Catch Your Dreams, Stop Chasing Them

Speaker A 00:05 Welcome to a thoughtful discussion of important ideas among people who are committed to succeeding in life. This is a gathering of leaders from a variety of industries, and our role here is to help you reach the top 1% of your field of choice. I'm Jim Cathcart. So come with me and let's discover how much more successful you could be. Hey, folks, this is Jim Cathcart. Welcome to the Professional Experts Podcast. Our guest today is another professional expert. As you know, we certify professional experts and that an expert is a person who is building a business around what they are especially knowledgeable about, trained for, skilled at, or have experience in that goes beyond most people to the extent that it's worth hiring them to access that expertise. So today's guest is Kevin Davis. And Kevin has not only been a colleague of mine, but a good friend now for some time. And he became one of the first CPE Certified professional experts and was certified at our La Jolla Expert Summit this past May, May of 2024. And Kevin is joining us today from where, where are you? Jim Cathcart 01:34 Today I'm in Inez, Kentucky. Speaker A 01:36 Today, I'm home, home in Inez, Kentucky. And Kevin's got an interesting background. He built a business. He built a number of businesses, but he made his main bones, so to speak, in the field of quick lube for automobiles. And then he took what he learned from that, applied it to other businesses, and then started teaching other people about that. So welcome, Kevin. Great to have you aboard. Jim Cathcart 02:03 Hey, Jim, thanks so much for the opportunity to be. I tell you, I'm honored to be certified professional expert in your program. You're honored to call you a mentor and a friend. And you all remember, you and I met several years ago at an event and we just kind of connected. I mean, I think we had kindred spirits. And, you know, I remember after that event, I kept feeling like, man, I really need to spend more time with Jim. And I, I sent you an email. I sent the email and I, I told you about my Paul, Barnabas and Timothy theory, that I've always had a Paul who was pouring into me, a Timothy who I'm pouring into, and a Barnabas I'm walking into. And I really felt like at this season in my life that you would be a great Paul. And I remember asking you, I said, would you consider being my Paul? And you said, you, hey, Kevin, I'll be your Paul, but you have to call me Jim. But, you know, so, you know, I just so greatly appreciate you and Paula and, you know, our friendship and your Mentorship. I mean, it's just been an amazing journey. And to be honored to be in La Jolla with such a, I mean such a variety of people from different industries, but all like minded professionals that are experts in their field, that was just an amazing experience. Speaker A 03:11 That truly was. And then we're doing it again in Santa Barbara. I do one every six months or so. For those of you that are just tuning in, the Expert Summit is a gathering of people like Kevin and myself and we had Brian Tracy at the last one. Les Brown's going to be popping in for our Santa Barbara summit. We've got a room filled with people who are building businesses around what they're especially good at. And the variety of people is amazing. So the reason I have the Professional Expert Summit is to highlight the unique storyline of various certified professional experts so we can all learn from not just their example, but we can learn from seeing the pattern again and again and again in different settings. That's what Jim did, that's what Kevin did, that's what Christina did, that's what you know, and those patterns become more obvious. We can follow the same pattern because principles, proven principles will transfer from one person to the next, one situation to the next. Techniques might be unique to, let's say the automobile lube industry, but the principles you learned from that industry transfer to every industry. So tell us a little about your path. Give me a, give me a walk down the Kevin Davis storyline. Jim Cathcart 04:38 Well, I mean to, to really get it started, I have to go back to when I was about 12 years old. So I grew up in, in, you know, Martin County, Kentucky is one of the poorest counties in Kentucky, still the fourth poorest county in Kentucky. It was actually almost 60 years ago. The iconic picture on Time magazine where Lyndon B. Johnson declared the war on poverty is just a couple of miles down from my house. So, you know, growing up in this area, you had a lot of negative, you had a lot of people telling you that you could, what you couldn't do because of where you're from and because of this. If you don't leave here, you can never be anyone. And you know, that's kind of what we grew up at. But I grew up with, My dad was 55 when I was born. My mom was in her 40s. They'd already raised their family. I was surprised. You know, my dad went to work in the coal mines when he was 14 years old. You know, he was born in 1914. I think it was in 1928 his dad died and he had six or seven sisters and a mom. He had to go to work in the coal mines to provide for his family. So needless to say, out of a. Speaker A 05:43 Out of a novel. Jim Cathcart 05:45 Oh, yeah. I mean, and wow. So. So needless to say, the man who raised me was a man that was no nonsense, no foolishness. I mean, there wasn't sports, there wasn't this other stuff because all he knew was providing, providing. And so at 12 years old, he gave me a lawnmower and a weed eater. And he said, you need to go work. And I'm sitting here thinking, bev, I want to go play ball and I want to go do this. Well, you'll never make a living playing ball. You'll never provide for a family playing ball. But what he done is when he gave me that mower and I lived like a quarter of a mile from a trailer park and I pushed that lawnmower to that trailer park and those people would pay me $5 per lot. You know, at 12 years old, I probably had as much money in my pocket as some of the older people were walking around their pocket because they were all doing it. And the ladies there that loved their flower bed, so I would see that the ladies love their flowers. We lived on the river, you know, so we were on the river. That river dirt is really rich. I took empty five gallon buckets and a shovel and I would go over and dig that dirt and I would pack it up and put it in their flower and they would pay me by the bucket. But I learned at that time that when you learn to solve problems for people, they pay you. And I think Rabbi Lapin says they pay you in certificates of appreciation that we call money. And I think that was what sparked my entrepreneur spirit, that I could see at an early age that I wasn't going to have anything if I didn't work for it. And if I listened to everybody else, I would just be told that I couldn't do things. And I just learned from that young age to make my way. So that kind of started my entrepreneur journey. From 12 years old, I love that. Speaker A 07:20 I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas. My dad was a telephone repairman and mom was a homemaker, taking care of my grandfather and my sister at me. My grandfather was an invalid in a. From a stroke in a hospital bed in our front bedroom. But I told my dad when I was a kid, I don't know, 9, 10, 11 years old, I said, can I get an allowance? He said, sure. He said that we got to lawnmower out there. Take it up and down the neighborhood and mow lawns. And it was a push mower, you know, not a. No gasoline required, just oh yeah, one of those old rotary rotary blade things. And so I went around the neighborhood and my, my neighborhood wasn't paying quite as big as yours. Adjusted for inflation it was. I was getting 25 cents a yard, 50 cents if I trim the edges. So I can certainly identify with, with your, your pattern there, man, that's great. So bring us into your adulthood. What? Jim Cathcart 08:23 Yeah. Speaker A 08:23 So that entrepreneur spirit, what were you aspiring to? What'd you kind of hope or expect for your life? And then how did that evolve? Jim Cathcart 08:34 So I saw from that time that I wanted to be in business. You know, I wanted to be in business and you know, everybody said, you have to leave here to be something, you have to get an education. The problem was, Jim, that school wasn't important to me. I didn't like school because I felt like it was wasting my time because I couldn't mow lawns and make money when I was at school learning stuff that I didn't think that was going to be any benefit to me. And so I didn't really apply myself in school the way I should. It wasn't that I wasn't intelligent, it was just that that wasn't my priority. So, you know, all through school I had different jobs. At 14, I was working in a convenience store. I worked Friday night, third shift, second shift Saturday and day shift on Sunday. I worked 24 hours every weekend. And so I didn't go to. But that just sparked that inside of me. So I always wanted to have a business. And I started multiple little business from mowing lawns to. I sold, I don't know what you call it, the swag. I ended up getting a book and sold like the ink pens and all that stuff to local business people. Anything that I could find, I just wanted to do that. But getting into that as I went, you know, I had a brother in law who was in business and done very well and done some different things. So I was always trying to pitch ideas to him. So when I graduated high school, I graduated at 17 and my parents said, you have to go to school. And I'm sitting there thinking, you know, I'm probably going to waste your money and my time and it's not going to work. And they said you had. So I went to a technical thing and got a really short degree. But I was back home by 19. I done it. I went straight through and got it and got back And I started working and I was actually working in a mining supply business, setting up computers. I was setting up their computer and doing all this stuff because that's what my training was in computers. And so I started doing that. But I still wanted business. And as he was building businesses, I ended up getting in construction. So in construction I started managing his construction company next. And I was 20 years old managing construction guys, you know, 50, 60 years old. And of course at that time I was the smartest fellow I knew, you know. You know, I'm sure you probably all have been there, but when we were doing this, I kept wanting to be in business. I kept wanting to be in business. So I kept pitching these ideas to my brother in law. One day in northern Kentucky we were building a little retail beside of a quick loop place. It was a valve lane. And I remember my brother in law pulled in. He says, what do you think about that over there? I said, that's pretty cool. He says, you think you could build one of them? Remember, I'm the smartest guy I know. I said, absolutely, I can build one of them. He says, you think you could run one of them? The smartest guy he knows, absolutely I can run one of those. He says, if you figure out how to build one and you figure out how to run one, you and I will borrow some money and we'll build one. And that's all it took because I was, I was after him all the time to give me a chance to do something. And that was my chance. And so that was before the Internet. So. And there was no quick lubes in this area because it was a secondary market, you know, is rural areas, they wouldn't build them. And what. And I thought I'm going to build these in a secondary market where the big guys won't come and compete and I'll learn how to manage these things and make them profitable. And so I started driving to Lexington and different places and get my oil change to try to learn how they done it. Found a magazine and we built our first store. May open it May 5, 1994. I was early 20s and I was still having to run this construction company. So I ended up hiring a guy to run them. And it was the guy who changed my dad's oil. And it was the only guy he would trust is at the Goodyear tire place. And if he went there and Tim wasn't there, he wouldn't get his oil change. And so when I got ready to do this, I said, you know what, my dad was the Smartest man I knew. My dad didn't have an education, but he was probably the smartest man financially, business wise. And this that I knew. So I said, if I'm going to get into this. I called up, I said, can I speak to Tim? Tim, would you have lunch with me? I said, got Tim, I have lunch as a Tim. I'm going to build a quick lube. I want you to. Kevin, I don't know. I know how to change oil and how to change tires. I don't know anything about business. I said, I'll teach you all that. I said, all I need you to do is do the business because I'm going to run this construction, but I'll teach you. Me and him tell a different story. So he says that I was only with him a week, but I think I was there for two. But either way, we opened that first store and it was 1999. Oil changes, okay, I mean 1999. And that was before credit cards were big. So everybody was paying you $20. I mean that evening I couldn't. I was sitting there counting all these $20 bills. It was amazing. I mean I never had anything, you know, I never had made any money before. And we was closing the store down. I was counting all these $20. I said, this is awesome. My brother in law called me and he says, what do you think? I said, I love it, it's great. He says, hey, have the crew, I've got another lot. Have the crew over here and we'll build another one. And so that's where Tim says I left him too quick. But we building in three years, we ended up building 12 locations. And so we scaled this thing very fast. And I learned by the school of hard knocks and fire, trial by fire, because I had no idea really what I was doing. I knew how to build really good. I was a good construction guy. But after three years and 12 stores, we were blowing up motors, we were losing transmissions and we weren't making any money. And I said, whoa, I've got to figure out what's going wrong here. And that's when I kind of slowed down and said, okay, I've got to start working, you know, quit working in this business, start working on this business. And that's when I learned the value of making something truly scalable. That's when I learned processes and procedures. That's when I learned building your bench, developing. We were growing so quick that we had to develop people to fill these. And I think that was one thing that I really found out Once again, I can't tell you I just learned it because I had to. But I was very blessed to learn how to develop people, how to develop processes and procedures when I ended up selling the company. We sold the company in December of 22. We had made it to 25 locations in four states, grew this thing. We had over 100 employees and the very first guy hired they number one. When I sold the company, he retired. He was my VP of operations. Most all my key people have been with me 24 plus years. So what we learned was we learned how to value people, train people, take care of them, create that loyalty and we build a benchmark that we were able to do that. So you know from all of that, that my experience, when you say build Speaker A 15:08 a bench, you're talking about the people sitting on the bench, right? Jim Cathcart 15:12 Exactly. Because what happens when you want to scale a business? You can only, you're only going to be as good as the people that you have and you're going to continue, you have to develop leaders to raise up with you because you can't do it. I mean one of my analogies I use all the time and people kind of make fun of I'm a country boy. I mean you can, you can get with this. But I always say when you're driving down a country road and you see a turtle on a fence post, you know it didn't get there by itself. Speaker A 15:36 That's right. Jim Cathcart 15:37 I've always went by that. None of us are self made, none of us get there by ourselves. We're only as good as the people that we surround ourselves with. But we also have to raise that bar. I remember John Maxwell, which I'm certified with, John Maxwell as well, got the opportunity to spend some time with him at the. I was the very first of his certified program, that very first group. And I remember we as a small group and we was talking, he says, how many of y' all said that it's lonely at the top? And I'm sitting here thinking, me, me, it's lonely at the top. And then he burst my bubble. He looks out and he says, if it's lonely at the top, it's because you're not taking anybody with you. If you're a leader, you're going to have people with you. If you're lonely at the top, you're not leading people, you're just taking a hike. And I said, whoa. I mean that's so real. And so I learned from that. I got to take people with me. So that's what I'm talking about building that bench. You got to take people with you because you can't scale something by yourself. You have to have that level of people, and that was one thing that I learned. Very important lesson I learned is you have to develop. You have to surround yourself with the right people. You have to prepare them. You got to inspire them, equip them, and motivate them to help you scale something big. Speaker A 16:49 Yeah. What I observe when I hear your story is I observe how important it is for first for a person to have the drive to do whatever it takes just to get the job done. Did you know what you were doing when you started? No. You didn't have any idea. You just had the impulse. It's kind of like when I heard Earl Nightingale on the radio. I said, I want to do what he does, and I want to motivate people and help people grow. Problem? I'd never given a speech, and I had nothing to say. That'll kind of keep you modest, you know? So I said, then I'm going to become a fanatical student of the field he's in until I know enough that I can teach his courses and then other people's courses and then create my own courses, you know, and here I am decades later, and I've done all of those things. But at first, like you, I just said, put me in, coach. In what game? I don't know that one. You know, just, let's get some going. And then you learn. Thank heavens you were able to not go into complete failure mode in order to learn your lessons. I mean, you had losses and you had pains and difficulties, but you were able to stay in business and keep on growing. And what allowed you to grow from just being a worker to being a manager to being an owner, to be in a builder, to be in a scaling, executive Scaling. The business was, as you said, procedures, policies, systems, putting them in place. A system, the way I say it is a system is to a business as a habit is to a person, because the system gets repeated again and again and again, and there's no reason to ever stop that system unless it's not serving you any longer. Same thing's true for a habit like always brushing your teeth every morning or whatever it happens to be. I love that. So your story is. Is a classic model for others to study, to learn their way along. Another thing I noticed is that you were open. Even though there was a period where you recognized you were all full of yourself and thought you had all the answers, you quickly learned to listen to other people and to take advice. And as we opened this conversation this morning, you said, I have a Paul, a Timothy, you know, Barnabas, and I want you to be my Paul. You literally, using those biblical characters, you literally seek out people to help people, to learn from people to work with and so forth. And that's inspiring to me. So take us from the auto loop business into the transition, where now you're helping people catch their dreams and turn them into reality. Jim Cathcart 19:49 So, so what happened to me, Jim, was, you know, I never intended to be a speaker. I mean, I never. I mean, I was the guy that would have took the zero instead of speaking in front of a class, and I was the guy that just would not do that. But all of a sudden, this country boy that's uneducated in a small town is building a chain of quick lubes that are all of a sudden shining. So the industry notices. And all of a sudden they're. They're asking me to serve on their board of directors. And, and all of a sudden they're asking me to speak on their conferences. I'm sitting here thinking, what am I going to tell them? They say, just tell us how you're making it. Just tell us. You do this. And so I learned from, from that, that, you know, other people, I had valuable information that could help other people. And I'll never forget, I was sitting in a room of a. It was a we as a 20 group, you know, so it was a peer group. And they were all quick lube operators, and they were all very successful. I think there was eight or 10 of us. They were from all over the country. They kept trying to get me in that group, and I never wanted to get in that group. You know, a couple of things in that group, you, you share everything. I mean, you show your financials, you share everything. And I was. Grew up school. Speaker A 20:53 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 20:54 You don't show your finances to anybody. That's something you don't talk about. You don't tell these things. So I finally go to this group and I get in it. And they were pretty much, you know, they, they were tough on me. It was a good group. I mean, sometimes they would be so hard on me. I said, thinking, remember, Kevin, you're paying for this. You're paying to be part of this. You know, but it was that iron sharpens iron principle. Speaker A 21:12 And. Jim Cathcart 21:12 But one of the guys, they was just beating me up on a lot of different things. They were just wearing me out on some of the way I was doing things. And finally One of the guys in the group, he was sitting beside him, he spoke up, he said, guys, you need to back off. Do you realize that there is not a one of us in this group that would be successful operating in the areas he's dead. He has learned how to operate in an area that you and I would not even go to and build a profitable, successful business. We need to listen to what he's got to say. And that give me some confidence that, yeah, these guys are successful people that, you know, once again, I don't know how to operate in the big cities at that time, because I didn't. But they didn't know how to operate in the world. So we were learning. I was actually adding value. I wasn't just learning from them, but that was the point that I saw that I always want to give back. I don't want to be one of these takers. I don't want to be the Dead Sea. I don't want everything to flow into me and not have an output and it dies. So that's why I determined that not only I need Paul's, not only did I need Barnabas to walk with me, I need somebody that this stuff pours through. And I remember teaching the Automotive Oil Change Association's management certification course for 12 years. I taught it all over the country. Canada taught, you know, up to five, six times a year. Trained so many people. But I come to find out so much joy come from taking the experience and knowledge and pouring into other people that it come to the point that, Jim, what I really wanted to create was I wanted to be what I wished I had when I started. Yeah, I wanted to create what I wished I had when I started. But the really, the really big awakening came to me. I can't remember what year it was. I want to say it was probably 2000, 19ish. And you all were my career. I mean, Jim, you talk. I mean, I work the first three years of fast change without a payday. I mean, people aren't willing. They say, man, it'd be nice to have what you got, but you got to be willing to do what I did. Speaker A 23:05 I was making statement that John, I think it was John Maxwell first one to say that, that I. But you know, hey boy, I want to do what you do. Are you willing do what I did to get here? Jim Cathcart 23:21 So that's key. And people got to know that because I tell my son all the time, I said, are you willing to do what I did? Because I was making 30 some thousand dollars a year Running that construction company, I forget is in the 30s. My wife worked at the bank for $2.35. She had her first baby. She didn't make enough money to pay a sitter. So she stays at home. We're living on $37,000 a year. I'm building this quick Lube business. So I'm going in the quick lube office and doing that stuff at 4 and 5 in the morning till 7, till my real job starts. I work the real job till about 4 or 5, and then I go back to the office till 10, 11, 12, midnight, almost every day, Saturdays and Sundays, for three years without a payday. The only thing we were living on because I couldn't afford to take a payday because we were growing so quick. And I had to put all the money back into the business. And it was took three years to where I got. Then two times in my career. I just about lost everything. 2008, 9, financial crisis. We were at the verge of bankruptcy. And then during COVID I was two weeks away. I actually made the phone call to file bankruptcy and a guy talked me out of it. He said, kevin, you never got to where you're at by talking that way and you're not getting out of it. And then two years later, I sold the company. You know, I mean, it's amazing. I mean went from this. So what I did though. But in 2019, I was asked to come and speak at the University of Pville at a work ethics award. And during that work ethics award, there was 60 some students that was getting an award and they wanted me to be the keynote. There's a couple hundred people there with parents and grandparents and. And I was going to do one of my canned speeches. You know, you got these speeches that you've got that you can just do anytime and they're great and they're powerful, but that's what I was going to do. And that morning I went to my exercise room and I was in the shower and I'm going to spiritualize this to you because that's who I am. God said, you're going to speak on a line chart navigate tonight. And I'm sitting here thinking, that's great. I don't even have any idea what a line chart navigate is. And I go to my office and I tell my IT guy, I said, could you come in here? I said. He said, sure. So what do you need? I need a PowerPoint. We've done that many times. I said, I need you to help me build a PowerPoint. Real quick. He said what are we building? I said I don't know yet. I said I got three words, we got to build this. He says when you need it. But I said I need to leave here by two to get there and die. He said what? And that's when I figured out that this align chart, navigate process of life. Speaker A 25:49 This is my life and chart and navigate. Three words, right line. Jim Cathcart 25:55 Yes. So my life quote is life is a journey of aligning your dreams, charting your course and navigating to the purpose filled life you were created. So Jim, this is the simplicity of it though. The alignment process is getting our heart right, being passionate about what you're doing. The charting part is about getting your mind right. Your mind will never be right until your heart's right. Your heart is going to flow through your mind. Once your heart's right and your mind right, then you're navigating, your steps will be right. And so I started doing this graph and I remember when I done this graph I had, I had four quadrants and I called it the journey to success. And so basically it started at the bottom and it went up in the alignment phase, then it went to the next phase of charting, then it went to navigating and then the best last one was a success. Speaker A 26:42 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 26:42 And I got to thinking what is success? And Jim, I think success is defined so many different ways by so many people. I'll tell you what I thought success was as that 12 year old boy pushing along more, not having much success to me was having a nice home, was having a sports car, was having all the toys that I'd seen on the TV that people had that were successful and, and Jim, I don't say this in a boastful way but I ended up attaining that. I ended up attaining a beautiful family, a beautiful home. I had all the toys, all the car. Jim, I was still empty. I didn't understand it. All this stuff that I thought was the dream I found, oh my goodness, but why do I still feel empty? I found out that the true success, the true joy come not from me attaining this, but it was taking everything I'd learned to attain it and then pouring it into somebody else to help them attain it. Then I got the true joy, then I got the fulfillment. And that's where a line chart navigate came from, was learning. Now Grant, if I had not done all these things and had I not had the success, nobody would want to hear what I had to say. If I didn't have the home and the toys and all this stuff. I mean, who takes fitness advice from somebody out of shape or who takes money advice from somebody that's broke? I mean, you got to live the dream if you want people. You want to help people learn how to live their own dream. So as I create this chart and we do this, and I go up to. We got it all done. So in it, he brings it back to me, and I had it going counterclockwise. Count. Yeah, counterclockwise. And he brought it back to me going clockwise. I looked at it. I said, this is wrong. He says, what do you mean it's wrong? I said, it needs to go. He said, why? I said, I don't know why. I said, it's just not right. Would it take me this much to fix it? I said, well, hurry. I got to leave. Speaker A 28:31 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 28:31 So he goes back and he does it. And I remember on that stage that night, you. You, Jim, you've done this the first time you've ever done a presentation. You've never. I never even had time to practice this one. I mean, most time, I at least get a practice. I'm on this stage and I'm going. I'm so passionate about it. You can probably feel the passion in it, because this is my life. This is not something I've read about, not something I've heard about. This is my life. Speaker A 28:55 Yep. Jim Cathcart 28:55 And so it's easy for me to talk to you about aligning. It's easier. You talk about charting. It's easy to talk about this. And. And I shared with them what success. I shared with them that I thought I had everything, and I really didn't have anything until I found out what to do with it. Then I got to the end of that presentation, and I said, do you know why this goes counterclockwise? And, Jim, I don't know if you've ever done this or not, but I didn't have a clue. But I was hoping somebody in the audience would say something, and I was just going to run with it. I was just going to say, yes, that's it. Speaker A 29:26 That's courageous, Jim Cathcart 29:29 because I had no idea what to do. And I said, do you know why this thing's going counterclockwise? And everybody just looks at me. I mean, they're on the edge of their seat, and they're just trying to listen to me, and they're waiting. Nobody said nothing. It got quiet. And then I'm sitting here thinking, and immediately out of my mouth come. The reason it goes counterclockwise is if you're going to be who you were created to be. If you're going to live your dream, you, you can't go with the flow. You got to go against the grain. Everything else is going to take you this way. But everybody goes this way. You need to go this way. And when you start going this way, when you press through, you're going to get stronger. When you press through, you're going to develop grit, you're going to develop drive. And then when you make it around that circle, this is a journey. This is not a one time thing. What happens is you're building momentum. And now the next time you align, you're going to learn better. The next time you chart, you're going to do better. The next time you navigate, you're going to do better. You, the next time you're going to have greater success to help more people. And this is a journey that's going to take you and it's like a snowball. Every time you do it, you're going to get bigger and better and you're going to take more people with you. That's why life's a journey of aligning your dreams, charting your course and navigating yourself to the purpose filled life. You were created to live. Not somebody else. Not mommy's dream, daddy's dream, not what you see on tv. Who were you create? You were created in the image and the likeness of God. You were fearfully and wonderfully made to for a unique purpose. You have to determine that. And you only do that by going against the grain. Speaker A 31:03 Mic drop. That was beautiful. Yeah. And yeah. And you've got a dream catcher metaphor that you talk about. Like I talk about the acorn. Jim Cathcart 31:16 Yes. Speaker A 31:16 And you tell. Just give us a little bit of that. Jim Cathcart 31:20 So when I talk about the dream catcher. So, so Jim, you gave me a dream catcher when we were together in La Jolla. I got it hanging here on the other side of my desk. I pulled up reach it. But, and, but what I thought about the dream catcher. So. So Jim, so many people in life chase their dreams. A lot of people chase their dreams. And I'm writing a new book right now and in this book I speak often. I tell people, I use this analogy of when you, when a. You're driving down a road and a dog darts out and it starts chasing the car, you know, the tents and all this kind of stuff. But I often think, I say what's the dog going to if he catches the car? Speaker A 31:55 Right? Jim Cathcart 31:55 If he catches the car, what's he going to do with it? I Mean, it's kind of like it's. But I think that sometimes what we do in life, we're chasing dreams. We're chasing something that if we get a hold of it, we don't have a clue what to do with it. We don't know, because it's not really something that we need. It's not something we really want. It's just the mind that we think it is. Speaker A 32:14 Another bright, shiny object. That's it. Jim Cathcart 32:17 So I said, what we have to do is we have to become dream catchers. We have to become dream catchers. We have to learn to catch our dreams. And so I've got a logo, and my logo is a plumb bob hanging in the center of a compass. And so. And then that's my dream catcher. And so basically what that is, that plumb bob come out of the book of Amos. In the book of Amos, God was speaking to Israel and basically letting him know, hey, what do you see? He said, I see a plumb bob or a plumb line coming out of heaven. And God was saying to him, you're never going to find your direction, you're never going to find peace and stuff until you get vertically aligned with me. In other words, you're not going to find your horizontal direction. Speaker A 32:58 The plum is weighted like a string or a cord, and the weight causes it to be straight up and down. Yeah, right. And that's. That's what engineers use or masons or, Jim Cathcart 33:12 you know, and that's what we use when we were buildings from construction. That's what we used to make sure our walls were straight. Yeah. And so what God was saying to him was. And so, so many people come to me and say, kevin, help me find my direction. And they're trying to find their direction before they get vertically aligned. I said, you're trying to get, as the old folks would say, your cart before the horse. You're never going to find your direction till you get vertically aligned. So once we get vertically aligned, then we can find our. For our. Our horizontal direction to where we can go. Speaker A 33:42 What is the vertical alignment? How does a person do that? Jim Cathcart 33:45 So the vertical alignment to me is when we dive in to find out what is your true passion, what is your true talents and your true gifts? What is it that you get excited about? I mean, you can. I'm so excited here right now. I'm sitting on the edge of my seat because I'm passionate about this because I know it's real and I know. So what is it that gets you that excited? I Mean, my son, he doesn't like to get up early in the morning. I go feed son, you got to beat him to get him to go up early to the barn. You got to do all this stuff. But he loves golf. If we're going to go play golf at 4:30 or 5, he's waking me up. Come on, dad, let's go. Because that's what he's passionate about. That's what he's passionate about. So what is it? You have to find out who you were uniquely created with gifts and talents and abilities. So what we do is we dive down deep and we find out what it is that lights your fire. Because every one of us has got a spark inside of us, every one of us. And all we got to do is find that spark, fan that flame and all of a sudden that thing is going to light up. And when that lights up, then you're going to charge. And so that's what we do is we dive down deep and we find out what is it that truly excites you? You know, you've heard this said and I if whatever you would for free, even if you didn't get paid for is probably what you're truly passionate about. So then we find that and we find out what our talents and abilities and when you get those things lined up, all of a sudden you're getting, you're putting your heart into it now. Then we'll start charting. That's when we get our mind right. And then we say, okay, this is where we want to be. This is where we want to go in the charting. We're going to identify where we are currently and then we're going to know where we're and then we're going to be able to chart our course between here. What path is going to close this gap to get me from where I'm at now to where I want to be. And then once you do that, a lot of people call it goal setting. And it is a goal setting method. Basically we're writing our goals out and then the navigating side is just simply executing, is taking your plan and it all goes back though you're navigating every time you're navigating, it never goes smooth. As soon as you start going obstacles and channels, challenges are going to come. If your heart is not right and your alignment phase is not right, if your goals and your charting is not right, you're going to give up and quit. But when you hit the obstacle, when you go back to your big why in the Alignment, you go back to the plan you develop, you're going to get through that obstacle. And so that is my dream catcher is actually that plumb bob and that compass and trying to get people to dive down deep and find these things. And then as we work through the charting thing, we sit down and we identify what is the potential problem that could arise, what are the challenges or obstacles that could come, and we identify them and we come up with a plan. That way you're not getting blindsided. When it comes, you can say, oh, I was expecting that. Here's what I'm going to do. This is how I'm going to get through this. And once again, and the dream catcher comes to me from this. Just as a Native American dream catcher was used by the Native Americans to hang outside to filter out the bad and only allow the good to come through. When we allow this, align chart, navigate principles with the plumb bob and the compass to become our dream catcher. What we're doing is we're filtering every dream through this. We're filtering through. Is it aligned with our heart? Is it aligned with our mind? Do we have a plan to navigate it? All of a sudden you're not chasing dreams anymore. You're catching up. You're not just chasing something, you're taking something and making a dream become reality. And you're living the dream until somebody. You need to be a dream catcher and live your dream, be a dream catcher. And I've developed a nine step goal setting process and it's actually the acronym is live your dream. It's your dream. And I've got nine steps for the Y O U R and the doctor that I walk people through to say, here is your plan to live your dream. I don't want you to live. I'll never be Jim Cathartic and you'll never be Kevin Davis. Nobody listen to us. Will be us. Each one of us are going to be our own selves. You need to live your dream. And so the dream catcher philosophy is, is teaching people to filter their dreams. Is that really my dream or is that a, is that the dream that somebody else planted in my mind that maybe I should be or I should do? Maybe if you're really good at math. All of a sudden somebody tells you, you. My son's a prime example of this, Jim. You know, he graduated. My daughter graduated valedictory. My middle one went to optometry school. My son graduated valedictorian. Now here I tell my wife all the time, she gets mad when I say this I said, do you realize that one of our kids, gpa, both of ours added together don't equal their one of theirs? And she gets mad. Why do you tell people that? I said, I don't care to tell them you're the 3.0. I don't care to tell them you're the 3. Speaker A 38:22 Yeah, was 1.146, you know,148. Jim Cathcart 38:28 Yeah. Me and you were probably close together then. You probably got me beat a little Speaker A 38:31 bit two years ago, but I didn't Jim Cathcart 38:33 even make it at Mama's high school. So my son, he was valedictorian, and he goes down to college and he takes all this biomed and he takes all this stuff, and he comes home one day and he says, dad, I don't really like this. I said, why are you doing it? He said, because, dad, when you're valedictorian, that's what you do. People would just expect that you're going to be a medical person and you're going to do a doctor. And that was when it really struck me. So bold, because I was pushing that, too. And I'm sitting there thinking, son, yeah, live your dream. What's your dream? Just don't, don't go into this thing just because somebody said, you're valedictorian, you're smart, you need to be a biomed and you need to be a doctor. What do you want to do? What's your passion? So, man, he has been working through this journey. He's still trying to figure it out. I mean, second year of college. But once we got that pressure off from him, he's actually went back into that now. He's still probably leaning toward physical therapy, but he's on it himself now. It's like the first. First year, he had a hard time getting through it because he was. He felt like he was walking somebody else's journey. Now that he's on his journey, he got all A's. This, I think, always one B this semester in college, because now he's walking his journey, so he's passionate about it. So that's just a simple way you got to identify and live your dream. And that's what I love to do. I love to help people. You'll live their dream. Speaker A 39:53 Yeah. I can tell you that's been my own journey. Yeah. When I discovered the field of personal development, I knew I'd found my home, but I didn't have the skills to go with it. I didn't have the knowledge. I didn't have the courage, you know, to Face the challenges of it. I had to just kind of follow other people's guidance until I was able to make my own decisions. Like, I spent hundreds of hours working in the Junior Chamber of Commerce as JC as a volunteer on weekends and holidays, went to 400 meetings in a two year period for zero income after working on weekends, just learning to set goals and motivate volunteers and plan projects and things like that. And then finally, after all these hours and hours and hours of listening to Earl Nightingale on audio cassettes in my car, I got the clarity I needed to start living my dream my way, and have done that ever since, for 48 years now, full time. Wow. So I can say what Kevin teaches is absolute truth and that's pure clarity. Because when I look at how you articulate, all makes sense and it all works. There's nothing in that description that I would say. You know, I think I'd say it this way. I mean, we may have had some of those conversations in the past when I was doing some coaching with you, but you've got it. You know, you refine this to the point where others really need to be spending some time with you. How do people, how do people work with you? Jim Cathcart 41:36 So, so Jim, you know, pretty much what I do now is I do some, do some coaching, I do some keynote speaking. I'm creating a, I'm calling it Dreamcatcher Acres here at my property. So I'm, I'm, it's actually under construction right now. I'm building a retreat that I want to start bringing masterminds like we was with, with you. And we'll start bringing groups of eight to 10 people here. Hopefully I'll have this thing going late spring, early summer, I'll be ready for my first group. And you know, we've, we've got 120 acres here, eastern Kentucky. We've got a pond, we got five acres of trails where we're, you know, we got all the amenities, you know, put a pickleball for walk track, I mean, you know, barn with farm animals. And so I've traveled so much with doing the masterminds. Like I've done with you, like we've done with Dave Kaufman, like I've done with other people that I thought, you know, I want to bring people to me to see this. Because Jim, once again, you know, when I talk about what I'm telling you today, I'm not telling you something that's theory. I'm not telling you something that this is, this is real world. This is how when people you know, success leaves clues. When I started trying to determine how in the world did this work for me and why did this business fail? Because I failed at more business than I've been successful at. I mean, I've had multiple businesses. The one was the best one and different ones, but I've learned so much through that. So I'm creating this, I'm calling it the Dream Catcher. Immersive experience to where people will be able to come here either as a one on one coaching with me for a two to three day event or a small group. That's where I'm going to do most of my focus at, but also do some zoom coaching. You know, of course I do keynote speaking, you know, go out and do work with companies, do coaching, executive coaching and that. But what I thought to tell people that at the end of the day I'm just a guy that's rooted in faith. I'm grounded in experience, but I'm inspired by my family. Many go, I come up with my frame around that. Speaker A 43:23 Now let's put a frame around that rooted in faith. That means you are doing what you do for a higher purpose, that you see the success journey as not something selfish for you to get, but it's your way of living as you believe you were created for the purpose of living. So you are man. I love that. I love those three just fit together so well. Say it again. Jim Cathcart 43:52 Rooted in faith, grounded in experience and inspired by family. And, and it goes back, Jim, you and I've had this conversation. I may have even picked this up when you were speaking. You know, you, you have the beautiful tree. I love the tree. And how you have that and I don't know, it's just, just amazing. But the thing about it is, and you, you may have even said this in your thing is the tree that produces the fruit, what's the fruit for? The fruit is not for the tree. The tree does not benefit from the fruit. The, the fruit is for other people to benefit from. The truth is to multiply. When that, when that fruit goes, it's got multiple seeds in it to go out. Jesus teaches us that we have to be a tree that bears fruit. If we're not bearing fruit, he says we. So to me, true success is when we take our fruit. And it's not for us to selfishly enjoy ourselves, although we do enjoy it, but it's for us to produce fruit that, and it's exponential that we're going to have a ripple. To me it's more about a legacy. I'm in this legacy thing is, when Kevin Davis is gone, what's going to be left to know that I was here? Whose life have I changed? Where have I made a difference? So that's why I say I'm rooted in my faith. I'm grounded in experience. And I'll say it boastful, but I've been there, done that. You. There's probably not anything in business that you're going to bring to me that I've not been sued, that I've not lost this. I've not had a bad deal. I'm not. I mean, I'm grounded in that. But everything that I do, Jim, and you've seen my family is inspired by my family. I mean, everything that I do is to be an example to them. I want my girls to see their dad. I want them to know this is how a man should treat me. I want my son to look at me and say, this is the way I should treat the women in my life. I want Pauletta to look at me. And just as the scripture says, the scripture tells us that it does say that women should be subjected unto their husbands. But we leave out the verse that says, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. If we love our wives in a manner that we would give our lives and die for them, there's not a matter of being subject. They're just going to be so loved and so honored by you respecting them that way that you're going to have this thing. So everything that I do is inspired by my family. And I've got to be that example. Not only in my home, but when my kids see me doing a business deal, they got to see dad doing it with integrity. They got to see him do it with honesty. When they see me poured in other people, I want. I would be proud if my kids. I tell my girls all the time, if you marry a guy that treats you the way you see me treat your mom, I'll be happy, son. If you treat your wife the way I've treated my mom, if you all do business the way I. You've seen me do business, if you treat your people the way I treated my people, it's. Everything's inspired by family because they're watching me. If I don't do things that I'm proud for them to be proud of me, and I want them to emulate. So all this is inspired by my family. Speaker A 46:44 The beauty of that, Kevin, is everybody leads by example. Everybody. You can't avoid it, because whatever you do is an example. And Somebody is going to follow it or somebody's going to say, well, look, as Kevin did it and got away with it, so whatever. But everybody's leading by example. The difference in your life and in my life, to the extent that I try to be like you, it's intentional for most people. They accumulate their life. You know it, they pick it up like, like little birds on the hiking trail that stick to your clothing. We have chosen to live our life the way we do, and that's why it makes sense for other people to come to you, to learn from you. And I think that's a beautiful thing. What's the best way for someone to contact you? Jim Cathcart 47:35 So the easiest way is just to go to mkevindavis.com that's my website. I'm on social media, mkevindavis Michael Kevin is my name. I've never been called Michael in my life. Mom named me Michael after somebody, but they've always called me Kevin. So all my business is Mkevin Davis. My business is mkevindavis llc. So you can find me on social media under mkevindavis mkevindavis.com and when clients often seek me, Jim, it's funny, they don't usually just seek me out just for business, but on guidance on how to honor God in their daily life, how to strengthen their relationships with their spouse, their children, their friends, how to build financial stability while giving generously, and how to prioritize their health and their personal development. And these are the areas that really form the foundation of the dream Catcher journey. And that's my mentoring approach. Speaker A 48:26 Man, that's beautiful. I'll tell you, you've offered some pure gold for us today, and I appreciate that. And there's someone I want to recommend that you look up. Dad Hymas H Y M A S Chad Hymas is a colleague of mine, a friend, professional speaker in the, in the Speakers hall of Fame. He was disabled. He is a farmer. He has a. A rancher. He has a elk ranch where people come for hunting and then such in, in Utah. And when he was a young man, he was out on the ranch operating a loader with hay to feed the elk. And it fell on him and broke his neck and his back. And he's been in a wheelchair ever since. And now he's in his 50s and he's been in a wheelchair for those 30 plus years. And he flies around the world by himself most of the time, giving speeches at conventions and working with people to inspire them as you do. But here's A guy that every day has to spend an hour just getting out of bed and getting dressed and getting back into bed and undressed for the evening. And he has to be careful about every minute of his day because of the injury. But he's running a thriving Elk Lodge in Utah, which recently burned to the ground. Jim Cathcart 49:55 Wow. Speaker A 49:56 And he had to rebuild it, and he rebuilt it even better. And I think that what you're doing with your own retreat and thinking about bringing people to you and what Chad has done, that the two of you can learn from each other. And he's also got a strong faith, so I know you'll connect on that level. But just look up Chad Hymus, do a little search online, and then look, look at his lodge and see if there aren't some examples of what he does that you might be able to embrace a similar pattern for yourself. You've. You've made this a wonderful, wonderful time for us today. And now I know it'll be a wonderful time for those that tune in later. So thank you and congratulations and gratitude to you for being one of the first 20 CPE certified professional experts. Jim Cathcart 50:48 Well, thank you for giving me the honor to be part of it. Speaker A 50:51 You bet. Thank you for joining us today. If you are committed to making more success happen in your own life, go right now to my website, free.cathcart.com and download my free ebook and then watch the video. If you decide that you'd like my assistance in helping grow your success, then come with me and let's discover how much more successful you can be.