I...
Umar Hameed 6:10
Right.
David Bush 6:10
...use in the book, I really try to help them to focus on, what is your summit? and if that summit is something that's so motivational, it's something that you have decided to ascend to, you will have a great chance of accomplishing it. But if you never make the fundamental choice to become a mountain climber, you may climb for a season, six months, three months, two days, but you won't necessarily have those breakthroughs and live the extraordinary life that many people have accomplished because they decided to do something and many people beside decided to do it because the pain of what they were doing was so great that they had to they just had to make a shift. And that's a big motivational factor for people.
Umar Hameed 6:52
One of the things you mentioned was a Tony Robbins quote about, you know, success leaves clues, but failure does as well. And here's my hypothesis, which could be full of three is that for us as mere mortals, the failure clues are so easy to see when somebody else fails and they're more real than the clues for success. Because what's the difference there, A, do you think that's a good theory? And B, why do you think that is?
David Bush 7:19
Yeah, I think that there's a big part. And I mentioned this in one in my book. And one of the commitments in the chapters, I talked about the idea of deciding to fail forward, because many people think that failure is the opposite of success. They never look at it as the Bridge to Success. And I think that because in society, we treat people that fail as failures. We don't treat them as people that are learning from their failures. So when a student gets an F on a test, they feel like a failure. Rather than taking that F on a test or F in a class and saying what did you learn from your experiences? What were the clues that you learned in your failure to accomplish what it is that you wanted to accomplish? Pass the class or whatever it is that you did? If you fail to quit smoking? What were the clues that you learn? What did you learn from that experience? Failure can be one of our greatest coaches, it can be one of our greatest teachers, if you will embrace the concept that failure is the bridge to success. And then if you keep failing your way forward, and you keep learning from it. And I love the four questions that say, what happened? What did I want to have happen? What's missing? And what's next. And you may not know what's missing, or what's next. But if you ask those four questions, and you talk to people who've done what it is that you want to do, most of those people whom are you could probably say, there's many things that you and I have failed at. And we could tell people how we overcame that failure by just being committed and being consistent and making the fundamental choice that we were going to learn from our mistakes.
Umar Hameed 8:50
So I was looking to kind of enter into the auto industry. And it's kind of challenging. And so I called up general, Sales Manager for auto dealership in Florida, totally outside of my market, is like on LinkedIn, "Hey, dude, you know, I'm trying to do this here in Maryland, could I chat with you for a few minutes to figure out the best way to do it?" And he got, "Sure," you know, this is what they're really concerned about, this is how you need to push it this how you get in there. And so once you do fail, and you ask that question, like you said, you know, what did I learn? What do I need to do differently? Sometimes if you don't know what it is, you certainly know who's got the answer. And with LinkedIn, you can find that person just one click away.
David Bush 9:32
Right? Yeah, no, I I love the story. John Maxwell tells about, you know how he became the success leader, or the leader of success principles in regards to leadership and management. And what he did was is he went out there and made a list of all of the people that were doing what it is that he wanted to do, and he offered to buy their time. And because they were so impressed by him approaching them to buy their time rather than asking for them to Give, he asked them if he could buy their time. And many of them donated their time to him because he came to them with value. He didn't come...
Umar Hameed 10:08
Right.
David Bush 10:08
...to them with need. And so he basically interviewed all of these massive leaders, and they gave him his time. And he just learned from their success, and they gave him the stepping stones to do exactly what he wants to do, or what he wanted to do. And I love this quote, where he says, you know, people oftentimes asked me, you know, are they tell me, I'd love to do what you do. And he goes, you can, you just have to did what I did. And...
Umar Hameed 10:08
Yeah.
David Bush 10:09
...so many people don't want to go through that process. Because it is an uphill climb, it's the path of resistance versus the path of least resistance. And if you have a desire to live an extraordinary life, you must accept the fact it's going to be an uphill battle. And you must agree to make hard choices. We all have to do that if we ever want to have anything extraordinary.
Umar Hameed 10:50
So before we reveal commitment, number one, I just want you to know, dear listener, dear viewer, when you go on your path, you will fail miserably horribly. And it's going to get tough, and you want to give up unless, unless you have a purpose in life, then the journey becomes the joy the journey becomes the learning the journey gives you the strength, you need to overcome any obstacle without purpose you are lost. And what's coming with one?
David Bush 11:20
Yeah, where do we start in this whole process? Well, for me personally, I do believe that living extraordinary life, if you look at the definition of the word extraordinary, it's going above and beyond which usual regular and customer. And for many people, they don't understand the simplicity of that. They think of extraordinary as the second definition, which is exceptional to a very marked extent. They think of it as opulent wealth, power, privilege, you know, living your dreams, and all that stuff. But they never realized that it's just simply going above and beyond which usual, regular and customary. And the first commitment that I share with people that I truly believe leads people to a more extraordinary life is living their calling.
Umar Hameed 11:59
Yup.
David Bush 12:00
And I don't know what your calling was when you decided to go pursue your passions. But I think each and everyone...
Umar Hameed 12:06
Joyful educator.
David Bush 12:08
Joyful educator.
Umar Hameed 12:09
My purpose in life is to be a joyful educator. And when I was working in sales and a programmer I, there was a element of teaching, but now I do it full time. That's my being and it just gives me power, passion, happiness. So yeah, that's my mission is his being a joyful educator.
David Bush 12:27
So didn't let me ask you the question, because this is something I like to get feedback on. When you discover that was it a moment in time or was it a process that you had to kind of search and discover? Was it just like a moment in time where you're like, joyful educator, it just came to you? Or was it something that you had been searching for and then the words came out, joyful educator.
Umar Hameed 12:49
So I'm actually here in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, and I'm a Canadian, and I met my wife, she was a Baltimore gal. And after a year of marriage, she said, I'm homesick. And I said, Sure, let's move to the states. But there's no freaking way we're going to Baltimore, we're going to go to Silicon Valley. And so we didn't have much money, didn't have any commitments, didn't have any jobs. So we took a trip around the world, and came back and then we drove from Baltimore, all the way to Berkeley, California. And on that trip, you know, in your five, six days in the car, it was like, What should I do? What, what am I meant to do, and something about that journey, uncovered the words and it was partially the journey. And partially it was like, We have no jobs, we have nowhere to live, we don't have a lot of money. And it was that pressure, and the patience of the journey. And the discovery, it came to me and it was like, "Oh, my God," that was like a life before and then a life after knowing what that is. Because even if you have like, I was still in sales and marketing, I just treasured when I could teach more than I did in the past, because I knew that was the juice that kept me going. And then over time, I just changed my career. So more and more of what I did was educating and less and less was the other stuff.
David Bush 14:01
Yeah. That's, that's a common theme. And all the people that I talked to, it was a process. It wasn't an event, you were in search of your calling, but it wasn't something that just one moment in time. So that's the encouragement I give to people is begin searching for your calling. And I give them a list of about 10 different questions that can help them to start narrowing it down. Because again, that process is a little bit arduous to take on on your own. So giving yourself some questions to start, you know, funneling and filtering and saying you know what this isn't.
Umar Hameed 14:33
So give us one of those questions, and we'll leave the rest and get, go buy the book, get the rest of questions. What's one of those questions?
David Bush 14:40
Well, the best question I love to ask is for which group of people do you feel the most called to serve support, encourage, you know, some people are single moms, some people are dealing with aging parents and dealing with a real challenge that relates to you know, loss of memory or other types of things. So they have a real passion to encourage those people or to serve those people. But it's oftentimes a group of people that you feel it's people generated. It's not in a position of, you know, wealth, privilege power. It's that's not typically what people are called to. They're typically called to serve a group of people or to support a mission or to help people that are underserved or help people that are overweight, or people that are smokers, because that was a big struggle of theirs. So those are the that's a that's a real good question. A next best question would be is that Umar, if you could do anything, if you had control of time and money, and you did not have to go to work someplace to earn a living, but you could do something vocationally that you were absolutely passionate about? What would it be? Those two questions can start to narrow down and...
Umar Hameed 15:57
Oh, yeah. Definitely.
David Bush 15:58
...to give questions.
Umar Hameed 15:59
Out of the trillions of things, it comes down to the 1000s of things and the other questions help hone it down. So that's number one, commitment, what's number two?
David Bush 16:08
Now the second one is to engage in your dream. So, you know, once you're following your calling, you can begin to clarify some dreams that matter to you, you know, whether that's to build a business or whether it's to become the champion to become the best at something. You know, one of the individuals that I interviewed was John DeVore, who is the captain of the Redwing Air Force, who does the flies and so that, yeah, you met him, I believe, as well. And John is, he was a guy that, you know, when he was young, he dreamt of flying. That was one of his things, he actually put on this, you know, thing where he actually flew off his barn and kind of into a hay bale. And that was his first initial start of flying. And then he became somebody that was parachuting out of airplanes. And then it turned into skydiving, aerial skydiving for contest. And then it became this idea that he could put on this wingsuit and truly fly. And he's known as one of the most accomplished wingsuit...
Umar Hameed 17:08
Pilots?
David Bush 17:09
pilots in the country. And he does some amazing stunt work and things. But that was his dream. And not everybody dreams of flying, but everybody has something deep inside of them that they would love to be, they would love to do or they'd love to have. And if they don't have the things they want to be do and have, then the book actually awakens them to things because, Umar, I don't know what your life was like but my family was a great encourager of dreaming,
Umar Hameed 17:35
Nice.
David Bush 17:36
and a sport brought up in families where they were not encouraged to dream. And I think living in America helps. Obviously, you have...
Umar Hameed 17:43
A lot.
David Bush 17:44
...different. But you know, when you bring into the concept of dreaming, some people are like, "What? Engaging in your dreams, that doesn't make sense to me."
Umar Hameed 17:53
I was in Texas bible belt, and one of my reps was struggling so I gave him a session to help them get a breakthrough, and basically said, look really worried afterwards like what's going on says, "My preacher told me that don't use your imagination, it's the devil's playground," and it was like, "Okay, people have different models of the world.
David Bush 18:13
Yeah.
Umar Hameed 18:13
So what's the next commitment?
David Bush 18:16
The next one is to agree to make hard choices. And I just have fully accepted at this point in my life, that the most extraordinary things are going to be hard. Easy, come, easy go. And if it's easy, everybody would be doing it. So the reason why things are extraordinary is oftentimes they come with a level of difficulty, they come with a level of sacrifice, investment, energy, effort, and a whole lot of other things. And when you embrace the concept of agreeing to make hard choices, like a comment that I've made to my kids, whenever anytime somebody says, "Man, that sounds hard," or, "Man, that's hard to do," I go, "Well, that's what I do. I do hard things."
Umar Hameed 18:58
Right.
David Bush 18:58
So I just ran a marathon this year. And I don't like running. It's not my favorite thing to do. But it was something that I dreamt of kind of checking off the list of running a half marathon. And so I signed up to run on, and I just did hard things. And there's something to be said, and you know, this Umar because I know that you're a student of this concept of extraordinary living. When you accomplish something that's hard in your life, you have a sense of victory that is unparalleled with any other thing in life when you feel this sense of accomplishment and you can raise your arms in the air and say, "I finished, I did it I accomplished it." When you summon a mountain whatever that mountain is, it feels good and you begin to dream bigger dreams. And and I'll share this with you quickly is that what I find is that most people, they're walking through life and they're focused on their past, or they're focused on, you know, street level dreams. But...
Umar Hameed 19:53
Right.
David Bush 19:53
...David, through the great philosopher said having your castles in the sky. You know, have you built those dreams up there? In the sky that are unimaginable today, and are you building the foundations underneath them, to create them. And when you accomplish one of those dreams in the sky, you start dreaming about the galaxies beyond. And I love the idea of seeing people agree to make hard choices, because of the breakthroughs that take place when they do.
Umar Hameed 20:20
What's kind of interesting is at the dawn of the automobile, pretty early on, there was actually a race for a short time between gasoline and batteries, electric cars way back when and had somebody had a dream way back then, of electricity and batteries, the battery chemistry would have had 100 years to perfect. And so yeah, if you don't, and it would have been unimaginable doing it, but you need to build that. If you can see it, you can make it happen. People way back when saw the tricorder, do you remember what that is?
David Bush 20:55
[Nod]
Umar Hameed 20:56
Star Trek, it was a little gizmo they had that they used to communicate with the ship.
David Bush 21:00
Oh, okay.
Umar Hameed 21:01
And now we have this, the iPhone that kicks the crap out of the tricorder. So David...
David Bush 21:07
[Garbled] that's taking place with that. And I love the quote from Henry Ford that said, if I would have given people what they wanted, they would have given them a faster horse. You know, the concept of a car just wasn't imaginable by the common human being, but it was by the extraordinary visionaries. And Elon Musk is giving us examples of things that are dreaming at the galactical level. And for some people, that's really hard to do. But if you can start the process, and in the book, I give some examples of some sample dreams, and then some of the choices that common people make, to achieve extraordinary outcomes. And just sample hard choices that, you know, we all have embraced them, we've all experienced them. It's just that we've gotten away from them. And we've kind of camped out in a comfort cave, and we need to break free from that if we ever want to have the chance of living an extraordinary life.
Umar Hameed 21:58
Absolutely. I just watched a documentary about Henry Ford like a couple of days ago. And I was kind of shocked because his first automobile, the one he was the prototype was, you know, pretty rickety, and it would break down a lot but he got investors. But the first car he actually built look like a horse carriage, without the horses. I mean, literally, it looked like a horse carriage. And so even somebody great like that was still one foot in the past, then of course the Model T was you know, breaking away from that kind of stuff all together. So David does another three commitments which dear readers, dear listeners go over get the book, it's really extraordinary, it's not only a book, but more comes with it. So what else comes with the book, David?
David Bush 22:38
Well, I give people an extraordinary life planner, that's a virtual document that they can use to enter in their material or enter in their answers to the questions that I put at the end of the six chapters, which really helped him to kind of solidify becomes kind of like a virtual virtual life coach, if you will,
Umar Hameed 22:56
Right.
David Bush 22:56
And going through that planning process, I give them access to a Facebook group. And I have some videos and things that guide them through the each individual section. And I'm just really trying to build a community of people that want to live more extraordinary lives, who are willing to encourage one another, lift each other up, share victories, share challenges. And so if people want to learn more, they can check out theextraordinarylife.com for lots of free resources and more information on the book, as well as the planner, and there's a hard copy of the planner as well if people want to have more of a handheld planner to take with them. And there's a 90 day challenge that goes with it.
Umar Hameed 23:33
Ah, brilliant. So before we part company, David, what is one mind hack you could share with people that would help them be happier, healthier, more successful? What's one thing you could share with the listeners and viewers?
David Bush 23:46
I think there would be it really come back to the idea of writing down what it is that you would like to create in your life. Not to think about your current circumstances. I know a lot of people are going through some really challenging times physically, mentally, financially, vocationally, but to have the hope to know that there's more extraordinary dreams to come true in your life. You just have to be willing to embrace the challenges and circumstances and to clarify what it would what would really do it for you. What do you really want to be doing have? I know Jim Rohn, once was asked the question, he said, you know, what do you predict for the next 10 years? And he said, you know, based on my research, I could tell you that it's been the last about the same as the last couple 1000 years. It's opportunity mixed with difficulty. And right now you may be focused on all the difficulty. But opportunity is out there, and you can choose to go create it, if you'll clarify, if you'll spend some time with yourself. It's all within here, it's all out there. Umar, you've got hundreds of podcast of stories of people that are sharing amazing things that they're doing in their life, because they took the time to clarify it and then they went out there and use these commitments to fulfill it. And that's what my biggest mind hack would be is clarify, a confused mind does nothing. If you clarify and get focused, you know, extraordinary living is not a magic act of hocus pocus, focus, focus, get focused on what it is that you want to create.
Umar Hameed 25:15
Absolutely. And once you do that, you know, just asking that question, what's the smallest thing I could do to achieve this vision that I've got? And soon as you take that first step, you're one step closer to it and that creates momentum. And that's where you go, David, thank you so much for doing great work. The book is extraordinary, and it's a must read. And more importantly, a must do do that planner, how can people find you we're going to put all the links in the show notes. But for people on a treadmill right now, they just want to know what it is, how can people get a hold of you?
David Bush 25:44
You know, the best way to get a hold of me is just to go to theextraordinarylife.com and all of my social connections are on there, as well as all of the different resources on the book and the planner and different groups that we have. And Umar, just want to say thanks for the work that you're doing. Because I truly believe that you're living that extraordinary life and you're helping people to breakthrough any of the things that are limiting them, and therefore I appreciate you and the work...
Umar Hameed 26:13
Just for a moment to share something with folks so I decided to give up all my possessions and my house in May so I've been traveling. So this Sunday, I'm going from Toronto, Canada to Costa Rica for a month. Not sure what I'm going to find there, but it's going to be freaking glorious. Find your dream go live it. See on the next episode.
Umar Hameed 26:36
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.