You Aren't Stuck. You're Playing Too Small.

Dave [00:00:00] Is Superman the real guy, or when he dumbs himself down, is Clark Kent the real guy? Is Batman the real guy or is Bruce Wayne?

Dave 'Cause one of them is the weaker one, and then one of them knows the right thing to do at the right time.

LuRae Welcome to And Then I Did This. Prepare to be inspired as we celebrate the unique journeys of individuals who've had the courage to break free and live life on their own terms. Their lives prove that you truly can be free to live your best and most authentic life.

Dave Let's get to it

LuRae Welcome to the show.

LuRae Today I have a special guest, Dave Crane, a former BBC journalist, a radio station manager, TV host, recording artist, and author. Dave's been entertaining audiences since he was three. Today he does keynote speaking, training, consulting, and private mentoring. With 30 years of engaging [00:01:00] millions at premier events worldwide, his passion is sharing his knowledge with the next generation of effective communicators.

LuRae Dave, welcome to the show.

Dave It's such an honor to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

LuRae Absolutely. Share your journey, how you got started, and then we'll go into present, what you're doing.

Dave How long have you got? That's a terrible question to ask me. "Dave, since you were born, what happened?"

Dave I'll put it together. I'll make it as easy as possible to do. So, uh, I was at a speaking event yesterday with a load of content creators of different levels and so on, and they said, "Right, Dave, we've got about half an hour. Would you like to introduce yourself? Say who you are, what you do, and then we'll take some questions."

Dave 90 minutes later, we went, "Should we cut... We- we'll time out. The sun's coming up. Let's just stop." Okay. So I l- I lived in the UK for until about 30 years ago. I'm, I'm in Dubai now. Mm-hmm. And growing up in the UK, uh, I loved entertainment. [00:02:00] The reason I was into entertainment so much was because of the fact that when you're a mixed race kid growing up in white areas, you need to stand out, so you need to be great at fighting.

Dave Mm-hmm. So you're either really good at making people laugh- Mm-hmm ... or really good at, at, at defending yourself. I decided- Right ... to go down the laughter route. So I became a natural entertainer, and that- Mm-hmm ... was how my career started. I w- my parents put me in talent competitions. I was in school plays and school musicals, and I won the equivalent of, America's Got Talent.

Dave I won the Scottish version, 'cause I grew up in Scotland. Oh, okay. Um, when I was about 11, I came second actually. The reason I came second was because they took, they put us on tour to go around and do stuff. Mm-hmm. And so an 11-year-old is not what they want if they're gonna be doing nightclubs and all the rest.

Dave Oh, right. So another lady won because of that. That was- Oh ... nobody said that, but 11-year-old is not what you want to win- Right ... this competition. So I went on to then work, on the holiday resorts in the UK. I learned to [00:03:00] be a DJ. Um, I studied law, dropped out. I was terrible at it and never wanted to go. I went because my parents wanted me to have a proper grown-up job.

Dave And eventually you stop arguing, you just go, "Okay." So I went away- ... and I wasted their money, and I had a great time, but none of it had any work involved. So-

LuRae Wow ...

Dave when I dropped out of doing that- I did hospital radio, which is a way in the UK to learn to be a radio guy. So you just do it. And the great thing about learning to do it in a hospital, is that nobody's able to say that it's rubbish because they can't move, most of the people.

Dave So you're on your own. Oh. So I used to get up at about 3:00 in the morning. I was given the, the overnight... No, I was given the first show, which was from 5:00 till 7:00, the pre-breakfast show. So I'd get up at 3:00, I'd walk in the snow or in the rain or whatever, a number of miles to get there, carry my records.

LuRae Oh my

Dave God. I'd, I'd let myself in. I'd do the show finish, walk back in the rain, and then I'd go to my job. Oh. And [00:04:00] without it, I'd never have learned to do radio, so it, I knew why I was doing it. I went on to then go to a holiday resorts in the UK to learn to be an entertainer after dropping out of university.

Dave Uh, I went to work for the BBC. I was a BBC journalist for many years. And then I didn't get the break I wanted, so I went onto a TV show called Blind Date, which is like the Dating Game, I believe, in America. And I won the Christmas show. So 20 million people saw me win. Oh. So I was like one of the most famous people for about three seconds in the UK.

Dave I'd say what's really weird about fame is the next day I went shopping with some friends, as you just do. And everybody recognized me, 'cause in those days there was no cable TV, no satellite TV. Right. It was just, like, four channels. Oh. And so I'm walking around a shopping mall, and everybody's staring at me and whispering to each other.

Dave And it's not what you hope, which is people coming up and saying, "Well done," and giving a round of applause. Right. It's people staring at you like you're an alien.

LuRae Oh, no.

Dave And it [00:05:00] makes you realize what fame really is. It's really- Right ... uncomfortable because they're having their own discussions about you, making their own opinions about you, and you're not involved in it.

Dave No. Now, when it calmed down a bit, that was fine. Three months later I'm like a local hero, blah, blah, blah. Right. And so I wanted to get a job on TV, which is why I did it in the first place. Right. And I got shortlisted for a couple of, TV shows. Mm-hmm. Uh, but in those days you only had a VHS cassette, which only I remember.

Dave Nobody else seems to remember what they are. And so sending a VHS cassette to an agency or a TV company is like getting a book- Right ... covering it in newspapers or, or brown paper, and throwing it over your wall and hoping it hits somebody. Because that's what proper post was. Right. And so after three months I got a load of, "Dear Dave, thank you but no thank yous."

Dave Mm-hmm. Only because I realized I was in the wrong part of, of Britain. I should've been in London.

LuRae Oh.

Dave So I started going for job interviews in London, and I thought, "I hate it." At this time... Oh, here's a story for you. I walked [00:06:00] into the, the BBC, where I was working as a journalist. Yeah. And I only really did the Blind Date thing to also prove to them, "You should promote me and have me do a proper show, not just as a news guy."

Dave Right. "You should have me doing this. Here's my proof." Right. And my new boss, who was a teensy bit racist, turned round to me and said, "We think we should let you go. Clearly you shouldn't be doing this job. You should be doing something different." Oh. And he sacked me the weekend after I'd been in front of 20 million people- Oh my God

Dave singing my praises. Right. Eventually after that I went, "You know what? I don't even like the country now."

LuRae Yeah.

Dave I went for a number of jobs that were DEI, that were specific for people of color- Right ... because they knew in the BBC that people weren't getting opportunities. Right. And I didn't get one. And I thought, I'm, I've just won Blind Date.

Dave I'm running a local magazine, I'm speaking on stage, I'm doing gigs. Right. I've got all these things and I'm on the radio and I'm, I've got a post-graduate diploma in radio journalism, and I can't have this job which is below my level? What are you looking for? So I just went, "That's [00:07:00] it, I'm off."

Dave So I took a DJing job overseas, and DJing was quite a few levels below what I was.

LuRae Right.

Dave And I came to Dubai. I was in a sports bar And I introduced the all-you-can-eat-and-drink deal. So you pay one fee, you can drink and eat as much as you wanted. And my bar went through the roof. It was so popular. And, that became a deal that now everybody uses across the whole region.

Dave Right. Middle Eastern region, everyone uses it. They don't pay me commission, I get zero. But we had a good time for about- Right ... three years doing that. And at the time, a new radio station opened up. My friend got a job. He said, "Dave, do you wanna join?" So I went along, and they'd brought a load of people over from the UK, and they said- Mm

Dave to me, "Well, we'll give you a weekend show." So I took the show, and I made it my own and did really well. And then there was a coup in the radio station where they went to start- Oh, my gosh ... a new radio station, and they left all the people they didn't like behind. So I stepped up and took charge. Oh, my gosh.

Dave Wow. And I got, uh, my best mate, who was just a presenter, I got the guy who was [00:08:00] working production who was just doing adverts, and the girl who was reading the news. They weren't heads of departments. I took them to a, a hotel, and we sat and had coffee, and I said, "Look, we're gonna have no job if we don't tell- Right

Dave the owner of the radio station what's- Right ... really going on." 'Cause the guys had all left, resigned, but taken- Right ... all the music with them, taken all the best presenters with them. So we held the fort and we stepped up. I became station manager. We, uh, got head of news, head of programs, and head of production.

Dave Right. And we told the market, "Stay with us while we recruited- Right ... for three months staff to come over and fill all the gaps." Everybody who was just in the vicinity all got a show overnight, whatever it was. So we had to stay on there to let people know that nothing's changed.

LuRae Wow.

Dave And eventually we managed to starve the new radio station that came up of advertising dollars, so they all lost their jobs.

Dave They all just left and went back to the UK.

LuRae Right.

Dave So we had a new radio... We had our existing radio station doing really well, and the people came over from the UK [00:09:00] to fill the gap, so we had a really- Right ... kicking radio station. But then they all looked at us, who'd saved the station, and went, "Look, we can kick them out because we've got more experience in radio than they have."

Dave Oh, yeah. So they started a coup inside the radio station- Mm ... on the guys who got, who kept them afloat for a job. So I did it for a while, and then I left the radio station. And then I went to work for another one. But to be honest with you, my heart was broken-

LuRae And,

Dave uh, my, my patience for what I wanted to do, which is to be a big radio guy and a TV guy, disappeared.

Dave Now, during that time I got to work with James Brown, Enrique Iglesias, the Spice Girls. I hosted Dubai Rugby Sevens, which is like, um, it's like the Super Bowl. For 20 years I was going out and doing the thing with the audience- Yeah ... all the TV cameras. So I actually have reached about a billion people in my career on TV- Right

Dave and in person. And- So

LuRae crazy ...

Dave I, I decided to work from radio because I just thought, well, my heart's not in it anymore. And remember, I'd only done it, I [00:10:00] did 10 years in radio in the y- in Dubai. I got to the top of the food chain. I was the most famous radio guy.

Dave But I only did it because I wanted to prove to those in the UK who weren't actually paying attention, "Look what you missed out

LuRae on."

LuRae Right. Exactly.

Dave But I don't- but who am I showing it to? Because now I've got a completely different audience. They all know who I am. Right. And I don't want to spend all my time watching my back 'cause people are trying to push me off the top of the mountain. Yes. So I, I just resigned and left and stopped doing it.

Dave Mm-hmm. And what's really strange, again, about fame is the next day my phone stopped ringing and never rang again. I wasn't invited to the opening of anything at all as a famous person, nothing, because I wasn't money anymore. I wasn't currency. Oh my gosh. My face wasn't wor- "You're that guy who used to be in radio.

Dave Yeah, okay." Right. "We- we'll get somebody who is in radio." Wow. And it taught me a lot about being famous and by- Right ... why it doesn't matter, and being an influencer doesn't matter. Right. And having a life that makes you happy really matters.

LuRae Yes.

Dave Um, and so very quickly, 'cause I realize I've taken up [00:11:00] most of the show talking about me- Yeah.

Dave Yeah. No ... I'll just get to where we are now. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I survived for a long time. I mean, I, I met a beautiful woman, and we had a, a child and, well, two dogs. We, we didn't give birth to them, we bought them. and we just had this wonderful life. And I didn't need- Yeah ... to prove to anybody, because when you're an entertainer you go on stage, but when you're not on stage you're very private and you keep your own little world.

Dave Right. Right. So I, I loved that, and I love still doing gigs. Mm-hmm. And that was great. That all continued for a long time. I was doing top corporate da- gigs. I was, I was working around the world with big events and festivals. Right. I was traveling and so I was having a really g- And I never advertised, I just was there and people knew who I was, until the pandemic.

Dave And then the pandemic hit, and all my clients who wanted to learn to speak and all my gigs stopped overnight. My wife was a top wedding photographer, stopped overnight, and we had no income for two years.

LuRae Wow. Holy-

Dave So I had to reinvent myself again.

LuRae Right.

Dave Now, what, what would you do in that [00:12:00] situation? I'll throw this at you so you can speak 'cause it's your show.

LuRae Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I would look at what do I love to do, and what is there a need for, and what can I do given the confines of this- contrived situation that we're in

Dave Very good

LuRae answer and try to match those three together.

Dave Very good. So it's effectively the hedgehog concept, which is, you know, what are you brilliant at doing?

Dave What do you love to do? Right. What will people pay for? So what- Right ... did, if nobody's talk- paying for speaking or they, they need to learn to speak, what else do I know? Well, I know how to be famous. I know how to be a celebrity. And I d- decided- Right ... well, why don't I help people to become celebrities in their industry?

Dave So I pivoted and created a thing called the Industry Icon Program. Yeah. And I went online every day for, well, 200 shows during the pandemic. So as you can see, for anybody who's actually watching the video version of this, then I can go nighttime, I can go to a coffee [00:13:00] shop. I can change to my own late night TV show.

Dave That's what I was just about to do when the pandemic was over. Oh my gosh. So I could, I could be here and I could do shows like this. Great. And Christmas, I can turn it like that. Ah. And so I attracted clients enough to pay the bills.

LuRae Oh,

Dave wow. And then when I came out of it, um, that was it. And my, my wife who, she's from Singapore, turned out to be a tech genius.

Dave I didn't know. She's brilliant, as many- Oh ... Singaporeans are, and Japanese, really good at business. Oh, good. So she took care of all the tech and still does. And so what was challenging, and I think this is where it fits in with you- And your, your audience is after two years of really fighting hard to stay afloat, the stress had built up and I had post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dave I feel like I'd been at war for two years. Right. And so when work started coming back, it was still bits and bobs because people would be canceled if a CEO had COVID- Right ... and had to, they'd, they'd cancel the event and all [00:14:00] sorts. Right. And so I had a real problem because I, I wasn't burnt out. It's a thing called burnt in.

Dave Do you know this one?

LuRae No. Tell

Dave me. So imagine the wheels are spinning on your car and you're stuck in sand. The car's working fine, but you can't get any traction, so you keep revving. Right. Yeah. That's where I was. So I was going every day. I was online 16 hours. I was doing seven days a week. My wife said- Wow

Dave "Take time off. Take Saturdays off." And I said- Right ... "I can't do that. What if so, I miss something?" She said, "Do it," and it was brilliant. That was the best thing I did. But also, I had anxiety and I had depression. I didn't know it. You don't know that when you've got it. Right. When You just know you're grumpy and you're grumpy to everybody and you can't stop it.

Dave And so when work started coming back, I did something which I'm gonna share with everybody. It's gonna help them with speaking, it's gonna help with stress, and it might help them change their career. So this one will be useful.

LuRae Mm-hmm.

Dave So I thought about it. I thought, "Well, I'm a hypnotist. I'm a life coach, business coach.

Dave How do I get over this?" Because what was happening was people approaching me to do gigs [00:15:00] and then canceling. Now what happens normally is I make them pay up front, so I'm not gonna give store credit to a big billion-dollar corporate- Right ... so they pay me afterwards. They pay me in advance- Right ... and if they cancel, they lose the money or they give me a new date.

Dave Right. That's it. Right. But the money's in my account.

LuRae Right.

Dave So I wasn't ready to do that because I'm scared of a l- Mm-hmm ... of losing clients. Right. I g- I've got no pressure when I'm so desperate to have the money coming in. Right. So I thought, "Well, how can I..." fix this. And as a coach, and you're a coach as well- Mm-hmm

Dave it all comes down to one sentence: Ask yourself better questions.

Dave So I started asking myself, "How can I fix this? What do I have around me? What's the best version of me?" Right. And the best version of me was not the one that was doing stuff, um- Right ... and trying to fix this. Best version of me is with a live audience and a microphone and a live gig.

Dave So I've got sponsors, I've got TV, I've got radio, I've got l- my team, I've got the audience, I've got an agenda, I've got a deadline, I've got [00:16:00] about 10, 10, 20 different things to do. Mm-hmm. And I make snap decisions, and I'm very good at it. Right. I thought, "Well, what if I get that guy," let's call him Max- ... to look after my life right now?

Dave So I handed over keys to my life to him. Now, that's gonna make me sound like a nutter. Let me explain. So, like, actors do this all the time. Right. They, they get into character, and I knew that I get into character when I start speaking on a stage. Right. But I don't... I just flip. I just do it. Do the job- Right

Dave then get quiet afterwards, 'cause I don't like being too loud when I'm not doing the gig. Mm-hmm. So I thought, "Okay, what I'll do is I'll test this." I'll ask myself, what would that version of me do with his clients who are umming and ahhing about paying me? And, and it, it... That version of me said, "Why don't you just give them 24 hours to get back?

Dave 'Cause if a proposal doesn't exist after that." I thought, "Ooh, good idea," but they've got to go to corporate, to procurement- Right ... to their boardroom. I'll make it 48 hours, 'cause I didn't want to kill that side of what I was, my decision-making process- Right ... was. Didn't want to kill [00:17:00] Max. Mm-hmm. I wanted to, to get it.

Dave So that worked really well. I got about 20, 25 con- uh, percent conversions, and the other- Mm ... 70% came back or didn't come back, but I didn't wait for them. I moved on. So it was better for generating- Yeah ... uh, income. And I thought, "Well, what if I get Max to do more stuff?"

Dave So I started handing over other elements of my life to Max- Mm

Dave until I am now Max. The only time I'm not Max is with my family because I won't allow that energy to be there. So for anybody who's thinking, "How do I do that?" There's three steps. First one, imagine you, the birth certificate version of you is the name that you're given when you're born. Right. So mine is David Maxwell Craig.

Dave You go to school, the teacher reads out a register, and your friends will give you a nickname or they'll give you a shortened version of your name. Right. And that becomes your social media name.

Dave That's stage two. So a social media name is what's on your socials, it's what's on your business card.

Dave Right. [00:18:00] That guy wasn't strong enough. But there's a version of you that when you're working really hard in your zone-

LuRae Mm-hmm ...

Dave whether you're doing sports, or you're working on a proposal and it's 3:00 in the morning and you know, "This is brilliant. I can't believe the time's gone so quickly." Right. Or you turn around to people and say, "Give that to me.

Dave I'll take care of it. Honestly, I'm great at this."

LuRae Right.

Dave That is your superhero version of you.

LuRae Yeah.

Dave Tap into that and be that.

LuRae So good. So good. that's brilliant. It's so simple, but it's not intuitive unless you hear someone say it as an exa- because it's shifting identity. That is one of the biggest challenges people have in making a change in life, is you have to s- take on that new identity to be it until you become it.

LuRae And that- ... is a brilliant way to do it.

Dave Thank you. There's a lot of people are gonna be kind puzzled, what does this mean? So I'm gonna throw another an- uh- Mm ... angle on [00:19:00] this. Is Superman the real guy, or when he dumbs himself down, is Clark Kent the real guy? Is Batman the real guy or is Bruce Wayne?

Dave 'Cause one of them is the weaker one, and then one of them knows the right thing to do at the right time. Right. We, through school and everything and imposter syndrome, dumb ourselves down to fit in, but if we're very good at what we do, there's a version of us that's brilliant, almost like a superhero.

Dave So supposing that version of you, you gave him a few more tasks to do- ... and then wore that more often, what would that give you? So once I'd got that, I started approaching people differently. Max will go up to people and talk to them. Dave would sit and wait until somebody noticed me and asked me a question.

Dave So I went to a breakfast business meeting, met a couple of people I was chatting to. I said, "What do you do?" They said, we're Swiss bankers." I said, "Okay, what, what, what kind of things do you work on?" Said, "Well, we've got a big event coming up in Davos where we're looking after African, the African hub."

Dave I said, "Great. Well, you need an emcee. You're gonna need me. [00:20:00] Give me a business card. Here's mine. Let's talk this afternoon. I'll call you when we leave here." I called him. Two weeks later, I'm in Davos. Wow. So I did the gig in Davos. Wow. And now I'm at Davos, I make friends with a guy who's the right-hand man of the Vatican.

Dave Wow. Later on that year, I'm speaking at the Vatican. I'm working now with the Vatican and doing gigs at... In fact, I did Davos for previous year for Vatican. And so now I connect, and it's Max who connects.

LuRae Praise.

Dave Still me, still Dave Creigh. Nobody else knows.

LuRae Exactly.

Dave So there you go. That's how you deal with stress and everything else.

LuRae But that's, yeah, an opportunity to not pass up. You know, w- I, and I think if people will label themselves, "Oh, I'm an introvert. I don't engage, well in crowds," or I, I, whatever label or ex- excuse they've given themselves, that's a way to overcome that. So it's brilliant. Brilliant. So talk a little bit about what you do now, 'cause you obviously have such a strong speaking [00:21:00] background and which w- we had touched on earlier before we started recording.

LuRae fear of public speaking, fear of speaking is, is one of the number one fears, you know, next to death people have. So talk about that and how you've leveraged all your knowledge and experience to help others.

Dave So I think possibly the way to deal with this, or to answer your question, is to take it like an issue for people who find it difficult to speak.

Dave So I've always had to speak, 'cause my mom said to me from a very young age, "Dave, don't get involved in anything where people are doing bad stuff 'cause they'll only remember you're, you're there, and you'll get into trouble." So therefore- Mm ... I would always speak up to be noticed. Otherwise, I don't blend in anyway, but people would then make a decision on what they thought I was gonna be, so I would just talk.

Dave Mm. And so if anybody's got a fear of public speaking, it's built in from our caveman days. And people might not know this, so I'm gonna explain why. [00:22:00] So imagine you're in a cave- ... and, a bear comes into the cave, and you're on your own, and the family's away. A couple of things kick in naturally.

Dave So your heart starts beating. Your, your blood is being pumped ... around your system. Your head goes empty. You can't think about anything, 'cause all the things you're thinking about have just disappeared. And your stomach, you lose interest in eating, because there's, there's nothing that matters apart from I've got a bear in the cave.

Dave Right. So there's a couple of things that happen to you. First can be that as your blood is pumping, it sends the blood in towards your legs, and before you know it, you're running out the cave past the bear. You're not thinking about it. You don't realize what's happened until you've run out the cave-

LuRae Right

Dave door, and the bear turns around, but it's not gonna catch you because you don't want to be dinner for the bear.

LuRae Yeah.

Dave That's one thing. That's called- Right ... flight.

Dave The second one is the bear comes in, your heart starts beating. You've got your family in the cave, or you can't get past it. Your, your head goes empty.

Dave Your stomach, you're not [00:23:00] interested in eating. But the next... But the blood goes into your hands. Next thing you do is get a weapon, you start attacking the bear. You can't let it see your family. You can't let it g- you just get it out of there. Mm-hmm. Fight, fight, fight. Fight. Right. Natural, subconscious these are.

Dave Next thing is the bear comes into the cave. It hasn't seen you yet. Your blood starts pumping, your head goes empty, you're not hungry at all, but it's ... Yeah, you can feel everything, but it hasn't seen you yet, so you- Right ... freeze. Your senses can hear it. It's behind you. You can smell its breath. If you look, move your eyes, you can see it, but you, it hasn't noticed you yet.

Dave When people have a fear of public speaking, that's what happens to them. They freeze so the danger will go away, but it's an audience that's staring at them. But a natural way of dealing with it- Right ... is to deal with it like that. So how do you- Hmm ... deal with it? if the bear was to come into the cave, and if it was the real [00:24:00] world, not real world, 8,000- Yeah

Dave years ago-

Dave then you could have a thing called FACE, and what that is, is you put things in place just in case. So you got spears, you've got maybe a trough of oil- Yeah ... that you can pour a, a, a torch onto and the flames come up. Right. Or there's an escape route, or there's a- Right ... a horn you can blow so the neighbors come in.

Dave So you got a way of- Right ... dealing with it, and in real time- Right ... you face that bear and you take it on. There's a couple of other things that people talk about as well. I'm trying to remember what, what they are. I think one is, is friend, I think it is. So you try and become friends with the bear. Oh, right.

Dave There's, there's another one as well, but I can't remember, which is a, a- Oh ... like Stockholm Syndrome. Might be friend. But anyway- Hmm ... there's a couple of different options to it, but- Right ... the main one is freeze. This is what most people have- Right ... the fear of public speaking. Right. So when you become a public speaker or even talk in public, you know how to have internal dialogue.

Dave You know- Right ... how to talk to one person, so just- Right ... pretend that it's a, it's a one-headed pers- it's a multi-headed one [00:25:00] person you're talking to. Right.

LuRae Right.

Dave Now, what most people don't know is audiences are not judging you. Audiences don't care about you. They care about what's in it for them.

Dave So what they're actually doing- Exactly ... is they're working out, "If I spend time looking at you, listening to you, is my life going to be better?" So are you the real- Right ... deal? That's all you have to do. You have to prove to them that there's something worth it, and if they- Right ... get something worth it out of it, then people tend to go on holiday in front of you.

Dave They don't tend to walk out in front of you. Real audiences don't. What they do is this from school. So this means fascinating. This means boring. This means- Mm ... I hate you. This means I love you. This means I'm going to stalk you. This means please press a button so a trap door takes me away. That's what people do.

Dave Right. That's your average audience.

LuRae Right.

Dave Oh. So you don't know what they're thinking- ... but what do you care? If you can set up s- [00:26:00] feedback loops with them, then as you're speaking, just double check that they're with you all the way through.

Dave Yeah. So as you start speaking, you ask little questions, rhetorical questions they don't have to answer.

Dave "Does everybody understand that?"

Dave And what you get is exactly what you are doing to me now. You're nodding.

LuRae We are.

Dave 10% of your audience are noddies. They will nod 'cause they're with you.

LuRae Right.

Dave Now, for anybody who's got a dog, when you, when ... Your dog will look at you and it'll, and it will stare at you like it understands every word, and it probably does understand more than you think.

Dave But it's really going, "Can we go for a walk or do I get biscuits?" That's all it cares about.

LuRae Right.

Dave It, you know, you're saying, "I've had a terrible day today. I'm so glad you love me." It's going, "Does that mean biscuits or walk?" "Or, or what?" Right. So your audience will respond to you. They'll nod when they're with you, and the noddies, when you see who they are, when you say, "Did you understand that?"

Dave And they don't nod, you know that's a no.

Dave Should I go over it again for you? Nod. Yeah. So explain it again, and when you [00:27:00] say, "Does that make sense now?" And they nod, and you move on. So what you do is all the way through your presentation, you just set up for the noddies to give you feedback.

Dave Right. So by the time you get to the end of a presentation, you know it worked because otherwise- Right ... you'd have seen them.

LuRae Right. Now,

Dave I go on stage and host t- tons of events where people do their speech, audience is silent, they walk off to silence, and the audience is like ... they either enjoyed it or they hated it or they're unholy in their head.

Dave Mm. Whatever it is. And they say, "Dave, how was that?" And I'll say, "It's okay." but the point isn't that it was okay. Mm. The point is you should know.

LuRae Exactly.

Dave Because you know it's a working audience.

LuRae Right.

Dave So I'm going to give you a crash course here. I'm going to give you a way to guarantee that the audience in nine seconds will eat out the palm of your hand.

LuRae Okay.

Dave And I'll also teach you how an audience will give you a round of applause when you finish

LuRae Let's do it

Dave Okay. So this is my gift [00:28:00] to you. I'll... the bill's in the post from me and Chris- ... 'cause I, I know you'll t- you'll buy it. So, when you go out to an audience, don't go out and start speaking straight away.

Dave Get in a position where you can see everybody and they can see you. You train them or they train you. So remember that. You position yourself as somebody to be listened to, or they will position themselves as people who don't care and will tune out. Yeah. So what I do when I go out to an audience is I'll, I'll do my homework, first of all.

Dave I know who the audience is. Even if I just arrive and there's a speaker on before me, I'll do a profiling of the wifi code of who the audience is. What age are they? What do they want? What do they need to hear from me? What... Are they enjoying the last speaker? What did they do really well? If you can, you do that, or you talk to the organizer, or you make a snap judgment when you go out there.

Dave Mm-hmm. But you work out from looking at the people, who are they? What do they need?

Dave Give them what they want.

Dave Yeah. I go on stage, and I stand there, and this is if I'm hosting it, but also sometimes if I'm speaking, uh, as [00:29:00] a, as a keynote and as a different host, but I've got to reset the room to be ready for me.

Dave Mm. So I go out and say, "Good morning, everybody. Good morning." And they all look at me like, "What?" Now, then I'll say, "Oh, come on, we can do it much better than that. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much." Nine seconds.

LuRae Right.

Dave So what was I actually doing there? I was stopping them from doing whatever they're doing, an interruption.

Dave "Good morning, every- good-body, good morning," nobody in the real world would say. But have you ever been to a concert where everyone sings the chorus?

LuRae yeah.

Dave Teach them how to sing it. Mm-hmm. Bryan Adams, Summer of '69, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. And everyone sings it, but he joins in with... You do this, "Good morning, everybody.

Dave Good morning." And what I'm actually saying is, "Stop talking. Put your cigarette out."

Dave Stop drinking your coffee. Put your phone down. Forget what your friend's talking about. Daddy's here."

Dave It's a throwaway line I don't expect a response to. Sometimes they say, "Good morning." [00:30:00] Sometimes they mumble.

Dave Doesn't matter. Next line, "Oh, come on. We can do much better than that." We can do... This is stagecraft, entertainment. Now, have you ever seen, in the days before he became public enemy number one, Kevin what's his face who was in that show about being a president? What was it called? oh,

LuRae God. Not Kevin Spacey.

Dave Kevin Spacey- Yeah ... played the president of the United States in this amazing show. I can't remember what it's called. It was a British show- Yeah ... that they redid in America. Mm-hmm. And, uh, the best part of it, I'm trying to remember the name of it. What's it called? Ugh, it'll come to me in the middle of the night at 3:00 in the morning.

Dave I'll be so upset. So anyway, he did this show. and what the best part of it, 'cause he's a brilliant actor, a really good actor- ... is he'd stop in the middle of a scene and he'd turn to the camera. He says, "I hate this guy, and you're wondering why I'm being so nice to him? 'Cause I've got something up my sleet- sleeve.

Dave Watch this." And then he'd go back in the scene.

Dave So Deadpool does this. Oh. Deadpool [00:31:00] talks to the camera- Right ... talks to us as the audience, then goes back in- Right ... and nobody else knows he's doing it.

Dave So what I'm doing is I'm breaking the fourth wall. It's not me versus the audience. I'm not presenting to them.

Dave Right. I'm joining them, but I'm on stage.

LuRae Right. "

Dave We can do much better than that." Right. That tells them that- Yeah ... they're with a, a professional who knows what he's doing.

LuRae Exactly.

Dave Then I say, "Good morning, everybody. Good morning," raising my hands to make sure that they do it, being a little bit- Right ... more positive and louder.

Dave And then they say good morning back to me.

Dave Then I thank them because I've taken them o- over a journey. If I just ignore them, then they feel they've been used.

Dave Then I go into my presentation. "My name's Dave Crane. I'd like to share with you today about how to make cheese on toast so it's really delicious," or whatever I'm gonna talk to them about.

Dave Right. I don't have my presentation first, then start talking- Right ... and 30 seconds later people put their phones down and go, "What was he on about?" 'Cause they've missed the intro to you.

Dave I do them first, then [00:32:00] presentation second.

LuRae So good.

Dave Another tip: never present or do a speech again for the rest of your life.

Dave What you do is you have a conversation with your audience Oh. It's not you versus them, it's you all talking together, but they're not allowed to speak. Takes the pressure off. It's not them judging, "Is this person gonna make my life better?" It's, "Is this- Mm-hmm ... this is one of my friends who's speaking on stage, and, you know, I liked the way he introduced himself and, and I'm up for this."

Dave It's almost like you're sitting at a table with them, but you've got a microphone and you've got that positioning.

Dave I did promise one more thing, which is how to get the audience to clap once you've finished, which is gold dust for anybody. Do you know how you do this?

LuRae Tell me.

Dave Now, most people finish their presentation and hope and pray that everybody liked it enough.

Dave Don't do that. You say, "Thank you so much for your time. Give us... You've been an amazing audience. Give yourselves a massive [00:33:00] round of applause."

LuRae Oh.

Dave You start clapping. You tell them they're brilliant.

LuRae Yes.

Dave They clap themselves. Not you.

LuRae That is brilliant.

Dave And while they're clapping, you say thank you, and you walk off the stage.

Dave And everyone says, "How popular was that, that amazing talk he gave on how to get the scrapey bits out- Right. ... the inside of your fridge?"

LuRae Right.

Dave And the organizers go, "Wow, you went down better than anybody else." And you go, "Yeah, only 'cause I had a trick, which is get them to clap for themselves at the very end."

LuRae Oh, so good. So good. Well, and you're an engaging, you're an engaging speaker, so I'm sure, yes, the content that was delivered was good too, but it br- it, to your point, they're sitting, and most people are having conversations about what happened earlier in the day, what's gonna happen tomorrow, what happened when they were on the break.

LuRae They're not even sitting present with [00:34:00] themselves, let alone with you, so you have to interrupt. It's making me think of, you know, some of the other speakers, like, you know, like, like, uh, Tony Robbins, and like, uh, I think I, I was just recently around Jo- Dr. Joe Dispenza, and you know, he'll say, "Are you with me?"

LuRae You know, d- you know, and s- and exactly... And then having ins- and depending on the situation, having them, "Now explain that to your neighbor." I've actually hear- heard him say, "Go, go ahead and, and meet the person next to you and, and tell them that they're a genius." You know, introduce yourself as a genius.

LuRae you know, just something that is like, uh, makes people laugh, but it also gets them engaged. So those like, those tricks that you share, like those are golden, and we can make the difference between something- You know, buying flat or something being phenomenal.

Dave Getting booked- Yeah ... to speak and paid next time.

Dave Yes. And there's one little trick in this. So when you go out and y- sometimes, I mean, for me, I'm, I'm sometimes [00:35:00] doing a lot of tech, cybersecurity. Um, I do a lot of, of industry, IT industry events 'cause they're so boring, but with me they're not.

LuRae Right.

Dave And so they're really dry, and the speakers go out there, and they might as well read a phone book.

Dave Right. But the audience kinda gets them, but there's no fun because they're not used- Right ... to talking to people. It's used to typing. Right. So they get me to make sure that I reset the energy in the room. So when I say- Right ... "Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Oh, come on, we can do better than that. Good morning, everybody.

Dave Good morning. Good morning"- Right ... I'm listening for the level- Right ... of good morning from the audience- Mm ... so I can judge later on when I need a response from them- Right ... how loud is normal.

LuRae I love that.

Dave So when I turn later on, I'll say, "Does everybody know how to clean their fridge?" "Yeah." "Does everybody know how to clean their fridge?"

Dave "Yeah." I've taught them to tell me-

LuRae ...

Dave what I've, I, I've, I've set up a routine. Right. I won't get them louder than that, and there's- Right ... usually, depending on the content, a diminishing return that goes onto it unless you reset them and get them to do something else. Like you said, Joe [00:36:00] Dispenza. "Talk to the person next to you. What do we say? Okay, let's get back to what we're doing." Right. So you do all those other things, but it means that you know that you've trained the audience to respond to you, the nod is everybody, and by the end of it, if you kept that going all the way through, clapping for themselves is a, an formality.

LuRae Exactly. That is brilliant. That is literally brilliant So good. Thank you. Oh my gosh, so good.

Dave So I've just talked myself out of a job now. Nobody's gonna book me to help them. And

LuRae then they'll- We've seen it all, Dave. We

Dave know what you're gonna do.

LuRae Oh. Yeah, no, the, the, the skill that comes along with it, there's a lot that goes in between there and the preparation and all that, so I know you've got other tricks up your sleeve.

Dave Oh, completely.

LuRae Ah.

Dave It's practice. It's practice. Yeah. And it's also knowing who your audience is and having a signature message you wanna get across to them, and also it's a lot to do with stagecraft, and it's a lot to do with the heart.

LuRae Right.

Dave Absolutely. You know, you set the room the way you want it to be, and I've seen some incredible speakers who break [00:37:00] all the rules and go down fantastically.

Dave Right. But this is where your personal branding's really important, because people- Right ... will look you up on LinkedIn while you're speaking or when they find out who you are- Absolutely ... and they'll, they'll look at it and say, "Is this person worth it?" And if they can't find anything in your LinkedIn 'cause you've not put anything, and you don't seem like the real deal, they've already half, got one foot out the room.

LuRae Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So share a, a bit more about how, people c- can get engaged with you, and then I wanna go back into some of your advice around people who are unhappy where they're at and what they can do. But share a little bit more about-

Dave It's easy to find me. I'm on LinkedIn.

Dave Just go for Dave Crean Dubai, and I'm there, or go to Speak On Stage, which is my website, and I've got all my programs. I didn't mention about the Thought Leaders Network, or did I? I can't remember. No, you didn't. It's been a blunt. You

LuRae didn't. Nope. Nope. Not

Dave yet. So I created, I created the community because after the pandemic when I was, like, suffering from not being able to- Right

Dave connect with [00:38:00] people after being indoors for, for such a long time, because- Right ... everyone else went back to work, but I had nowhere to go to. There was no gigs. Right. So I just- Oh my gosh ... got used to doing this, which was challenging. Yeah. And so going out to meet people again was hard. Right. And there's nobody there who had a com- community that was interested in what it is that I needed people for, so I created my own one called the Thought Leaders, Thought Leaders Network, and I wrote a book in it called The Thought Leaders Playbook, and I've got a community- Oh, nice

Dave of 3,500 people on LinkedIn and on WhatsApp, and I've got a group called The Think Tank who I mentor every Friday and teach them how to do stuff. Oh, nice. So for instance, tomorrow I'm just researching for our session tomorrow. I'm gonna have maybe, I don't know, probably about 30 people will turn up for tomorrow's session, and it's all online, so we're all around the world.

Dave Great. And without talking about the conflict and the challenges of being in Dubai we've got used to- Yeah ... one thing that's come out of it is you can use leverage on your business To be able to say, "I hold a gateway that nobody else can get past. [00:39:00] Why don't I monetize that?" So that's what I'm gonna be showing to people tomorrow.

Dave So we've already gone across a thing called the Great Formula, which I'll share with you, which is- Mm ... I didn't create this. Mark Joyner, a really smart thinker did. Three things that you need to do in the Great Formula. First one is create an un- an unmissable offer.

Dave Which is like, a Domino's Pizza's had, an irr- an, an irresistible offer.

Dave Buy my pizza and it comes to your house in 30 minutes or you get it for free. Who's not gonna order Domino's Pizza? Right. But that took them to being one of the tops in the food chain. Now, the second one I'm gonna throw at you is a question, which is if you were making burgers, and I was ... If I had a burger shop and you had a burger shop, I would outsell your burger shop, and I'm gonna ask you how would you, you would outsell mine.

Dave Any ideas you have, throw at me. I've put you on the spot.

LuRae Oh. The, ... Do a t- uh, a two for one, a two for one burger offer would probably do

Dave it. Okay. But you're not gonna make a lot of money from that, but carry

LuRae on. I know. The m- profit wouldn't be very great. [00:40:00]

Dave What else?

LuRae free drink. Free drink with a burger.

Dave Okay. Free stuff again. Yeah. So I, I- Mm ... I'm gonna put you out of your misery 'cause I don't want you ... It's your show. You can just go, "Right." Just edit out everything that Dave says- Right ... and put a funny voice under him instead. Just say, "It's Max. He's mental." Oh. I usually, I use this question full of r- for rooms full of CEOs and rooms full of students- Mm

Dave and whoever I'm working with, and most- Mm ... of them throw different answers, but nobody gets it right. Mm-hmm. I would outsell ... And some people say, "We've got the, we've g- got cows in the backyard. Choose the one you want." And we'd s- and I'm like- Oh, no ... "What? Stop. That's not nice." No. Others say, "We'll get rid of the bread and we'll make it lettuces instead so it's more healthy."

Dave Oh. Or we got sp- Right. None of that. Right. I will outsell you with my burgers because I will only sell them to a hungry crowd.

Dave I won't go to a food court in a shopping mall- Right ... full of different stores where you're gonna- Right ... price point everything. I'll go- Right ... to an industrial estate that has [00:41:00] no burger place.

LuRae Exactly.

Dave Or a f- or a sports game, baseball, football. Set up a- Right ... a, a stand where every, every burger's got botulism in it 'cause it's disgusting, but you'll still pay $50 'cause you're starving, so they- Right.

Dave Mm-hmm ... so that's what you do. You find a hungry crowd of people who want your stuff. And the third thing to make you more profits is what McDonald's does better than anybody. It's one word. How does McDonald's improve a profit on their, their, their sales? What do I say to you?

LuRae Supersize it. Do you want to supersize it?

LuRae Would you

Dave like to upsize that? Yeah.

LuRae Yeah. Yeah.

Dave And instantly you go, "Yeah, okay, what is it?" And you, you pay whatever it is. Right. And their profit margin goes through the roof. Why? Right. Because they've calculated it, and that sentence is gold. So those three things make the great formula. I taught everyone to do that in our think tank last week.

Dave And also how to go to the next stage, which is to create a bulletproof business model for you. So as a thought [00:42:00] leader, when you're going through a conflict like we are in Dubai right now, where things are- money's freezing down, you can really create a relationship with the market, so when the money starts moving again, people say, "Thank you.

Dave Where do I sign?"

Dave So that's what I do my think tank inside the Thought Leaders Network. But my aim is to get people, and I don't care what the political denomination is. Right. Just don't bring it to the table in the group. Don't talk about your race, don't talk about your spiritual beliefs, don't talk about- Right

Dave sexism, don't talk about your earnings, don't talk about your politics. Right. Just be a good person. Everyone loves their family and they want to have a good life. yeah. Let's just start with that. and it's grown really well and, uh, I do it because I love it and I do it because I love the people

LuRae I'm working with.

LuRae See. That, so that leads me to the people who are miserable out there doing something, advice and insight for them to get unstuck and do something with their lives that they know they need to do, but they're just afraid [00:43:00] to take the step.

LuRae What advice would you have? So here's

Dave what you do. F- well, there's, there's a holistic approach to it, which is learn to do, breathing exercises, which I'm sure you're an expert in anyway- Mm-hmm

Dave and you show people how to do it, so you can de-stress. So box breathing at the very simplest, or the art of living, whatever it takes to be able to do these breathing exercises. Right. Especially during the pandemic, I became very powerful doing them. Mm. And meditation's good as well. Yoga. Going for a walk with your headset on, listening to a podcast.

Dave Do whatever allows you to have some personal time- Right. Mm-hmm ... even for half an hour where nobody else is allowed to jump in and spoil stuff. So that's a kind of holistic one, I would say. But I would say also, for anybody who's got a job and they're saying, "I hate this, I don't want to work anymore," don't leave your job.

Dave Don't go cold turkey. You've got bills to pay Build a side hustle. Ask yourself- Mm-hmm ... what do I really want to do, and also how do I do it? What am I brilliant at? What do I love to do, and what will people pay for? And build it on a weekend, build it [00:44:00] on a nighttime- Yeah ... build it alongside your job.

LuRae Mm-hmm.

Dave So therefore, you can maybe earn from it, or maybe you do it for free, but because your heart's in that, you can put up with the job for a bit longer. Okay. 'Cause a smart play is having a job that pays your bills and a side hustle that works alongside it, and then when the side hustle builds up to a certain level, maybe you jump into it full time, or maybe you don't.

Dave Yeah. It's just made you happy to have that running alongside it. But it does mean if you lose your job, you can step into the sidecar of a side hustle, and at least you've got a set of income that you're able to then do more of full-time and be able to build it. But if you, if you hate your job, then you've need to work out what your real job should be.

Dave Mm-hmm. And I think more and more people nowadays, young people coming out university with massive debt and no job waiting for them- Right ... people with AI that's s- making them step up or they will lose that position. Not everybody will, but it does alter the game you're playing. Yeah. And also older people who are just being told you're not res- reskilling [00:45:00] yourself and you're expensive- Mm

Dave 'cause you've got like a family I've gotta pay for and you've got medical I can't afford, so I'll just get somebody in younger and cheaper. Everybody is in a position, and that's gonna get more challenging in the next couple of years. Mm-hmm. So it's really important to find what works. So-

LuRae Yeah ...

Dave if you talk to the richest people in the world, and I know lots of billionaires, I know lots of people who are very affluent.

Dave Mm. I know lots of people are really miserable and super rich as well.

Dave The truth is, and I remember watching an interview many years ago with the richest guy in the UK at the time. I didn't-- I don't know him. I've not lived in the UK for 30 years. And he was saying, "What people get wrong about being so rich is I've still gotta run a business, and I stress all the time about making sure that everyone's got a job All the time, every decision I make, I don't want to lose a, a single member of staff over it, or if I have to, then it's a decision for the better good.

Dave He said, "I can only eat one, three meals a day. I can only drive one car at a time, and only live in, in one [00:46:00] house with one bed at a time." So all the rest of it is just added extras. You don't need all those other things. So people are fighting all the time, this commercial battle against each other. I've got to have what they have.

Dave I've got to have what they have. I get a new iPhone every four years- ... because I don't need a new iPhone until then, 'cause then the technology, it heats up too fast because they, they press a button to say, "Make Dave's phone horrible and make him buy a new one."

LuRae Right.

Dave Most of the things- Mm ... in your life that you really need, you've already got.

Dave You just need to decide to get rid of all the things you don't and lean into the things that make you happy, 'cause one day it won't be there anymore. And do you want to really turn around and say, "I worked really hard and I never had me time"?

LuRae It's so true. I mean, it's like you look at the, the regrets of the, you know, the dying or the elderly.

LuRae It's, you know, not, "Oh, I wish I would've spent more time in the office," or, "Wish I would've had made more money." No, it's the relationships. It's who [00:47:00] they became. Did they love, you know, deeply? Did they experience life, not just go through it on autopilot? So-

Dave There, there's a secret to life that I want to share with people, and it sounds like really arrogant to say, but it's something I, I worked out from just watching countries, companies, experts all talk about happiness.

Dave Happiness experts. It's like a currency. You know, we've got the happiest company in, in, in the, the city. Mm-hmm. We've done a test. We look at all the stuff. Oh, we've got a country that's happier than any other country. We looked at the stuff. I don't think happiness is what you need to chase. I'll tell you why.

Dave 'Cause in order to be happy, you have to be angry or sad, and life is like this. So how can you tell happy until you've had sad?

LuRae Right.

Dave Or had angry? 'Cause then it resets itself, 'cause if you're always happy, it won't seem like happy- Mm ... because it's normal.

LuRae Yeah. That's true.

Dave So what you need to do is understand that there's a setting called contented So search for [00:48:00] contentedness.

Dave Mm. So give an example. So I'm watching TV, and there's a, um, a, a travel program, and they show a, a rapper or a rock star who's having a party on a yacht. They're all drinking champagne, and Jay-Z and Beyonce come along, and Taylor Swift, and there's cameras, and they're just having the best time ever, and it's just everyone's dancing and singing.

Dave Mm. And I'm going, "Oh, I'd love to be there. That'd be amazing to be famous and with all these people." And I go, "Okay, well, what, what can I do while I'm watching this? I'm gonna go in the kitchen. I'm gonna make myself a cheese sandwich. I'm gonna toast it. I'm gonna make a cup of tea. I'm gonna put a chocolate biscuit on the side 'cause I'm a little bit cheeky and I like to party."

Dave "And I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna sit there, eat my cheese sandwich, have my c- chocolate biscuit, my cup of tea. I'm gonna put on a Marvel movie."

Dave And actually, I feel all right. I'm not doing what they're doing. That's their journey."

LuRae Right. "

Dave But I instantly reset what I'm doing, so I'm happy in my own [00:49:00] skin."

Dave So- Mm. Yeah ... have r- have contentedness as your default setting. Right. It's easy to get that. So if you could be contented all your life- Mm-hmm ... sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but also able- Mm ... to reset it by saying, "Well, this isn't great, but it's not bad."

LuRae Right. "

Dave I can deal with this." Mm-hmm. "And now I'll just enjoy this.

Dave I've hurt my finger-" Mm-hmm. "... so I'm not gonna do that again. What can I do to change my mind?" Right. "I'll go and get my cheese sandwich." Yeah. Well, I'm not obsessed with cheese sandwiches. but if you can do this and reset and reframe your mind- Exactly ... all the things happening in your life, then you have a good life.

LuRae Yeah.

Dave And that's what the golden goose is. That's what everyone's chasing, just have a good life.

LuRae yeah. That always say the attitude of gratitude. Gratitude shifts everything. Doesn't matter how bad something is, there's something you can do to look at life from a different angle and flip the script.

LuRae It's like, "Oh, but I have this," but I have a roof over my head, or I have a [00:50:00] warm bed to sleep in, or simple things can shift that perspective. So yeah.

Dave What's life trying to teach me from this experience? Right. What can I get? What would've been a worse version of this if I hadn't already known about it now?

Dave So I almost got hit by a car. I'm really scared, but what if I'd been hit by a car?

Dave I've got loads of bills to pay, so I've got to work out how to pay them. But what if these bills are un- impossible? If I ask better questions, I'll fix this. Yes. So now I can fix this.

LuRae Yes.

Dave When you talk to somebody who's a cancer survivor, they're usually the happiest of people because they had to reinvent themselves and understand that you do have a limited amount of time, so enjoy it.

Dave Right. And I've read about people, one of my people in the think tank is an expert. She was a, a, a gr- was a level four cancer survivor, and she helps people to be able to find extra time and survive longer or recover completely. And I remember reading about a guy that, th- they couldn't fix and help with cancer, so he diagnosed [00:51:00] himself with comedy films.

Dave Oh. So he watched- Yeah ... comedy films that made him laugh, and so all the endorphins trained his body- Yes ... to feel positive and good. Yes. And that helped to can- to cancel the cancer. Yes. Now, I don't know if this is true or it's a made-up s- tale. I'm gonna Google it straight after this to see- Yeah ... if it's made up.

Dave but you can fix things with what you have. Yes. You already have all the tools, everything in your life. You would not be here untested- Yeah ... unless the answers are right in front of you anyway.

LuRae Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So much wisdom in such a jam-packed window of time. This is so good. So good.

Dave 25 minutes.

Dave It lasted an hour, I think.

LuRae Oh. I... Everything is gonna be in the show notes, so anyone can get in touch with you and, and e- engage further because, man, this was so good. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Dave It's an honor and a [00:52:00] pleasure. And, uh, I really enjoyed meeting you. I loved all the way through staring at that stalker in the corner-

Dave which I think you're gonna get rid of, who keeps watching your beach house. But apart from that, honestly, the, You do an amazing job, and the reason that you're so popular is because you do get to work out what's going on with people. You can work out the Wi-Fi code of people, and it re- the world really needs you to be reaching more about how to de-stress themselves and get a better- Right

Dave version of life. So you are so important. Yeah. So thank you.

LuRae And that's a wrap on another episode of And Then I Did This, celebrating the lives of those who've walked away from the beaten path to pursue work and a life that nourishes their soul. If you're feeling inspired and ready to explore your own path to freedom, check out youcanbefree.life where you'll find resources and support to help you break free and live life on your own terms.

LuRae See you next time.