An Overnight Success 18 Years in The Making: The Story of David Newman

 

Summary:

 

Ari’s friend David Newman is a man who seems, on the surface, to have it all. He is a very successful entrepreneur. He’s a member of the National Speakers Association Million-Dollar Speakers Group. He’s the author of the bestselling business books Do It! Marketing and Do It! Speaking. He is also the creator of the Expert Profit Formula mentoring program.

 

Episode Transcription:

 

(Intro plays)

 

Ari: Welcome to whispers and bricks. I am Ari Schonbrun, your host and I have a very, very special guest with me today for this week’s episode. Mr. David Newman. There are no words to describe David but let me just read you a little bit about his bio his background. David Newman is a certified speaking professional. He’s a member of the National Speakers Association million dollar speakers group. He’s the author of the business bestsellers do it marketing and do it speaking 77 instant action ideas to market, monetize and maximize your expertise. Harper Collins 2020. David is also the creator of the expert profit formula mentoring program where he helps thought leaders market their smarts and make a bigger dent in the universe. Free training, tools and downloads are waiting for you at www.doitmarketing.com Please help me welcome my mentor and dear friend, David Newman.

 

David: Hey, there are it’s great to be here. Thank you so much.

 

Ari: Oh, thank you so much for coming on. How you doing how you been?

 

David: I‘m doing great. I’m excited to be on your show here. This is my media debut on the Ari show. 

 

Ari:   There you go I gotta tell you, that’s an incredible resume congrats on all of your accomplishments. Now, as you know, the name of this podcast is whispers and bricks, and the whispers of those voices telling you what is the right thing to do and represents the good in life. The bricks represent the bad things that we go through in life, and we all have bricks thrown at us. Now on the surface, you seem to have had a great life, great career. However, we all know that life is not a straight line. There are many ups and downs and many bumps in the road. And my listeners would like to know first and foremost, how many years did it take you to become an overnight success?

 

David: 18? Great question. And the answer is 1818 years.

 

Ari: So if you’re in my audience, and you’re listening, and you haven’t been added 18 years yet, don’t worry, there’s still hope. Now let me ask you this. What was some of the struggles and or failures, some of your bricks that you hit with when you were starting out in your career, and throughout your career?

 

David: So like many entrepreneurs, I had a corporate career and Rei. No, you had a fantastic corporate career before embarking out as a speaker and mentor to others. So my corporate career ended in 2002, I voluntarily left a high tech consulting job, because I’ve been doing this for about 10 years. And I figured, Well, come on, I know how to consult I know how to speak I know how to train, how hard can it be. And I found out how hard it was. Because out on my own without the big company name on my business card. I was completely lost. I have no clients, I have no platform, I have no clue, didn’t know how to market didn’t know how to sell. The blinding flash of the obvious was that when you’re an entrepreneur, it’s no longer about doing the work. It’s about getting the work. And I literally stumbled and fumbled and struggled for three to four years in the first three to four years of my business. Jack of all trades, master of none. But it’s so funny I want to share with you and I think no other podcast would even care about this. But because we’re on whispers and bricks, I will tell you a very encouraging whisper that I had in those early dark days. So we’re having a group dinner. And you remember those, it’s when a whole bunch of people are around a table of awesome. I had my corporate buddies and some my entrepreneurial friends, these are all college friends. And some work for big companies like DuPont. And another one was a very successful chiropractor’s chiropractor who had a cash only practice on Central Park South in New York City. And everyone’s kind of gathered around. And the conversation came to my entrepreneurial ventures. And I was telling him what I was gonna do. And you know how excited I was about all of this. And everyone is throwing bricks at my head. What David that’s not gonna work and how are you going to get clients and you have no idea what you’re doing and all of these things. At the end of the table. Ari is this very successful chiropractor who had built again, a multi million dollar cash only chiropractic business in the heart of New York City. And she half whispers like a stage whisper. Everyone’s asking around the table with David. How’s that gonna work? How are you going to do that? How are you going to make that happen? And I hear this from whisper from the far end of the dinner table, and she says, one client at a time. And everyone hears this half stage whisper turns to my chiropractor friend whose name is Lisa, as at least so what are you saying? What’d you say? I said, he’s going to build it one client at a time. Like we all build anything. One buyer at a time, one client at a time, one project at a time, one success at a time. Stop all the naysaying. And I love David’s idea. And he’s gonna do it the way I did it, I did it one patient at a time. He’s gonna do it one client at a time. And all the voices of the negativity and pessimism and cynicism and doom and gloom, all the bricks. And that’s the one voice that I focused on are is that one positive whisper of he’s going to do it one client at a time. I wish I could say things instantly turned around and there was magic beans or something. But as you know, that’s not how it goes. But it was hugely inspiring and hugely encouraging. And that thought kept me going for many a dark night.

 

Ari: Wow, it sounds very much like Les Brown. I mean, I love Les Brown. And he talks about it all the time. Never give up on your dream. And you know, you are the your life is a dictatorship. He says, All right, and you’re the dictator, you get to choose who’s coming with you and who’s not. And all those naysayers. Leave them behind, because all they’re going to do is bring you down. And that’s exactly what you did you left the naysayers behind. And you just moved on. You said I’m going to do this, no matter what reminds me Have you ever seen the movie Draft Day is a football movie? Oh, it’s a great movie Draft Day. And if the the general manager comes time for drafting a player, and throughout the movie is you know who we can draft, they have meetings and everything else. And he puts a little piece of paper in his pocket. And when it comes time for him to pick in the draft, he picks this one player that nobody else would have thought they and they all looked at him like he’s crazy, whatever. And he threw the piece of paper on. And it said on the piece of paper it said Vontae Mac no matter what. So he made that decision no matter what he didn’t care about the near. So at the end of the movie, it turns out to be the right move, etc, and so forth. But it’s very, very interesting. So that’s kind of, you know, this is where you were. And that’s, that’s wonderful. I mean, it gives so much inspiration to my audience. Now, let me ask you something else, did you ever and I’m sure this has happened, this has happened to everybody, but nobody wants to not that they don’t want to admit it. But they think they’re the only ones that happens to put shove fall to a point so low that you said to yourself, you know what? I can’t do this anymore. I quit. You know, I just I can’t I’m throwing in the towel? And if you did, how did you deal with that? And how did you make that comeback?

 

David:  Well, so not only here’s the big thundering reveal, not only that I have that thought early on, but I probably have that thought every 18 to 24 months, like literally even to this day, every 18 to 24 months. And you know, early on, it’s because you can’t figure something out, or it’s really hard or you’re getting a lot of pressure from family or the marketplace, or your peers or whatever it is, I should just throw in the towel. Why am I doing all this work? Why am I working so hard? Why am I killing myself? I’m not getting any results, nothing is working. Maybe I shouldn’t go back to corporate, there’s a go back and get a job. Maybe I should just you know, put the green apron on and go to Starbucks. So that’s the voice of failure, right? It’s the voice of failure, Voice of judgment, saying You know what? You’re not smart enough. You’re not good enough. Quit throwing in the towel. stop embarrassing yourself. But I will tell you, I the real dirty little secret is that very successful people like you and me, we still get that thought maybe not as often. Maybe not as deep, maybe not as profoundly depressing, or whatever you want to call it. But very success. And this is why unfortunately, we have a suicide problem in this culture, right? Because people are at the top of their game. People who have zillions of dollars and massive success and you look at them from the outside. You’re like what problems could these people possibly have had? They’ve got wealth, they’ve got fame, they’ve got power, they’ve got adoration from their fans, but they still they still check out and they still say oh my gosh, life isn’t worth living. How horrible is this? Now luckily, I have not had suicidal thoughts or tendencies. But as far as giving up on your dream or giving up on your business or giving up on your career, I think we are sometimes trapped by success and sometimes very Successful people wake up. And they say is this all there is. And that’s because I think we’ve lost sight of one thing. And one thing only, which is gratitude, we have lost sight of our blessings, we have lost sight of how awesome and amazing the universe can be. And and when we lose sight of our blessings, I think that’s our anchor, and we lose our anchor in the world. And then we start going around, and we hear ourselves saying things like, well, you know, is this all there is I thought I’d be further along by now, gosh, this is, you know, what more do I have to look forward to in life, I’ve got every accomplishment, I’ve reached every plateau, et cetera, which none of which is true, none of which is true. But we need mentors, like you already to say, Listen, when you hear those voices in your head, you are tuned into the wrong frequency, my friend, you are tuned into the wrong channel. And you need to bring more gratitude and more love and more acknowledgement of every one of your blessings. And that’s going to ground you into your next level of success.

 

Ari:Wow, such inspiring words. I know that on a personal level, I’ve shut my TV off, and I’ve shut my radio off, because that is just filling you with such, you know, negative news and bad news. I mean, it’s just like, it’s ridiculous. And I was getting so bummed out by it. The whole thing and I don’t care whether you’re a Trump supporter, your Biden swing doesn’t really matter, right? It’s going from both ends. And it’s just like, it was a horrible situation. I says, You know what, I’m not gonna listen to this stuff anymore. It’s only bringing me down. And I made that decision, conscious decision. And you know, what, my life’s been better for it. Alright, because I’m not filled with all that negativity. That’s great. So what have you got planned? Now? What’s going on for the future of David Newman? Where’s he headed? Now?

 

David: What a fantastic question. So I think there’s a couple of things I’m really excited about, personally, professionally, business wise, etc. So I’m really looking forward to when we can travel again, don’t know when don’t know how, but you know, some sort of getting on an airplane and having some semblance of normalcy, because that really brings me great joy. You know, what we’re doing now is we’re traveling places by car. So you know, we go and we’re lucky because we live in the Philadelphia area, which area I know you’re familiar with, because your family connections here. But you know, we’re two hours from New York City, we’re two and a half, three hours from DC, we can go to Baltimore, so lots of driving lots of easy, fun places to go. I’m looking forward to getting on an airplane again, going to see our son Charlie in California. But you know, short term, I think it’s really about doubling down on gratitude and doubling down on our business, not on growing the business, but on loving the business. And I want to talk about that for a second also. Because a lot of people, especially in the entrepreneurial world, but also in the corporate world, they were so excited. Whenever they started their career, they were driven by passion, they were driven by love, they were driven by positive healthy ambition, about wanting to do well wanting to work in that business or that industry or that market. And somehow they may have gotten sidetracked like we sometimes do, sidetracked by money sidetracked by titles, sidetracked by position, sidetracked by who knows what. And I think that this entire pandemic, has been a fantastic opportunity to get reacquainted with why you’re doing what you’re doing, personally, professionally with your charitable giving. So we’re just coming out of the holidays here, November, December, etc, we usually ramp up our holiday giving to various charities and causes. And I will tell you already, and I know you do this as well, the more that we give and charitable contributions, the richer we feel, not because we’re able to give but the giving the act of giving the act of helping the act of supporting those less fortunate. And this flows back in all kinds of ways to our lives and our careers and our businesses. So one of the mantras that I share with our clients is that you have to get in the flow of giving and receiving. So I’m really looking forward to more of that more charitable giving more intentional giving, I serve on a couple of nonprofit boards. I’m on a board of advisors for a fantastic nonprofit up in New England, that looks at the future of young women and how they’re being portrayed in the media and how they’re, you know, drug treatment centers for them and, you know, shelters for them, should they be homeless or suffering from an abusive type situation, but really doubling down on the giving. I’m very excited about that on the business front. The way that I’m getting really excited about my career and really excited about our business is what can I do as far as professionally serving and supporting our clients, our prospects, what elements can we, you know, ramp up as far as teaching and helping and serving? Because one of my mantras in marketing that I know you’ve heard a zillion times is we need to focus on serving before pitching, and helping before selling. So what can we do to really be of tremendous value to our prospects and clients and friends and followers, that’s going to unlock plenty of prospects, plenty of sales conversations, plenty of business later, when the pandemic started, which is a little bit less than a year ago, for us here in the US, I told people, this is not a time to back off selling, it is a time to ramp up your serving. So yes, we need to serve more, help more, give more away, be more generous, be more radically helpful and useful. But it is not a time to back off the gas pedal when it comes to getting paid for your brilliance when it comes to getting paid for the work that you’ve spent a lifetime crafting and creating and generously sharing with your clients and customers. So I think that is an evergreen strategy, that’s not going to go away. I think people now come to expect a higher level of giving and serving and helping, you have to earn the right to ask for the sale these days by being radically generous, radically helpful and radically useful to the people that you want to come into your world. So that’s what we’re focused on. We’re focused on more giving more helping and more serving.

 

Ari: That’s awesome. And I’m going to tell you something, it’s not as simple as you make it out to be to be honest with you, because so many people are so suspicious about you know, why is this guy doing this for me? Why is he giving it away for free? You know, and people have? What’s the catch? What does he do? What does he what? You know, and we know that you know, we don’t do it, there is no catch. All right, we do it because we honestly want to help people. That’s what we’re in the business of doing. We’re in the health business, alright. And ultimately, at the end of the day, ultimately the money will follow. The money will follow. Alright. And people have to have that belief that the money but it will because people want honesty, they want sincerity, that you know, they’re fed up with with the lies and the and the bull and all the people don’t want to hear that anymore. They want to know, tell me, show me your honesty. All right, show me that you really are, who you are and what you say you are. So I think I believe with you. I believe that, you know, with all my heart, I think you’re 100%. Right. And I look forward to giving away a lot of things going on. You know, as the podcast continues on the free free chapters of my book that we’re going to be giving away, there’s going to be a lot of good stuff going on. Now, let me ask you this. Last but not least, okay. If there’s anything that you want to share with my audience, before we go advice, words of wisdom, a mantra, something?

 

David: Sure. So let me share a quick Jewish mother’s story with you. And then I’ll get to the mantra because the Jewish mother’s story is about all this free stuff. We share the Jewish heritage. And so obviously, the Jewish mother is something that we’re all familiar with. And my mom is 87 years old. Wow, my dad just turned 90. They’re both in great health, just you know, a little bit crazy. Like they’ve always been my mother for some reason, Ari, she’s on my email list. And we have a phone call a couple of weeks ago. And she says, David, how’s business? How’s business as the serious kind of, you know, how’s business talk? I say Mom, business is awesome. Business is great. Thank you for asking, What makes you ask? She says, you know, I get your emails. And all I see is free this free that free, free, free, free, free. Are you making any money? And I said, Yeah, I’m making money, Jesus, who’s giving you money? If you’re giving all this stuff away for free? It’s the people who are getting the free stuff. They’re paying you for other things. I said, yeah, they’re paying me for other things. So anyway, funny story about the Jewish mother. You know, don’t have your Jewish mother on your email list. That’s my. But the serious advice is, you know, I was always thinking about, okay, we’re sometimes stopped by fear. We’re sometimes stopped by doubt, or sometimes stopped by hesitancy, and one of the mantras and one of the sound bites that has really stood me in good stead in good times and bad times, and uncertain times, and even darkest times. Action eliminates fear, three little words, action, eliminates fear. So rather than get into the fear, obsess about the fear per separate on the fear. Do a baby step, do a little tiny action that will get you out of that fear based paralysis. Because when you take action you empower your Self, when you take action, you put ripples into the universe. And the universe almost always pays attention, maybe not in ways that you would expect, and in sometimes very surprising ways that you put energy off in one direction. And then good things come in from a completely unrelated direction. I know I’ve had that happen many, many times already. I think you can think of a couple times where that’s happened. But action eliminates fear has been my Touchstone mantra. And it has saved me and saved my mindset on many a dark, depressing day. Wow,

 

Ari:that’s awesome. I got to put that down. I got to write that down. Can I use that by the way? Yes, please do. Okay, great. I like it.

 

David: I share it. So it can be shared further. 

 

Ari: Great. Now. So let me ask you, if people want to get in touch with you, they want to learn more about do marketing. What’s the best way for them to reach you wish they go? Email phone? What do they do?

 

David: Sure. So the global headquarters is online, our main website is do it marketing.com We have some free web training that’s available for folks that want to get a little bit of that thought leadership marketing that you mentioned very kindly in my intro, and that’s do it marketing.com/webinar And then talking about free book chapters and a free goodies that are you’re going to give away. We have a free eBook, a free PDF called the duet Marketing Manifesto, and people can get that at do it. marketing.com/manifesto So we’ve got the training. We’ve got our podcast, of course is up on the website, you’ll see that we have a blog up there. But check out the web training at do it. marketing.com/webinar Check out the manifesto at doit.marketing.com/manifesto.com

 

Ari: Great. Okay, so don’t forget www that. Do it. marketing.com. You know, if you want to get in touch with David, he’s always available. I know that from personal experience. David, thanks so much for sharing your story with my audience and giving people the motivation that they need to persevere in all their struggles in life and good luck going forward. You’ve been listening to whispers in bricks and I’m your host Ari Schonbrun Until next time, listen to the whispers never give up on your dreams. Bye for now.