Doug Cornfield

Check out more of Doug

Websites:

d3day.com

apoundofkindness.com

pullingeachotheralong.com

Disability Dream & Do Video

Pulling Each Other Along Podcast

Show Notes

Robert Peterson 0:34
welcome to the add value to entrepreneurs podcast, the place where we help entrepreneurs to not hate their boss. Our mission is to end entrepreneurial unhappiness. If you dream of changing the world, but you're not sure where to start. The Add valued entrepreneurs podcast will help you transform your life and business. This podcast is for entrepreneurs who want more freedom and fulfillment from their work so they can live the life that they desire. You deserve it, and it is possible. My name is Robert Peterson, Farmer passer turned CEO and the smiling coach. I believe that success without happiness is failing. But there is hope. Join us each week as we bring you an inspiring leader or message to help you. Thanks for investing time with us today. Our guest today is an author, speaker and former college athlete. He's the director of the disability dream and do sports camps created with Dave Clark. In college, Doug Kornfield was a top contender in track and field and scholarship athlete at the University of Georgia. His professional experience includes time spent in both the family entertainment industry, and as a senior financial adviser for Merrill Lynch.

Noelle Peterson 1:46
Most recently, he partnered with Dave Clark to organize their company and run D three day events, where the duo create opportunities for children and young adults with special needs to interact with professional sports players and compete with no limitations. Doug is married to Jackie and their family includes seven children, one of whom was born with no arms, and five grandchildren.

Robert Peterson 2:08
Doug cornfield talks about selling seeds, shoveling snow and selling apples to make money as a kid. And then learning sales as an adult selling sporting goods.

Noelle Peterson 2:17
Doug's child was born with no arms. So when he had the chance to work with the Dave Clark Foundation, he jumped at it, he now helps Dave share his story and run camps for kids with disabilities across the country.

Robert Peterson 2:27
If you're an entrepreneur who started their business with a purpose and a passion that has been lost in the busyness of the daily grind, we get it. That is why we've opened up our free strategy calls a lot of entrepreneurs probably including you just want a sense of clarity on the barriers holding them back that you need to overcome in order to accelerate your growth and achieve your dreams. These short 30 Minute Calls give you a chance to work with one of our coaches without any commitment or pressure. Scheduling is easy, just go to smiling cole.com. Let's jump on a call and get you the help and clarity you need. Select a time and let's build your business. It's time for you to add value. Well, Doug, thank you so much for jumping on the show today. We appreciate you. We appreciate Dave Stevens for introducing us. And, you know, one of our goals is to continue giving a voice to the voiceless. And I know that's a big part of your mission. And so we want to definitely spend this conversation getting the voice out there in the message out. And so we appreciate you taking the time today.

Unknown Speaker 3:36
Well, thank you thanks for having me. Hopefully we can add value to this podcast since it's an add value and and just have great conversation and get to know you guys a little bit better as well. We'll be awesome.

Robert Peterson 3:46
Absolutely. Well, we always start each show with with our entrepreneurs, our directors sharing their entrepreneurial journey and so if you share your journey that's what's led you to d3 day and the work that you're doing.

Unknown Speaker 4:01
So I thought you said this was supposed to be less than 45 minutes.

Robert Peterson 4:04
Well, you'll have to give us the

Unknown Speaker 4:07
abbreviation I mean, you know, my entrepreneurial day started when I looked I was probably in second grade third grade we lived out in the country and there was a little thing in those magazines back when we were kids in elementary school and you could sell something and make some money and lo and behold there was a thing where we could get 50 packets of seeds and sell those seeds and and I remember getting 50 packets of seeds and coming home like an hour later. And my mom asked me why did you give up so soon I said I didn't give up I sold everything. And you know it's sold off 50 packets and and we lived in the middle of nowhere. You know it was quarter of a mile to the next house. And so I'm running from house to house getting basically everybody's buying three or four packets of seeds. And um, my boxes done. You know I've literally sold every box or every every packet of seed that I had and and you know and that was just kind of the normal for us. We'd shovel snow for you got to make some money. We sold apples, we had access to an apple orchard. And so you flash forward, my dad was in sales. And probably one of the biggest impacts you know we are our podcast is called pulling each other along. And so if I can give some kudos to my father, my father was in the sporting goods sales industry. He had owned a sporting goods store how to fire lost that store, when I was very young, became a manager at some country clubs and different things which moved us to the Redding Pennsylvania area. And then dad got some jobs as a sporting salesman, traveling sporting goods salesman, which basically spent the rest of his life doing. And so part of my training in the summers is he would, I would go with him on some trips, we go to the Philadelphia area, we'd go to the Pittsburgh area, we'd go to New York. And no matter where we go, because we're from Philadelphia, he would time it when the Philadelphia Phillies were in town at the different towns that we were playing, that we were that he was selling it. But the ingenious thing that my father did. So here I'm a 1011 12 year old boy. And my father figured out a way to pull me into his sales presentations. So here at 1011, and 12 years old, I'm sharing, I'm selling basically helping him sell a three $400 stopwatch because that's how much the mechanical stopwatch that first digital stopwatch is wearing. My father was like a leading salesperson in the country for a stopwatch called Cronus. And, and so I'm sitting here I have this three $400 computer in my hand as a fifth grader. And people are like, how do you use this thing, and of course, I'm, I figured it out in three seconds. And so I'm telling them how easy it is. And so my father utilized me, but here I'm giving sales presentations to these people that are grown men, and learn how to do that in a natural way, at a very, very young age. And so that, you know, for me is it's been something I've never been afraid to speak in front of people. I've never been afraid to go out and share a product or service. And, and that stayed with me basically my whole entrepreneurial life.

Robert Peterson 7:12
That's fantastic. I remember my, my sister and I both became competitive swimmers. And she went on and competed in the Olympic time trials even but we were we went from, you know, the stopwatch that just went round and round all mechanical stopwatch, three needles to stop watches that could do, you know, lap times, and, and, you know, Mom and Dad serving as timers, and always buying the next the next, the next stopwatch that could, you know, get the more accurate times and then of course, they they finally switched to the digital pads that started with the gun and, and the touch wall basically stopped timers automatically. But it was always quite a process.

Unknown Speaker 7:54
Right. So the technology age that that basically my father was a part of that growth was going from the cannibal watch, to the digital watch, they could do splits and they could get down to the 100th of a second. It was still a hand time. You know, which has all changed in the track world with automatic timing and, and picture timing and all the things that they have now. Yep. So we caught that middle, that middle ground. So I'm a 1213 year old at Big meats like the Penn relays. And I'm literally telling these elderly gentlemen that have been around track their whole life. I'm a 12 year old kid, telling them and instructing them how to use these new watches. That was my experience as a young child.

Robert Peterson 8:38
But how empowering is that, that your dad believed in you and was you know, instead of keeping you in the passenger seat, just say, Hey, stay in the car, you know, or, you know, hey, keep your mouth shut. Instead, he's he's pushing you out in front of him and saying, Hey, tell tell the story. Hey, show him show him how it works. Right, that that empowerment is, is pretty meaningful.

Unknown Speaker 9:00
Absolutely. You know, it was I'll never forget it. You know, it's one of the ways that my dad mentored me in sales, you know, he was a great world class runner as well. And, and, you know, and so it's all those little things, but you know, being around those people and, and even today, because what we're, that brings me to today, where we're around, you know, Tim, the Tim Tebow is at time and we're around celebrities and, and I just treat them like every other person. I don't treat them like they're a celebrity. Because they are. They're just another person. Yeah, they've had some extreme successes. They might be more well known, but they're just people and in being around and even meeting people like Jesse Owens when I was a child. Now I did have probably my eyes pop out about him. When I found out it was Jesse Owens, and because he was an older, elderly man when I met him, and he signed his autograph and it wasn't until he signed his autograph that I knew why my dad wanted me to get his autograph. Wow. So you know, so it's things like that, but you know, the Bruce Jenner's were there when he was still Bruce. And, you know, the all of the different things of the people that I met that were celebrities, mostly in the track world, but in other sports as well. And so not, you know, not getting all googly eyed. When I see a celebrity, you know, we just treat them like people.

Robert Peterson 10:17
So let's dig into that what you are doing today and what's led you to, to do this work.

Unknown Speaker 10:25
So I've always had that entrepreneurial spirit, several different things that I've done through the 90s. And then pretty much it was pseudo entrepreneurial. I partnered with my brothers at Merrill Lynch for years, and Corning, Corning, New York. And we ran that as kind of like a small market office. So that was like you were entrepreneurial. But you were still had the big corporation, you know, hanging over your head. So not not 100% entrepreneurial, I would say, and, but it's what moves me and my family from Atlanta to back up to the northeast, and then, and then I met this guy and read about him, all the way back to 2020. In an article, this guy that played professional baseball on crutches, and I'm like, what and who, and all those kinds of things are going through my brain. But one of the reasons it pointed in stabbed me in the heart so critically, is not that he was from Corning, New York, where I was moving my family is that I had a child who was born with no arms. And so here I have this little boy is born with no arms. And I'm reading about this guy who played professional baseball on his crutches and was getting the heroes of sports award, you know, by all the ESPN guys and Atlanta. And lo and behold, I'm like, Okay, this doesn't make any sense to me. And but I got to meet that guy. His name is Dave Clark. And if you've never heard his story, you really need to go check out his story, Dave Clark, and go listen to his TEDx pulling each other along speech or something. And, but you know, I've reached out to him. And so that's obviously a big change in life when you meet somebody like that. And I got to know him over the years, he became a client of mine became, you know, went over dinner, all those things. And just fast forward that. And what I really found out about his life story, I wanted to help him promote it. You know, there was just something that was inner inside me that people need to hear this story. Dave Clark was doing things long before it became popular, it was actually scorned for him to play professional baseball. He had crowds throwing food out on the field, saying things that you can't say on a podcast like this unless you want to bleep me out.

Robert Peterson 12:37
I mean, I mean, he was a Jackie Robinson, I mean,

Unknown Speaker 12:40
really, your disability community or a different community.

Robert Peterson 12:43
And he was taking, he was taking a lot of lumps, because I think, just like Jackie Robinson, it wasn't accepted. It was it was something's you know, you're not drawing

Unknown Speaker 12:55
correlation to that. It wasn't skin color. It was disability, right. And the only difference is Dave didn't make it to the bigs as a player. He made it to the minor leagues, but he would go into minor league stadiums where they'd be saying knocked, the cripple starts with a B out. And, you know, in the whole crowd would get involved and be cheering, Dave Clark, trying to pitch and play and perform on crutches. And we'd be big crowds. You know, we're not talking about 100 people, we're talking about 567 1000 people jeering and throwing food on the field. And, you know, he's got all those kinds of stories to share and tell and, and even his own teammates at times, you know, they didn't treat him very well. In the beginning, he would say, and coaches, he didn't get a promotion one time because a coach didn't want him to go up to the next level. And the coach said he wouldn't coach him. It was either Henry. Yep. So different day of what people are experiencing today in the disability community, which is, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, by any means. But he had to fight through all that stuff. And it's a wonderful story to tell. And we're in that process. You know, we're still in that process of getting his story out there, but really our heartbeat, because when Dave and I created a partnership, and we had our first real business meeting together and just saying, Okay, what does this look like? I had gotten to experience a camp that Dave was doing for kids with special needs in Florida with the Minnesota Twins, and their minor league team, but at the spring training facility, so this is a cool event. Families are able to participate in baseball with pro athletes on the field, throwing kitchen catching, hitting, you know, batting, running bases, all the stuff. And with the professional team, you know, these young professional athletes, so much energy, so much life, so much enjoyment. And I saw this event and kind of, you know, half participated as a volunteer the first time. And when Dave and I shortly had a meeting after that he goes, Doug, you know, I love what you're trying to do with the movie. Yeah, and documentaries and children's books and speaking events and all that kind of stuff. He said, But what I really, really, really want to do is I want to do more sports camps for kids with limitations. And so I said, Okay, let's figure it out. And even though I really didn't know much, I started pursuing a camp here in the Corning area. And so we have reignited a camp here many years ago now asking people to join us. And we wound up the next year, I gave it a name, disability dream day at first. And it's still d3. started calling a d3 day. And before you know it, we won some awards or nominated for some awards, those kinds of things. And then I started approaching other teams and other teams started bringing us in and, and then the problem became, it wasn't 20 or 30 kids come in, it was at 100 kids come in, and we're feeding all these people, we're giving them T shirts, we're giving them hats, and we're like, Okay, our pockets are getting tight. How do we fund this, you know, and so all of those kinds of things, you know, you you, it's a good problem, but it still creates a problem. And, and and before you know it, we were doing eight or 10 of these events a year, you know, funding it completely on our own entrepreneurial efforts.

Noelle Peterson 16:16
You've mentioned a lot of people you've met over the years in different situations, how valuable are those connections?

Unknown Speaker 16:22
You know, some of them are just you know, one offs, you know, where you meet people, and some of them are extremely valuable, you know, where, and it's, it's usually the ones that surprise you the ones that you think, oh, this person could really help you. Oftentimes, that's not what works out. And then the ones that you do meet are the ones that surprise you. And I can give examples of that. There's a lady that's a quadriplegic down in Florida name is Rose, and rose met Dave. And then Dave said, Oh, you need to talk to Doug. And so I talked to her and you know, and rose, she doesn't have a lot of money, she has her own home. But you know, when I'm down in Florida, she lets me stay there. So I don't have the expense of travel. I've got my own little room. She supports her cam, she's constantly talking us up, she's you know, she's gotten to speaking events just by talking us up, you know, and it's those kinds of gyms that actually are the ones that seem to mean almost as much more to us, because the oftentimes the people that can just easily write the check, they might say they want to help you. But they often don't

Noelle Peterson 17:26
help chap than not with the time or referrals or,

Unknown Speaker 17:29
yeah, it can be it can kind of go both ways. Or people say, oh, yeah, I want to help you, I want to help you, I want to help you, and then they don't answer your texts or calls. Yeah, you guys know what I'm talking about? Yeah, it's part of our way. And it's one of the reasons we created our own products to sell so that we didn't have to be beholden to those people. And we created a basically a business to support the camps. And that was kind of our entrepreneurial drive through through 2020. And then we had that kind of on all cylinders. speaking events, started increasing a movie deal with signs, you know, all those kinds of things were happening. And then we hit this big thing called COVID, or the response to COVID. That, you know what I say it either stop the train, put the train on its side for a little while. And now we're trying to push up on the tracks and, and get the gas going again. And so you had made some we're making pivots. And that's what entrepreneurial is, do when you're really talking about add value is when you hit the brick wall, what do you do next? And we kind of hit a brick wall, and we're okay, what do we do next? But somehow, with limited funds, limited fundraising, limited teams to work with, we were still able to do about five events a year in 2021 Wow, 2020 2021 2022. Where we were much higher than that. And we want to get much higher than that the vision is much greater than than just doing 10 or 12 events a year.

Robert Peterson 19:00
So what does 23 look like? So

Unknown Speaker 19:03
far? So far, big pivot, heading out to Utah, actually next week for a podcasters event. The are doing our own podcast. So if you want to go to the pulling each other along podcast, we just broke. We're in the top 1% of all podcasts right now. Our numbers are growing significantly. We're getting great guests. Actually amazing guests I call we're getting the best guests in the world and we really are reaching great people. Dave Clark, Dave Stevens and I we kind of co host that together. It's different sometimes just me sometimes one of the days sometimes it's both days, you know, it's different.

Robert Peterson 19:36
Well, Dave's it'd be tough. Well, if you wouldn't get a word in edgewise. Now, we're

Unknown Speaker 19:41
pretty good. I mean, we try to make it about our the people that you know, we're interviewing so we'd let them you know, we let them talk. d3. Yeah. So, so anyway, so we have that podcast going and pulling each other along podcast. It's growing significantly. Our downloads are about 5000 a month at this point. Oil, which is more than what most podcasts are getting. So we're going to try to monetize that to help fund the camp. And then a big pivot. And instead of trying to sell 10,000 jars of honey this year, to support the camps, we're we're bringing in partners, you know, so I've got an event coming up, that I'll be hopefully promoting here very soon working with an event promoter, looking for partners looking for people to come in and be, you know, our national partners will have a couple of different levels. And really going after that for the first time, but it's so different now. Because now we have content, we can share. We have a track record of doing these events. And not that I need to be boastful. But one of the things we do really, really, really well is our camps. And we want to do more of them. And so we're looking for partners to partner in that and give them something that's also going to help increase their businesses at the same time. So they're not just getting a logo on the back of the t shirt, and they're not just getting something that they can say, Oh, that was great. But I didn't get any ROI. We want to help promote, promote, and produce ROI for our clients and businesses as well. In the same level, they're also doing a great thing. So taking ROI and doing great with it. So taking those marketing dollars and doing some good.

Robert Peterson 21:21
I like it, obviously, it costs money to do all these things. And, and, and the people that you're working with, obviously, their their ability to invest for themselves is, you know, is limited. And so I think usually

Unknown Speaker 21:37
extremely limited, like even if there's parking to be paid for that can be a hindrance for somebody to come to our event.

Robert Peterson 21:44
Yeah. And so I think trying to knock knock those hurdles down, with partners, with sponsors, with people with resources that they can support. And, and, you know, want to encourage these camps want to encourage the outcome that these camps are having can be so important. And so I definitely see see the value in that. So what's been the impact of the podcast? Obviously, it's growing. Obviously, you're you're looking at monetizing now, but but what's been the impact up till this point?

Unknown Speaker 22:16
So, so when we first did it, it was live on Facebook, we would do a live thing, it was just nice to have it fun, you know, what do we do, and I was also trying to promote my new book pulling each other along. So I was interviewing a lot of the chapters, if you're not familiar with that book, if this is a video, which it looks like it is, I've got a book called pulling each other along, Terry Bradshaw wrote the foreword for this book. Now, of course, I'm a little biased. But this is an amazing book, it's really, really good 31 stories of kindness of mostly athletes in the disability world that we've come in contact with, in the past, talking about their story of what pulled them along in their life journey. So if you need inspiration, pulling each other along.com, or on Amazon, those kinds of things. And so we were doing this podcast, live podcast, interviewing the rocky buyers, and the and the different people, the John and Mark Cronin and all these people from our podcasts that were on there, Lauren Lieberman, and some of these great stories, Dave Stevens, obviously, and whatever, and just having fun with them, you know, but then, you know, it's kind of almost a silly thing. We were doing football predictions, and all that kind of stuff is really dumb athletes, you know, for the most of us and, and people were watching it, you know, but, but I didn't know how to monetize it. You know, this is a new world for people our age, you know, what's a podcast? You know, how do you how do you spend all this time into production, and then make it valuable for our goal, which is to do more sports camps. And so, actually, the beginning of this past year 2022. And now that we're in 2023, I gotten invited to a group of podcasters with Josh tap, and Josh tap said, alright, you need to come into our group. And in he's just been an invaluable help through what we call the Pantheon. It's a group of podcasters. And so that's something that if you want to reach out to and learn more about it's just been amazing group of people connecting. And Josh has been a mentor, also to help me, you know, kind of, alright, let's restructure what you guys are doing great, but let's get this thing fully funded. And so that's kind of been our pivot. So 2023 is, you know, we have some we have some camps that are already on the schedule. I'll be looking to add more camps, but you have to kind of gingerly do that, as you have funding, you know, you kind of take these steps. will typically it's not there's not a date set yet, but we'll do likely we'll do our camp with the Minnesota Twins at Fort Myers, Florida, although it just had that hurricane, you know, so there's, there's all sorts of hurdles different there. We already have a hockey camp set up because we primarily have done baseball and hockey. It's like a street hockey event, but very similar type of style of camp. We're doing that here. Closer to town in upstate New York and Elmira, Corning New York area. We'll do our Corning can We're already signed up for the Yankee camp, which is we're brought into their heroes week, if they have this big week that they do, it's called Heroes week. So we they've already reached out to me. And it looks like the Mets are going to put us on the schedule again with their double a team, we kind of gotten away from them for a couple years. And then there's three or four that you know that we will do another camp in Rochester, New York, we had a big camp this past year in Rochester, Hickory, North Carolina wants us back. That's one of the first camps that I want to get funded. And so as soon as I get some partners you know connected in, we'll definitely be reaching out to them and getting camps. That's not the issue, getting enough funding to fund all the camps. That's the bigger issue.

Robert Peterson 25:40
We will be right back after this short break. This episode is sponsored by perfect publishing a different approach to publishing a book. Perfect publishing carefully chooses heroes of Hope, who exemplify living a life they created through faith, hope, patience, and persistence. No matter what page you open to in this mini cube of hope, you will find a leader with a big heart, you will see you are not alone. The authors may share similar challenges that only hope and action could resolve. Get your free ebook at get a dose of hope.com. Welcome back, let's get back to more greatness.

Noelle Peterson 26:15
Yeah, imagine getting the camps scheduled and getting people to attend is the easier part of that.

Unknown Speaker 26:23
Actually, it's actually I have a trouble of trying not to get it overloaded,

Robert Peterson 26:28
right? Just enough,

Unknown Speaker 26:31
it's like don't do too many Facebook posts, because then all of a sudden, I'm having to say, you know, it's filled up. And I don't like saying that, you know, I really don't. But I've had to do that in the past. The first problem we have with that was years ago, it was like our second or third year with the Binghamton Mets camp. And now they're the rumble ponies, but still the double EIGHT nets. And they were supposed to keep the camp to 40 participants because that's what the team wanted. And I literally had 50 people sign up in a day on my announcement. And so I went to the general manager, and he goes, No problem, let's just let's just let people in. And so I didn't make any more announcements, and I still got like 80 to sign up. Well, and with no more about announcement, so I mean, of course that's 80 T shirts, that's 100 T shirts now and I think I ordered 100 T shirts for that event, but I'm feeding everybody, they all get free tickets, you know, Dave Clark is flying up for that event and, you know, trying to schedule in hotels, you know, all the all the things that people don't realize you have to do to make these kind of events happen. And then we had a whole group of people 20 A group of people, 20 of them come unannounced. And I'm like, so every t shirt I had got wiped out, you know, but it was a good problem it but it was the first time I was like, Okay, can we even do this many people, you know, with limitations. And it was a fabulous event. And I just thought we had to think differently as far as how to spread people out, do our drills and use the whole field and spread the spread the players out and get more volunteers and all that kind of stuff. And, and but it was a great it was a learn by fire kind of lesson, where it's like, Okay, now we can do 80 to 100, you know, 120 participants and families and, and so that became kind of more of the norm be for COVID.

Robert Peterson 28:20
So let's, let's talk about that, that growth for yourself as a director and, and obviously, camps are the focus. But yet, there's all these other things that are that are attractive. How do you keep the focus? It drove back to the focus, especially after the last two years.

Unknown Speaker 28:42
Totally the last two years. I you know, I try not to be negative about it. Because, you know, one of the things Okay, yeah, it happened. I don't like the way it happened. Dave and I, you know, when I say Dave, Dave Clark and I and Dave Stephens was a part of it, some, we were, you know, we were doing speaking events, people were calling us, you know, and paying us, you know, so it was a part of our revenue to support the camps and support our families, and sell books and sell honey. And so all the stuff that we created to, to raise money to support these camps, and to make contacts and, you know, 2020 came around, and we were on a roll. We, we were assigning a movie deals, you know, all these things are happening. And all of a sudden, boom, poof, they shut every movie theater down, speaking events went to zero. Most of our places that we were able and had relationships to set up and sell our products. We were shut out from not just us, but anybody. And so we had to really figure out you know, so every day every week was different. It's like, what do I do now? What do I do now? And I'd literally map out okay, what are we going to do now? We got to do now. And it kept changing and you know, meeting people asking questions, meeting people like Josh tab that I had mentioned earlier, it's okay, what would you do you know, you're A 30 year old young 30 year old 2020, late 20, whatever you are, you're old you do things are different now, what would you do? You know, and so getting advice from people that are in a different mindset than somebody that was able to make good money in the 90s and 2000s. It's different now. And so, learning from those people that are more apt to this, the current climate, I guess, in podcasting is just one of those things that we're doing. Now looking for sponsors, because we're getting enough revenue or enough listeners to get our podcast monetized. And so I've got some big, big names coming on our podcast that most people couldn't get, you know, on their podcasts. And so we now need to monetize that. But the target for us is still how do we run more sports camps for kids with limitations? That's the bullseye.

Noelle Peterson 30:58
So every time you decide or think about, you know, should we do this or that it's, you know, what's most beneficial for the camps?

Unknown Speaker 31:05
Correct. Whether it's a speaking event, a movie deal, a book, we write my children's book, which, of course, is pretty fabulous. If you guys want to get another plug for my Absolutely. pound of kindness. It's a wonderful two story of Dave Clark, we share it so often I, I almost, I'm almost scared to share it because that somebody's gonna say, Well, I've heard that again. I've heard that again. But most people have never heard the story.

Robert Peterson 31:29
And even if they have, they won't remember it. No, they remember this

Unknown Speaker 31:32
story. Yeah, this this is one of those stories where people remember it. It's it's so powerful. It's a simple act of kindness. And yeah, they remember it. And so, but it doesn't get old. You know, it's kind of like listening to your favorite music artist. If Billy Joel ever went to a concert and didn't do the piano man. Right? People would be like, seriously upset. But how many times is a fan of Billy Joel heard the piano man.

Noelle Peterson 32:01
Not enough. Not enough.

Unknown Speaker 32:03
And so I think of

Robert Peterson 32:05
it like Casey at the bat, every time you you, it's still it's still readable every time you open it back up, because it just even though you know what's gonna happen?

Unknown Speaker 32:14
So are you familiar with the story that I'm referring to? So I guess I have to share it since All right, we're heard it. So if you can go back to a young Dave Clark when he was in first grade. So again, he's the polio survivor. He's the kid that's different. He's he's only five foot two, as an adult, you're walking with crutches and braces. So shrink that down to a six year old, he's shorter, he's slower. He's he's awkward. You know, he walks like Frankenstein. So when he goes to first grade, he tells people, this was the first time he was made to feel different. You know, when he grew up in the neighborhood, his parents, his brothers, his younger brothers, you know, they kind of treated him just like everybody else. So that's what he was kind of used to goes to first grade. Now he's the Frankenstein, he's the different kid. And his first grade teacher announced the field trip, where the whole class would be walking together, but five blocks away to the local fire hall. And so all of a sudden, his six year old has got two weeks, as he remembers it, to dread. This event, he's gonna get left behind, he's going to hold the class up. He's got all this anxiety being poured on this little six year old self. So much so and the day of the event comes, he tries to do the sick thing with his parents. But his mom's old school, she you know, she knows better. He's his cough is not a real cough. And so he's off to school. And so with all this pressure of anxiety of being left behind, and being treated poorly by the bullies, he goes to the back of the line, and he thinks this is going to be the worst day of his life. And a classmate of his, his name is Ernie pound, Ernie had brought his Radio Flyer wagon to school that day to pull it. And Dave simply never forgot it. You know, that little little act of kindness. And so when Dave wrote a book about his life story called The Dave Clark story, diamond in the rough, the Dave Clark story, in chapter two, you kind of get a heartbeat of Dave Clark because he thanked the people that helped pull him along or helped him in his life. And he told that story. And so here I'm reading the story rereading, and actually, in my office, years ago, I was helping Dave organize book signings in the area here. And this is in upstate New York and Corning, New York with Dave grew up. And so I'm rereading that story in the book form because I had read it when it was a manuscript, you know, different things like that. And I'm just rereading, and I'm in my office, and I'm like, a get the goosebumps every time I read the story. Literally, you know, got a child born with no arms, you know, what would my son do? He was only like one and a half, two years old. You know, when I met Dave, he's probably seven or eight during this time. And it got me it So I wound up going to the phonebook. That's how long ago this was, and finding an Ernst lb in the phonebook and had that awkward phone call. He's probably seeing Merrill Lynch on his caller ID back then. And he doesn't want to talk to me. And I said, Hey, I'm looking for an Ernie lb that grew up in Corning, New York, because this is about 45 minutes away. You know, I don't know if I'm talking to his dad or no, you know, I don't know if it's anybody. Well, it was him. And he remembered the wagon. Didn't remember Dave didn't know Dave. didn't go to school with Dave had family had left the area after first grade. Wow. So David, hey, I find out hadn't even seen each other since first grade. But Dave Clark never forgotten and thanked him in his book, or any comes to a book signing, make a long story short, you want to putting a book underneath Dave's nose and says sign this one to Ernie pound. And Dave breaks down. We just got so emotional, you know that day. And so I brought these two men together. And now I didn't know at the time that I was going to be traveling around sharing these stories with Dave and all those kinds of things, writing children's books. And we in honor of Ernie, we call this one a pound of kindness, which is available on our pulling each other long.com website. And you know, and we were sharing that story, and everywhere we went, that story just has major impact. And it didn't matter if it was fifth graders, or grant people, grandchild, you know, you know, whatever, grandparent type age, it just affected people, because it's that good Samaritan story of today, you know, and that's Arnie pound. And he helped out my my friend Dave. And so when we started sharing that story of keynote speeches, Dave could hardly ever share it without breaking down in Kryon. And so I've got video of him in California at the Museum of Glass and Corning down in Florida, we clipped all that together. And we have a one minute video, where you can watch Dave, share the story I just shared with you, and then watch the reunion. And even though you know it's coming, have your Kleenex is ready.

Noelle Peterson 37:08
It's pretty impactful. I mean, regardless of where you're at who you are, that that's gonna get you.

Unknown Speaker 37:13
Right. And so that's kind of been the catalyst you know, Dave sharing these stories thanking people and, and he thanked other people actually brought him together with his phys ed teacher, and that got emotional to, from from second from third grade, actually, we pinned it down to third grade. They would always say second or third grade, because he wasn't sure but then we pinned it down to third grade. He had he had a brand new gym, or phys ed teacher, I should say, basically changed his life. And this man stole living and I brought him together and Dave together several years ago, and another very emotional reunion. And we have an award that we give away, it's now called pulling each other along award. We've been given that away for years. And we look for those unsung heroes that are helping those specifically helping those in the disability world. Although it's it's it doesn't have to be that it can be somebody helping anybody. But a lot of our award winners are somebody that has helped somebody in the disability community disability world. And it's really fun for us to give out that award. You know, because we're honoring somebody that usually gets no recognition for a kind act that they've done. And part of my hope is, as is this brand, or whatever you want to call it grows, this movement, or whatever it is grows is that we get people sharing, hey, you know what you pulled me along. And thank you, you pulled me along, thank you even created a I even created a thank you card that says thanks for pulling me along that you can get on our website. And you know, and I give that out to people that buy my books now. And I just give it to them say hey, go thanks somebody that pulled you on.

Robert Peterson 38:52
So, I mean, obviously gratitude is, is a huge part of Dave Clark story and, and now you've taken that gratitude to a whole nother level that in not just thinking that people in the in the book, but actually bringing them back face to face to to express express his gratitude. And that's powerful. I mean, gratitude in itself is is a superpower when you practice it just for yourself. And I think expressing gratitude in in that public way is super meaningful. And, and so the fact that Dave practices the fact that that you've extended it to an even bigger idea of this level of gratitude I think that's so valuable.

Unknown Speaker 39:43
Yeah, I mean, it really is and it's so much needed right now. You know, if people read the pulling each other long stories that we have and learn from these people and learn you know, when they hit that brick wall, what got them around it, and it can be different things for some people. It could be I like she unfortunately she passed away but Adi angel is a young Well, she's just passed away with cancer but she was when she was 27 years old. She was getting signed by Sony as a singer dancer, all those kinds of things and whack car accident paralyzed. And how does she rebound she rebounded because of her love of dance. And, and she wanted to start dancing and she she danced in her wheelchair and she's like, considered the queen of hip hop wheelchair dancing. And, and she, you know, she made all these different strides. And fortunately, we were able to interview her right in the beginning of her cancer struggles, and in to write a chapter in her book. And so that's just one example of somebody that it wasn't necessarily a person or place or thing, you know, that or it wasn't a person or that pulled her along. It was her love of dance, that that motivation, that internal thing that just was God given to her. And it pulled her along. And then she pulled a lot of other people along because of her spirit and her her dancing to other people. And there's, there's still I was just down at a convention in Miami. And there's all these people that loved Adi, and they were still doing, you know, this wheelchair dancing things that disabilities Expo and they still do it everywhere they go with these abilities expos, and a lot of that is because of her spirit of letting dance pull her along. And sometimes it could be a parent, sometimes it can be a child, sometimes it can be a friend, a stranger that pulls us along. In Dave Stevens a story it's Darryl Strawberry, he talks about who pulled him along. And so there's all these different connectors of things that we have an understanding the stories and even sometimes, you know, like I had a an old teammate of mine, who was a senior at the University of Georgia, on the track team. And there's a young man in teak that was a freshman at the time. And then years later, he we connect on LinkedIn. And he sends me this beautiful note of thanking me for not treating him like a freshman. You know, and it's like, so simple, so simple. But I didn't, I didn't treat I wanted him to run as fast. I wanted him to leave a legacy to be a great runner for the University of Georgia. And that meant a lot to me that he was willing to send me a note thanking me for not treating him like trash, basically, because that's what freshmen do. Sometimes they get treated like trash, trash. But I didn't appreciate that when I was a freshman. I didn't want to do that when I was the senior.

Noelle Peterson 42:29
I mean, we have so much passion, and each of us and we have to encourage that and each other. Sometimes we have people need that little bit more than others when they're down or whatnot. But somebody has a dream. And we all have those desires to live more, but we need somebody to water that dream. What is the power of having a dream

Unknown Speaker 42:52
keeps us going. Even in the tough times, you know, even things like when the whole world seems to get shut down because of the response to COVID. And, and you know, I don't know how this dream kind of instilled in me. But when I first met Dave Clark, and I'm thinking this story should be told, obviously, my entrepreneurial blood was flowing, say, Hey, man, this should be a movie deal. All those kinds of things, but it goes so, so much beyond that if you know if you get to see one of the videos from our camps that Dave, Dave and I do, and you get to see a little boy that's in a walker, and Dave Stevens is having a catch with him. And if you haven't seen this video, it's pretty special. Dave Stevens having to catch with them, the little boy catches a ball thrown to him two feet away by Dave Stevens. And he catches that ball. And you would think he had just won the World Series. His hands are jumping up and down. He's like, I can catch you and I can catch. And he is so excited. Because of that little little thing of just Dave Stevens taking the time, throw him a ball, and him catching it. And so that's just like one instance, I can go on and on and on and on with instances at our sports camps have kids like that having that experience. I've seen kid literally hit a ball two inches, jumping up and down because they thought that they hit a home run. And I'm like, That's great. Because if that's what they think there's a home run, and they want to celebrate that they hit that ball three inches. That is wonderful to me. And then you see the kids improve. You know, we had one boy that didn't want to participate in his first camp. And all he did was another professional athlete who became a fairly well known MLB IR. Basically, all they did was roll a ball back and forth for the whole camp. Sitting on the ground. That's all the kid wanted to do. He was deaf and Down syndrome. Now he comes to my camps. He's hitting home runs that are going over the fence. He's got the sweet swing, he's got a beautiful spirit. There's a whole nother story with with Billy and Ben. You know, and it's just those little things that keeps those dreams of being able to create more moments like that. That keeps me going even when the, you know, the pocketbook is then

Noelle Peterson 45:07
instilling value into these kids that don't feel like they have any

Robert Peterson 45:12
run and the power of our belief, right? Yeah, believing in somebody who doesn't believe in themselves, or hasn't had the chance or the opportunity to believe that this is possible.

Unknown Speaker 45:23
Correct. And so when I get to introduce the Dave Stevens and Dave Clark, and for those that might be listening that don't know who Dave Clark is, he's the only professional baseball player that ever played on crutches. The 10 year career he's played over in the Swedish major leagues he coached in the Olympics go to the Atlanta Braves owned his own team. It's it goes it's crazy. He played ice hockey in college, even though he couldn't skate. That's my one day they didn't get my other day, who played baseball football and wrestled in high school in college with born with no legs. Two time state champion wrestler went on to ESPN for 20 years has seven Emmys. Now he's a motivational speaker motivating other people still doesn't have those legs, but has a huge spirit. And so when I get to present a Dave or a Dave or even both of them at one of my camps, they're able to share the stories that I really can't. I mean, I have all my limbs, i Yes, I have a son who was born with neither arm. But I'm quote, able bodied. And those guys they're not. And so when they share and say dream and do it, and the parents get to see that, and the caregivers get to see that and the kids get to actually not just dream, but do it and play on a field and, and get to hit a ball and get the swing the bat and get the hit off the tee and all the little things that they get to do these little skills that we take for granted. They get to be inspired toward who knows what their dream is going to be. But we want them to follow that dream is foreign high as they can. And when they get to here, these two great examples and we could bring other examples into our camps as well. So emerged and, you know, entrepreneurs, John Cronin, you know, who's got John's crazy socks, he's in my book, you know, he and his dad started a business that sells millions now millions of socks because John found out he was pretty darn good at selling socks, even though nobody would give him a job. Now he and his dad have a multimillion dollar sales business selling John's crazy socks, you know, so there's things like that, that we can think differently, rewire our thinking, and, and hopefully go for it. And that's what we want to do. Even if they don't make it, it's better to go for it and not make it than to not go for it. And then

Noelle Peterson 47:31
acknowledging that these kids all have their own individual dreams, and it's up to the rest of the world to help them acknowledge that and believe it themselves so that it can come out, come to fruition.

Robert Peterson 47:44
Well, and and, and start changing the way we talk right? Instead of looking at all the things they can't do start helping people look at the things they can do. It's no different than us able bodied people that make excuses for the things we can't do and focus on the things we can't do. Our whole culture is just based on all the cat news, instead of hey, let's figure out what you can do. Maybe you can sell socks. And let's give that a shot. Right? Maybe you can hit a ball, maybe you can throw a ball. Let's let's find out what you can do.

Unknown Speaker 48:14
Right? And that's exactly what our camps are all about. It's not focusing on what they can't do. And you know, that we might not have somebody with significant limitations be the next Dave Clark in baseball. But again, if we can inspire them to be something in music or something like there's this young girl that's come to our camps for years, her name is Sarah. And she just sang the national anthem at one of the one of the bowl games, one of the major bowl games in Nashville. And, and she was singing the national anthem at one of our camps 10 years ago, nice, you know, beautiful, beautiful voice. She's now in her she's in college, she studied music, she's, you know, she's got her own music career, she's getting known. And you know, and I was able to share that on our D three day Facebook page. And you know, that, you know, I have a little I have a picture of her like 10 years old singing the national anthem at our camp, and I'd probably a video of it as well somewhere. And and now she's singing it. One of the major, you know, I think was the music bowl or the music, whatever it was in Nashville or something so beautiful. You know, so it's things like that, where she she didn't let her ability not to see. She's a girl that's blind. But she had a beautiful voice. And her parents were able to nurture that and guide her in that direction and not hold her back. And, and now she's, she's singing, you know, and she's always been saying it. She's a beautiful, beautiful young soul. All right.

Robert Peterson 49:42
Tell us what the big dream is for d3 day.

Unknown Speaker 49:46
The big dream is to get our revenues weigh up so that we can be managing this and having D 3d camps all over the country. And I would have representatives like a Dave Clark and Dave Stevens a John Cronin, a Sarah Hart With all of these different people that we can now have as representatives, and the big dream would be to be doing hundreds of these camps all over the country, giving kids an opportunity to not just play baseball in the big picture, it can be hockey, it can be business, it can be singing, so it can be disability too, and track and field, all of the different events, getting that funding, you know, where it was headed, pre COVID. But now, digging deep and getting it much bigger, and having that, that much bigger funding so that people can realize they don't have to just dream they can dream and do.

Robert Peterson 50:36
That's so fantastic. Doug, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for sharing so many fantastic stories and inspiring. I mean, I'm clearly inspired and, and definitely want to do our part to share the message and, and hopefully get our business to a place where we can sponsor a camp and be a part of what you guys are doing. This episode is brought to you by intentional decisions that lead to massive success. No, those aren't companies promoting our show. They are qualities that you need to build your business and take control of your life. So to help you out, I'm offering my most popular worksheets to help you plan the future you want and audit your calendar today. The best way to get what you want is to know what it is and start making sure that your calendar matches. You can download them free today at add value mindset.com. If you will take action by just completing these two activities, they will change your life in business. I promise you a new level of results in the coming year. The problem is that we make things so complicated and we lose focus on what is really important. These tools will help you refocus on what matters most. When you align your passion with your purpose and your work. You can be happier and start doing the things you wanted to in the first place like spending more quality time with the kids. To get your free copy of the tools to start tackling your busy schedule. Go to add value mindset.com If you enjoy this show, please like subscribe, leave a review but most importantly, if you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who needs to hear it, share share share in our next episode, summer Sullivan shares with Robert how she went from working as a virtual executive assistant to a passionate entrepreneur. She uses the tools she created working with successful leaders to become a successful entrepreneur herself. Now she's empowering others to build and scale successful online businesses.