David Edwards | Changing Our Views on Debt, Our Career, & Becoming the Captain of Our Own Lives

Did you hear the one about the former accountant turned author? You know, the young man one that grew up in a home where alcohol negatively impacted and broke his family, and then his mother got remarried to another alcoholic and repeated the cycle of abuse.

Watch or listen now to this week's guests real-life story, the details of his journey, how he got free from over a hundred thousand dollars of debt,  and recovered from bankruptcy.  In this episode we talk about changing our relationship with money, changing our thoughts, and changing the way we process and look at our careers. And then go into how we can become the captain of our own destiny. All this and more in this weeks episode of the podcast, the David Edwards story!

GUEST BIO: 

David R. Edwards worked his way through school, eventually achieving an MBA in Healthcare Administration. He served mostly lower income people on 3 continents over the last 35 years and is familiar with the challenges and unfairness of life. In 2018 while working with doctors, dentists, counselors, nurses, community health workers, and others he had an epiphany. The core challenge most people have is to generate the personal drive to direct their own life, enduring principles to guide, and the most current science-based tools to assist them through a bumpy and messy life. His first book “New You! Who Knew?” is an attempt to put in writing an easy to digest and implement guide that builds confidence, esteem, and self-compassion in balance. David lives in the Western U.S. with Linda, his wife of 36 years and their Golden Retriever, Jasper. Dave and Linda have 2 grown daughters.

SHOW NOTES, GUEST CONTACT INFO, SPECIAL OFFERS, & OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED:

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.davidredwards.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/David-R-Edwards-100356142253306

HOW TO SUPPORT THE REMARKABLE PEOPLE PODCAST:

1. Subscribe, Rate, & Review  us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any of your favorite Podcast Players
2. Share the podcast and specific episodes with your family, friends, co-workers, and church groups to help more people be encouraged and grow
3. Sp

Transcript

David Edwards | Changing Our Views on Debt, Our Career, & Becoming the Captain of Our Own Lives | E83

Hello friends. I'm David Pasqualone and welcome to this week's bonus episode of the Remarkable People Podcast, the David R Edward story!
David is a former accountant now author. And in this episode, he's going to go through his life story. What he's learned coming from a home where alcohol is. Negatively impact and broke his family.
Then his mother got remarried to another alcoholic and you're going to see where that went. And then he talks about his journey, his journey of getting an over a hundred [00:01:00] thousand dollars debt bankruptcy. He talks about changing our relationship with money, changing our thought and our, the way we process and look at our careers.
And then he goes into how we can become the captain of our own destiny. So check out this remarkable episode. Please like our podcasts, give it a five star review and wherever you're listening. And if for some reason you can't give us a five-star review, please write me@meatdavidpascoeloan.com. And tell me why.
So I can fix it before we put a public. So that's it. I'm David Pascoe alone. This is David R. Edwards and enjoy the show.
BONUS EPISODE David Edwards _ Changing Our Views on Debt Our Career and Becoming the Captain of Our Own Lives: Hey, Dave, how are you today? Hi, I'm real good. Thank you, man. I am so excited for this episode. I just told our listeners a little bit about you and what to expect, but I know there's a whole lot more, so let's just jump right into your story. As we [00:02:00] discuss, you're going to start from your birth. Where were you born?
What was your family like? And then you bring us through the significant events to where you are today. The highs, the lows, the really lows, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautifuls. So at this time, David, thank you for being with us and please share your story. Thank you. It's not often we get to share our stories, is it, but I'm grateful for the opportunity and I hope that it's helpful to your listeners, to your audience.
I think that's the beauty of having a story is if somebody can learn something from it, if they can receive some hope because of it. And I think that makes the story worth living, frankly. So I'll start way back. And I'm 60, I'll be 62 on Monday. Congratulations. It was my birthday this week too.
So we're very close in date. Okay. Congratulations. That's [00:03:00] fun. So we're Pisces. But that doesn't make any difference, but for some people that's a big deal. Yep. I just, actually, I just interviewed a guy, a gentleman who was an astrologer for 50 years and we were discussing that. And I didn't even realize there there's a difference between the Chinese and the Indian calendar.
So on one, you and I would be a Pisces. And on the other one, we'd be something else. I don't remember what it is, but it actually varies based on the calendar of what nation you're following. So I don't typically follow any of that, but it's just, it's crazy that you just brought that up and that's exactly what we discussed a couple of days ago.
Well, there you go. Well, you know, it's nice having that broad kind of base of knowledge and understanding. Oh, yeah. The more, you know, the more you can take the good and spit out the bad and then use it to glorify God. So there's truth in everything, the promise scene, perverts it, you know, like I'll joke around.
I heard a gentleman say a long time ago, I'll never [00:04:00] forget. He said rat poisons 95% good food problem is that 5% is what's going to kill you. So lies and half-truths are just like that. There's always a grain of truth to get people to believe it. But how much of the percentage is just flat out lie and poison?
And you go and I can bite you. Yeah. Well, let's go back. Where were you born? Where were you born? Where did you like to start? I was born in Yakima, Washington. So the state of Washington here on the west coast. Oh yeah. I lived down in seizure, Willie Mount Vernon area for three years. So I know exactly where you're from.
Yeah, there you go. And you know, we were a very typical family. My parents met in high school and they fell in love and got married, started having children. My mom was a stay at home mom. My dad was in construction, so he did contractor. This'll kind of date things a little bit, but we used to not have sheet rock.
Right. So every house for the [00:05:00] last 50 years plus has been built using sheet rock. But before that they didn't have it. And so they did what they call lath and plaster. So. I had some intimate experience with lath and plaster. When I was 19, I served a mission for my church and I was in Southern France in a house that was about 300 years old.
And one night when, where is it in the morning? I guess it was so we got up early to study and we heard a crash upstairs in this house. So we went up to what was our bedroom and the ceiling had fallen in. And in those days, what they did was they laid out laugh, which is strips of wood. And then there was a skilled trade of putting plaster on that last so that you had kind of, you know, walls that you could put pictures on and paint and do all that kind of stuff [00:06:00] with it.
I did some installation and soundproofing and, and all that jazz, but anyways, this was probably a hundred pounds of plaster and wood and stuff that did crushed down and, you know, we would have been harmed for sure. Had we been there at that moment, but anyway, so last and plaster, that's what my dad did.
And we traveled we went to where the work was. And so we lived in California, we went back to Washington, you know, he was always doing jobs and work and, and then he started doing, you know, different kinds of work and construction and We ended up in Alaska and we, he worked up in there and several different places.
I think I, I went to seven elementary schools and but when I was very young, still we had, we had finished a job in Fairbanks, Alaska [00:07:00] came down and we had a little bit of money for the first time, probably in our lives. You know, and I was a little kid, what do you know about money and how things are going, but, you know, we'd lived in a trailer and I think lived fairly modestly, had old cars and, you know, but we were okay.
I think we were pretty typical of a lot of families in those days. And but anyway, so we got back and my dad started drinking. And changed his personality, rector truck, and then wrecked another one. And and then he made a big mistake and my mom divorced him. And I don't think I realize how angry that made me, you know, I, you don't think about it at that age, but I was 10 years old, 1970 and I was kind of angry.
I had quite a temper. [00:08:00] My mom took us three boys. We moved into a little apartment. I remember getting mad at my, one of my brothers or many people have them. And we had these horseshoes you've ever played horseshoes. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yeah. So we had these rubber horseshoes supposed to be safer, but I managed to throw it at my brother and it poked a hole in the door, in the apartment.
So it was pretty solid stuff. Evidently anyways, so we dealt with that my mom David, and found somebody and the other man that she loved and, and they, and they got married. So we found out that this man was a alcoholic and I mean a full-on alcoholic and. My mom was [00:09:00] a social drinker. She didn't really want him to drink that much.
And he recognized it was a problem, but he couldn't. I mean, he was totally addicted. And I remember mom came to me one night to us, three boys, we in a room with a bunk bed and another bed, and she said, we might have to leave suddenly. It might be in the middle of the night. And if we do have to do that, you need to be quiet.
You need to not fuss about the stuff that we leave behind and you do get a garbage bag and get your clothes and something else, and then we're going to go. And that's kind of the point that that was at. And that was kind of sobering, you know, for now as a young teenager. But but we didn't, we didn't have to do that.
And I. But they continue to struggle and work on, you know, his addiction. [00:10:00] And one day the missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saint showed up and they knocked on the door and they'd knocked on the door before. And my my mom had always said, no, we're not interested. I was not brought up religious at all.
I think we went to a couple of churches just randomly from time to time, but but but the, they said, yes, my mom and my stepdad. And and it really was the beginning of a complete change in their lives. They studied, they prayed, studied scriptures, received a witness that it was true and a part of.
We are taught as members of that church is to avoid alcohol tobacco, to eat a healthy diet, balanced fruits and vegetables, whole grains. And you know, that [00:11:00] was given in about, I don't know, 1830s, mid 1830s before that was kind of scientifically known. And, and it changed our lives. And I could see in them over, you know, the next several months a change in their outlook and a change physically.
And it probably took Dan who's. My stepdad about six months is what he told me before he really had his last drink ever in his life. And but obviously that's going to make a huge difference. He's happier at home, happier at work. And I'm proud of him because he probably spent much the next 10, 15 years helping other people people who had similar problems, right.
He had alcoholics anonymous meetings, I just home. And he just was reaching out to let people know that this may [00:12:00] seem impossible. And at this particular moment in time, it is impossible perhaps, but you stick with it and you keep trying and and with faith and support, you can overcome this and you can move on and you can have a better life.
And that was a great example to me. When they joined that church, I remember very clearly saying to them, this is good. Good for you. I mean, I went to their baptism. I said, but don't talk to me about church. Don't expect me to go to church. I don't care about that kind of stuff. It's not me. You know, I was 13.
I knew everything. I was trying to be my own person. I had hair. Then it was down to my shoulders and you know, it was the seventies, you know, and you had long hair and a mustache if you were physically capable of it. But so, [00:13:00] so I of course ended up joining the church, that church church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints.
And it changed my life. Just like it did theirs. I didn't have any addictions to overcome, but having faith in God, And understanding who I was from an eternal perspective and what my potential is as a child of God and an era of God completely changed my outlook in life. And it changed my direction in life.
It has been the most pronounced thing that has happened in my entire life. And I'm very grateful for that. It changed it enough. That was about three years later, three and a half years. Maybe I took the money I'd saved after graduating from high school and working. And I served the mission for two years on my own dime trying to change the gospel of Jesus Christ, anybody who would listen.
And that was another marvelous experience. Now, [00:14:00] during this time. So your mom and dad and your biological mom and dad got divorced and you're in Washington, but you traveled different places. Once you left. Did your mom stay in Washington? I might've missed that. Or did she, did you guys go to Utah or where were you at that point?
Nope. Nope. My mom and my stepdad stayed in Washington. He was an engineer at Boeing and he worked there for 41 years before he retired. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So Boeing's massive in Seattle and that area. Okay. And then you and your three brothers are all watching this change happen and your mother and your stepfather.
What about your brothers? What happened with them? Did they change also? Did they rebel? What happened with them now? My older brother. Dan. He he and I used to study Eastern philosophy a lot. And again, this was quite popular in that time period, you know, the beautiful, the Beatles were [00:15:00] starting with studying with the Maharishi Mahesh, Yogi and transcendental meditation.
And, you know, we would read about that stuff and I wasn't that interested in it either maybe, or that HR wasn't that, that interested in anything but vaguely interested in a lot of things. I suppose I'm very open, I would say. And I think that's important, but my older brother so he was three years older than me.
So he was like 16, 17 during this time period. He went back and lived with my, our birth father for a little bit. Then he moved back up to Alaska. So Danny had just graduated from high school, came back and lived with us. He chose a different path. I think his path was more along meditation and substance use.
You know, there was some popular [00:16:00] writers at the time. You know, what's the guy's name, Timothy Leary with LSD and what's the other guy. He was doing parity as a way to, you know, achieve enlightenment and he kinda got into that drug scene. So your brother, your older brother went to LSD. You went to the church of LDS.
Where does your third brother go? He went to the church. I don't want anything to do with any of that weird stuff he has remained into this day. It was his birthday Monday. And so I called him up and said, happy birthday. And we don't talk very often. We love each other, but you know, we're just not like social gadflies or whatever.
So he got into construction. He worked, got married, got divorced, got remarried owned a bar, [00:17:00] still owns a bar to this day in rural Michigan. And you know, my, my birth father remarried got divorced. Looked around for a long time. Finally, we married again his third one and, and it stuck. I mean, till the day he died it was a beautiful thing for him and Betty was his wife and anyways, so yeah, we all three brothers raised in the same home, really three very different directions.
Well, this is your story, Dave, and we're going to follow your story. So you're in the home, your mom and stepdad get involved in the church of latter day saints. You see a change in them, and then it also changes you, you. Except Christ and following him. So go on from there. Where do [00:18:00] you go from that point in life?
So I got home from my mission and I knew I'd wanted to go to college and I was the first person in my family to go to college. And so I, I studied business, which I enjoyed. And I I, I'm not even sure what, I don't know. Sure. What any of this is interesting at this point. But I, I studied business.
I was working, you know, part-time, I worked in a warehouse. I worked as a mail boy. But I think some things that changed my life was I got a part-time job doing accounting work. So as I like accounting clerk bookkeeper. For a private small business. And and I kind of enjoyed that. I didn't really want to be an accountant, I didn't think, but I enjoy being in the business world.[00:19:00] 
And and then a job came up. So I was paying my way through school. I was making $3 an hour, which was not that outrageous at the time, but but you know, I wasn't really making enough. So I was having, I was struggling coming up with tuition, money, and books and all that stuff and and dating and all those kinds of things.
And so I saw a job posting making $7 an hour, so I could double my income literally. And I applied and I got it and it was like a grant funded position at a not-for-profit health center in Seattle. And so I started working there and, and a lot of things happened in my life. You know, I was the young buck, computers, personal computers were pretty new.
We got a grant, they got their first personal computer, had no idea what to do with it. And cost [00:20:00] $7,000 for a PC with like a 14 inch color monitor two, five, and a quarter inch floppy drives, no hard drive, the most minimal of processors. You know, and nothing was standardized back then, you know, didn't just plug in your USB-C and everything connection charges, you know, the world was completely different in technology back then, but so they had this computer and they said, well, computers are kind of like for business stuff.
So Dave, you're the young buck. Not that I knew anything about computers, but you know, you're gone and you're love learning and stuff. And so I got the manual out and I built our accounts payable system on the company. Anyways, I met a girl mad Institute of religion dance in Seattle at the university of Washington.
I wasn't going to university, but they had good dancers and new girls to meet. And I had my, so this was in the mid [00:21:00] eighties. Now I had my goal blimey Tai and and we met and we saw each other, like every third days, even though we lived 50 miles apart for the next three months. And I asked her to marry me because we both knew what we wanted out of life.
And and we enjoyed each other's company and and three months after that we were married and that was 36 years ago now. Wow. And now where was your now? Where's your wife from? Where was she from? She was. Well, it's another, her dad was, did lots of different things, but he ended up being an engineer at balling as well.
So she was born in Idaho, went to Florida, but they ended up in north Seattle. So Seattle is kind of right, like Everett on the north shadows in the middle and Tacomas on the south. [00:22:00] Then a whole bunch of other cities in between that, you know, most people have never heard of except the Edmund because Microsoft is there, but or, you know, started there and now they're all over the place.
But anyway, so she was in the north end of town. I was living on the south side. Okay. And yeah, you mentioned this in our listeners know who are regulars, but we might have some listeners who are new. And you said, why are we telling all these details? Because what you're doing is you're bringing us in your story of what made you and how God developed you and taught you.
So where you are today is a reflection of all these past experiences. So we're just trying to get a good feel for who David is. And what made you, the man you are now, when you were going through life from a teenager, your saw your dad as an alcoholic, your stepdad is an alcoholic. Then you saw, you know, marriage fail on another marriage, almost fail.
And now you're saying you met a girl and got married three months later. That's pretty remarkable because, so in your mind, [00:23:00] did you still see a no people with healthy marriages where you just like, let's see what happens? What was your mindset there? Because a lot of kids are scarred from seeing their parents get divorced.
Yeah. Well, and right. It's so common. I mean, it gets as common as not. So there's a couple of things I think fundamental. And some people may not like this, but I mean, you know, it is what it is, so right. And there's a difference between truth and belief, because truth is always there. Truth was the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, and what I believe changes over time.
And so anyways, so this is, this is what I attribute it to. One is I felt like my goodness, sorry about that. I felt like I'll go [00:24:00] back. So in the church we're taught that marriage can last beyond the grave that men and women can be married for time and eternity. So it's not just. I am marrying you because I love you.
And I'm full of emotion and hormones and, and, you know, let's hook up and see how it goes. It's really about what is the purpose of life. And so the purpose of life from our perspective is that we are trying to become the best people that we can, and that the pattern that God set was Adam and Eve, man, and woman married, having children, teaching them their values and truth, as best as they understand it, knowing that they're going to take that.
And as soon as they become teenagers, they're going to do what they're going to do with it. But you teach them and you love them unconditionally, [00:25:00] and you do your best with each other and with your children. And that this is our legacy. And then this is a pattern for eternal life. 'cause that's how God sent us up to function and to opera.
And to think that he would put us here, have us get married, have children, they have children, so you have grandchildren and so on. And then it all just ends and goes away. Once you're done, you know, with mortality is not very satisfying nor does it seem consistent with what we understand. And so when we entered into this relationship, but wasn't a, until it's inconvenient or until one of us gets fat or until, you know, we don't have any money or until whatever, right.
It was really with a sense of. Knowing that we're human and mortal and flawed and biased. And all of those things that our intent is to be together [00:26:00] forever, to learn and grow together, because this is a pattern that will continue on beyond the grave and they will continue to grow and become more like heavenly father and more like him because he commanded us to be perfect.
I mean, that's, and we don't believe that's achievable in mortality, but you know, we have to look at life as way beyond just this mortal sphere. And so that was the mental model with which we made this commitment and a covenant. And in our church, we call it a temple marriage. So we're married in the temple, which is a three-way relationship.
You've got like a triangle. You got yourself. And your spouse as equal partners, you had different roles most of the time. And sometimes we have the same roles, but, you know, we recognize that we're different men and women are designed different, but then there's a third party in this relationship. And that is God and God shares [00:27:00] truth and light and wisdom with us and a vision of what we're striving to become working together.
And sort of a hope is that this creates a stronger bond. And when struggles come, so we've been bankrupt. For example, I, I left, I left the job I'd been at for 11 years. We'd been very successful. And and I wondered what to do next. I looked for work, I got coaching. I could not find work. You know, that was in my profession.
I would been a chief financial officer for. A long time, over a decade, I'd been a chief operating officer. And I just couldn't find work. And I was a little pickier by that point because I knew that my work had to satisfy my desire to serve other people as well. And I'm not saying that everybody has to do that, but for me, it was really important [00:28:00] that what I do 8, 10, 12 hours a day at work, because when you're in a senior role, you know, sometimes you got to put the hours in and or when you're an entrepreneur or like a broadcaster, you know, and you have to put the hours in, you got to put the time in.
And so it's just what you have to do. And so on. If I'm going to put that kind of effort into it, it's got to have some higher meaning and that's important for me. And I learned that early in my career. But. The hard way. Anyway, so I couldn't find work. I went to Africa, which is a wonderful experience, commissioned a hospital and some lovely people who are still friends to this day.
But I couldn't, I just wasn't able to make a living. And we had to file bankruptcy. You know, we had this much debt and this much income and a few people would said, they're not going to be patient with us anymore. And we were advised to file for bankruptcy, [00:29:00] which was a terrible, tragic thing and against my values.
But we didn't feel there was any other choice. And three months later that was August, September, October, November, and November. I had two job offers making $130,000 a year. Yeah, totally different situation. Just a few short weeks. I mean, I kinda, you know, had those jobs two years ago and, and, you know, life would've been completely different.
We would've paid off our debts. We learned stuff in the process. You know, we had too much credit card blahdy, blah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, blah blah. That's what this show is about. I want you to go through the blood of blah. So what did you learn through that process that our listeners can learn from for you now in avoid that pain?
Well, we had been in a very fortunate circumstance. So [00:30:00] from, you know, when I was like, we struggled financially, but we had enough, we were okay. I was at this point pretty committed to working for, not for profits. So I knew I was never going to be rich. But we had moved, got ourselves into a situation that we were in a growing company that as the, who were able to pay me a little more money.
Now it wasn't just like a 3% inflationary raise. It was, wow. We offered this new service. We created this new thing. We had these wonderful outcomes. There's more money in the bank, so we're going to pay our employees more. And and so I was growing my income and it, you know, my income was going up every year.
So we thought, well, this is normal now, right? This is, this is how life is. And we'd add that for 11 years. And, and so we got into a habit of [00:31:00] everybody wanted to give me credit cards because you know, you've got a good credit rating. You pay your bills. You have a good income. And and so we've got more and more, you know, he's making more money.
We had more credit cards. We carried balances on them. We kind of knew somewhere in the back of our mind that we should pay those off, but there was always, you know, braces for the kids or we needed a bigger car or we wanted, you know, and I think you start to lose to distinguish between what is needed and what is wanted.
That's one lesson learned you start thinking all every year, I'm going to make more money. So having debt is not a big problem because I'm going to have more money next year and I can carry that debt now. And I think those were really important lessons learned. And we decided we didn't want to put things off.
We would [00:32:00] carry, you know, car loans and other kinds of things. And and so then when. Kind of that world came crashing down financially. Our marriage was strong, right? Cause we kind of talked about that a little bit. And despite these struggles we were having we faced them together because we knew that our relationship is more important than any externalities going on in our lives.
And so that was never a question for either of us which I think was a huge help, but still, you know, you've got all this debt, you've got cars, you've got credit cards and, and you've got this habits that you've developed that we had to change. And so when it was fairly obvious, even with coaching and whatnot, that I wasn't going to find work locally.
And then again, we've been very organization, had a fantastic reputation. [00:33:00] We've been very successful. But I wasn't able to translate into the next great thing. And so we had to sell cars, you know, and we got cars that were much less expensive, not as new, not as nice. They still got us around. Instead of having two cars, you know, you go down to one we tried to pay our credit cards, but the kind of work I was able to find was interim or temporary or it may cause me to travel.
So when I went to Africa that was a marvelous experience. Again, all kinds of positives there. And at the end of that year, they said, Hey, we want you to sign a three-year contract to bring your family over and establish here and really get this hospital off the ground which I was tempted. And we thought about it.
We prayed about it. We had two [00:34:00] daughters and high school. Blonde hair, blue eyes. And we just couldn't get a good feeling about it. We just, you know, in Nigeria where it was, and I loved the Nigerian people, but in the newspaper, you know, every couple of weeks it was this person who's a Caucasian was captured by rebels.
And, you know, it held for ransom or, you know, a boss for hula bins drives her down and shoots people or whatever it happens to be. The governor of this state was caught in New York with his three wives and $2 million in his suitcase. And this was just normal life. And my family was not comfortable with it, so we decided not to do it.
But anyway, yeah, lessons learned understandably so. And when you're doing this, so basically if I'm hearing you, [00:35:00] you learn to. Live within your means by needs not wants you downsized, you know, going from two cars to one, you cut the unnecessary expenses wherever you could, and then you're evaluating your full on life situation.
Like, is this where we belong or do we move to another career? So is that kind of, am I interpreting that properly from what you said? Yeah, I think that's very accurate. It's very accurate. So how did you, oh yeah, keep going. I want to know how did you get out of that financial hole? And if you don't ask him, how deep were you in and what year was it?
So this was 2005, 2006 is when you know, it was really at its worst. I guess we filed bankruptcy in August of 2006. Okay. And do you mind me asking how deep in debt were you hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands. Where were you? No. Over a hundred thousand dollars in credit card debt. [00:36:00] Well, okay, so that's significant debt.
That's significant debt. That's significant dot. I mean, and you look back at it now and you go, how in the world could I have done that? But but we did. So the bankruptcy explained, cause some people they've, you know, I keep using this quote, but it keeps coming up and I keep butchering it. I need to go research it.
But Albert Einstein made a quote. Any said something like the thinking that brought you to the bad place, it's going to take 10 times that of good thinking. You can't just use crappy thinking and continue in crappy thinking and expect to get out of your hole. Right. So, and that's totally a paraphrase of what I said.
I didn't use the word crappy, but but what I'm saying is what was the thinking and thought process and the action steps. To get out and then to stay out. So maybe it was filing bankruptcy. Some people don't even know what that means. So explain bankruptcy and explain the steps of how you got out [00:37:00] and how you stayed out.
So when you file bankruptcy, basically you make a record of, you have to, it's a legal process. You find a lawyer who does bankruptcy work and they work with the courts. And in the short version of it is basically your debts are erased. So it's kind of like repentance, right? Your debt's getting erased.
You don't have to pay them anymore. And there's a very specific process you have to follow, and it takes several months to go through. But they call it bankruptcy protection and then people, cause you know, at that point, people are calling you every day saying, Hey, you got to pay on this credit card.
Hey, you gotta pay on this bill. You gotta do this, you gotta do that. And we owned our home w it wasn't fully paid. But [00:38:00] they typically won't make you lose your home, you know, in a bankruptcy, you know, this was a, this was a modest house and a modest neighborhood, you know, kind of middle-class I guess.
And so it wasn't anything fancy. I didn't know what happened if you have a million dollar house, if you had equity in it, right. They'd probably make your salad, use that equity to pay off debtors. But as you know, there's a, there's a balance sheet. I mean, I was an accountant for a long time. Right. So you've had debit.
That's what you got and you got credits, that's what you owe. And so, you know, they're out of balance and so they take whatever assets you've got though. They were reasonable. And you, you know, like if you owe money on a car, you're going to turn your car in and you know, they get the car back and they don't get any more money from you.
And then you gotta figure out what you're going to do. But like credit card debts or unsecured debts is what those are called. [00:39:00] And he kind of unsecured that gets written off. It's a bad debt on the business books. And then. When the bankruptcy is finalized, you know, you're kind of starting with a clean slate.
And you know, most of your credit cards that you've had in the past have all been, I guess, obviously, but maybe not they've been canceled. You can't draw on those anymore. And you're, you're really starting from scratch, but with a really sucky credit rating, there's that technical term again, a crappy credit rating.
I mean like 510 or something, and you know, you can't, you can't get anything. Now, there are people who specialize in working with people. Who've gone through bankruptcy who have really poor credit. And, and again, this is just economics, but when you have really poor [00:40:00] credit, you have to pay more for anything that you want to do.
So if you just cannot live without a credit card, so you want to have a credit card for whatever reasons, you know, for mileage, for, you know, spreading things out for whatever your reason is for convenience. Cause you don't like to have a lot of cash around or whatever, then they'll give you a credit card.
There's people that specialize in that, but they're going to give you a small credit line and they're going to charge you an absolutely outrageous rate of interest. So we got a good job, you know, three or four months too late, perhaps, but, and all of a sudden, so we had some income coming in instead of relying on charity, basically, you know, the hand to mouth basically.
And we got some help from our church. But basically we lived on what I could make. We cooked all of our own food. We never ate out, [00:41:00] you know, all those kinds of things. I knew we didn't have any extras and we didn't buy stuff just because it was there. We, you know, you just really a very, very basic life and, and that's okay, frankly, cause you know what, while we hated going through bankruptcy, we loved each other and our children loved us still.
Right. And and by this point they are teenagers. They knew that we were, you know, fundamentally flawed anyway, but they knew that we loved them no matter what. And as we taught our children, going up, stuff will happen at sucks when it happens to you. But stuff will happen plan on it. And then you've got to focus on the basics, the fundamentals, the foundation.
And then rebuild from there. And so so it doesn't matter what happens and matters, what you do with it. And then you called out my 35 year old daughter today. [00:42:00] And you said, did he really say that she would absolutely say ad nauseum? And so, and so, you know, repetition is not a bad thing. So anyways we went to get a car cause we had to have a car.
We all in one car that we had, you know, that was paid off an older car. But we had every other car because I was going to Alaska for my job. And our oldest daughter wanted to finish high school, you know, for six months where we were, which made perfect sense. And so we went to the car place and we said, Hey, here's our credit rating way down here.
And we need a car though, and it can't be a fancy car, but then maybe an old minivan or something that's just practical. And so they said, we'd love to sell you that car. And we're going to charge you these weren't their [00:43:00] words. More than somebody who has a good credit rating and your industry where it would be like 6% for somebody else is going to be 18%.
You know what. That's life. And that's the price you pay for not managing your credit and not managing your financial life. Yeah. And let's break this down for the listeners because we have listeners in over 90 countries actively, and we have listeners of all ages and demographics just within the United States alone.
There's so many different income classes and different backgrounds and different culture. So let's back things up for a second. If you take a basic accounting class, there's debits and credits, and this is what our listeners need to understand. Just like David, just like me, just like every person that's part of the financial system.
[00:44:00] They purposely deceive you. The system is made to deceive. Now we are responsible for our actions, Dave. I believe you'd agree with that, but the system is made to deceit for instance, In accounting. What's a debit. Devin is once you own, it's an asset. Exactly. But what do you, what do they call what you use to purchase for your bank account?
A debit card. So right off the bat, they're confusing you what a debit and a credit is. Okay. And a credit card. They make it sound positive. Like I have a credit card where that's just shoving you in debt. Then you have, what's your credit score. That's not a credit score. It's a debt score. Totally a debt score.
Because if you are a millionaire and pay for everything in cash, you were very creditable as a person when it comes to finances. [00:45:00] But if you don't use a credit card and take out loans, They won't even rent you a car when you could take money out of your pocket and buy a car. So it is a debt system. They, at every angle and approach, they convince people that it's safe and fun.
Buy it. Now pay later, that is a lie from the devil. The Bible says the borrower is servant to the lender. And like Dave says, if you went with good credit to buy a vehicle today, you're probably going to pay because the economy is in such a trash hole right now you could pay 0% and you're just paying payments for 60 months or 72 months, or maybe you're paying 1.75%.
But because David and his wife had to file for bankruptcy, they're paying 18%. If you calculate the difference in a payment, that is a massive difference. [00:46:00] It is. Then when you go to buy a home. You could get a 2.7, 5% in straight for 30 years, say roughly today, if you have good credit, but if you have bad credit, you could be paying 30%.
There's no way to dig out of these holes. People. So listen to David and learn from his life and example, because when you dig in that hole, sometimes you can't get out financially, unless you take hard, drastic, different measures. But like I tell my kids all the time, you're gonna learn the lesson, but you want to do it the easy way or the hard way.
So David, you learned the hard way and he's taken the time to share this with us. So ladies and gentlemen, please be smart. Be wise, do not go in debt, do everything you can to avoid. [00:47:00] You know, we can get into, well, what about leveraging money? I heard rich people say they leveraged money. Yeah. But they're very rich and they're out of debt.
They're using a debt to buy a house at 2%, so they can best their money and make 10%. That's their situation. If you're eating and Mac and cheese and little like Vienna sausages, cause that's all you can afford. You're in a different situation. You need to look at your situation, not the anomaly. So yeah.
So Dave, I get really passionate about this cause there's so many people getting wrapped up in debt. I think I don't even want to know what the latest statistic is, but it was like the average person has it was $16,000 in credit card debt, plus medical debt plus car plus house. And now it was like five years ago.
I don't even want to know what it is today, but that's a huge real thing. So that's why the more you share with how you get out the better. So you file for bankruptcy. You curbed, your spending, you lived within your means. So finish the story with that minivan. You got that at 18%. Did [00:48:00] you go ahead and just make the payments for 50 months or did you try to pay it down early?
Well, we had a better job, right? So we were fortunate. We felt fortunate. And I, I, I was interested in working with people who aren't like me, so I don't know about you, but on my screen it looks like I'm this glowing white face. I am very white. And so I'd loved working in Africa because my friends in Nigeria are very black.
I mean, so black that it was hard to take a picture. Cause you know, it was just hard to distinguish. And so, you know, it was so very different from any situation I'd been in before. But and it was a fun story when I first got there. With some of people I was working with and I was looking for my church or a branch of my church over there.
And I [00:49:00] I couldn't find one because addresses are, you know, this was a city. Well, the rise in real world, very just outside of this city of 5 million people, roughly there are no social security numbers, you know, and there are names on the big roads, but then there'd be a real road and there's all these hots and shanties and buildings.
And so go two blocks down and there's a building with a red door and go three doors over and around the. And that's, you know, where you're trying to get to those are the kinds of directions you got. So and this was, you know, earlier days of the internet. And so things weren't quite as, you know, Google maps or, you know, being or whatever you're into.
And and so. I couldn't find a shirt. So some of my friends were Baptists. And as I said, well, there was a huge Baptist church on the corner. Let's just go there on this Sunday. So we went to this church and it was a lovely experience. I don't know about other Baptist. I've never been [00:50:00] to another Baptist church, but, you know, and they said anybody new today, and this was a very large congregation.
And so I stood up and some other people and they, and they all welcomed us. You know, they said welcome to our church. And, and then the pause, the entire meeting. And it wasn't just us. There were some other newer people there and everybody around us shook our hand and welcomed us and said, we're glad to see you here.
It was very wonderful and very welcoming. It was a lovely experience. Anyway, so we'll go back to this. So then Yeah. So we got the van and our daughter graduated. And so I came down that next summer and we moved my family up to Alaska. And I worked at a tribal health consortium there. So this was an Alaska native group of Alaska native governments.
So these are federally [00:51:00] recognized tribal groups and they took the health care authority and that little bit of money they get for that combined it and created this not-for-profit consortium. And I was able to work with these wonderful Alaska native people to understand their culture better and provide something that I was convinced was really important, which is looking at.
Your healthcare as a system that revolves around you instead of you around them. Because the traditional model is when is my doctor available? Well, it's two months from now on Tuesday at 8:00 AM. And if you can't make it, that's too bad because you have to flex around them. And anyways, well, that's a whole nother long story, but but anyway, so I, and I enjoyed working and having that experience there and we loved living in Alaska, frankly.
Our younger daughter graduated from high school there. [00:52:00] And and we did that for about four years. I don't know if I want to go into this or not, but If there's anybody, you know, people work right. And some people, it might be employers, maybe small businesses or larger businesses. Right. So I'll give you a clue.
Our board had adopted a policy of racial discrimination and certainly said if you're a native American or an Alaska native you get preference in hiring, firing promotion. And in fact, if you are not an Alaska native or native American we won't promote. And when I had hired on there, the CEO at the time who changed but [00:53:00] who hired me as the vice president of finance?
He said he said, I said, I'm almost done with my master's degree in healthcare administration. And I've been in finance for a long time, which is fine. I enjoy it. And I can add value here. And I had some tremendous success with that there as well. But I really want to get into operations. I feel like that's where I will actually be the most service as, you know, an administrative role over clinical services.
And. I don't know what that looks like, you know, here, but that's my career interests. And he said, absolutely, we would love to help you develop in that. And, and that's great where we got very busy as almost always happens. I found out that this CEO who hired me, who used to be the CFO there had this beautiful management accounting system, which unfortunately [00:54:00] has I in my first couple of months, I realized this thing is fundamentally flawed.
And you know, that was one of my first challenges to overcome. There was that here's the boss who hired me. And I had to tell him this tool that you do all, which is in a lot of ways, very elegant and it ties out nicely. How's that. Millions of dollars. And this was a larger organization, maybe an $80 million organization, I think at the time you know, has this moves of dollars off from where we actually end up.
And so it's misleading us. And that was, you know, you had to craft that message very carefully. And we had to revise it. And then I realized that we were doing our county wrong and we were actually losing money, not breaking even. I mean, like millions of dollars losing. And so we had a lot of bad news and it's like, well, we hired this guy and all this bad stuff is happening now was [00:55:00] the software just written poorly and it was unintentional.
Or was that a tool used to steal money, baby? Manipulate. I know, I don't believe it was an intentional, I believe he had the best of intentions, but there was fundamental flaws in the logic, you know, in some of the underpinnings of this, you know, many page document, you know, that was produced monthly as a way to communicate to the leadership team and the board, this is how we're doing, and this is the direction that we're moving.
And and then we made some in accounting. There are things they call you think a canyon is like black and white, right? You got debits and credits, you got assets and liabilities, you got equity. And you've got all of these things that are black and white. [00:56:00] There are things that you have to make estimates about and in healthcare, the biggest thing is your bad debt.
We just talked about bad debt, right? And so they're, and what they call allowances because health care is unique amongst industries in the country and perhaps in the world, because if you have a podcast and let's say, I don't know how you make money on a podcast, or if you do, but normally, you know, it's kind of like if you do this, I'll pay you $10.
And then when it comes, do you expect them to pay you $10? But in health care, they say, well, I'm going to charge you $50. And this guy is going to pay me $40. And that guy is going to pay me $60 and that guy's going to pay me $20. And those guys could been made $30, but then I went to adjust it to 25 and then I'm going to get a kick back of $5 on the backend of it, or, you know, and it gets very complicated.
[00:57:00] So accounts receivable is a unique animal in the healthcare world. And so we made some errors in our estimates which unfortunately took us from making money or barely breaking even to losing millions of dollars a year. And we had two. Kind of faced the reality of that, right? And I think this is a life lesson it's in business and it's in personal life as well.
Is that if you have feedback that tells you stuff, that's dramatically different than what you think is going on and you better pay attention to that feedback, you'd better kind of, you've got to get over your ego. You got to get over your kind of perception of yourself. And you've got to look at the feedback as a way to get a more realistic, accurate perception either of your financial situation or who you are as a person or the direction you're going, or, [00:58:00] you know, whatever it might be.
And I think it was really important and I was grateful to be able to. 'cause I'm, I'm really honest. I'm just, you know, I don't have any room for facade and gerrymandering and creating false impressions and any of that kind of stuff. I just don't have time for it. I Rue believe in transparency and, and integrity.
And so two of my fundamental core values. And so I just said, I have no agenda here. You know, I'm new to the organization. Please know where I'm coming from, but this is in fact what's going on. And I then had taken our auditors. And I got them to collaborate, not like do this and I'll pay you or something or do this, or I'll fire you or whatever kind of monkey business it was.
I said, this is what I'm seeing. Please [00:59:00] look at this and tell me if I'm accurate. And they were able to validate that what I was looking at was accurate. And frankly, some of that was work that they had done. That was also not as robust as it maybe could have been. And so I had all these audiences and we had this bad news, but once we got over the bad news and this is what I like to do is then you say, so then how do we move forward?
Because anytime we're focused on the past, and unfortunately it can accounting, it's all in the past, right? And the past is gone. The past is never going to be come back to us. Right. The only thing we have is today and how today is going to influence and open up opportunity for our tomorrow. And so w we all do a say here's feedback.
This has been validated. So it's not just like one source or a one-off or one opinion. It's like, yeah, this looks like this is real. So we have to accept it. We have to adjust [01:00:00] our version of reality based upon it. And then we get to have the wonderful place. And I've done a lot of turnaround work in my career.
As you get to say, all right. So that's where we're at this, we feel is pretty solid. So now having this point, where do we want to go? And so you got this point here and we figure through, I believe ideally in a collective visioning process, we're going to go from here to here and then you get to set your path and then how you're going to get feedback along the way so that you support yourself.
And you make sure that you're not getting too far off track because it's never a straight line. Right. We draw graphs and we show these straight lines like, yeah, you're here. You're going to get to there. It's never like that. It's always like. And so you gotta make sure, you know, within a kind of, you know, within a range that you're moving in the right direction, that you're moving towards what you want to become [01:01:00] as a person, what you want your business or your organization to be doing and the direction you want to be moving.
And you want to do that with as many viewpoints as possible. And so I'm a real fan of not for profits because there's a, not for profit. We have money. But we only have money for what it allows us to do, not just to have money. And so what we do is we get to say, we exist for these purposes that are higher than ourselves.
And the money then goes to Fiserv that mission. And those that vision that we've created and to move our programs for it, that affects our constituents. And that could be our patients, if you're in a healthcare organization or your clients, or however you look at that, right? Whoever you're serving in whatever role, if you're doing a podcast, right, you get to say, how am I serving my audience?
Because that's who you love and who you're serving. And so you get to look at the data [01:02:00] of how it affects them, but you have a financial perspective. You have a, you know, an internal life perspective, you have the, the audience perspective and you might have advertisers or some other perspectives. So you have to balance all of those.
And that's all feedback. And it's all a part of looking at your wife as an integrated. And hopefully because of your choices in your intent, coordinated whole, and that's a beautiful place to be because then you're looking forward, which brings hope and it allows you to get. And expand who you are or your business or whatever, you know, whatever element or aspect of it you're looking for in the, not in the for-profit business world, I'm a fan of what's called a B corporation.
B corporations have basically figured out and said I exist as a for-profit organization, but I recognize that I am not immune [01:03:00] from all of the other stakeholders that are that I affect or that I have an impact on. So that could be your employees. It could be your suppliers, it could be the environment, your community.
And so they take this broad, more inclusive perspective. And they say, this is what we're about. And we do need to make money. We're here to make money still, but we do have higher reasons, more reasons, and work on a account for those. And we're going to be accountable to them and how they set up their report card or their accountability.
And I just think it's a much more. Sustainable more joyful. It's more connected to the way the world works and the universe works a way to look at a for-profit business. So I'm a big fan of that. I've talked for a long time and now, and one thing you'll find is I'm very capable of talking a lot. So I would appreciate any direction or guidance or thoughts at this point.
[01:04:00] Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. So the there's so many things that you touched on and for people not familiar with the American tax system, especially at the corporate level, we have the longest, most cumbersome tax law in the world, and it's designed that way on purpose for corruption. Okay. That's just, I mean, would you agree, David flat out bottom line it's complex because people want to be able to manipulate it.
So that's why you have these mega corporations and highly elite individuals making a ton of money. But they wrote the law with all the loopholes, so they don't pay taxes. So it's pretty corrupt. It's pretty wrong. And it's just the way it is right now. And hopefully it's fixed, but that's the case. So we have the most great out tax law in the world.
Next is you talked about the auditor's not catching it that's their entire job. [01:05:00] So how long was this going on for before you found it? Like, cause I know you were new at the company, but how long was this going on for before their auditors said, yeah, he's right. I don't know. Honestly, I, you know, and so I was there.
I looked back at at least a couple of years and and again, you don't want to make this an accounting podcast, but you know, they.
Well, I, I know, you know, there's a lot of factors here. I don't believe anybody was purposely trying to deceive. I really don't believe that. I believe that you have management that make certain assertions and if they aren't tested adequately in the right light then those things, you know, if auditors aren't being maybe as diligent those things can be missed.
And [01:06:00] it's not like there was an intent to do it, but they have a lot of stuff to do in a compressed timeframe. And, you know, I had been in healthcare for 90 3003. 1314 years at that point, I'd seen a lot of different things. I had a lot of background in it. The CFO was not a healthcare CFO before.
Right. And so he didn't have that background. He had to learn and do his best with what he had. I think that's one of the reasons why you want to hire, you know, really super bright people. They may not agree with you on anything and everything, and they may not have the same background as you, but I that's one of the benefits if we talk about diversity a lot.
And I love diversity. Not that I seek diversity necessarily. I love diversity because it is a simple fact and that's a wonderful thing. And so, you know, appreciate value honor [01:07:00] the diversity and learn from. Don't be stuck in your ride and your own little limited mental model and precepts perspection, you know, expand that, the open, be curious, be humble.
And then diversity becomes this wonderful thing that you can learn from. And so bringing on new people with different thinking is going to eliminate things that may be, have been wrong. You know, that you're biased on and have been for a whole long time, maybe your whole life. And that's in it, the other way that we grow and that we learn and that we become expansive.
Yes. And I agree completely. And I think that's all I've seen in my career in life. It's like physically, how do you grow physically through conflict, through you're pushing at the gym, you're tearing those muscle fibers, you're pushing it. And it brings you to that next level. But then inside of a business or a not for profit organization, if you're going to grow.[01:08:00] 
I've never seen an organization grow and thrive without a healthy conflict. The different of the diverse set of views. Because if I ask an accounting department how to run a company, we're screwed. If I ask it a sales team, how to run a company, we're screwed. If I ask a operations manager, how to run the company, where skirt, you need the balance.
And if the salespeople aren't yapping at the operations, Hey, produce more, produce more, produce more. And the operations aren't yelling at sales, Hey, go sell more, go sell more. Something's wrong. When you get an operations manager, a sales manager that are buddies, that's usually a stagnant non-growing company, but when you have people that are kind of slapping each other around in a healthy way, the company thrives same thing with accounting, right?
So I guess it's just to me, the story is not about that organization. This is about you, but the gift God gave you to walk into new company. That's great, but what [01:09:00] blows my mind as a businessman is listen, non-profit or not. This is the income we got. These are our expenses. Here's our bottom line. If that number was off one year, how was it not found?
That's what I can't wrap my mind around. I mean, you have the donations, the income, you have the expenses, your overhead property, plant equipment, all these things. But at the end of the day, two plus two is four. So it it, it's hard for me to believe there wasn't something. Shady going on. Honestly, I, I mean, I, I mean, I would ask you to trust me on this.
This is not uncommon. And the key again is to say it's to be open and learn and be as accurate as you can possibly be. And, and again, healthcare is a little bit unique in that regard in this area, you know, it's a little bit unique and, you know, we complain about the cost of health. [01:10:00] But if you went to the grocery store, you know, and they said a loaf of bread is $2 and 50 cents.
But to this guy, I'm going to sell it for a buck and a quarter. And, and then there's four different organizations. I got to go through to get paid for that. And every one of them has a whole staff of experts who from their, you know, little angle and perspective influence, I mean, It would cost $10 for a loaf of bread.
Yeah. And then when you're done, you're going on the healthcare system, because the thing yeah, we won't, and then when you're done, you're going to get sued for everything. Right. And so, yeah. So, okay. So now let's see. Oh no, go ahead. I was going to say, you're at this company, you're at this organization, then you mentioned that they originally said, you know, the sky's the limit.
You can grow with the company. And then they're putting [01:11:00] these discriminatory laws in place where you have to check these boxes, or you can't have these positions, which is wrong. There's one race, the human race. There's different nations. There's different cultures. There's different backgrounds, but the most qualified individual should get the position.
So you're in this company and you were saying there start putting discriminatory practices in place. Where does it go from there? So, yeah. And I don't want to speak all of the organization because I just don't. I don't think that's, that's not me, I guess, but just focus on your story, but that's a reality part of your story.
And so from my perspective, so this is my perspective, right? Which is I've got my own biases and, and all that stuff. So from my perspective, it started to become less and less comfortable. I, and I didn't enjoy, well, I had enjoyed working there and I enjoyed the people that I worked with, which I still did.[01:12:00] 
I felt like. It wasn't going to be a place that I was going to be able to continue to work at, enjoy and grow and do the, you know, moving the direction that I want to move. And that's unfortunate. And I remember the attorney, I don't know if he wants me to mention his name, but he's a wonderful man.
He is an Alaska native very thoughtful we had, we would, you know, work until five or six or whatever, and then I'd go by his office and say, well, what do you think about this? And then we ended up talking to a seven o'clock about a Regal aspect or, you know, whatever, whatever was going on. And and I asked him this.
I said, you know I can see a native American organization wanting to provide opportunities to native Americans to better their lives and have opportunities for employment. I mean, I, I can see that, that makes perfect sense to me, but I've, [01:13:00] I love somebody. I want them to do that by working with those individuals to become the most qualified person for that, whatever the role is.
And that seems like that develops the individual as opposed to giving them something because of their race and. And we had long conversations about the legality of it. Right? You could never do that in any other organization because that is blatantly discriminatory, but because of some legal precedent, which we won't get into all the details, and I don't know all the details, you know, this is allowed and it's legal in a native American organization.
And so I had a fundamental difference of opinion about how you would implement this to move forward. You know, a part of our purpose, which is advance and, and help native Americans and Alaska is which I absolutely that's one of the reasons I went to work there [01:14:00] because I wanted to be a part of that. So anyways, this became increasingly uncomfortable.
And people say they don't leave an organization. They leave their super. You've heard that. So my stepdad, which we talked about earlier, who I've grown to love dearly my mom had passed away too young. And he had retired. He was on vacation, right? So you're, you're, you're tired and now he's on vacation.
So he was in Seattle, he went to Iver's his favorite seafood restaurant. And he was, you know, downtown there and he slipped or tripped or fell, or I don't know exactly what happened. He just had badly evidently was in the hospice. And you know, somebody got ahold of me because he had his contact [01:15:00] information and said, Hey, you know, your dad is in the hospital in Seattle.
And my mom has gone, you know, my brothers are far away. And so me and my uncle went down to Seattle and just to interject for people who don't know geography, even Americans, Alaska to Seattle, it looks close on a map, but it's far, I mean, that's like through is at 3030 500 miles. Yeah, exactly. It's like going thousand miles.
It's like going coast to coast, like Boston to LA. I mean, it's a long flight. Almost. Yeah. Yeah. It's a long flight. So we flew down, you know, and tried to get things settled and I had to go back to work. But then he had like a downturn and this is a long story in itself and a whole nother lesson in healthcare and whatnot.
But I ended up flying back down. And [01:16:00] I remember coming back from being in the hospital with my stepdad and my boss who had many redeeming qualities, but basically saying to me how come you didn't get the board reporting sooner? I said, well, you know, my dad's in Seattle and, and he's in the hospital and I had to go down because there's nobody else me and my uncle that are managing us.
And. And he never once asked, well, how is your dad doing or how are you doing or how are you doing with this or any personal empathy? And he may not even realize this. I don't know what pressures he was under or what other things were going on. I just don't know. Right. I don't know what I don't know, but I know from a personal perspective around this time that I became quite depressed and I would honestly say for the first time in my life, [01:17:00] because my work is important to me.
I always put 110% into my work. And I felt like this man, who is my boss, didn't care about me at all. And, and the best part of your day with him, even over your family. I mean, you're there long hours, the best part of the day. And this person doesn't appreciate your. Yeah, and we have done wonderful things there.
I mean, really not easy thing, just as hard, but we had done really good things, really good work. I had made tremendous progress. Anyways, I felt really good about the work that I did and that I was a part of that we all did. And I had about 200 employees myself and out of a thousand at the organization.
And you know, there were so many good things happening and anyways, and so I found myself depressed and I actually, [01:18:00] for the first time I left, went and talked to a counselor. And you know, what, if you feel that way, if you feel that kind of darkness, that kind of apathy almost, you know, I think even though you're a white middle aged male, you know, you gotta reach out and take a, a dose of, I could use some help and, and I got some counseling and I realized that.
And in my book, I didn't think about this this way at the time, but in my book, I S I say, sometimes you get, you got three generic ways. You can move forward and you have to move forward one way or another. You cannot remain stuck in a situation that is bad. You just can't because it's not healthy. It's not gonna serve you well, mentally, physically, professionally, personally.
And then when you look at it and it's not going to serve you. And so something as big and important to you as that I, you're kinda either zoom in zoom in means, you know, you're going to look [01:19:00] inside, you're going to try and maybe bring in some internal resources to move things forward and make things better.
Right. So you can zoom in, you can zoom out, which means I can't do it myself. I got to get some outside help. Right. And so I got some counseling as a way to get some outside, help, maybe some perspective, maybe some. Resources, whatever it is, you might have to zoom out. And sometimes when those aren't working, you might have to make the decision.
I just got a zoom away and I finally came to the conclusion. This was not going to change in a reasonable timeframe. I was miserable enough that, and again, this is me personally. I just got to zoom away and, and I left. And it was a good decision for us. Not an easy decision, but a good decision.
And I'm not saying somebody else in the [01:20:00] same situation, that would be the right thing for them. Right. But for us, given all the things going on, that was the right decision to make. And actually for me, it was just like huge relief. And I love the people that I worked with there, and I had lots of great relationships, but just overall it'd be, had become the wrong place for me.
And and I couldn't, I just couldn't be happy there. So that was a good thing. So I zoomed away and, and went on to do some really fun, amazing things, you know, on the, over the next, say 10 years of my career. Yeah. So talk to us from when you left to now, what transpired in these months? So then I went down and I went to work for a county.
So another new experience for me. So this was government, I'd never worked in government before, so county, government and they hired me that this was a healthcare [01:21:00] organization. Well, the healthcare part of the county government it w I'm going to step back. So the county operated a community health center as a part of county government.
It's a rather unique model of federally qualified health center. Which is where I had actually started my career at a community health center in Seattle. And, and so they had. Plan to close the health centers, but the community rose up in arms and said, what are you doing? We need these services in our community.
This isn't okay. You need to pull back from that. And they did in fact, closed two or three locations when they realized, okay, well and giving it away anyway. And so they, so they said, we're going to retract this. We're going to go back to having this and now we need to grow it because there's all these needs that aren't being.
And so they hired me to be [01:22:00] like I don't remember what my title was like a director or executive director or something. You know, within the county working into the health, housing, human services division. And I started working with just primary care and dental, and we had the one location. I think we had a school-based health center as well.
W you know, we went through a mission, vision, values process. We looked at our fundamentals, we looked at our finances and I was learning kind of how county government works. I had the honor and privilege of working intimately with team members or peers who were in like behavioral specialty, behavioral health, public health, housing et cetera, et cetera.
And. That was really fun. And we did really well. And we, we really had this wonderful vision that we were [01:23:00] pursuing together. Good relationship with county government and with our independent board of directors, which FQHC has to have. And we did, oh gosh, we grew, we created a wonderful new health center.
We opened a couple of school-based health centers. We had the first reverse integrated health center that I was aware of. And this was where a group of people which have persistent chronic And fairly intense mental illness so that their mental health is the biggest barrier to their physical health.
Right. I would call it an SPMI population. And for these folks, they die 30 years younger than the national average. Why don't you? Because their mental health challenges preclude them from taking care of their behavior, their physical health [01:24:00] challenges. And so we developed, and this was really before I got there, I just helped it to evolve and grow.
So I can't take too much credit for this, but it was a thrill to be a part of it. We developed this clinic that. We are going to specifically set up the cell center around you and your needs and your primary needs are mental, but we're going to put some physical health as a part of a continuum of services to help you specifically with your needs and your situation as an individual.
And it was super successful, super well received. And I didn't have, I have enough data yet, but I'm convinced that if we were to look at the data, say today that we would have lengthened the healthy lives of these individuals significantly by a decade or more simply by aligning the health system around their needs, instead of saying, well, you better go here for this [01:25:00] and therefore that, and too bad that, you know, this is too difficult for you.
And so we just did some really cool things. And cool enough that eventually the county said, Hey, Dave, under your leadership, we want to bring the specialty behavioral health. And we're going to bring the business functions in which had been separate divisions. And we combined these divisions into one community health division to help move forward.
This expansive inclusive sense of what health and healthcare and the health system should be. And it was a wonderful experience. So why did I leave? People want to ask? And so what happened quite frankly, was we went from this supportive, expansive growing meeting, the needs, engaging the community, partnering with hospitals, partnering with community organizations, partnering with all of these partners of [01:26:00] the whole person lives of all our patients and our clients.
And then there was a sweep of county commissioners and the tea party candidates kind of took over a county government. And literally overnight, we went from those expansive take risks, try things to don't spend any money don't grow, don't, you know, pursue this vision. Yeah. Kind of, I got to this point again, where I realized I went deer hunting in October and I realized I'm become miserable again, and life is too short to be miserable at work.
And I went back and talked to my boss and my bosses and I said, I'm miserable and this is what's going on. And, and they said, I understand that. And and I think good grounds, we agreed that I would leave. I think I was [01:27:00] ruffling feathers and I was, I, not that I'm an abrasive person, but I just wasn't fitting in as well as I might've.
And so I left and then I went to work with a little bit of interim, which was probably less important, but in the mid Columbia Gorge for a federally qualified health center there, and. Just had another marvelous experience. They had a challenging history with their finances. We were able to come in again, go through a process of, of kind of reaffirming, what is our purpose, our mission, what are our values?
To me, that's very, very important because if we don't have our foundations built and that we're not on the same page on what those foundations are, anything else we want to do becomes exceedingly more [01:28:00] difficult. So whenever I'm coming in as a new CEO or a new leadership role, I strive to go through this process.
So that we're all on the same page. And it doesn't, I don't think it would matter if I was for profit or not for profit or, you know, whatever else having those fundamentals is really important because bill cause we have to build on those things and they have to be strong and robust and that's important for us in our personal lives as well.
And that's what my book is about. And frankly, but so anyways, we built these foundations. I have a good business sense. So we had, we developed a very strong kind of business plan that supported our mission and our strategies. And we evolved and, you know, past three or four years we had our original health center.
That we had tremendously outgrown, you know, using years before some of the providers that had been there [01:29:00] for a long time, over a decade, said, Dave, we've been full out here for 10 years. And, you know, we kept putting people in closets and expanding into the age vac room and, you know, storing supplies of the heater.
And I mean, all those crazy stuff to try to fit because. People loved working at the organization and people love coming to receive health services there. So we have this opportunity. Finally, we weren't in a financial position, we had the right everything else in place that we could replace it, where they knew, like it ended up being about a $16 million health center, about 40,000 square feet.
Totally designed from a facility perspective around you as a whole person. You were the center of the care team, you as the patient. So David, when you come in, I expect you to operate as the captain of your own health. And you might have a primary care provider. You might have a mental health provider.
You might have a dentist, [01:30:00] you might have a community health worker. You might have a case manager. You might have whatever these other services that they wrap around you and your needs. And you may only need one of them at a time or two or three or five or whatever, right. Depending on you, where you're at your own situation.
And that's what the model was built on. We built a facility with the absolute best practices that we could find things like biophilic design, which is this bringing nature into the organization so that when you walk in, even though you don't think about it consciously, subconsciously you have this relaxing moment because we come into a typical healthcare setting because we're sick or we're tired or we're depressed, or we're anxious or all of the above.
Or a family member is. And so we wanted to, from the very get, go design, this experience that causes and helps you to [01:31:00] relax from a subconscious level and then to the conscious, you know, from operations and practices and policies and all that stuff. So we had wonderful people. We had wonderful staff who were caring.
They understood our population. Populations that we served we had good information systems, so the technology is good, but as we were implementing the designing and then started building this, I realized, I mean, there's something was bothering me. And I had this epiphany as I was studying change models and there's a number of different change models.
But what I realized was common to all of them as a fundamental level was personal or intrinsic motivation. And I used the words, you know, to be the captain of your own life. So this intrinsic motivation, it includes your values as a foundation. It includes what they call self-efficacy, which is the [01:32:00] exercise of control, getting things done, if you will, and self-compassion, which is a sustainable positive way to build self esteem and self compassion.
And so, and to create connection and balance. And so these three foundations are what composes our personal or intrinsic motivation our drive. And if they're done in balance, right, it becomes sustainable throughout your life. And I realized that in last week could unless we could help the patient to carry out this role successfully that are all the effort we put in all the money we were put into all of these other elements or domains would have limited effect, limited impact.
And we wanted to have outrageously positive impact. And, and we did some really good things. I mean, one of the [01:33:00] things I was most proud of was we studied. Clinical outcomes between our primarily Caucasian population and our Hispanic population, which is our largest minority population. And we saw that there are disparities and the outcomes now that's common everywhere in the country.
So we'd said that isn't okay, that's not consistent with our mission and our purposes. We put it tremendous about an effort through a lot of different efforts and in a lot of different areas, but we focused on it. We set goals around it. And by the time I left, we had and could demonstrate for two quarters that we had eliminated any disparities in impact in clinical outcomes between these two populations, which to me.
Absolutely amazing because you just never read about that happening in the United States. And [01:34:00] it gave me hope that this can happen and that with this new model that we would do even better, you know, we can be strong and have more impact. So I feel like I'm dribbling on again. So anyways, I got fired from that job.
That's a whole other story. I didn't steal any money or do anything like that. I had a disagreement with my board. I failed frankly, to do some of the things they asked me to do, and I failed to communicate what I was doing adequately, probably a combination of things. But anyways, I was let go. And then how did you, anytime were let go from a position there's a lot of self-reflection that needs to take place and honesty.
And how did you work through that process to get healed and free and be ready for the next step of life? There's a couple of things I did. One of them was in my work and research because I frankly [01:35:00] went from working full-time at a job to working full time at understanding personal motives. And one of the things that I came across in my research is that, and why studying our common humanity?
One of the elements of self compassion is that in the United States, 50,000 people are fired every single day, 50,000 people. But when you're fired, you're only thinking about yourself, right? You're looking at your ones, you're wondering how you're going to pay your bills. Fortunately, we didn't have any debt other than our house because we've learned from prior experience.
And you know, we we but one of the things that it helped me realize is that I'm not alone and that most of the things that we experienced in life that are challenging, like getting [01:36:00] fired, we can learn from. You know, there's amazing enough. I mean, absolutely amazing amount of resources available to us on how to deal with almost any situation you can imagine.
So this idea that you're not alone, I think is really important because you feel like you've got to bear the world on your shoulders, but you're not alone. Now, if you're a person who has faith in God, you have a wonderful, additional kind of source of light and support as you work through the inevitable kind of grieving and then hopefully learning.
And that's probably the second thing is that I really tried to say, what can I learn from this? You know, how do I grow from this a so I don't re we produce it. And. B so that if somebody else is going through the similar situation, I can have empathy and have something to share with them. And [01:37:00] that would be helpful.
And one of my own insights was that we had a lot going on. My, my personal life was busy. My spiritual life was quite busy. I was in a service calling and my church where I was going around and working with, you know, different communities and that was busy. And you know, just personal life is always busy and maintaining your relationships and making sure that those don't get out of whack out of balance anyways, and then work with super busy because we had these huge projects like this new health center and other big projects.
And I think I was exhausted. And I was doing my best, but I was so tired. I didn't even realize how tired I was that I wasn't able to take care of this really important relationship [01:38:00] with my board that I needed to. And and that was an important insight to me. And, and I should have taken then a better job of working to balance that and it was frankly a day late and a dollar short but I had anyways, so I think that was an important learning.
So am I ignoring critical feedback for my stakeholder who in this case, you know, decides to hire or fire me. And I was ignoring some critical feedback from them and it was just, I had so many things on my plate. I didn't like the feedback install. I didn't give it the credence then, you know, the time that.
And and that was a mistake. So from that moment to today, how did you learn to become the captain of your own life and move forward? So, one of the things that has helped me and some of this stuff, I think I've [01:39:00] done throughout my life, or, you know, more and more over my life as I've learned and grown and, you know, I could be 20 again.
Oh my gosh. But I can't. Right. So, and that's okay. But that's not how we're designed. So in this research I did and studying and writing I thought I would create a business that would help share these ideas, these principles that I adopted in my own life. So for example, values I've always had values, but what I really learned through this research was that making my values explicit.
It's super important. So it's not like saying yeah, I believe in being honest and I believe in the environment and I believe in God and you know, that's okay, really? This is a process. It's a simple process actually, though, that anybody can go through no matter what your background is, [01:40:00] what you've done, what you haven't done is to make your values explicit.
So when I say that, what it means to me and what I think the research supports is that you have to sit down with like a list of values and you have to say, what are my top core values? This isn't the 25 things that I believe in. And there may be 25. That's great. But kind of when push comes to shove, if I had, and I think five is kind of a magic number five values that I hold at my core, that no matter what's going on in my life, if I'm having a relationship channel.
Financial challenges, professional challenges, Cabi, friends, clubs, you know, whatever else you got going on, challenges, whatever else is going on around me. These are five things that are my core that I hold onto dearly. And that I live my life consistent with no matter what. So one might be faith in God.
So like my [01:41:00] number one value that I hold above all the others is be belief. I made a little, a little, what do they call that? An acronym Bitcoin, but without the oil. So it was easy to remember. So B is belief and this is for me, your values will be different. And that's what. And that's good in fact, but for me, belief or faith is fundamental to who I am and what's important to me in my life and all the other stuff swirls around to me, my faith and my belief is always there.
That value is fundamental and core integrity. Isn't a second value that I think is really, really important and critical transparency. So that's a bit right. Transparency and then compassion or charity. So the idea of we're all on a journey, we're all in different place. We're all flawed, but we're all flawed in [01:42:00] different ways.
Based on how we're raised choices, we've made experience of life. And so the fact that your flaws looked different than my flaws makes, you know, better or no worse than me and vice versa. And again, this sense, I mean, one of the principles is we're all a part of this common humanity. And so for me, these are fundamental values that I hold to no matter what, and we all need to come up with that and then we need to say, what does that mean?
Right. What does it mean to say faith and belief? And I have to describe that. So what does that look like? What does it sound like? Why would my life be better by living that value? And if we do these things, our values become this living, breathing lie. Kind of like woven in like the fabric of, of, you know, like a [01:43:00] quilt or, or a Afghan or whatever, a metaphor where everything is, you know, woven together like a piece of fabric.
And so it becomes inextricable. Undividable from who you are, and that affects everything that you do in your life and that's begins. And I wrote a couple of things down the science, the research behind it is that it gives meaning to your life, right. Which is an antidote to apathy. It provides wellbeing, which is the sense of my life is okay.
My life is on track, which is an antidote to languishing. It provides clarity to your life, which is an antidote to fuzziness. Like, what should I do this or not do this? Do I pursue that? Do I, you know, It just gives you clarity and it gives you focus, which helps you avoid regret. So this is one of the 10 principles that I think [01:44:00] if we all just did this and made our values explicit, how different life would be, how much more powerful and grounded our lives would be and how you know, what a wonderful thing that would be.
And that's why it's chapter one of my book. And then now let's do this between your story of birth through today. Is there anything we missed that you want to cover before we move into where's David right now? And where you heading? Oh my gosh. No, I don't think so. Yeah. Okay then where are you today and where are you going?
So we can help you get. So today I am trying to make a living as an author. So I, you know, I wrote my first book. I don't have a big following or anything, but I feel as I have throughout my life, you know, in my career, I'm trying to pursue my values and my purposes. [01:45:00] And. And now as an author and perhaps as a consultant or as a partner with organizations.
And, and so I wrote the book based on these 10 principles that I discovered I didn't create them. You know, I'm not like the, the genius behind these or anything like that. But something that you'll get better as you get older is taking disparate knowledge and creating connections that create a stronger woven base or foundation or understanding hopefully some illumination.
And so, you know, it starts with your values awareness and feedback. So we talked about awareness a little bit and, you know, kind of being self-aware feedback our relationship to feedback. People don't think about it that way, but we all have a relationship learning and tent and, you know, and it goes on and I have all 10 principles and it ends with common [01:46:00] humanity.
And mind lawlessness. And I titled that last chapter mindlessness because so many people have this bias. When I say we should all be mindful and they think I need to start eating yogurt and wear yoga pants and learn a foreign language. You know, if I'm not Ayurvedic, you know, I'm not cool. And you don't know what I are Vedic is, or the background evidence.
So they just go and I'm close to that and I want you to do with it. I saw a Dr. Phil interview, you know, a while back. And he said, yeah, mindfulness and my clients go, whoa. You know, like you're crazy when it's a goofy stuff. And of course, mindfulness. Maybe there's a lot of history in it in India and in certain belief backgrounds.
And there's a lot of value to that. But for most average people, I try to describe it and cause my [01:47:00] book and my work is oriented towards average people is that mindlessness is the chapter title. We look at that. And so far people wrote alone, what do I, you know, how do I interpret that? And in the first chapter, I say, you have a mind, you know, that you do.
And every single person does. So it cannot be the fact that you don't have a mind. And what it is is simply the fact that you don't. You haven't been open to this point in using your mind to your own best benefit. And so the chapter is mindlessness, but the point is you have a mind. So what matters in your life is how you're using that mind to your own positive effect.
And I don't use any fancy words. You don't have to worry over pants, but you know what, if you like yoga pants go for it. And you know about Ayurvedic, you know, go for it. [01:48:00] Or, you know, any of the other disciplines or philosophies they get into bed and a lot more dear good preview. But for most of us, just the idea that I don't want to be mindless because I have a mind, why would I waste the most amazing thing as scientists as I've described in the entire universe?
The human mind is the most complex, most amazing creation in the universe, more than the sign or the planet or gravity or any of the natural laws. You know, that circle around us, our mind is so amazing. So let's use it to our good and our benefit. And there are simple practices that we can do so that we think, and fundamentally the more we think the more we're going to be the captain of our life.
And if we can just have that introduction and people can be slightly open to, okay, I don't have to learn some fancier weird or foreign, [01:49:00] but yeah, I want to use my mind. And we can become open to it. And we start very little simple steps and then we grow from there and it's like, I used the metaphor of a fruit tree.
Cause you know, I worked in cherry country in that rural community, in the mid Columbia Gorge and what we try to do. And so much of what we find in our internet and YouTube and all this stuff is how to do stuff, right? Anything you want to do, you can go out, find a YouTube or a thousand or 10,000, you know, some good, some middle and some bad I had to do whatever it is we want to do.
But what happens is, if we look at a tree, we got roots, you've got the trunk and then you've got the tree with the leaves and the branches and the fruit. And what we do is we focus on the fruit on the tree. We go, I want a big [01:50:00] harvest, right? I want Watts of outcome. I want lots of results. And so we focus on tips, tricks, hacks, techniques, how to, and we focused on building this, but what's happens with far too many of us is we fail to build the trunk and the roots.
So in nature, we know that at the outcome of that, inevitably, is that there's not enough root strength. There's a, not enough nutrition. There's not enough trunk strength to support what we've got going on up here. And we fail, right. And nature, there's a rainstorm. The roots are small. The tree falls over those, the windstorm, you know, the tree bulb, silver, there's less rain than you need those a drought.
Then you've got regroups and top recruits and trunks, and there's, there's not enough to generate any harvest. And so when I prescribe, if you will, [01:51:00] is that we live our lives in balance and that we develop the root and the trunk. So those are our foundations and that the stronger they get, then the natural outcome without a lot of other effort, is that we have a great harvest given the situation, environment that we're in and where we maximize, if you will, we optimize our home.
By focusing on becoming a person that naturally and normally generates those bounteous abundant results. But when we focus on the results and ignore the becoming part of our lives, then we find what happens is burnout, depression, stress, and aspects of our lives break because we're not imbalanced relationships break, work breaks, education breaks, whatever, you know, whatever, all these various domains in our lives are, [01:52:00] they're stressed.
And so we have to do these things in balance. And if we can do that, Then it just kind of flows and that's kind of where I hope I'm at today. I'm learning and I'm growing, I'm doing the right things. I'm building my foundations, I'm strengthening my foundations so that the natural result of that in my business life is that I have a want do a full bounty as harvest, but I'm not focused on the tips and tricks.
I mean, you got to do be wise, you got to do good business. But I'm trying to build my foundations and grow those together. It's a slower process. Sometimes that's frustrating to us. Right? Cause all of the stuff out there says, do this and revolutionize your life in 60 days or six months or whatever.
Well, you know what. I probably have 30 years left to live. This is what I figured. And you're a young man. I look at you and I go, [01:53:00] you're a young man. You probably have. If you take care of yourself, right, live a life and balance mentally, physically, spiritually relationship fuel and balance. You've easily got 60 years of life left.
So be patient. I don't know if I want that much life yet. I want to go home and see Jesus. Well, believe me, every day is precious. And, and the key is that you grow into it, right? And I promise you that if you grow into that imbalance in 60 years, they'll go, I am so grateful and I love every day and I accept that I'm mortal and this is going to happen.
But in the meantime, every day is a joy. Every day is an opportunity. And, and that's a beautiful way to live your life. I think. Yeah, I'd agree. So now, David, if someone wants to get a hold of you to talk to you, to explore the concepts we spoke today about more [01:54:00] to get some coaching, what's the best way for one of our listeners to reach you.
So my website is probably the easiest thing. David R edwards.com. And if you just Google David, our Edwards, there's a wonderful man who just passed away last year, who was a Welsh. Front and for the well punk rock group, Dagley blue or something like that. So he got the first page of Google assaults, at least for now.
I hope I can make it on the first page, you know, within a year that's one of my goals. But again, I'm not focusing on that. I'm focusing out all the things I need to do so that when somebody searches in Google, I rank. So it's not the goal per se. It's all the foundations that will naturally, and normally inevitably lead to that kind of an outcome that I seek.[01:55:00] 
Anyways, so if you'd put a David R edwards.com, I should hopefully right. I should come up and then you can reach out to me on. Yeah, look it up on your phone. I'd be fascinated. I take notes on my phone when we're recording. So if anybody's watching the YouTube video cast and you see me on my phone, like I was telling David before the episode, I'm not surfing the web, I'm taking notes for the episode.
It's an integration I built like for the podcast. So this is what it's all about. I got my notes right there through the website. So it's but we will put you down under David, our Edwards. We'll make sure we do our best. I have so many guests that tell me that our podcasts come up before their own website and internet searches.
So now I have a little bit of challenge on my end. I'm looking forward to it. Question is this to [01:56:00] finalize the show? If you had one powering thought, one last thing you want to leave our listeners with. I'm going to ask you that in a second. The next thing though, I want to say is this, when I was reading your acronym, you had, you know, BITC. And I was thinking I was laughing, not at what you were saying.
Cause you're saying Bitcoin, and I'm thinking the old, remember that old phrase, it was very popular. Life's a bitch. Like you could do some kind of funny, like instead of you said charity or compassion, she could have, see as charity and instead of come mash and do humanity and you're accurate and could be bitch, life's a bitch.
So I don't know if you'll ever use that, but that's why I was laughing when I was looking at my notes. Cause that was what my sick marketing mind was thinking anyways. From your thoughts though, what's the final thought you want to leave with our list? There's the farewell and close down this episode. So I think if I had a final.[01:57:00] 
It is that your life is important, no matter what's going on in your life, right? We're all in whatever our situation is right now, your life matters. It is important and it's worth your effort to put into it, to have the best life that you can. And I invite you to become the captain of your life. If you are not religious or Christian, right.
To me, that means that you are in charge of what's important to you. You have to understand what your values are. You decide how you're going to move forward or not, but from the foundation of your life is important. It matters. It matters to you, and it matters to those that are close to you. And it matters to everybody around you because we are.
Inseparable from the environment around us, we affect each other. We impact each other. So your life matters [01:58:00] and I invite you to become the captain of your life. If you're a Christian, that might mean that you stay, I give my life to Christ, but what does that mean? Be explicit about it. Be purposeful about it.
Be intentional. And that's why on your foundation of values. The second principle is really about no, it's about awareness. It's the fourth principle is about what is your intent, right? Be intentional. Don't let the random forces of the world around you. The 3000 images that you're exposed to every day, some of your own choosing many, not.
Don't let those run your life. Your life is more important than anybody's marketing slogan or anybody who wants to, to do this or become that or invest in that. I promise you from my limited perspective that if [01:59:00] we just created our lives and our expectations, based upon the things that we see around us, we'd all want to drive a Bugatti while beyond vacation all the time, eating, drinking, fattening foods and addictive substances while being slender and beautiful and popular, because that's what the world tries to sell us as important.
What I'm going to suggest to you that none of those things are what is impacting. What is important is that you are in charge of your own life and that if you decide to give it to something or just someone, then you do it purposefully with understanding with intention, and then that you build your life on that.
And that you're in charge. All right, David will thank you so much. And while we were speaking about two thirds of this episode, again, if you're watching, I'm sorry, but my [02:00:00] camera shut off. So we had a switch to the laptop camera and I'm talking to Dave and you're probably totally confused, but that's what happened.
My camera broke mid podcast. So like Dave was saying, become the captain, your own life, check out his book. We'll put a link in the show notes, if you want more information, reach out to him. And other than that, Dave, thank you for being on the podcast today. This is a great bonus episode. We're going to share with our community.
And if you need anything else, my friend pre please reach out and for our community and our friends all over the world, like our slogan says, don't just listen to this great information from Dave, but do it, repeat it so you can have a great life in this world and attorney to come. So I'm David password alone.
That was our friend, David, our Edwards, and we wish you the best. And we'll see you in the next episode. Ciao. 
[02:01:00]