Never Hitting Rock Bottom: How Belief Rewrites Your Future with Dan Clark

Dan Clark 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. Dan Clark 00:35 Hey, folks, welcome to the Professional Experts Podcast. This is a gathering of eagles. We don't, we don't just invite all the birds here. This is for the folks that have made it to the top, that are up there making a difference in the world and willing to share their example so that you can learn from, from the path they took in the Professional Experts, the Certified Professional Experts group. We now have 39 people, and one of those you're about to hear from in just a moment, that's Dan Clark, who has upgraded the whole group by being a part of it. But the thing that distinguishes each one of them is they are building a career based on being the best version of themselves as a value to the world. In other words, they're not selling a product, they're selling their service. They're. They're building a brand identity. Kind of like in Hollywood, you know, if you were a talent agency, you would take on a new actor or actress and you would be building their reputation and making them a desirable entity for all the movies that were being planned in the future. Well, that's the way we approach looking at being a Certified Professional Expert. How do you establish your. Your value message so that people know you're worth paying for? How do you set your distinctive brand identity so in a group of people just like you, you stand out? How do you identify the customers you ought to be going after, whether it's industrial customers or one on one coaching or consulting clients, or whether it's retail establishments or sports teams or whoever it happens to be? And how do you choose the business model for this stage of your business development? Because just like Dan, I've gone through various iterations over the years, from solopreneur to small staff to partnership to part of a corporation to a training company to license or of other products to author and publisher, you know. So how do you choose your business model? And how do you select the best operating systems and standards to keep your business solid as it grows? So welcome with me, one of the coolest people I've ever run across. And I mean that sincerely, Dan Clark. Dan, you live in Salt Lake City. Is that where you are today? Jim Cathcart 03:14 No, I'm in my home. In Arizona. Dan Clark 03:16 Oh, in Arizona. Whereabout? Jim Cathcart 03:18 I am Gilbert, on the east side of Phoenix. Got it. Dan Clark 03:21 I know. I know. Gilbert. Well, gosh, we met in what, 82? Jim Cathcart 03:26 Yes, sir. When you were the chairman of the. The National Speakers Association Convention in Chicago, Illinois. If I could just reminisce for a moment. Dan Clark 03:36 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 03:37 In those days, we needed a sponsor in the National Speakers association, and I'd been speaking for a while, and Zig. Ziglar heard me and took me under his wing. We can talk about that story if we want to talk about the six degrees of separation that really brings us back together through. But long story short, or Zeke heard me speak and sponsored me in the National Speakers association and told me to meet him in Chicago in 1982. And after the fact, as Zig and I became really close and he mentored me personally, so, so much. For 25 plus years, he confessed that that was the litmus test, that if he was going to invest time in me, I needed to show him that I was serious. And his test at the moment was would I invest in myself with money I did not have as a newlywed. Dan Clark 04:29 There you go. Jim Cathcart 04:30 Fly to Chicago for five days, pay the registration fee, even though he was my sponsor, and learn what I could. And it was there as his little protege, you know, speaking to the youth. Everybody seemed to endear themselves to me, including you. Oh, Dan, you can't make any money doing, you know, speaking to youth, but somebody's got to do it. We love you. God bless you. You know, how wonderful is that? Little did they know that, you know, I would accelerate that process. But Zig introduced me to you. He introduced me to Ty Boyd, who I'd seen, obviously, as the MC of the big PMA rallies. And that's when I first connected with Zig and G. Robertson. And that convention literally catapulted my career and validated One thing that Dr. Jim Rohn, everybody's mentor, you know, with songwriters as. As recording artists, as singers, we know that it's the hook that sells the song my buddy Jim Nichols wrote. Live like you're dying. Dan Clark 05:39 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 05:39 You know, the dance, I could have missed the pain, but then I'd have missed the dance. And the one Jim Rohn line that you and I could have easily written that I am an expert in, that you're an expert in, is that we become the average of the five people we associate with the most. And I've always added to that another couple by Max Lucada, who said, which means we must be willing to pay any price. And Travel any distance to associate with extraordinary human beings. Even online. Yeah. Yeah. Dan Clark 06:11 Thank heavens for online. Jim Cathcart 06:12 And it was that convention with the goodness of your heart and about six or seven of the other CPAEs who consciously or subconsciously took me under your wing and basically said, this is what you got to do. Here's how you create a brochure. You were always known as the marketing genius. This is nothing new to the world. The sales genius. Zig. I give him credit for mentoring me in the art and science of storytelling. So each of these individuals, you know, and Robert Henry, the. The power of the punctuating pause and the Jack Benny look and all these little teeny things. That humor helped me become who I want, wanted to be. So right on the shoots. I thank you so much. And anybody listening, you're the one that turned decades into days for me and so many other speakers. So to be. To be classified as an expert under the Jim Cathcart Institute, I don't take that lightly, brother. I. I'm. I'm part of it for several reasons. At the time, I was the youngest guy to get the CSP to earn designation certified. I waited. Dan Clark 07:29 Rational. Yep. Jim Cathcart 07:30 I waited until 1987 so Jim Tunney could sign my. My CSP. I was so into who I connected with in my career so that I could pinpoint this accelerated part, this illuminated path to an individual hero worship. And by golly, I'm on your podcast, and you're one of my major influences as being a hall of fame speaker. I need the world to know that. Jim, I honor you, I love you, Dan Clark 08:00 and I appreciate it deeply. And for the folks viewing and listening, I want you to understand, this guy is a giant. This guy has done everything speakers dream of doing. Dan Clark has done. They say, I want to write a book. Multiple author. I want to speak on the prestigious stages around the world. He's hit them all. Check, check, check. Been there, done that. I want to fly in the backseat of a supersonic jet. Okay, do that. You know, I want to play music on stage in Nashville and. And I want to be on stage in Hollywood. I want to. Dan Clark has done it all. So he sounds enormously humble, and that's a beautiful blessing, but get it that that's a big guy being nice as, not a little guy saying, you know, someday I'll be up there. He's already there. So, Dan, what I want to know is what got you started in this direction? What do. What made you choose the path of. Of motivation and speaking and, you know, human development in the first place. What? What? It's what path did you leave to go on to that one? Jim Cathcart 09:14 That's a great question. And let me give a little preamble to my answer. Dan Clark 09:17 Okay. Jim Cathcart 09:18 Right now the world is flooded with speaker coaching programs. Dan Clark 09:25 Oh yeah. Jim Cathcart 09:26 And most of them. It's a sarcastic as realizing that everyone who owns a phone suddenly thinks they're a life coach. Dan Clark 09:35 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 09:36 You know, just because you're an influencer on that on social media and have a million and a half followers, most of whom are 11 year olds from Brazil, that you purchase. The world is so upside down. What you taught me, what Zig taught me, what I think we need to understand is that you just can't wake up one day and say I'm going to be a professional speaker. Because I, I got a standing ovation one time and the adrenaline, adrenaline rush fed the part of me that is called ego. That's not always good. And I want to do it again and again and again. Oh, and by the way, because we've made millions of dollars doing it, that's what I want to do. That's not how this works, my friends. And you can't possibly be a certified expert. You can't possibly rise to the occasion and be a Hall of Fame speaker or, or even earn the highest designation CSP Certified Speaking Professional, unless you first are convicted in why someone would listen to you. What experience have you had? It could be one. I know so many speakers. We know so many speakers whose entire 60 minute keynote is about one experience and then they dissect it into all the life lessons that they've heard. Yeah, but you know, and that's all it takes to be a subject matter expert. Luckily I've had multiples and so have you. But I just wanted to bring that out as a preamble because being a professional speaker isn't a fireworks experience. It's a stacking of one upon another. The perfect football analogy is not every football play is designed to score a touchdown. Dan Clark 11:23 Right? Jim Cathcart 11:23 One play sets up the next play, which sets up the next play until that running back breaks through the line for a 30 yard scamper to get to score the game winning touchdown. Momentum is only as good as your next play. What do I do now? What have I learned from this fumble? From this, this block, this, this failed attempt to customize my message, to communicate or connect with the audience, blah, blah, blah. So I hope that's clear that I didn't set out to be a professional speaker. I didn't even know it existed. Dan Clark 11:52 I didn't either. Jim Cathcart 11:53 What happened to me is I go back one day. Yeah. My earliest recollection, Jim, I battled throat cancer when I was 8 years old. And I don't have a lot of childhood memories. But psychologists will teach us that regardless of the experience, when you attach an emotion, it becomes a significant emotional event. Dan Clark 12:16 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 12:16 And a significant emotional event is an experience where we measure and quantify what we believed and how we behaved before it occurred and how we now think differently and act and behave differently because it occurred. The two operative words are before and because. Before and because. And I remember laying in that hospital bed in so much pain, I couldn't even lift my head off. Off the bed. I remember the doctors coming in, a whole staff. I remember hearing the conversations with my parents that. Who are people of faith, as you and I are. And the doctor basically saying that the, the cancerous abscess is right on the, right on the, the edge of eating its way through into my vocal cords. And if we didn't have a modern miracle, if we did not have some sort of medical miracle to stop the accelerated growth, it would have eaten into my vocal cords and I would have never been able to speak and I would have never been able to sing. And I was out of the hospital a week later. It was just one of those great faith building moments. But that's my first recollection of understanding the, the law. I'll call it the law of resilience. And now fast forward into into high school. And I was an all American athlete. I played football, basketball, baseball, state and yard guest champion. I was a Golden Gloves boxing champion. Dan Clark 13:45 Wow. Jim Cathcart 13:45 I was the alpine ski racing champion and I was a motocross racing champion. So I always pursued excellence. Dan Clark 13:51 Whatever you used your body for in sports worked. Jim Cathcart 13:55 And thanks for dissecting the body from the mind because yes, most people who I, who knew me growing up, they thought seventh grade would be my senior year. So thanks for bringing that up. Yeah, I, I was an athlete, but the three years I was a, the three years I was a junior in high school almost killed the whole faculty. So let's just put that to rest. Dan Clark 14:15 Three. Jim Cathcart 14:16 Yeah. Three years as a junior. Joke, joke, joke. Anyway, okay, so I'm an athlete. Dan Clark 14:25 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 14:25 And highly recruited coming out of high school. And I signed a scholarship to play football and baseball at the University of Utah. And I was a projected number one draft pick by the Oakland Raiders going into the NFL. I'd had an invitation trial by the Kansas City Royals as a baseball pitcher coming out of high school. So I was a right handed stud in my mind. And my dream of being a professional athlete and being a superstar in the NFL looked like it was coming through. I shouldn't be so, so self, you know, aggrandizing. But yeah, I was a pretty good athlete. And. And then one day in practice as I get to my signature story, Coach blew the whistle and another player and I ran full speed into each other in a violent head on collision, smashing my right shoulder into the cutting edge of my fiberglass pads. And. And we slammed to the ground. And when Lyle got off of me, I'd compressed the seven cervical vertebrae in my neck. I had severed the axillary nerve in my right deltoid muscle. And I'd suffered a grade level 2 concussion, which is the most serious concussion of all. Dan Clark 15:35 Wow. Jim Cathcart 15:35 I drooped. I had loss of speech. I couldn't talk anymore. My right side was paralyzed and my arm dangled helplessly at my side, leaving me paralyzed for 14 months. I went to 16 doctors, 15 of whom said I would never get any better. I'd not recovered, and my life spiraled downward until I hit what I thought was rock bottom. And if I can conclude this story in a consolidated way, which is kind of my. My go to message now, that I fought my way back to a 95% recovery, the three most frequently asked questions are these. Clark, what do you mean you thought you hit rock bottom? And I share with my audiences that no matter how tough times get, no matter how hard life is, nobody ever hits rock bottom. We hit rock foundation, we hit rock belief. We hit the baseline core values and governing principles on which we were raised. Question number two. Why did I keep going to so many different doctors? I kept going from doctor to doctor until I found one who believed I would get better. And question number three. What took me so long to pivot? What took me so long to recover? Why did I stay paralyzed for 14 months? Answer. I was asking the wrong questions. I was asking the doctors how to get better when I should have been asking myself why. And once we answer why, figured out the how to becomes clear and simple. And I don't want people to think this was a rah rah. You can't if you think you can. No one who understands a true motivational speaker understands that we're not a motivational rah rah guy. It's based in neuroscience. Dan Clark 17:16 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 17:16 And when we only focus on the how and the what, we only engage the head. But when we add to that a passionate why and a compelling want, which means our why is bigger Than our why not Biologically proven. Our. Our blood pumps more rapidly, our brains fire and our muscles magnify, which maximizes our energy and accelerates our performance. So I'm down. My life, I've spiraled downward. Vice President, University of Utah My coaches, they all thought I was suicidal because I climbed in a cave, recluse. I'd lost my identity. I thought I was a football player, when in reality, that's just what I did, not who I am as a man. So that makes my injury clearly one of the best things that's ever happened to me. Not because I was paralyzed, but because of who I became because of it. And in that process, while I was so down, the vice president of the University of Utah gave me a cassette tape by a motivational speaker by the name of Zig Ziglar. Wow. Dan Clark 18:19 And I'd never be you at the top, right? Jim Cathcart 18:22 Yeah. And I'd never heard of Zig before. I thought, well, his mom ran out of names. Dan Clark 18:26 No kidding. Jim Cathcart 18:27 So out of curiosity, I plugged in and I listened to it. And it literally saved my life, Jim. It didn't just change my life, it saved my life. I was suicidal. I was so confused about what to do with my life because I had always been myopic. I was an athlete. That's who I was. That's what I did. And the cool thing about Zig was I don't remember one thing he said on that tape except him telling that story about Spindle Top, the well in West Texas. And in my mind, I was not ready for a physician's diagnosis, for a psychologist prognosis, for some sort of a scientific explanation. I was ready and emotionally available to hear a story and comprehend the deeper messages of that story, relating it to my body as the land, the ground, my spirit, my potential, my ability to rise above it, as the oil. And someone like Zig Ziglar. And I'm getting emotional. And Jim Cathcart as being the Derek that was that I could rely on to help me pump the oil. The potential, my. My. My spirit, my resilience out of this broken body to find a new game and commit to living again. That's the significance of what we do, brother. Dan Clark 20:02 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 20:03 And I've never missed a speech. Six thousand stages, 79 countries, millions of people, and I've never, ever missed a speech. And that's not because I'm so noble. I've had planes canceled, I've rented cars and driven seven hours from. From Denver, Colorado, to the badlands of Nebraska to show up in rapid City, South Dakota, as the final speaker of a three day conference for the community. And being the only speaker who showed up because of inclement weather. Dan Clark 20:33 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 20:33 Being hugged by the event planners at the door. And the only reason why I've never missed a speech is because I know for a fact, Jim, in every one of my speeches, large, larger or small, there's at least one man or one woman who is hurting as badly as I was. And we all have stories, but they're not our stories. If the story can save a marriage, can keep someone from taking their life, who can kickstart an entrepreneurial idea, who can be the catalyst for them to get back up and go again knowing. Not knowing how much longer they might have. Why quit today when you can live another 65 years? And I know back in the day when our careers were right at the beginning, we didn't have email, there was no Internet. So I have my mom work for me for a long time. She has file cabinets full of handwritten letters. Thank you so much. You saved my life. Thank you so much. What you said saved my son's life. Thank you so much. That's the answer to your question, that we need to feel like it's a calling. And once we know it's a calling and that we have a message worth sharing, it's our moral obligation to find someone like the Jim Cathcart, like a Zig Ziglar, who will take the time to help us turn our decades into days and help us become that visible connector, that visible ambassador of good, clean, pure, powerful and positive, to give people hope and a. And a substantial plan of action. Remember, one of the. One of the bad. One of the bad raps that motivational speakers get is it's all just fluff. And hopefully I put that to rest. But you know, French philosopher Pascal, he said, too many people live their lives hoping to be happy, but because they only hope, they never really are. And I add to that, it's like we're waiting for someone to ask us to the senior prom. And we've never even taken the time to learn how to dance. Right? So once I was knighted by Zig Ziglar. And this is. Let me just finish the story. So now Zig comes into town with Ty Boyd, Robert Schuller, Dr. Norman Vincent Peele, the PMA rallies. I knew Doug Snar very well, and I positioned myself backstage because I was at the University of Utah. Star. Zig's done and he's walking out. And I leaned down. Zig, I'm Dan Clark, you've. You've saved my life. You really have me. I take you to dinner. He said, I'm leaving town. I'm coming back in three weeks to do a follow up sales seminar. Call Lori Majors in my office and ask her what we can work out. I hounded her. I called her every single day. Day. I sat right, you know, close to her during Zig's funeral. Obviously she's still working there to this day. Dan Clark 23:30 No, she's still with. Jim Cathcart 23:31 Finally calls me back. She finally calls me back and says, zig will allow you to pick him up at the airport. And I'm like, Whoopee, that's a 15 minute drive. If I get lost in the airport Dan Clark 23:42 to the hotel and it's just the Jim Cathcart 23:44 two of you, you get the top Dan Clark 23:45 percent of his attention. Jim Cathcart 23:47 Yep. And by the time we get to the hotel, he goes, dan, is there some place I could see this motivational assembly? So let me back up. Sorry. So I'm hurt. I hope I'm not boring your people, but it's my story. Dan Clark 24:02 You're not. Jim Cathcart 24:02 I'm hurt. And I'm in the football coach's office. A call comes in. Will you set a coach or an athlete to come and speak to our team in this little rural town? I'm in the office. Coach says, danny, go, Go play. Go speak. I said, no, go speak. It's not me. I'm not a speaker. Go speak. He knew something that I didn't know about me, that I needed this. I went to speak. I show up. The coach has multiple sclerosis. I stopped feeling sorry for myself. 16 doctors had already told me I would never recover. I've listened to the Zig Ziglar tape. I'm starting to figure it out. I'm starting to change my mindset. And I ended up speaking before their football team. Seven out of the eight games. And they won the state championship. High school principal heard me speak, invited me in to speak to his, his student body. He, he dug it. He calls up four of his, his fellow principals. So I spoke at five high schools that year. I invited four of my buddies to join me because I thought I had about seven and a half minutes of good material. Dan Clark 25:03 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 25:03 Next year I spoke at 13 schools. I realized this, this was something I had. I had invented the high school motivational assembly. So I go to the Utah, I go to school board. Anybody could get on the program. Seven members. I gave my still my stick. They voted unanimously to endorse my high school assembly program. Lola B. Lila Bjorkland. The president of the school board calls the speaker of the House of Representatives, Utah legislature. I, in front of the entire legislature at the capitol, spoke for 45 minutes, gave my high school assembly. They voted unanimously to fund me to speak to every high school in the state of Utah for 100 grand. They renewed that contract in 1981 and to. And enlarged it to speak to every high school and junior I. So I had spoken to 170 schools. Dan Clark 25:56 Wow. Jim Cathcart 25:57 By the time I met Zit. Dan Clark 25:59 Wow. Jim Cathcart 26:00 And he had his Born to Win seminar, but he also had his C with the top character development curriculum for schools. And he was stuck trying to figure out how to get it into schools. And I was his answer. Dan Clark 26:14 There you go. Jim Cathcart 26:15 So now we're in the hotel, and he says, is there some place I could see this high school assembly? I said, yeah, I've rented the small ballroom off the foyer. And then I had a little slideshow and everything. I set it up, as you said, mono and mono. Yeah, I gave him my whole speech. He stands up. Tears. I'm crying. The next week, he flies me to Dallas to speak to his company. The next week, he sponsors me into the National Speakers association. This is 1982. I meet him in Chicago. And then the next week, he invites my beautiful new bride to Dallas to his five day Born to Win seminar. My first ever seminar. And it was there he introduced me to someone who introduced me to Nancy Reagan, who invited me into the Reagan White House to take her Just say no program to all 50 states. So between 1983 and 1989, I spoke in three high schools every single day. Fifteen a week for 140 school days a year. And then those. The nature of the beast. They would graduate from high school, go to college. And with the convocation program, I started speaking to 100 college university campuses a year. Dan Clark 27:28 Wow. Jim Cathcart 27:29 So I was the one of the two guys that literally invented the high school motivational assembly. Dan Clark 27:34 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 27:35 The other one being our dear friend Mark Scherenbrock. Dan Clark 27:38 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 27:38 He was sponsored by Jostens. I was sponsored by the White House. And we did so many of the same leadership conferences together in the world. And that's where he and I hit it off. He was a late cover to nsa. Dan Clark 27:51 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 27:52 But I attribute everything in my career to. To meeting Zig Ziglar, who introduced me. Yeah, I. Boyd never really. I never really interacted with him. But who introduced me to you? Who introduced me to Jeannie Roberson? Who introduced me to Robert Henry? Dan Clark 28:09 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 28:10 I love you, Jim Cathcart. And that's God. That is such a long answer to your simple question. But those who are listening, we need to be called. And once we feel like we're called, what do the scriptures say? Many are called, but few are chosen. When you know you've been tapped out, you better rise to the occasion, because that's the only way we can die knowing we're the best version of ourselves, which is what you're about, Jim, that's everything you say in my mind, everything I've listened to. You know, let's. Before I forget, I'm a dumb football player, my cholesterol counts higher than my SAT scores. Let's talk about the difference you made in my life with a story, a metaphor of the acorn effect. Oh, my gosh. One story that Zig taught me, that Zig shared with me, unbeknownst to him, that changed my life. My gosh. The eight on effect. Brother, I had one inside of me. I was more than an athlete. Dan Clark 29:16 Absolutely. Jim Cathcart 29:17 And because of your message and your metaphor in the mighty oak tree, for some reason, I believed in myself again. Thank you. Dan Clark 29:29 You blow me away. No wonder you've been such a powerful force for good. And by the way, just for a footnote for the. You know this, but the viewers might not. I was hired by the Nancy Reagan White House office when she was first lady to do speak speaker training for the other speakers for the Just say no campaign. It would have been great if you and I had been that day, too. Jim Cathcart 29:54 That said. Dan Clark 29:55 Well, that is amazing. Now, listeners, I want you to just reflect on what you've just heard. I mean, many people will be tempted to say, oh, my gosh, Dan's a miracle. I could never do that. What an amazing and wonderful story. That was fun. The movie has played. Now I'll go home to my ordinary life. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Dan just laid out a smorgasbord of gift goodies for you. I want you to listen to the echo of what he just said and realize this is a guy who was. He was gifted. Yeah, he was gifted athletically and born into a loving family. And, you know, he had a lot of great things going for him, but in an instant, he lost all of that ability and with it, his belief that life was worth continuing. He was on the, you know, that close to suicide when he changed directions. And that change of direction held unbelievable benefits for humanity as well as for Dan himself. I want you to notice another thing. Earlier, he said 16 doctors because he kept changing doctors until he found one that believed there Was hope. That's not just a story for Dan. I, I had a doctor years ago. I had thrown my back out at age 40. On my birthday, I bent over to pick something up, herniated two discs and had to get in a wheelchair in order to get home. Traveling from airport to airport and finally back home across the country. And I went to my doctor and he said, well, looks like we're going to have to operate. And I said, you're fired. He said, what? And I said, there's got to be another way because I don't want to rot in my back as my first option. So I kept shopping doctors until I found a chiropractor who said, I can, I can fix that, but it's going to take about 10 treatments, maybe more. And I got up every morning and went back every afternoon. And it took a half hour just to get from the bed to the car and the car to the office on each of those trips. And over about a 10 or 12 day period, he finally got my back to where it got the movement it needed and healed itself. And I didn't have to have surgery. And here I am almost 40 years later, still going fine. So take the thinking that Dan is presenting to you and apply that in your own personal life. Now, Dan, let's take a different direction and let's, let's look at your business evolution, your, the path. Okay, so you had the hit show and it was getting booked everywhere, right? And you were, you, you took the initiative to go and call on the people that could open those doors and you were willing to take the risk of being turned down, but you hit a lot of home runs in the process. Now when you got into the business and back then it was easier to get 120, 150 engagements a year than it would be today. But I mean, even 20, 30 engagements a year can still be a thriving career depending on how you approach it. What has been the evolution of your business model over the time? Jim Cathcart 33:40 It's such a great question. Again, so let's just put things in perspective. Let's just go back to the 80s. So my business model immediately became, it's not how many people are in your audience, it's who's in your audience. You want to make sure it's not how many times you speak, it's to whom you speak and are there multiple decision makers in your audience? And so what my business model was at the very beginning was to get on the stages of the leadership conferences. And at the time there were 16 national student leadership organizations, Key Club, Junior Achievement, Hugh O', Brien Leadership Council, and then all of the vocational FBLA, future business leaders of America, Distributive Education Clubs of America, DEC, which was the college version, and the VICA, Future Homemakers, Future Farmers of America, you know, Scott McKay and Mark Mayfield, they were national officers in the FMA, blah, blah, blah. And each one of those have regional conferences. And as your reverse engineer, each one of those have state conferences. Dan Clark 34:53 Yep. Jim Cathcart 34:54 So instead of just spending my time going to high schools, which is a one off, what would happen is at the end of that week, I needed to get myself in front of decision makers so that I would speak at 15 schools in that. In that district. Why not hang around Friday afternoon and do a teacher in service for free? Dan Clark 35:16 There you go. Jim Cathcart 35:17 And get myself in front of all of their faculty, which included counselors, American School Counselors Association, Convention, Secondary School Principals association, association of. Of Assistant Principals. Dan Clark 35:31 The list goes down that the teachers that had been designated as sponsors for FFA and got o' Brien Youth Leadership and you got anything else? Yeah. Jim Cathcart 35:40 And everybody's in search of a speaker. And if I did my homework and customized my speech and connected with these kids and the faculty and. And deliver that powerful message, not everybody needed to love me. Not everybody needed to connect with me. But if I had at least one, they could recommend me to someone who ran the state association. And that's exactly what happened to me. Let me interject this because you and I are both guitar players, you and I are both singer songwriters, got some gold records in country music. What? I was just in Nashville right before the store, met a couple weeks ago, writing songs. I still do that. Used to have a publishing deal with Sony BMG back in the day. Dan Clark 36:20 By the way, we need to write a song together about. Oh, I want to. We'll talk about that offline. Jim Cathcart 36:25 So what. What keeps us songwriters and. And singers motivated to never sell our soul, to stay true to our message, to stay true to who we are? Is the goal to have a platinum selling record or a platinum selling song, which means you sell 1 million copies. And what keeps us true to ourselves and motivated is the reality that there are 300 million people in America, which means you can literally tick off 299 million and still go platinum. So our value proposition doesn't have to be for everybody. Dan Clark 37:06 No. Jim Cathcart 37:06 Find those, like the doctors I was searching for who believe what you believe. You know, the purpose of a leader is to grow more leaders who believe what you believe, not generate more followers. Dan Clark 37:19 Absolutely. Perspective by Looking at what happened after he or she left. Jim Cathcart 37:25 Exactly, yeah. And, you know, Simon Sinek, my colleague, my buddy, he says the goal is not to do business with everybody who wants what you have. The goal is to do business only with those who believe what you believe. So they choose you, not just somebody who does what you do. So back to the model as an athlete. The teams that lose begin the game with the goal of winning. The teams that win begin the game with the goal of execution. What are you going to do right now? What are you going to do with what you have, with what you know, how to make this play, Everything it has the potential to be, no matter what your past, when you have a spotless future. So I just started going after the larger venues who had multiple decision makers and knocked on wood. I had a chance to. I was invited to speak to the Western Region Distributive Education Clubs of America conference because it was being held in Salt Lake City, Utah. So somebody invites me, and I get a call from a guy in Oklahoma. Dr. Jim Kaker had been a PhD marketing professor at. In Stillwater at Oklahoma State University, and he was the one producing all of these regional shows for deca. He calls me up and he goes, who are you? We've never heard of you. What do you mean? You're going to be the keynote speaker. Dan Clark 39:02 It. Jim Cathcart 39:02 It goes through us. We've never heard of you. And I said, well, Zig Ziglar, you know, he's who. I said, yeah, Zig Ziglar sponsored me, the National. He says, okay, we'll look into that. He didn't believe me. So he calls, yeah, oh, yeah, we know who Dan is. Yeah, yeah, he'd be a good choice. So Jim Kindergarten calls me back and he says, I'll tell you what, Dan. He said, we'll cover your expenses. We're going to fly you into Atlanta, and we're going to put you on a stage, and we're going to see how good you are. And if you do well, we will book you into all of the regional conferences. And if you bomb, we'll do shake hands and walk away and say, no harm, no foul. I said, okay. So I show up in Atlanta, Talk about the tales of the road. You know, I brought. I bought a brand new polo suit. I'm backstage getting all fired up, ready to go. Chivalry's not dead. Here come these two lovely ladies. There's a heavy box on the floor. Let me pick that up for you. Put it on the table. I bend over and I Rip my pants from the bottom of my zipper all the way around the back to my belt loop. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage Dan Clark. So I got on stage. Can you. But I can't even be vocal, Ralph. I'm Polos. Yeah. I'm standing in front of this little podium, and I got to fire these folks up for 50 to 60 minutes while I'm pinching my butt cheeks, hoping that no one sees my flowered underwear Dan Clark 40:34 with a breathe breeze of support from behind. Jim Cathcart 40:39 Anyway, I rose to the occasion. Dan Clark 40:41 By the way, I got a line for you. You could call that your tailwind. Jim Cathcart 40:46 Oh, Let your tail wag your dog, baby. You're so funny. Anyway, so that was another one of those six degrees of separation. And he launched me into the vocational Student leadership organizations. And sure enough, they start swapping because all of their offices were in Reston, Virginia, on Association Avenue, Association Road. Whoa. And they just started talking, by the way, for the. Dan Clark 41:16 For the viewers. Jim Cathcart 41:17 Yeah. Dan Clark 41:18 Associations and. And professional societies are where all the business people or all the players gather for each of the major entities out there. Like, you know, there's the Farmers association, there's a Bankers association, there's an Everything association, and there's the American Society of Association Executives, asae. Dan and I have both spoken for asae and once you speak at their conference, all the other associations see you. And they hire speakers for their conferences, too. Now, let me change directions, Dan. Everything you've been describing sounds like an. Just a feast for a workaholic, because that's a heck of a lot of work that's showing up every day. That's full on commitment, total immersion baptism in the field of speaking. Not everybody wants to go at it that hard. But even if a person takes the wisdom of what you did, they don't have to embrace the volume of what you produced from it. They can take the wisdom of be in front of and in contact with the leaders so that they, as decision makers, can multiply your efforts along the food chain. Now, when did. Has your career normalized? Or are you still on this breakneck pace, you know, where there's. There's not a spare minute to have a life, it seems. Jim Cathcart 42:54 Man, you know, that's so funny. You know, I still love the road because I love to golf, but I can't. I can't, as often as I would, like, block off four hours to go play golf while I'm at home with my buddies. But on the road, I can. You know, I've written 37 books and most of Those books were written on airplanes or in hotel rooms when I would come home. Unpublished home phone number. And that would allow me to be a full time husband, a full time dad, you know, between 19, my first son, my first child, our first child was born in 1985. So I still had all of that ramp up time where my wife was working in her dad's dental office. That's where I met her. Apparently it's very attractive. No. Dan Clark 43:44 Yeah, you've had. Jim Cathcart 43:45 And so she had the support of family. Yeah, she had the support of family. Independent, you know, just beautiful, strong, you know, we were together every single weekend because I'd fly home right after I had a teacher in service on Friday and then I'd hit the road again on Sunday night. So I could be a man of faith, I could do those things. Yep. And then the beauty in this, Jim, was because I would walk into a school district, for example, we would move. So now our son's just a little kid. We. This is great. I haven't thought about this. This is such a critical part of my history, Jim. This is so fun. So we moved into the Inn at the Park. It was the poshest hotel in Orange county, across the street from Disneyland. Yeah, My wife and I and our new little baby boy, Danny Jr. Couldn't spell Jim. I'm humble. Couldn't think of another name. Dan Clark 44:39 Hey, my junior. Jim Cathcart 44:42 We move into in at the park. Dan Clark 44:44 Yep. Jim Cathcart 44:45 For the entire month of February. So I spoke to 60 high schools in Orange County. Three a day, 20 days of the, of the 20 school days of the month of February. Undone every day by 3 o' clock. With the rental car. Yeah, we're in the pool. We go to Disneyland on the weekend and rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Then we go to Hawaii and we move into a condo at Hilton Hawaiian Village there in Oahu. Dan Clark 45:14 Rental car, the one with the rainbow on the side. Jim Cathcart 45:17 You got it. And so I would. What, what catapulted that real acceleration of my high school speaking. Not only was I sponsored by the White House, but I spoke at the National Student Council association convention a year when it was in Rhode Island. And so now every single one of the 50 executive directors of the state student council associations heard me speak. So now, damn, they've called my office. And that's why we. I had six offices around the country, you know, one is Shawnee Mission Candies. That's when I met. Well, that's when I met Brad Plum. Remember the good old days? Charlie Plum's brother. I had one of The RANA bureau. I had one in Alabama and I had one in Alaska, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, one in Toronto, Canada, because I'd speak in all 10 provinces of Canada, so why not have one in Oakville? And the guy that ran my office out of Oakville was a professor at the university, but he was in charge of all the student council association leaders. Anyway, so here's what happens. So we moved to Hawaii, and I speak to every high school in the state of Hawaii. I go to Alaska every year for 13 days at a time and started speaking to every single high school in Alaska. Same with Arizona, same with Oregon. I did that multiple times. So over the course of those seven years, 83 to 89 if that's six years. That's why I spoke in so many schools. And that's how I balanced my life, my family, my love of my life and accelerated my career. I took them with me on the road. And then what happens is we have our next child, Nicola, three years younger than my son. And all of a sudden we had to put him in school, which screwed up my whole business plan. I don't know why he said, what came up with that? Anyway, and then as time went on, I would start to take one of my kids with me all the time. And there's something about ordering a room service and watching a movie with dad. Bring your kid to work. I couldn't do that really with the high schools, but I did that with the colleges, the college convocations, because there would be somebody who could sit with them on the front row. And then the nature of the beast. High school student leaders became student leaders in. In government at colleges, right? Access to huge, huge budgets. They would bring me in. That's when my speakers fee started to accelerate. Then in 1991, because enough of those college student leaders had graduated in marketing and in new business sense, and were now engaged in the most noble profession of all, selling. As we know, they found themselves in positions of authority and decision making where they could bring me into their companies. And that's when I made the leap into the corporate arena. So back in the Day, NSA, 1982. Refresh my memory. But it seemed to be that the going that the prestigious level of speakers honorarium was at about $2,500. Dan Clark 48:29 Boy, that would have been the big time. I'm sure at that time I was getting like 500 bucks a shot or maybe a thousand, I don't know. But it was not a lot, but it was, it seemed like a lot at the time. And as often as you and I were speaking. We were raking in some serious dollars, especially compared to the life we had lived before. Oh, yeah. You know, my dad was a telephone repairman, and Mike, coming out of high school, my dream was to someday earn $1,000 a month, 12 a year. Jim Cathcart 49:01 Wow. Dan Clark 49:02 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 49:03 You look so good for being 113 years old. I hope I'm adding value to your listeners, to your viewers. Dan Clark 49:14 Absolute, pure gold. So today, I mean, you're over 50, so. Jim Cathcart 49:20 Oh, yeah. Dan Clark 49:21 Hey, here you are. Here you are at the. At the pinnacle of quite a. Quite a mountain of achievements. I mean, all the things that other people get excited about doing someday you've done. Like books. 37, for heaven's sakes. You know you've done. Jim Cathcart 49:38 You notice I didn't say 37 good books. I just said 37. Dan Clark 49:42 I hear you. I've written. I've written 28, and there's about six of them on still selling a lot of. But what now? What are you doing now? Jim Cathcart 49:56 Yeah, I'm still writing songs. That's how I get my creative juices flowing. But I'm still speaking. Last year, by October, November were some of my busiest months in the last decade. You know, everything was shut down in covet, and I was on a huge roll. And within a matter of two to three weeks, every single speech in. In 2019, 20 were canceled off my. Off my. My calendar. But that's when we had to change our focus as professional communicators. Dan Clark 50:27 That's right. Jim Cathcart 50:27 And with all due respect to the. To the analogy, we needed to learn how to make love to a camera. We need to learn how to reach through that little green dot at the top of our screens and still connect head to head, heart to heart, spirit to spirit, and drive that emotion. And so that increased that. That gave us each a challenge to increase our skill set, to be able to communicate in a different way at a deeper level. And you know, the way our. Obviously everybody who's a speaker knows the way we keep our cash flow rolling is someone calls our office, are you available? Put it on hold. They call up with the firm offer, we sign the contract, send it to them. They signed the contract, send it back with a 50% deposit. That's how we keep our cash flow. Because so many of our speeches back in the good old days were booked a year to a year and a half in advance. Now they call us on a Saturday. But I didn't want to give that, that, that 50% deposit back. So that's when we started understanding that the Goal was to become that speaker of value. Which meant that if they allowed me to connect and fulfill this commitment with a virtual online speech for the price of the 50% deposit, I would be the first, they would be the first right of refusal to have me come in. As soon as the COVID crisis was over and we were reconvening in live belly to belly experiences that I would come back and speak for them. Live for the other 50% now instead of 100%. Dan Clark 52:04 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 52:04 And that's when my, the genius in my office, Laura Teresa in Santa Barbara, she's booked me for over 25 years. That's when she came up with the Clark stimulus package. Which means now once we were back in action and I could come and speak, I would keep that commitment to speak for the 50% which they they still owed. But what else could we do while I was there? Oh, I will do a follow up seminar, you know, and we added on, attacked on. Oh, can we, can we pre sell some books so everybody gets a copy of Dan's book. He'll do a vip, you know, photos Dan Clark 52:41 and signing me with your executive team because your sponsors and I have a private session just for them because they're sponsors of your event. Yeah, could we. So that problem solving thing for the, for your top performers that are having difficulty. Yeah. By the way, Santa Barbara. My son is the general manager of the Santa Barbara Inn, right on the coast in Santa Barbara. Jim Cathcart 53:05 Oh my gosh. Next time out there I'll slide in and say, your dad, your dad told me to come in and confess my sins. I've stolen some towels and robes from your hotel and I needed to introduce myself. Dan Clark 53:18 Be easy to remember his name because Jim Cathcart 53:22 you couldn't spell Dan. I get it. Dan Clark 53:24 Yeah. Jim Jr. Yeah. Jim Cathcart 53:26 Wow. So I'm still busy. I'm, you know, you know, as we start bragging how many times we've spoken in a year, it's just, you know, we always try to one up each other. You know, last year I spoke 5,000 times and everybody's like, yeah, sure you did. I remember the good laugh in NSA one of the years, I think it was Robert Henry. We were talking about speakers fees and we couldn't talk about them because of collusion and you know, analyzing the laws. Dan Clark 53:52 But any trust rulings and stuff. Jim Cathcart 53:54 But in those sacred quiet whispering moments, sitting next to Robert Henry and he leans over and he goes, I don't know about you man, but my speaker's fee is a hundred grand. He says, and nobody needs to know. I've never Been asked to speak my speakers fees. 100 grand. That's just funny. Dan Clark 54:13 You or Spencer Johnson? Who moved my cheese? Jim Cathcart 54:17 Oh, yeah. Dan Clark 54:17 Who? Author the One Minute Manner. He. His office was next to mine in La Jolla, and so I saw him a lot and Paula and his wife used to go to lunch together pretty often. He wrote a book called yes or no the Guide to Better Decisions. And I collaborated with him on that book. And he told me, I don't want to do any of the speeching. He said, you do the speaking. And so he. He referred things to me and I said, well, if you were to give a speech, what would you charge? He said, well, I don't want to do it. So $100,000. He got it a few times. People brought him in because of the One Minute manager or the. Who moved my chief whatever at that level of lord. So it's possible. Not likely, but it's possible. Some people get those kind of fees, man. Jim Cathcart 55:07 So I'm excited. 150k. Dan Clark 55:09 If you're a listener today and you don't aspire to be a speaker, you can still learn a ton from what Dennis shared because there's such wisdom in this. Looking at sales strategy, looking at self discipline, looking at industry focus. Choose a lane. Stay specific to that lane. Look for all the branches that leads you to make integrity more important than reward. Find a way to blend your personal life with your professional life and to add adventures that wouldn't have happened otherwise. Find a way to multiply each of the events that you get. How many other ways could I be of service while I'm here? You know, when you're forced to retool because of something like Covid? Like, I lost an entire. I lost about 300,000 hard dollars in. In the first half of the year 2020 because of COVID Because I couldn't go back to China where I had already pre booked a full year of lecture tours. So, like Dan, I had to get a whole lot better at online communication real fast. And I hired mentors to train me and I went through their training and the first. The first big customer I got was the Zig Ziglar Corporation hiring and they're training for their trainers. Wow. Is it? So many connections, you know, with Nancy Reagan and Zig Ziglar and National Speakers association and all that. Well, Dan, you've been. You've been so generous today and I appreciate you being on board with us. Jim Cathcart 56:50 Throw out one more suggestion. Dan Clark 56:52 Yeah. Jim Cathcart 56:53 Don't ever turn down an opportunity to speak for free. We need fee Integrity. We know that. But I've had a chance to soar to the edge of space in U2 reconnaissance aircraft. I've been downrange eight times to Iraq, Afghanistan, the war zones, firing up the troops. I have flown all the fighter jets, all the bombers. I've had extraordinary experiences because I've given over 350 free speeches to the military. And eventually the commander, the general knows what our speaker's honorarium is. And so he comes to us and says, dan, what can I do for you? I want to fly an F18. I want to fly an F16. They can't say no. That's not the motivation. But I've had so many extraordinary experiences. You know, popping your cookies in an F18 is actually a joyous experience. In fact, I ejected a box of Milk Duds I'd eaten at a movie when he was 9. And it embellishes our opportunities to. To illustrate life principles, just like you did. As you summarized our conversation in. In only the Jim Cathcart way, you dissected all of these great principles and lessons learned. You know, discipline, integrity. Don't be afraid to say yes. And Zig taught me way, way back in the day, he would. He would allocate 10 free speeches every year on his calendar. And as a man of integrity, he would hold true to that. And when someone would call up, he would say, you know, send us your information. All 10 speeches have already been allocated for this year, but we'll put you on the list next year. And he, he challenged me to do the same. I could never say no to the military. It's the way I serve my country. Yeah, but when you could ask. When someone says, I don't have a budget, and you can ask the simple question, who's going to be in the audience? And you know, you can affect someone's life for good, change them forever, and expose your wisdom, exposure heart to a decision maker who can bring you into a full fee speech. Always say yes. Always, always, always say yes. Dan Clark 59:08 And a quick. Jim Cathcart 59:08 Because that's a true test. Dan Clark 59:10 Quick bit of advice, when you do send a contract, if it's a phrase, send a contract showing that that's what the fee is and market waived. And if it's waived because of certain conditions, like they agreed to let you fly in F18 or whatever, then write it in there so that they take this seriously, just like you do. If you're going to do all this preparation and put your heart and soul and self into a situation for them, they need to realize that that that wasn't just a buddy showing up to help you move to a new home. You know, I'll help you load boxes. No, this is a professional providing services that are well worthy of being highly paid for. And so that, that keeps integrity on both sides of the table. And then we've got to run. But I tell you, we've given them more than enough to think about this time and I'm good. Jim Cathcart 60:09 Have we back? We've got more stories to have you Dan Clark 60:12 as a certified professional expert. Jim Cathcart 60:14 Can I give them a way to keep in touch with me or is that just not part of you? Dan Clark 60:18 Please do. Jim Cathcart 60:19 Yeah, my website's danclark.com d a n c l a r k dot com but I have a. I have a whole community I call Dan Nation. That's with an N. Yeah, Dan Nation. And it's my own app. It's going to be released in a couple weeks. Is this being broadcast live today or are you going to rebroadcast now? Dan Clark 60:41 You can rebroadcast, yeah, through. Through usual channels. Jim Cathcart 60:45 So what I'll do is I'll provide you with a QR code that you can just put up on the screen and that will give them a chance to download my, my app and keep in touch with me in any way that I can possibly serve them. Is that okay? Dan Clark 60:57 Yes, yes, it is. Absolutely. And some of this is going to be audio, so give me that verbally the email address you want them to go to or something. Jim Cathcart 61:06 Okay, so. So what you do is. What you do is you pull out your phone and you enter in dan clark360.com dan clark360.com and a screen will come up on your phone and it gives you all the ways to keep in touch with me. You know, Instagram, tick tock, LinkedIn, whatever. But push the button. This says contact. And then when you push send text, it gives you an opportunity to add in your name and your best email address. And my team will email you the link to my new app, Dan Nation, where you get access to my videos. One in your inbox every week for a year just to make you laugh and cry and think and feel. But more importantly, the coaching and my Rolodex, my relationships, where I would have Jim on my show and get a chance to pick his brain, which will add 10 times the value that I've added to his show. So please join me again. Dan Clark 360. Push contact, push send text. Enter in your name, your email, and you'll receive an immediate link from my team. An immediate email with the link of how you can keep in touch and join my. My community called Damnation. Dan Clark 62:26 That's irresistible. Well, thank you so much and God bless you. Thank you. Jim Cathcart 62:32 Thanks so much. Dan Clark 62:34 You bet. Dan Clark 62:37 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.