124. Using Your Talents to Positively Impact Others with Bob DePasquale

I would say to someone who's, like, I'm looking for like, a tragedy so I can turn my life around. I wouldn't say it's important. It's more important the reflection that you do of yourself and in your situation in life. And those are the things that are going to help you identify really what you need to change because change is really hard. So you have to identify those. It does not have to be drastically devastating event to help you identify what needs to be different.

Welcome, everybody. Today, I'm excited to have Bob de Pasqual on to talk to us about how to use your talent for others. Just speaking with Bob, I really got a sense of his infectious enthusiasm for making a difference in other people's lives and how that can translate into results in your business. Bob is a purpose driven impact maker. He believes that everyone has the ability to make a positive impact in the world. When he was 18, he moved to New York for College. And while in football training camp just five days before September 11, 2001, he is diagnosed with cancer.

In a very short period of time, his young, healthy life was turned upside down. He was forced to shift his focus to treating an extremely aggressive form of a terrible disease and coping with the effects of the recent terrorist attacks. Miraculously, he was physically healed in just four months. But mentally, it took years. It wasn't until Bob identified his purpose that he realized the value of his battle with cancer and his family's losses on 911. Bob's mission is to make the world a better place by encouraging people to find the blessings and tragedy and use their gifts to help others.

Thanks so much for joining me today.

Bob Wade, I am excited to have you. That was quite an intro. I appreciate it.

My pleasure, man. So one of the things that I really just enjoyed and speaking with you is the level of enthusiasm you have for what you're doing and that it's still there. I know a lot of people. When I talk to them, they they'll kind of sell something. They say they have omething. You talk to them like, okay, wait, hold on. I got to get my game face on it. I'm going to get ready when the camera rolling, as opposed to just talking with you. And this is legit.

So first thing, when you and I talked in the pre interview, there's a lot of things that came up, and I want to get to a lot. But the first thing that really stuck out for me was something that you mentioned. I mean, I thought was just such an important thing because I think it's the core of what so many entrepreneurs and impact makers deal with the struggle of how can I change the world if I'm not famous, how would you respond to somebody who asks you that question?

I usually respond by telling them a little bit about my story because I felt that way. I definitely felt that way at certain points in my life, and I still have that thought occasionally about how big I need to be in order to make a difference. But the difference you make isn't about you or how big you are or how famous you are. It's about how much you care and the little things that you do. And I heard someone tell me once, you may not be able to change the whole world, but you can change the world for one person.

And that was super powerful to me. And it might be something as simple as opening a door for someone someday who's having a bad day. Or it could be something like helping a friend out in need when they're sick. I know there's been a lot of people sick during the pandemic here. It's been really tough. We offered to take food over to a friend's house once because they just couldn't go out, and they think that, like, like, it was a life changing event. And so those little reminders are good for the people that you do them for, but also for you.

They really make you feel fulfilled for just helping people out in just simple situations. So if you think you need to be famous, it's not actually the case.

Yeah, I've heard a couple of takes on this. Number one. Is that who you are before Fame or wealth or marriage or kids or any event usually is going to be pretty similar to who you are after. I mean, obviously it'll be changes. And maybe kids do a little more change in other things. But for the most part, if you were generous before, you're going to be generous after. And also this idea of little things making a difference. I remember when I was in my twenties and I had that sort of romantic, dramatic vision.

I'm going to go to another country to help people because I've got to go across the I was going to go to India and help people because I've seen the videos of the poverty there and whatnot and of course, there's poverty, emotionally and financially and spiritually in all parts of the world. It was his idea of, okay, I have to go somewhere. No, but it was something that helped me avoid taking action. And it was almost a bit of an excuse sometimes, too. Like, okay, I'll get to that later.

I'll make a difference tomorrow when I'm a millionaire, then I'll give a bunch of money when I'm this as opposed to. Well, today I've got $100. I can get a dollar or $10 or whatever it is today. I can make somebody's world different. And that's the part I think that people miss out on you. I talked about this how serving others, specifically, your customers can help you get a greater control of your business in your life. Have you found that plays out for you.

I think what it does is, well, first of all, it provides a good service and value for your customers as a business person. I mean, that's number one in business, if you're in business, you have to make sure that what you're doing has an intentionality around the customer because they're coming to you for a service or a product, whatever it might be. But in addition to that, looking beyond that a little bit. I think most business owners understand that their customers are important, but looking beyond that a little bit, it's also the process that you have in your life, because if you are doing things to help other people and that's a primary importance for me, it helps you understand that there's human interaction.

There more if you're more transactional than the human mind is habitual. Those synapses fire the same way. It's much easier. There are studies on this. It's much easier for the brain to do what it knows than it is to chart new waters. And so if you do things that are consistently supporting other people, it helps you understand how important that is. And it's easier to do that. And it also makes you more efficient at what you do. If you're a business person and you feel overworked you're spending too much time at the office.

If you take a step back and you concentrate a little bit more on the small things that are help people be happier and more fulfilled and enjoy your product or your service more. I find that those people who do that they take specific time during the day or during the week to identify those things and concentrate on them. They actually work more efficiently or somebody even say they work less because they don't have to spend as much time on the grind type of things that all business people have.

Not every minute of the day in business is going to be a dream and exciting. There's paperwork, there's complaints. There's digital marketing things that get messed up these days, right. I've learned that a lot in the past twelve months, but that's an interesting question, because the best business people of entrepreneurial type of people, they have a passionate passionate about something. So can you connect that passionate about whatever product or service it is to the relationship that you have with your customers?

Awesome. So one of the things that happens I know I've fallen into this category at times, is whenever I would think about before I started writing books, I would think about. But wait, I don't have a dramatic story, and a lot of people have not had cancer and we're not looking to all get cancer so we can have some moments of enlightenment. We want to say, okay, how can we have that without that? So for the person who says, yeah, but, Bob, I haven't had something dramatic happen to me.

I'm going to wait for that to happen. And when that happens, then I'm gonna make this shift. And as if the tragedy itself or the challenge itself is what makes things happen. As somebody who has experienced a significant challenge, how would you respond to that person in a sense of two questions? Number one, do they really want the challenge, or do they want to just shift their mindset? And if they do want to just shift their mindset, perhaps without the challenge, how do you do that in a way?

Or how do you find when you talk with other people that haven't had something? How can people sort of Wade themselves up without waiting for something dramatic to happen to them?

I wouldn't wish cancer or struggle or death or any type of illness on anyone. And that's important to understand. And so someone like myself, you mentioned in the introduction that I did. I did go through cancer and experience 911 in person, and it was quite an ordeal. But honestly, it was not specifically that event. It's not like that happened to me. And Bam, all of a sudden I had all this clarity and experience and wisdom. It doesn't work like that. And so to someone who thinks, Well, I'm just going to wait for that really, really tough time.

You don't want to do that, because once again, going back to the mind and how habitual it is, you definitely don't want to get into a habit looking and seeking out bad time. So that's number one. And then Secondly, the things in your life that happen are lessons, and they can be lessons in different ways. And so, for example, if you have an excellent time at an event or concert or a party or not an in person party these days, but a social distancing web conference, you had an excellent time.

You probably come out of that event feeling excitement and enjoyment because it was fun, and you probably would want to do it again at some point to some degree. And so those things are pretty easy to say. Okay, I really like that. But you might skip over any lessons that could have potentially been learning that situation because it's just exciting. And it's easy to think about the happy and the good things. And so what I try to do is I haven't. I mean, that was I went through that or deal in my life that was 1819 years ago.

It was a long time ago now and praise God, I'm healthy and good now. And so I'm not looking for another serious situation like that. So what I try to do instead is identify the things that have either been done well or could potentially be done better. And then in some cases, I've also identified things that other people have gone through that either are related to what I went through specifically or in theory, the lessons about consistency and persistence and hard work and taking good care of oneself so those are all reminders of things for me.

So I would say to someone who's, like, I'm looking for a tragedy so I can turn my life around. I wouldn't say it's important. It's more important, the reflection that you do of yourself and in your situation in life. And those are the things that are going to help you identify really what you need to change, because change is really hard. So you have to identify those. It does not have to be drastically devastating event to help you identify what needs to be different.

Awesome. Thank you. That's something. You know, as a parent, I'm watching our children grow up and son is 14 daughters, twelve. And I very much do believe in hoping that my children have challenges and struggle in a day to day sense of how do I grow? How do I learn? How do I achieve something? How do I go after something big? And one of the things that I've sometimes found challenging, and this is going to very much sound that it is it's a first world problem is somebody who's had a family that's provided, well, there can be that almost sense of boredom or not needing to take on a challenge.

So there's that sense of okay waiting for something to happen. And yet what I find you can approach it from a couple of different angles. One is, well for those who have a lot much as expected, which can turn on a lot of shots and different things. So it might not always be the best way to approach and the others to say, Look, I just have an opportunity. And if you're going to make the game of life of business, of everything engaging will go for something big or try to make a big impact.

And it can look different. It doesn't have to be large numbers of people. It could be, like you said, a significant impact in a small group of people. I certainly find when I coach my kids sports teams, eight to ten kids on the team, and that repetitive six, eight week season or whatever it is and getting to work with these kids that isn't of itself as big if you're a teacher. So there's so many different ways to do this. And I would say, like, any kid that plays a video game, you know, if you win or any game, if you win the game too easily, it's boring.

And if you always lose the game, it's not fun, because then you just get your butt kicked. And as humans, we all seem to be looking for that in between. Like, if you're a kid, you imagine the basketball game words a type game and you hit the last minute shot as the buzzer goes off. And that's I think, the kind of experience we want without having to hope for or wish work, because again, the mind does interesting stuff. Careful what you wish were something that you don't want instead saying, okay, what can that next challenge be and throwing in one other piece here.

But I love your perspective on this because you and I talk a little bit of traveling the world and changing your view of the world as somebody whose parents are from the Islands. And to beg my wife is from Peru. I've had the blessing to travel different places. I've been to India. I've seen different forms of abundance in poverty, physically, spiritually, emotionally, all these different ways. And one of the things that it's done for me is to realize, okay, if I know that six out of seven people on the planet are living on less than $32 a day, and if I believe me, making a thousand more dollars a month is going to make me happy, that might not be the case.

I might still want to make $1,000. Let's be clear for other reasons, and I want to buy stuff, but to think that that's going to be the variable. That's the part to me that says, okay, what are you looking to get out of it? So when it comes out of it, you're not a surprise. Maybe share it if you would, on that concept. And again, what travel is done for you as far as broadening your perspective?

Absolutely. I want to take one quick step back to highlight, though, what you said about challenging, and that's really important for people that are looking for growth and not in a tragic experiential type of way. Challenge yourself. Look at those things that maybe are going well. But how could they go a little bit better, especially in business, challenge your business as well. And that's how business grows. And so from the perspective of travel and understanding the world and how it works. I grew up in South Florida.

I was actually born in New York. I grew up in South Florida, lived down here most of my life except for College in that first three years. And it's a very, very diverse community down here. And I knew that or at least I was told that or understood that. And I thought that was pretty normal. And so my travel experiences have actually been unique from a perspective of being in the middle kind of. So what I mean by that is some of my travels have actually taken me to places, other places in the US, or even in the world that aren't diverse at all.

And so everyone does the same thing in the same culture in the same way. And that's kind of unique in one fashion, because I'm used to it kind of being very open. When I was being raised. It was kind of like, all right, let's just do what we want to do. We don't really have traditions in my family. And then on the flip side, we've gone to places that are even more diverse or totally put us out of our comfort zone in a good way, and that kind of ties in with the whole challenging thing, too.

It's really unique to travel other places in the world and understand how people live and then to connect the dots with your comment about helping people and people in need and poverty in the world. For me, what it does, it used to make me feel really sad. It used to make me feel man. These people have such a tough life. How can they survive to be honest with you? So cases they don't, which is terrible. And my thought was, I'm really sad because I don't know how to help these people.

I'm not a billionaire, not a millionaire. I don't have enough money to just be thrown around and fix the whole problem. I can support. I could sponsor a child or two and do some part there. But what else can I do? And so for me, I used to be sad, but then I realized that the joy that people get from other people understanding the situation, regardless of what exactly you do, whether you give money, I've been overseas and build homes in other countries. I've traveled to other places just on strict vacation and experience things that I would never expect to see, and even more than just giving money or specific things or even doing service work for people.

The relationship aspect of just sitting and talking, whether you need a translator or not. In some cases, you do just sitting and understanding people where they come from and what means the most of them is one of the most powerful things in the world. And traveling. My wife and I and some of our extended family, but mostly my wife and I travel together. We've experienced that in spades, and we've applied that to the other places that we go. I've noticed that when I go to another country, they don't necessarily mean they think it's funny, and they think it's cute.

Like if I try to dress like they do or try to speak words in their language, which is good. And I'm sure they appreciate that trying to be in part of their culture, but actually just asking about what's really important to them. My wife and I were in a country in Mexico, and the Spanish is the native tongue there. And I speak a little bit of Spanish, having grown up down here, but where we were, they speak a dialect of Indigenous people called SaaS, and they don't even know Spanish.

So we barely know Spanish. They don't know Spanish. So we we're translating from English to social, and they do not have the word love in that language. It literally does not exist. So you can't say I love you and you can't say I really love this. You can't say there's no way to say the word love at all. Like completely opposite of Greek, which there's like, there's multiple words for love in different forms. So the way that those Indigenous people there in Mexico, the way they express love is through action.

And when we understood that, I didn't understand that right away. And someone had to explain to me, well, they don't have the word love. So in my mind, it was, well, that's sad. No one can ever love each other if you can't tell them you love them. But when I actually talked to them, the young lady sat me down. She was like, 1617, right. So I'm almost twice her age at the point. And she sits me down and we needed a translator. But she ultimately said, Bob, love is not a word.

It's an action. And I was like, my head exploded. And so you learn stuff like that from experiencing other cultures.

That's awesome. I think one of the things we forget is how important our time investments are with people. And if I phrase it in a specific context, people will get it. So if I say, Wade, you're a father. If you don't invest time with your kids, they'll miss out their fault on their father. Most people get that concept. Or, Bob, if you're in a relationship with your wife and you don't spend time with her, it's not going to help relationship. Most people get that. And it almost feels like, okay, yeah.

Well, those people because they're so close to us and because kind of like a TV show, we're a main character on the show that that matters. And that in some way diminishes. If it's a person we don't know, when very often, sometimes the people will take the most. Well, most listen to the words that come out of the mouth or people we don't know because we know that they have no agenda. They're just telling us, hey, this is what's going on, or you look sad, or they're just talking to us.

And to your point, as having been and travel to and lived in different countries and sometimes understanding, sometimes not just connecting with people, being with people hearing them. In fact, there's an entire part of psychology. There's a psychologist in the See name Carl Rogers, and he had a theory that was called client centered counseling, and because he liked the word client instead of patients because his understanding was that for other than four extreme psychological illnesses that most people were lacking somebody to listen to them. They were lacking empathy, and they were lacking what he called unconditional positive regard, which was kind of like unconditional love.

But you're not supposed to Ove all your clients again, kind of like back the whole Greek thing of different versions of love. But long story short was his premise was most people can figure out their stuff, but they need to be heard, and they need somebody that sometimes will feed back to them and not just the people make joke of it. Oh, so I hear you're saying this, blah, blah, blah. That will be $10,000 but the person that actually really listens to them and processes. And that process is something that any human being can do.

It's not about your education level. It's not about how much money you have. And I think your that's so critical. What you said there of just the gift we give of our time and our attention, our present moment attention with somebody that gosh, you see it with little kids, if you ask, they want to tell you about their little widget or their thing that they just built, that they just drew. And they're not going to remember that in ten years. But they'll remember that you listen to them and then you present for them.

Absolutely. I love what you said that my nieces and nephews, they're very, very intelligent young people, and they probably won't remember all the things that they're doing in creations, but just to sit down with them for a couple of minutes, and they actually they happen to live in China. So that's a whole other travel story there. But we got on a Zoom meeting like this with them and just listen to them talk about what they did with their friends that day or how they play with their dolls or something is so important to their growth and nurturing.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Awesome. And you and I talked about something and maybe just expand on this, and it relates to this about impact being exponentially contagious.

I love that that's like my saying, impact can be exponentially contagious because once again, because of the brain and the motivation. And if we talk about psychology here and unconditional positive self regard and synapses firing and dopamine all of those things in the brain, I'm certainly not a psychologist, but I have learned and understood in my life that the things that I do that bring joy are easier to do again and repeat and repeat. And the more people that jump on the bus, if you will, and that's really my goal.

It's all about positive impacts. Right. So it's exponential because when you do something nice for someone else, they're likely to do something nice for the next person. And it's not necessarily meant to be reciprocal. They might do something nice back for me. Absolutely. But it's more about the other people that they're going to bless as well. And so speaking of building houses in other places, an organization called Habitat for Humanity. If you're familiar, that's what they do. And part of the process of being involved or being a benefactor of one of the homes is that you have to it's not even so much have to it's that you get to participate in building your own home, but then also helping the people after you and any of the small expense that you might have in building your own home because they used to just give away free homes.

And they realize that there's a process of getting people involved in the community sense here. So there is a small expense then depending on which country or which location in the US or it's different. But that expense of yours is part of it is actually going to assist funding the people after you. So from a financial and actionable perspective, you have to support the next person and you get to really, honestly, it feels good because you know that you benefited from it and you move on.

So exponential contagious. Impact is extremely powerful because it makes you feel good. And then it shows the next person how important it is to do the same.

Absolutely. And I think one of the things that people forget or we forget is there are so many different ways to impact people. So you get these little buzz words that have the ten year or 20 year windows and impact as one of those right now. And I think a lot of people think, well, impact means I changed their life. I saved them from cancer. I did some huge dramatic thing. And to me, there's so many different ways you can make a positive impact on somebody's live.

And as somebody who's an author and a coach and a podcaster, sometimes I'll get obsessed with, okay, well, how many people listen, we'll get you these numbers in the header or how much money did I give? And I think the thing to remember is again, there's so many things going on the same way I can't see Wi Fi, Wade or radio waves right now. There's other things going on, other forces at play that we don't fully understand. And money is not the only way to impact it.

It can be a beautiful way to impact and help people giving time. There's so many ways to do that. And I think that makes it easier, perhaps for people to consider how they can make an impact without it feeling like this big deal. How can someone get started with an impact project if they want to in some way, not so much formalize, something it doesn't have to be blessed by a government body or whatever. But how can somebody become more intentional about this and make this happen more in their life?

Love this question because I ask it of myself all the time, and it's a journey, and it's a process. If you want to start, the good news is you want to start. So you got the idea that's actually half the battle is the desire. And no matter what walk of life you're in, the desire is extremely important. You got to know some very, very intelligent people who have put together some tremendous processes, but it's not in their psyche to desire to carry them out. So first, congratulate yourself that you want to make a difference and you're engaged in a conversation like we're having today.

And the second thing is you have to identify what it is that you really, really clear about. And I don't mean what makes you happy. I don't mean that party that we were talking about earlier that you went to or watching TV. There's a difference between joy and being happy or enjoying something or feeling super passionate about it. So identify the things that really, really make you feel more than happy that make you feel joy, whatever it could be and start and don't and don't if you need to pull out a piece of paper or your smartphone and just brain dump if you will, a bunch of things that would make you feel really good.

You know, there's an issue like we were talking about poverty or homes. Or maybe there's people shut in, elderly kids abandon trafficking, anything like that that you feel that really would make you feel good to be involved in some way. And I guarantee you there is someone out there who's doing something related to that project. You're not the only one. Philanthropy and generosity are not lonely. Believe me, they are not solo efforts. So you will be able to find information about what it is those few things.

Then you got to pair them down. I mean, you can't be everything to everyone. So the first thing is have the desire. The second thing is figure out what you really, really care about and then just do your research. Just do you. It's so easy to get information these days. And like you said, Wade, it doesn't have to be. You don't have to start another new 501 C three and file your tax report. It doesn't have to be that it can be. Oh, wow. I check it out online.

And there's already a website that points out places that you can go to provide assistance for people with whatever it is. That problem is that you have. And then what I would do. The third step is take action. Taking action is so important. So just to recap real fast, have the desire to identify what it is that you really, really care about. And then three take some sort of action. And then I guarantee you, if you take even the smallest action, which reading the website or participating in something or whatever it might be, once you take that action, then you're going to know what actually needs to be done to fix that problem.

And that's where people SaaS where your creative brain really starts to take over. And then. And the contagious aspect of making a positive impact, because let me ask you a question, what do you do when you do something fun these days? Or you do something exciting or you do something with your kids. You probably post a picture of it online or call your friend or tell someone. But whatever it might be. So once you do that really cool thing that made you feel joy, I'm pretty sure you're going to share it.

And then that's where the exponential factor comes in, because all of those people are going to see that. And like, Bob's doing this great thing with these people. I want to ask them, and maybe I can help. He's having lots of fun doing that. I want to participate.

Absolutely. And it's funny I mentioned Habitat Humanity. I've done that so many times. Also grown up in the Southeast Florida area and such an awesome organization. And you said something that was bubbling to the top of my brain. And you already said it to be really clear, you don't have to start a nonprofit. In fact, sometimes that's one of the least efficient or least effective things you can do, because it might take you another year or two to get ready to. You actually can help people, people.

And if there's an organization that's already doing that, you jumping right in and helping, whether it's financially or Timewise or whatever it might be. And so to be really clear, when we talk about getting started with an impact project, it doesn't mean you have to be the one that founded it or initiated. And I remember a friend of mine had talked about this. You said so many nonprofits find themselves to end up competing for resources and you say, Wait, hold up. What's the main goal here?

And of course, it's not intentional. But sometimes people get so caught up on their vision of what it needs to look like. Instead of saying, look, we got people in the world, they don't have food, for example, or who don't have water. And it's great that there's so many organizations that do this. And from what I understand these days, most of them collaborate, which is great instead of, well, I'm gonna get mine bigger than yours. I think there's so much we can do. Like you said.

Definitely the researching gosh especially. And so much of this ties in entrepreneurism as well. When you're an entrepreneur, it's great to say it feels great stuff. I just started something. But wait, did you even do any research? You might better serve the marketplace yourself by figuring out how you can make the biggest impact. And again, not that you have to measure yourself off of that. But ultimately, I mean, I'd like to impact. If you told me, wait, would you rather impact less people or more people?

I'd rather impact more people. That's a pretty simple one for me. And so sometimes that takes a little bit of looking into it. And I think this is where sometimes it gets tough for us to look at this conversation of okay, well, how much should I give or shouldn't give? There's all these different things that go on in our head. And am I being selfish? Am I being South West? I being altruistic? Am I just doing for ego reasons? And I think it can. You can just kind of do this whole loop in your head.

How do you just take it back to the simplicity of okay, this is the project I want to do. And perhaps this is why maybe at times it can be easier to be selfless rather than selfish.

I'm all about being organized, whether it's in business or impact projects. And once again, it doesn't have to be a huge project, but just being as organized as possible. And so once you've gained information, once you've gathered what you're doing or what you're really, really interested in. For me, the best thing is just lay steps out. I'm really glad you said you talked about this because entrepreneurialism and impact are directly related. And the word impact, by definition, isn't technically a positive. It's agnostic to its direction, if you will.

Right. So you could have negative impact. Obviously, that's not what I'm about. But ultimately, the impact is something that you're going to make or that you can make in business or in philanthropy, whatever it might be. And so being organized. So to compare them again, whatever it takes to make sure that you execute those things are writing things down, making a schedule. Maybe you work a full time job and you work a 40, 50 hours week and you just don't have time, like you said, create a nonprofit or something, but you can volunteer and help set yourself some goals.

Okay. I'm going to go spend an hour every week researching places that I can help, and then I commit to going once a month or once a week or whenever it is in a specific to dedicate to that cause, whether it's the food bank or to happen to after you. Matt, whatever it might be, I'm going to go to those places and actually do, and then you can check them off, and it feels really good to look back and say, you know what? I set a goal of going doing this once a week for a month, and I did it every week, and you're going to feel tremendously accomplished.

Awesome. So now let's to make sure sometimes we have people that say, Wait, okay. It's a four day work counter podcast. You're going to make sure you give me stuff that helps me work less and make more. And I happen to believe that impact. I mean, that's how you grow a business. And of course, as we, as you said, obviously positive impact. That that's how you grow business. That's how it becomes viral. That's how it becomes something that makes it easier. So first of all, for anybody who's thinking, first of all, when you make positive, amazing impact, that in of itself becomes your marketing.

You get your free marketing, you get your advertise and you get all that stuff because that's what people are ultimately looking for. All the paid advertising is us trying to verbalize to people, hey, we're going to try to do this. But when somebody else says, Bob just impacted my life, that's it. There's your advertising. There's your marketing. Of course, we can get them to share it more than that's. Awesome. When we talk about people and whether it be business, finances or personal finances, how does knowing your purpose, knowing the impact you're looking to make?

How does that start directing, whether it be? Well, two things, how the business that you run or what you're aiming for and then ultimately, just even how you manage your day to day finances?

Sure, it is imperative that you have a baseline plan or system financially, whether it's in business or personal. And I love this collision of impact and entrepreneurialism. The other thing that I talk about a lot or that resonates with me is fitness. And from a physical perspective, there's a certain baseline health that I think people can have or consistently create, if you will, a lifestyle. And liking it to finance is because there's certain basic fitness test in your financial life that you need to jump over. Right.

So a friend of mine was looking to get into the police force, and he had to train himself. He had to do X amount of push ups and pull ups, and he had to run a certain amount of time he had to hit reach this baseline amount. Now he ended up blowing some of them out of the water and then some of them. He was really close just because they were just actually harder for him. And you'll find the same in finances. But there's some baseline things in your business.

And if you actually do start a non profit or in your personal life that you're going to need to have, obviously, you need to spend less than you make. You need to make sure that whatever is coming in, you're not spending over that and that some people jump over. That right. You got to be in the green, and then you need to determine where those dollars that you are spending are going. You need to isolate the things that are absolutely non discretionary expenses. These are the things that I got to pay the rent or I got to pay my bill.

I got to pay my utilities or if you're in business, I got to pay for the cost of service. I got to pay for my building, whatever it might be. Those are things non discretionary. Okay, then once you have the hopefully, once again, you're in the green and you have a balance of space there. Okay, then now all of a sudden you have some discretionary budget. The beauty about the discretionary budget, especially if you're a solopreneur or a small business owner, is that you have control over that.

You can do what you want with it. And I'm really glad you talked about the aspect of philanthropic and generosity type of event actually providing advertising for you. I used to be the type of person I was like, Well, I'm gonna go do this special thing, help someone out. But I don't want to make it seem like I'm trying to make a part of my business. I don't want to be that guy. And I actually learned this is pretty recent in the past couple of months that our society now has actually shifted its view of arrogance, if you will once again, not a psychologist, but my deduction and I've spoken to some other people about this.

You actually talked about it on our podcast. Speaking of impact. And what I've learned is that if you're not sharing what the good things that you're doing, so whether it is philanthropic or even maybe the great services that you provide your business, right. If you're not sharing those, you're actually coming from a position or sitting in a position of arrogance because it's an assumption that, well, I'm so good. Everyone already knows that I'm philanthropic or everyone already knows that I provide great services. The world is so public.

I'm just so good that I don't need to advertise or I don't need to tell anyone about it. And that's not actually the case. And people are getting bombarded with messages all the time, so they're not going to notice you and you're not going to be able to show anyone. And actually, I'm not going to be able to the impact, the exponential impact that you want to make if no one knows what you're doing, that removes the exponential. Is that a word from impact? So when you do these type of things with that extra budget that you have, you need to do them and you need to tell people about it.

You need to do something great with that extra space that you have. So get the baseline of your budget down. There are certain things in there. We don't have time to go into all the other things that you need to think about expenses and insurance and protecting your whole plan as well. Risk management is extremely important, but you get the budget down, you take the surplus and then whatever you do with it, you celebrate it. I mean, you tell people about it. Hey, we had an amazing time going out to the local food bank and serving for a couple hours on Saturday morning with the office, all of my staff members.

That's what we do. That was our team building for the month. We decided not to do our team meeting on Friday afternoon, and we said we're going to go to the food bank and then tell people about it.

Yeah. And you know something. It took me a while to make this shift. And for those people listening, I'll share my perspective. So I've been raised Catholic. There's a lot of great things about it. There's things that not so great about, like, anything. And one of the things that I mentioned, the tradition is because there's different verses and different ideas about what you're not bragging and not trying to show to the world that you're giving. And one of the things that it really kind of became challenging for me was when we first started having a lot of maybe about two months into when COVID hit.

And I saw a lot of my friends who were nurses, doctors working long hours at the Er. And, you know, on Facebook, send one of my friends, who's a nurse. And what can I do to help? He said, Wade, if you all, like, brought in pizza, like, the people would love it. And here I had already thought about, okay, what can be all the things it can't be brought in at this way, I can bring in pizza. So I called the hospital. Yeah, you can bring in pizza, did it.

And when I shared it, I shared it on Facebook. I shared it on LinkedIn, and I think there was a few things. Number one, I was clear of my intention of why I was sharing it. I was not sharing it to say, hey, look at me. I'm an awesome guy. I know most of my friends can afford to buy pizza. So it was more of like, hey, this is what I said. If you're feeling like, you don't know what you can do to help and you're feeling like, man, I want to do something.

This is something that like you said research that a nurse friend of mine said that you could do. And here's how I did it. So it was more like a how to or like you saying, hey, here's what I did with our team instead of a Friday meeting. And here's what we got out of it. So less of the focuses on me. Hey, look at how awesome I am. It was more like, hey, this might be something that helps you create greater impact and kind of like what you said, because my assumption is you as one of my friends or followers or listeners also want to help people here's one way you can do that.

And so I think that so again, the focus was not on me of what I walked in, and they said, Wait, you're an awesome dude. It's like, no, here's what I did. Here's the thing that I didn't figure out that. Yeah. So I called the person, and it became more of just an instructional of here's one way, you're not a bad person if you don't. You're not a good person if you do. But here's one way, if you want to, like you said, allow it to have more of an exponential effect.

And then a couple of my friends said, oh, wait, yeah, I did this way. But we did this. So you might want to do that. So it became this very positive virtuous, a viral sort of thing that happened. And it wasn't about me. It wasn't about that. I'm a great guy. And you're not. And yet, like you said, it allowed me to share it, because otherwise, if we're all hiding this and if the only thing on the news is all the crappy stuff going on, and the middle 80% of us that are just doing nice things for each other, helping each other out.

And if that doesn't somehow get attention, well, then we're missing out. Or at least the world's not seen an accurate view of what's actually going on in the world.

Yeah, I love it. I love that perspective, too. It's teaching people and educating them how to do it. T hey, look at me. Hey, this is how you do something that makes an impact. Yeah, that's great. I love it. I love it.

Awesome. So one of the things that I find when I talk with people, especially entrepreneurs. I know you have a podcast you're looking to help reach more people is trying to figure out how do you communicate what you're doing. So this kind of ties what we just talked about in a way that is going to be effective. Where does consistency come in for you in this of making an impact. So you and I both know as podcasters. No consistency. Such a huge thing as entrepreneurs. Consistency is a huge thing.

People talk about habits. How would you comment on the difference between let's say that idea. I'm going to do this huge, massive thing that maybe even never happens because it's so grandiose versus the day to day and perhaps eventually building habits that might even grow. How do you find it makes it easier, perhaps to help people start with something that's consistent and something that they can really commit to.

Sure. Well, let me first start with two books that you should read.

One of them.

I don't know if you're familiar with it's called The Twelve Week Year. And there's some things in there that are pretty complex, but I think the basic concept is you're simplifying and making your time frame shorter, so that a things Wade more urgent, but they're more understandable. And so consistency. It's easy to understand the little steps if you can measure them also in a small manner. It's very hard to do things small things and measure them with big numbers. And number two is the other book I would recommend is Atomic Habits talking About Habits.

It's by an author by the name of James Clear. Great text, and it actually gives you actionable things to do to be more consistent. And those consistent steps are extremely important. Those little things that you do over and over and over again will get you to a point. Then you're going to look back and you're going to say, wow, I did a lot, and those habits become easier. Once again, brain repetitiveness in the brain is good. It's easier for the brain to do it so more consistent you are, the easier it is.

And it adds up rather than trying to pie it all in at once. I don't know if we have time for a full story, but I actually ran a marathon once and my wife was training for one or a half marathon, and I was dumb enough to pretty much run a marathon without training. And I'm glad I did it. Like I said. Long story how I was able to pull it off and I was in so much pain. But I'll never do that again. And it does not make sense to try to run a marathon without running 400 meters over and over again, if that makes any sense.

And so you have to be consistent because the body is not capable, especially the brain is not capable of doing huge things over and over and over again. You have to do small things over and over and over again and you'll get to the big. The big things will come, but you got to fill you basically put it through this way. You got to fill your glass with sand, right? You can't fill your glass with rocks because it'll never fill up. There'll be space and they'll be air in there.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Where can people learn more about your work and your podcast?

They can go to Bob. Visually. Com. Easiest place to find a podcast. It's called Speaking of Impact, the blog called E Impact, and you can check out the newsletter there as well. And I have a book coming out later this year, but you'll find more information about that and check me out at a at a DEPA on Instagram and Twitter LinkedIn as well.

Awesome. Yeah. We'll make sure to put all those links in there. Thank you so much for sharing your perspective. I'm going to really be interested to hear the feedback we get from our listeners, because what I'm finding more and more to your point, people are becoming more aware. They're becoming more multidimensional, more aware of all the different ways that we can grow and make an impact. And I think what you're doing is bringing a tremendous light and and enlightenment to that conversation. So thank you so much for coming on, Bob.

Thanks, Wade. Appreciate it, man. Take care.

Alright. And thank you all for listening. As always, I look forward to helping you make more money and less time and make more impact. Doing what you do best so you can better enjoy your family, your friends in your life. Thanks for listening.