Welcome back to the show, my fellow strong Americans. For today’s guest, we have Doctor Dave Rogers. Doctor Dave is B state’s CEO and head of consulting services, specializing in guiding mid to large-size companies; he facilitates rapid transformative change, achieving breakthrough results and culture shifts. In months, contrary to conventional timelines, he ensures that the transformative processes implemented are transferable and sustainable long after his direct involvement; known for his unique ability to bridge opposites, he fosters shared ownership for results across various domains such as strategy and tactics, operations and human resources, sales, and delivery. And inner versus outer group. What sets Doctor Dave apart is his unique perspective, which he brings to all his work. 

Dr. Dave’s journey is not just about his professional accomplishments but also about his triumphs. Despite his career success, he faced a persistent weight challenge. At 5 foot 7 and 210 lbs, clinical obesity overshadowed his sense of achievement. A heart attack during a bike ride served as a wake-up call, and his medication side effects compelled him to confront his weight. This setback became a learning opportunity. He immediately sought the support needed to sustain a change of a lifetime and now easily maintains his ideal weight of 141 to 149 lbs. Dr. Dave’s story is a testament to his resilience and determination, and I’m honored to have him on this show. 

Dr. Dave, I want to express my sincere gratitude for your openness and willingness to share your valuable insights and experiences with us today. Your contributions are not only valuable but also greatly appreciated by our audience, who I’m sure are as eager as I am to learn from you.

Dr. Dave, I am truly excited to have you on the show today. Your journey is a source of inspiration, and I’m eager to delve deeper into your background and how you embarked on this path of transformative change. Your insights and experiences are invaluable, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share them with our audience.

Well, yeah, I grew up in the United States. I was born here in the Midwest and, you know, grew up pretty much as someone who was raised to look for a job, work hard, and save money. So that’s how I got so. But then I actually would pursue the things that I was interested in, which were science and technology at the time, which is strange because I ended up going to school and graduating in physics, which is different from what I do today. 

But what influenced me more toward people was that I knew I wouldn’t be a physicist. If you can believe it, I got a job as an engineer in a factory. But the average age in the factory was 55, and I was a young 21-year-old. And I realized these people had a lot more experience than I had. Even though I had some technical education, it wasn’t to go very far with them. I mean, they were older than my parents, for the most part. 

And so, what I decided was a conscious decision. I would support them by going out and asking them what they’re trying to accomplish and then figuring out how I could help them do that. Helping people succeed in larger businesses by working together got me onto my path. I learned a lot from that basic process because I had no choice. You know, there was just, there was no other choice because they weren’t going to respect me. They get a new engineer—every couple of years, some kid that they chew up and spit out; they have to train them. So, I became their kid, if you would. How can I be of service to you? So that’s how that’s how I got started.

Doctor Dave, that is amazing. One of the things I wanted to ask you is what your strategic vision was from when you were an engineer and trying to be a physicist to where you are now, helping companies and overcoming your weight challenge. It’s a very interesting journey. Could you just tell the audience a little bit more about that?

Well, I find that very interesting. I see many people nowadays trying to create a strategic vision for their lives. I didn’t have one. I mean, I pursued things I loved or didn’t know about you in some cases, but early on, frankly, I had a student loan and needed a job. So, it was not very strategic. 

So, what I find is that I think life kind of molds us and presents opportunities that we can say yes and no to, and sometimes it’s not so much a strategy but kind of following your heart and following what occurs. And I didn’t; I wasn’t even smart enough to do that. I don’t know if it was smart, but I had a series of people along the way that helped me look at my life differently. You know, I didn’t even. The first one was when I was an engineer. 

My engineering manager came up to me one day, and he said, you know, I think you’re at a career decision point, and that shocked me because I wasn’t even thinking about my career. I said, well, how are you seeing it? 

He said, well. He said if you keep on this path, I can predict the money you’ll make and what you will do. And now again later on. This is one of my favorite leaders because he watched out for me when I wasn’t even watching out for myself. And I said, well, you said, but you probably want, you know, there’s probably something different you could do that would be more challenging and more interesting to you. And I couldn’t imagine what it was. 

So, I said, what do you think that is? He said Well, like maybe marketing. I had never considered it, but this person gave me this gift to start considering something bigger. I wouldn’t say it was strategic; it was strategic in his thinking. But I hadn’t gotten to that strategy level yet, and that happened to me. Has happened to me. Two to four times in my life, somebody has helped me change my trajectory into something I would enjoy even more. 

So, I would say more. I was given I feel very grateful for the presence of different people in my life who have helped me look at those things.

Wow. Dr Dave, we all need people like that in our lives. You have these transition points, and then they change the arc of your destiny by giving you advice or being there at the right time. Many people wish they had friends or mentors like that, but they could do that because we know whether it’s entrepreneurship or business mentorship. Motivation is such an important factor.

This brings me to the next question, Doctor Dave. I know you had issues with your weight during your weight challenge. How did you manage to overcome that? Your story can give the audience insights into how to get through dark times.

Yeah. I think one of the things was, well, you know, you meant you. You read it all out, all of the. Detail on it. It wasn’t the heart attack that did it; it was, you know, they give you drugs to help you heal afterward. And those drugs started putting limitations on what I could do. I was used to riding my bike and had a better blocker that kept my heart rate. I could only ride so fast because it wouldn’t let my heart go fast enough to put out more power, and I wouldn’t say I liked it.

So, I changed that because I wanted to do it in cooperation with the doctors who were treating me. Not just do my own thing, because I think doing my own thing was the thing that got me to be so overweight. I thought I knew what to do and what I did. 

To be honest, I was in denial about my weight. I didn’t even know that. Because there’s nothing wrong, it kind of woke me up, and I just decided on, you know, the 1st step was committed to doing what I needed to get a healthy body. And to get into a body that is more right-sized for my size. I thought I had ideas about what to do but didn’t know how to move from my intention to my goal. You know, to get there. 

But I think the first part for me was making that commitment to do it—and then the second next step, and I remember this clearly and talk about people helping. I have a sister. That was listening to me, and at one point, I’m telling her I’m working on this, and I’m kind of the weights coming down a little bit, and I’m going up and down. 

And it’s not Super. 

I knew this wouldn’t get me where I wanted to go, but I was making some progress On My own, and she said three words to me. She said Stay the course. Normally, staying the course means to me to keep doing what I’m doing, but somehow, the way she said it, I took it completely differently. It stayed the course in the result. I wanted to get to, like, stick to it until I got the result, and all of a sudden, I realized that to do that, I would have to be willing to change what I thought I needed to do to keep.

I am in the discovery mode to see what would work for me. And I think those two things were huge because then I had to say, OK, what I’m not doing is what I think I know. It isn’t working, so let me find other people who can help other people who have done these other ways, and let me try that. 

Through that process of discovery and willingness to change my thinking, I had to let go of my thoughts about the right way because the right way wasn’t doing it for me. I had to find a new way. I also wanted to stay the course, like stay at it until I found out how it worked. I think that was one of the biggest things.

So, I see that you have an extraordinary level of willpower. If there are many people, like if they went to what you’re going to, they would not be able to recover from that. But my question is whether willpower requires a why or a motivating factor to help you through the toughest moments. And go through adversaries and setbacks. 

So, my question to you is, what was your why during those times like get to you moving forward even though things look bleak?

Well, my, why was I? There were a lot of things I wanted to do. Still, I was getting stagnant. I was not. I could not ride my bicycle like before, and I was getting aches and pains. I certainly got a heart attack from this, and so it was like I what it was so I could do what I wanted to do. Better, easier, more often. 

All of that was my why. It was getting a picture of, well, remembering back…  what was it like when I could do all of these things, take those limitations off, and say, that’s what I want to do?  And thank you for saying I had a lot of willpower. It is. It wasn’t willpower that got me through this. It was. It was just the consistency of holding to it. 

I am starting to trust myself and believe that I will be able to find it in a way. In the end, I found a way that took no willpower. It was just a systematic approach that if you followed the system, willpower wasn’t a part of it because they would say you’ve got about 15 minutes of willpower at any one time.

So, I think you have to create a system that becomes automatic. They call this automaticity, meaning you don’t even think about it; you just follow the system. I discovered somebody who had created a system like that and followed it. 

And the most interesting thing was. Losing weight was the easiest part of it. Keeping it off was the challenge. And I would say that in Business Today, too, it’s the same thing. To get to a goal, it is easy to sustain success and build on it. It’s tough. You know not to have the ups and downs, and So what happens in terms of diet, you know when you’re losing weight is you get all of these rewards like you get to stand on the scale and you get to see it go down, you get to, you know, you your pants are falling off because they’re getting loose. I mean, there’s bad news about it too. You have to buy new clothes. And if you don’t have the money, getting new clothes is a lot of money.

So, all this stuff is happening. It’s all I think they call it, like dopamine hits in your mind. There’s a lot of reward for it, but when you get to the weight you want to get at, nothing’s happening anymore. You go to scale. It says the same thing every day. Your goals aren’t changing; you know you get. The good news is you get to wear the same ones, but they’re the same. Months, you know. 

So, then the challenge is two things happened to me. One is. I needed to find. Something different to focus on than the food now. So that that wouldn’t get my attention, I needed to find a new one. A new thing to go after. So what? You know what was that? What was I doing? 

And to do that, I needed to take any judgments I had about what I could and couldn’t do about it and just say, what do I want to do? And I don’t know, but for some people, that’s easy. For me, it was hard just to say, here’s what I want.

So, that was the biggest challenge, and I focused on that rather than the food. The second hard thing was that I would get at it as soon as I got to the weight. Everything that may have caused me to eat off track and to gain weight started to come up, up, almost like voices in my head. Well, let’s eat that. Well, let’s now free; we can return to the old way we’re doing it. 

And now, I had to deal with those things and transform and heal those parts of me so I wouldn’t go backward. So, the real challenge started when I hit the weight. Getting there was not hard. Ultimately, when I found this way, it took. Me. It took five months to find the way to do it, and then it took me five months to drop about, you know, 60 lbs. Which is pretty fast or 50 some, but it was 65 altogether, but it was what to do to stay there, and there were just. I picked up tons of clues. It took me a year and a half to pick up to learn how to do that and learn from other people. I mean, the first one was. I lost weight, and I am doing it on my own. 

The first thing is you can’t maintain weight loss on your own. It takes a community and a support system, or I can’t. Maybe some people can, but I wouldn’t lock it in until I created that support system. I needed to do what I call recovery plans. Like if I ever did get off track. I need to catch that early so it doesn’t become the old habit because it’s like you’ve got these habits, and once you trigger the old habits, they just become like. It’s almost like being addicted to something. It’s so easy to go back to it.

So, as soon as I got off, I had ways to catch it fast, and I would have people around me that would. Please help me with that. So, all of these things that those were, that’s where the work was not getting there, but identifying with my new body was the challenge because. I’ll tell you. It was a year later, and I was riding my bike. I’m as skinny as anybody out there riding a bike, and a guy rides by me that looks real, fit, and skinny, and in my head, what I say is, boy, I’d like to look like him.

Wow.

So, you got my picture even after a year, but it still wasn’t. I was as skinny as this guy and in as good a shape as he was. I still held the old picture of myself, even though I could look in the mirror. I could look at photos, but still, I hadn’t adapted to the new me. I hadn’t identified with the new me. So that was the next challenge. How do I identify with somebody thin? I didn’t have that picture of myself. I still looked at myself as heavy.

Wow.

So, there are just all of those things. I mean, that’s where the real work is. Luckily, I was with a group of people who knew how to do this, who had done that journey. That said, you don’t do it alone. When I did it alone, I gained about 22 lbs back, and then I woke up one day and realized I had better listen to these people. I had better start getting people around me who can help me. 

And then it just right back down again, and now you know how I could maintain it, but there were many things in place, another thing. Well, I can pause if you’ve got other questions, but one other thing that was key to this was having a recovery plan. I need to have some plans, like what I wrote down, and identify what I get off track. 

And stress would be one of them. You know that would be because I was a stress eater. Another one was this unconscious thing. I would see me. I would be at the refrigerator with the door open in my hand. It was not knowing how I got there. So now, when I realize I’m there, what’s my recovery plan? You know what? What am I going to do differently? And I had one. I wrote one out when I realized I was at the refrigerator with the door open. I will look at my next meal and say, is it time to prepare it? Oh yes. I’ll just prepare the next meal. And put it back in there, and by the time I did that, I wasn’t hungry. 

So, then I could shut the door and leave. I had all sorts of little, you know, just little support systems for myself. I wanted to get over my ingrained, almost unconscious reactions to transform who I was and make my whole image of myself different. 

So, you know, eventually, I won’t get there. If I return to those things, they’ll retrigger them. But as long as I don’t go back, I don’t think about food between meals anymore.

So, Doctor Dave, one of the most fascinating things I got from this was the identity change, right? 

And also, the support system, like, those are two things, right? You need to have a support system around you to help you because your environment is really powerful. If you have the right environment, then you’re going to succeed faster, and you’re going to transform and self-improve. Faster, but the other thing that I found fascinating is that this is something that. Also, as I grapple with the idea of right, I see that it is the changing of identity. There’s this imposter syndrome we have when we’re transforming ourselves. This applies to business as well. 

For example, when you’re starting new, a new entrepreneur, and becoming new, you’re new to business. You have this whole identity as an employee or somebody who does the 9:00 to 5:00.

Now you’re starting your business, which applies to business and every other aspect of life. You start doing this transformation and return to this new identity, this new version of you, right? And then you have this tendency: your subconscious mind tends to regress.

My question to you, Doctor Dave, is how do you fight that? If we can solve this problem, we can. We can do that for anything because that’s what most of us want to deal with. How do we become this new person and get rid of the old?

Habits the old you. It’s almost like a shedding, but it isn’t easy. It’s kind of irrational, almost, you know.

Yeah, it is. Well, let me be upfront here because I can relate to this. I have had an employee mentality versus an entrepreneurial mentality my whole life. And that’s been my role, too. It was only 2 1/2 months ago that I started my own business.

So, I’m new at this, but I know exactly what you’re talking about because the first thing is that I can only tell you what I’ve experienced so far. I don’t. I don’t know the answer, but my experience working independently is here. Now you know for whoever’s watching this right now. 

It’s kind of like the middle of late March, and I only started this January 1st, and I only knew I was starting it two weeks. For that, the person I had trained in this, and I had worked for 35 years, decided he would restructure the company, and he said I’d rather not have employees. Would you be willing to do your own company? We’ll still partner together, I said sure. It sounded good until it happened, and then all the Imposter syndrome showed up. Now. Let me give you one. How ridiculous this image is. Because we work together, I had around the first part of January. We had contracts that would double the amount of Take home. Pay that. I would make this year from last year. 

So, in this first quarter, those contracts have already been signed. I’m already doing them. There’s already money coming in. My previous boss was the person the clients first came to, and then we signed a contract with them. And so, let’s just say that was about $400,000 of business for the two of us. And of that 400,000, my contribution was only—$ 10,000 of that 400. 

So now there are two ways to look at this thing, and the 1st way I looked at it was through the Imposter syndrome eyes, which was. Man, can I do this? I’ve only contributed 10,000. I’m benefiting from all this stuff, like half of the other stuff, but I’ve only contributed to it. I can’t. This is impossible. It is nuts that I’m doing this. That’s one way I could look at it. The other way I can look at it, man. I’m doing better than I’ve ever done at this. And all it was a viewpoint. 

You know, I’ve already got twice the amount I will make this year compared to last year. Last year was a low year, but I’ve got twice as much money. It’s already lined up in the first quarter. I am it, you know, so I remember talking to a CEO on the phone that I had coached before, and he asked how things were going. 

And I almost said. Well, I’m struggling because I’m on my own. But then I said they’re, and then I just chose to say they’re going great. That was true because I said I’ve got enough business captured in this first quarter in these first two months to more than double what I did last year. Both are true. Which one am I? I’m going to choose.

It’s simply that I think the key is we have to focus. I have to focus on what success is without making up a negative story in the future that could or couldn’t be true, like what my fear was; my fear was unless it was that I was in combination with the person I worked for before. Could I stand on my own? Well, the reality was that person wanted me involved in this business, and part of selling it was selling both of us, not just him. 

So, can I accept that part, not make it up, or do something untrue? But can I accept what is true and focus and communicate that focus versus focusing on the lack part or the fear of the future? I think that’s what happens when I have imposter syndrome. I’m not in the present. I’m future focusing on fear. But if I’m, if I stay in the present.

And just say what’s real and what’s positive about the present. I don’t know if I can or can do this—four years from now or whatever. But if I just stay here today, it’s like, hey, good things are going. I’m adding value to the person that I’m adding value to. Let me just stick with that. And rather than the future negatively, to me, that’s that.

I constantly have to grab myself and identify with where I am successful versus identifying with the fear that hasn’t happened yet. That, to me, that’s what I’m facing right now. I have to do that every day. It’s not it’s not like I’ve decided, and I’ve got it. I’ll turn the corner tomorrow and face my fear again. 

And now, what do I do? What the question is when I face my fear, what’s my choice? Do I choose to stay in fear? Or do I start? Focusing on what I can contribute, what I am doing that’s working, and what I plan to do next.

Doctor Dave. That’s what it all comes down to, right? How can we face our fears? And a lot of times, a lot of things that we project into the future. And we think that the past is irrelevant to the present. It’s like our present moment where we are in the present moment, and our focus is on the positive things, and then we help expand upon that. That becomes our new reality. 

The other thing you mentioned about which lengths we look at the world is that we can look at it through positive or negative lengths, right? And there’s different. The colors of lenses and the glass we’re looking through determine our reality and our future to a large extent.

So that’s something I found interesting, like what you’re saying.

But I think there’s one thing I’ve learned over time: just doing positive thinking or positive affirmations isn’t going to get you out of the imposter isn’t going to get me out of impostor syndrome. It’s taking positive action when I see a hole in things, that is, what happened to me. That happened to me just last night. Because I’ve always been working for a company, I haven’t hired people like accountants and out of my time, you know, of my money. 

So, I’m starting this business. I hired an accountant. Well, the accountant dropped me. I mean, he just got me set up. I don’t know half of the stuff, but I’ve handed it to him. This is great. This is what I want to do. I want to delegate. Right. And he drops me. And now I’m in fear, right?

It’s like I’m not real fear. I’m not a big problem, but I don’t know how to find an accountant. I picked this one because I trusted and worked with him before, but now I don’t have it. Now I see how I go into this negative thing. How do I find them? How do I decide this will be a problem? All those thoughts. I settled myself down somehow. Well, a part of me started talking to me. Going. You’re screwing this up, you know, just to help out. I don’t know if you have voices inside that happen at times, but I do. 

So, I stopped, and I listened. I said OK. So, I’m feeling that way. Let’s. Talk about it so. Suddenly, I got to this point where, oh yeah, you know, I have to trust. Myself a little bit more. And I just challenged that negative voice a little bit, and all of a. Sudden, I thought, oh wait. I know five people I could call today who would have connections to these people, so I got it, but I didn’t call them. I got an e-mail last night; even last night, they responded with suggestions of whom I could connect. 

And so just that small move of slowing down the negative voice there, the imposter’s voice. Taking up trusting that if I slowed down and thought about it, I’d come up with at least the step. Sure enough, it appeared, and now I just take it without fear. And there were other steps I was like, OK, well, when I get them, how do I find I don’t know that, yet first I have to let me just do the first thing, and then sure I know people I can ask how to interview, you know, so as long as I do not have to think I have to do it on. All by myself, I’ve got tons of help, making the whole thing easier.

Yeah. No, that makes sense because, as we returned to the community and had people around us, many started new businesses or went through self-transformation and tried to do it alone. 

Then they are surrounded by people who are not supportive, like, you know, close friends or family. Because one of the greatest things I mentioned in the previous episodes in my Forecast, right? Do you like it when we’re trying to make a change, and we’re trying to go? It’s not just our old identity that we have to fight against. It’s like the people we hung out with in our old identity because we tend to attract people we’re on the same wavelength with. 

So, it’s not just us; it’s like the other people. And that’s one of the greatest. Revelations I had working the cell transformation: you have to get a new set of people around you. You have to go into a new environment. Those are, ironically, the hardest things to do in the beginning. And also, even when you did it, like the regression time, you have to have that. But. Well, I don’t know what your opinion is on that.

Well, well, I agree. Well, it’s even tougher when you can’t get rid of people like my wife, who was a no-supporter when I was doing the weight loss. Now, I understand she’s a very supportive person. She’s a very positive person. But number one, she’d seen me fail at this for decades. Say, I’d do something and not do it, so she kind of wanted to protect me from another failure. So even when I set what my goal weights were, Rangers were, she said. Well, that sounds too high. You know, she wouldn’t be for that. I want to protect myself. The other thing I asked her once was, would you mind if, for 30 days, we just took all the food that I shouldn’t be eating out of the house? And she said yes, I would. We’re not going to do that. 

I really couldn’t depend on her to support my way of eating. So, I’m now faced with the dilemma you’re talking about, but I couldn’t get rid of the person. She had been the primary cook in our household. 

So, as my sister suggested, I needed to and “decided to” stay the course. I decided I didn’t care what she was doing. I can’t control her. I can’t take the food away from me. What I’m going to do is do my shopping and my cooking, and I’m going to figure out how to do this. I won’t eat with her if she’s not eating at the time I’m eating. 

It was a little painful, in a way, because it didn’t create a real separation, but certainly a physical separation because we weren’t eating the same things. She wasn’t cooking anymore. I had to cook myself to get the portions right and stuff like that. It took two years before she even volunteered to cook a little food for me. 

So, I think it does take that, at times, you will have to sacrifice. What I was used to and where my relationship was with her to go for this now. She’s probably told me one of the sweetest things about the transformation. Because once she put her arms around me and said, I can get my arms. All around you, this is great. 

And then she said she just said this, which was her sweetest thing. She said this is great. I’ve got my boyfriend back. And you know, so it’s not like she wasn’t supportive. It’s just she didn’t know how and couldn’t play. I had to play on my own. 

And, you know, I need to get people around me who would support me, even if they weren’t her, without blaming her. So yeah, I think it takes that you have people you think should be your biggest supporters; they either may not be able to be, or they think. Not supporting the extent of your vision is the best way to protect yourself from harm. 

And I think you do have to go to those people that, that that get some people around you that can support you, that can give them the positive approach and actually can advise you, you know, on what might be more on track for you that might have you know going down that road before have done the understanding what you’re facing. Have empathy for that, but also give you the help you keep on your courage to keep going so that you don’t start. Stop just three feet from your goal and then regress. Absolutely. I think you nailed it.

No, doctor’s day is the crux of extracting America. We’re trying to figure out the formula for how to do the trans and successfully transform from the 99% to the 1%, not just in business and entrepreneurship but in anything you want, anything you’re passionate about, whether it’s your career. 

Your professional and personal lives are all about to transform. The question I wanted to ask you is: if you had to, let’s say, somebody had to reach out to you and then ask you. So, doctor, I want to transform my life in this area. But could you give me advice on how to proceed? How do you go about it? Advising such a person, career-wise or just like way challenge or anything personally.

I will take much of this from what you said because you lined it out. First, it’s like discovering why; you don’t have to overdo that. But you said you know finding your why is what gives you. Gives you that picture of it. Now I’ve also heard some things, and we’ve had some discussion once before where people say it. Once you find why, it’s getting specific about your picture of what you’re going after. What does it look like when you get there? What does it look like, and what does it feel like? What will you be doing differently? Somebody said to me, David, what if you, what if I just put $100 million in your bank account? What are you going to do now? 

And I realized that I wasn’t ready for that. I did know what I would be doing, but it was like, oh man, unless this is going to just go to waste and sit there, and I just spend it here and there. Their stuff I would be setting up and doing to do that, so it’s like, it’s like really getting into those clothes and what it is and feeling it then and getting that sense so that you get more enthusiasm and more, more clarity about where you’re heading, where I’m heading to is and that’s going to be a key thing for me to do. 

And then, I would say the next thing to look at is the biggest challenges you’ll likely face. You know, I know what they are. People usually know what they are. This is where I’ve fallen before. And now, how do I set up that recovery plan and the support system socially around me to help me get through those times? Because there will be times where, if I’m doing it alone, it could be I revert I, you know. I give up. Or what some people talk about is I take a goal that was here and reduce it to here and say that’s good. You know, because I’m not believing in this anymore. And yet, this is the thing that gives me energy. 

So how do I keep on that? How do I keep that energy up? If there are just a few things to start, those would be the few and many of them you mentioned, as we’ve been talking about here.

No. Yeah, Doctor, you’re right. And the foundation of everything is ours. And our motivational factor. It’s not easy to transform. Let’s just be real: they’re going to the imposter syndrome and the regression, and then you must have a strong, powerful emotional reason for doing what you’re doing. 

And if you don’t know that, you must take time to delve into that. And I’m just telling the audience cause that’s the foundation. It’s kind of like you’re building a building. And then your foundation is like your inner why, like what is your path and your purpose, and that sometimes takes a while to figure out you know it; it requires a lot of self-reflection. It looks like it requires a lot of going within.

Sometimes, yeah.

You know who you are as a person. But yeah.

No. And I’d say if somebody were new at doing that, I’d add to that a little. Suppose you struggle to do that. Don’t try and do it all at once. In other words, get the part you can get and start acting toward it, opening a new Vista. 

So, if because this happens to me, and I see a lot of people nowadays, people younger than I am, who just go at things that, you know, I am just so impressed. Oh, they just get out and go after it. But for me, I know I was one of those people. I could see many choices and was afraid of picking the wrong one, so I wouldn’t. 

And so, if anybody out there is in that realm, I would just say pick something that seems exciting to you and go after it, and then it will tell you that the data will tell you as you start moving toward it. Is this what I want, or is it not? Well, at least you found out it wasn’t that. And then you found out it wasn’t that, and pretty soon, you start building what it is, and that’s another way to do it. But like you said, it’s not always instantaneous; it takes reflection. And it’s worth the time.

So, Doctor Dave, you know, the American identity part is about pursuing happiness. Right? From our conversation, we understand that happiness often comes from transforming ourselves to attain our goals. But from your perspective, how do you think Americans should go about pursuing happiness? And is there a method to it?

Let’s see, that’s a big question. Again, I’m always safest just answering it for myself in my experience, and then I’m not saying this is the answer. But over time, what I’ve gotten to is… It is one of the challenges in my life, which is to learn just to be happy with who I am right now. And build on that so. We often put happiness outside regarding things and what we want to accomplish. And by the way, I’m really for if you want to accomplish something, even though other people think it’s ridiculous, petty, or selfish. I wouldn’t judge it based on that. If it gives you energy, I’d say go for it, you know, and the heck with what people’s opinions are. It’s like everybody’s got an opinion, just like everybody’s got a nose, and like a friend would say, you wouldn’t want to live in someone’s nose. So please don’t pay attention to their opinion.

So, I think it’s the type of thing it is like. If we can be grateful, I can be grateful for what I have, and that’s pretty much as far as the American dream for me. I am very grateful for whether I took the challenge or not. That’s this. There’s this possibility that I can take advantage of here in America, and it’s all about me being willing to dream and then taking a step toward the dream. 

And regardless of what I do or don’t do, can I be happy each day? Can I find some sort of gratefulness and happiness? And yesterday was a bad day for me. A lot of things seem to go wrong. I ate off my plan. I’ve said some of them here. I lost my accountant, and they weren’t talking to me. I just complained about many things and wrote them down this morning. I did a little what’s called journaling. You know where you just write some thoughts on stuff. 

I started to realize the other side of it. I put out the word, and people are giving me ideas about who I can talk to. I found a way to; when I try to take it, it almost feels like taking back my power in eating. 

But I went over all the behaviors that got me off track, and instead of saying they happened, I said I chose to do this. I wrote it down. I chose. I chose to buy frozen cherries at the store because I was choosing to eat them off. I plan on that, and I just wrote this all down. By writing it all down, I realized I had a choice all the way along, and if I could choose the things that didn’t work for me, I could just as easily. Choose the things that could work for me, and when I finished all that. I talked to my wife this morning. I said, you know how I was feeling yesterday? She said, yeah. 

I said, you know, now I feel like that’s the best day I’ve had for a long time. 

So, I think that happiness is present in every moment as long as we’re willing to choose it. You know, the American dream just allows us more of that ability to choose more openly. But even if it wasn’t open, you could still choose it inside.

No, I agree, Doctor Dave. And the way you present it is very deep and insightful. Yeah, we have to do it that way, but Doctor D, are there any projects you’re doing right now that you want me to look into on Instagram or Eclipse?

Well, there, there’s a couple of them. One of the things I’m working on is to be an exit and just use my expertise and expand it. Passive income growth and that’s another thing. When I started that, I said, oh, I don’t do it. I don’t know how to do it. 

I realized I already had one, but I never acknowledged it, so it’s building on that. That’s part of my focus moving forward. Also, I’ve done a lot of work with mid- and large-size companies. My expertise is in creating culture change in weeks rather than years. 

So, behavioral change in large organizations. Options. But another project I’m working on is how I can make that easy for new technical managers. Because I came from the technical to the people side, I wanted to quickly be a good people leader in a more do-it-yourself app-type way. 

But that includes getting the outside support. But they don’t. You know they can start because I initially wanted to do it alone. So, how can I get a process for a technical leader to become a technical manager and a good tech people leader right from the start? Right from the first time they take that role, are they thinking about it?

Those are the two new things that are going on.

That is awesome. Doctor Dave and Doctor Dave. How can our audience connect with you and learn more about your work, what you’re doing, and all that?

I think the easiest way is to, uh, there are two ways. Go to my website, which kind of gives you an overview of me at Doctor Dave Rogers, and you can see the name. I think if it’s on here, it’s DRDAVERODGERS.com. Or doctor dave.rogers@gmail.com can reach me—either of those two ways.

1. Doctor Dave. Doctor Dave. Uh, I appreciate it. And I’m thankful that you took the time to do this podcast with me because your, uh, your entire idea of, like, transformation and self-improvement and going from one identity to the other is so relevant for most of us today, like, because that is what we’re all struggling with. 

How do we get to that news? A version of ourselves. And you, uh, and then you’ve already been in the trenches doing that. I appreciate the insight you gave us today. I hope you come back later and do the show because I would appreciate it.

Well, I’ve enjoyed it. I mean, I appreciate the opportunity to hear some of what you have to say and also just the opportunity, the questions, just for me to explore them because I haven’t thought about some of these things for a While, and it’s nice to say, well, what is it for me? Because I can take it away, too. So, thank you.

No, I mean, like self, transformation is ultimately what we’re all headed to like. It’s all we are always transforming. But I like to do it efficiently and systematically, and that’s the real question. How do we do it in a way that’s the fastest, with a community of people supporting us and a system? And having the will to do it. That’s the thing, and I appreciate that you shared the insight with us today. And I want to conclude this episode by letting my full extra Americans know that, hey, look, there’s an extraordinary within every one of us, and we must awaken it and unleash it until next time. Bye for now.