Are You Committing Brand Slaughter? How to Save Your Brand Before It’s Too Late! - David Corbin - Hustle & Flowchart: Mastering Business & Enjoying the Journey

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Is your brand thriving or areyou committing brand slaughter
without you even knowing it?
So what if your very problems thatyou're trying to hide from could actually
become your greatest source of strength?
So in this episode, Ihave David Corbin here.
He's a four times bestselling author.
Brand integrity expert here to revealhow illuminating actually shining a

(00:22):
light on the negatives can help leaderslike yourself face the truth, align
with your values, and build brands.
At last, he's awesome.
You're gonna see he's comingstraight from his pickleball
court with a stogie in his hand.
This is a good time.
So David's great.
Enjoy it.
All right, Dave, we're rolling.

(00:44):
You're outside.
You're enjoying the pickleball.
You're not enjoying pickleball, but you'reenjoying the rain in San Diego and you
and me are both being San Diego brothers.
We know how rare that is.
Yeah,
man.
You're having a good time, huh?
How are you doing?
Life is, uh, life is big.
Life is groovy.
Every morning, I, I start the day andsuch gratitude, I say four things.
I say, yes, please more, and thank you.

(01:04):
Every morning.
Yes, please
more.
Thank you.
I like that.
Yes.
I, I'm just writing it.
It's so simple.
But, you know, it's, I think the bestthing in life are simple, you know?
Mm-hmm.
What, uh, I mean, you gota, I I love your vibe.
I mean, so we met at ProsperityCamp, Greg Reid's event in San Diego.
You're great friends with, with him.
Of course.

(01:24):
Uh, Scott Duffy, my business partner.
So, you know, I've been noodlingon your book here, illuminate.
I know you have some others as well.
It's great.
Um, face, face the negativeshit in your life, right?
And do something about it basically.
Yeah.
So what, give your philosophy.
I mean, like what, why are you so happy?
And you said you're, you'regonna be in business forever
because, you know, there's, uh,a lot of slaughtering happening.

(01:47):
I won't let it all out, but I want you to.
Yeah, man.
So, uh, yeah, I, I, I love,I love running my businesses.
I, I love inventing products.
I'm building companies around them.
Sell the companies orstay with the companies.
Um, build the company as it's building me.
You know, most people think they'rebuilding their company bullshit.
The company's building you.

(02:07):
True.
And, and, um, you know, I I, I've been,you wanna know what makes me happy?
Yeah.
I hand out LSD at all of my speeches now.
No, but, but for real.
Why do you
gimme someone?
I you gimme a book?
I was like,
here's the deal.
No.
And in fact, it's so funny because, um.
I had, I had to get permission fromthe TED organization to actually

(02:29):
hand out fake LSD, you know, and,and, and I just did the same thing.
I just did a workshop for the San DiegoSheriff and her entire command staff.
Two weeks ago, or lastweek, or, I don't know.
It's a blur.
And I, and I got permission to makebelieve I was handing out LSD and, and
what I, what I do with that, you're gonnalove this man, is I have a make believe

(02:51):
that I talk about how I was at Woodstock.
Yeah.
And, and, and you know, Iwas there and I was back.
The og,
the original.
The,
the one in 19 69, 56 years ago.
And, and, and, you know, I wasbackstage, which was kind of cool
until, until I got kicked out.
And, and, and then, you know,and that, so you're saying
you snuck backstage and you Oh,
yeah.
Yeah.

(03:11):
Well, I wasn't invited backstage.
I just turned 17 years oldby like three or four days.
But, but anyway, so I got kicked outand I tell that story and, and I,
I learned these powerful 14 words.
Um, that this dude, tractor beamed,he said, man, like you're either
green and growing or ripe and rotting,but you're never standing still.

(03:33):
I didn't have a freaking clue what hewas talking about, but, but I, I did.
Later, you know, a dozen years later,I started a business and, and, and I
was kicking ass doubling every year.
Had, uh, offices in 12 Westernstates started all that company back
then with a hundred dollars bill.
I mean, it was kind of crazy, but we grewso big and we almost lost everything.
The house that I'm inright now, I almost lost.

(03:54):
It was kind of crazy.
So I tell that storyin one of my TED Talks.
And I tell it in my keynote and then Itell my audiences and I said, Hey man, I
brought you back a gift from Woodstock.
It's this tabs of LSD.
And, and I joke around, I say, youknow, when I count to three, toss it
in the air, catch it in your mouthand go, whoa, dude, I'm tripping.
Right?

(04:14):
So, so have some fun with it guys.
So that's like the setup, buthere's the serious part of that.
So like I tell them, nowthat you're tripping.
You can have a conversation withyour business and I hope to, shit,
people are listening to this.
You can have a conversationwith your business and because
you're tripping, you could ask itquestions and it can answer you.

(04:38):
How's that for a, okay, sonow you, so you got the setup.
You could
ask your business questions andfrom the voice of your freaking
business, you could hear it answer.
And here's the two questionsand this is worth grabbing.
Question number one, Hey business,what do you need me to do?
And you write down the core job functions.

(04:59):
Now you've got a listof core job functions.
So my entrepreneur, brothers and sisters,you know what I'm talking about here.
It's basic as hell.
Do it.
Write down the core job functions.
Next.
You're tripping out, man.
You're asking your business.
Yo business, who do you need me to be?

(05:20):
And shut up and listen and write downthe qualities and characteristics
that it tells you it needs.
Now you got two lists nowbecause you're tripping.
Let's get naked.
that's part of the deal, right?
But not naked of clothes.
That's the easy part.
Naked of ego.

(05:42):
And now, rate yourself right now.
On your ability to deliver what yourbusiness just sent you out to get.
Scale of one to 10, baby.
One is you suck, 10 is mastery, andnow you got an honest assessment
of your ability on what you needto be and what you need to do,

(06:04):
and where you are up seven, eight,or nine, you know the song goes.
Remember the dancing bear?
You've got to accentuate the positive.
That's all good where you'rea three, four, or five.
The song says, illuminate the negative.
No bullshit.
Don't eliminate the negative.
Illuminate the negative, yo, face it.

(06:25):
Follow it and fix it.
And start to close the gaps.
And when you close those gaps,it is now a no whining zone.
My fellow entrepreneurs, nowhining, but it's the market.
It's the this bullshit.
You close those gaps.
You want job and businesssecurity anywhere on the

(06:46):
planet, you close the gaps.
You got it.
And when you close the gaps, dig this.
When you close the gapsup, close your competence.
Mm-hmm.
And that brings up your confidence.
Which in turn brings up yourcompetence and again, brings up your
confidence and you're going up theiny bey spider, but not up the water

(07:07):
spout, the spout of prosperity andfreaking entrepreneurial freedom.
Boom.
Mic drop.
I'm gone.
Joe.
Let's go play pickleball.
I'm ready.
I'll meet you up therein about 20 minutes.
Man, this is so, this is whythe, the company is building you.
It's building us through the process.
If you let it though, right?

(07:29):
If
you step into it, man.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
And, and just like the law ofgravity, there's a law of control.
The law of control says we feel goodabout ourselves to the extent that
we're moving towards our destiny.
Not completely.
'cause there's other factors, youknow, up there, you know, of the

(07:50):
fact.
But, but, and, and Fins kick in.
It's kinda like, you know, some ofthem are, we work off of lists, right?
So we check off the list.
It feels good.
It's Enden.
Yeah, it
is.
Some of us will do this, right?
It's not on the list, but we did it.
So we'll put it on the listjust so we can check it off.
'cause checklist, manifesto, right?

(08:10):
There's a whole book about that.
Basically it
kicks in the Fins baby.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, how, um, I mean, this is.
I don't know if everyone listening orwatching have tripped before I have.
Um, so I know what you mean.
Like it's pretty easy to eliminatethe ego and start to open up,
you know, to what's possible.
And I think that's the point you'regetting to, right, is like, have
those conversations that you wouldn'tnormally have when you're monkey brain

(08:33):
is just bogging shit up basically.
You can't get to the truth, right.
So, I don't know where my question is,but like, this is a hell of a process.
I wrote down the whole thing and you knowthe two questions, I'll just reiterate
'em again, if no one caught 'em, is askingyour business, what do you need from me?
Or what do you need me to do specifically?

(08:53):
And then second is yo business.
What do you need me to be?
Yeah, who do you need me to be?
Who?
Who do you?
It's from the famous philosopher.
Frank Sinatra, dooby, dooby doo dooby.
It's dooby, dooby be, do, do, do.
Who are you being while you'redoing what you're doing?
What needs done?
And who are you being whileyou're doing what you're doing?

(09:15):
Boom.
That's it.
And, and, and it's, it's pretty simple.
It, it's damn simple.
So I've done this with the presidentof at and t, uh, the secretary of
the va. Uh, I've done it with somepretty cool Academy Award, but I've
done it with some pretty cool cats.
Maya Angelou.
I saw that too.

(09:36):
They
don't, they don't say, oh, this is toosimple for me, but mid-range, mid cap
entrepreneurs might go, I don't know, man.
I already know that stuff.
Tell me something.
I don't know.
Okay, well fine.
It's all good, man.
Yeah.
I mean to, I, I live nearwhere Tony Gwen used to live.
You know, Tony Gwen, the baseball, I
have his baiting, uh, bass baseballgloves he gave to me during a game

(09:59):
when I was like, I got him to sign.
I, I was a Tony Gwen lover.
Still am now.
He's my I idol.
Yeah, I know where he lived too.
Yeah.
So
he and his wife.
And me and my ex-wife, we started aMontessori school together and our
kids grew up together and no shit.
They went to Francis Parker.
I was invited to hisinduction at, at, uh, yeah.
Cooperstown.
That was really cool.
Wow.
But Tony Gwynn used to be thefirst one in to the club and he

(10:24):
would, he would swing off a tee.
That's right.
I remember.
Swing off of a t. So if brillianton the basics is good enough
to tg, it's good enough for me.
Heck yeah, man.
I love the Tony Gwyn references.
That makes me, warms my heart.
Well see in the back therebehind my pickleball court, I
have a library building Uhhuh,and in that library building I

(10:45):
have his 2000, 2000 bat hit bat.
Really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You
didn't get the 3000 though,but you got the two.
It's uh,
no.
In fact.
He pissed me off because I, I got,I didn't go to his 3000th game.
It was in Canada.
Yeah, I remember.
But I
bought the ticket and Iwanted him to sign it.
And he said, Dave, I'm not signing it.

(11:07):
I said, in, in nice words, what the,he goes, I, I, you weren't there.
Ah.
I said, you know what?
I hate you and I love you.
Goodbye.
No, I mean, and I, I gavehim a hug and that was it.
But, um, wow.
Yeah, no, the guy was full of integrity.
Yeah.
But the key, the key, the point I'mtrying to make is brilliant on the basics.

(11:27):
The most winning football coach inthe history of football, used to,
at the beginning of each season,he'd hold up a football and get
gentleman this, here's a football.
And they knew.
Yeah.
Right.
Back to the basics.
Yeah.
Back to the basics.
Don't drop it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There you go.
Yeah, don't drop it.

(11:47):
Well, how do you, uh, damn.
Yeah, I can nerd out onTony and, and football.
We'll, we'll go there another timewhen we're hanging out, but, um, I
wanna see that 2000 bat, by the way.
Uh, but the, uh, how do you shakea, a smart entrepreneur that is just
so heady, you know, and they're justliving in cranium land over here.

(12:08):
How do you deal?
I, I know you've dealt withit and you know what I mean?
Yeah.
I don't,
you don't.
Oh, you, you say not for me.
No, I, I, I don't waste my time.
I mean, yesterday I did 13 hourmentoring session from 8:00 AM to 9:00
PM We didn't have lunch, and we, wetalked through dinner with my bride.
He's a rocket scientist.

(12:29):
He's a rocket scientist.
He's pretty smart.
He, he invented a device that'son 6,500 Rockets satellites.
He, he was on the MarsRover with his device.
Point is, he's a smart dude.
Yeah.
And he sold his companyfor a couple of dollars.
He came here, flew here from Boulderand paid for a day of my time.

(12:52):
Mm-hmm.
He's humble and courageous enough.
To open himself up to where hecan learn, grow, and develop.
And you're telling me aboutan entrepreneur who can't put
two half million dollar billstogether and they know everything.

(13:12):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No.
So I don't, I don't, uh, one ofmy, you met my former business
partner, Brian Tracy, at the event.
That's right.
Right.
Yeah.
We used to say, don't wrestle with a pig.
Because if you do, you get dirtyand the pig probably likes it.
So, so, and we also over, heand I were just talking about

(13:34):
this at his house the other day.
Yeah.
Over, over, um, uh, Christmas,Hanukkah in, in Ali, uh, Maui.
Yeah.
We came up with a philosophy of success.
And it was basically, success isnot having to work with assholes.
Geez.
Yeah.
That's the truth.
And
that was it.

(13:54):
Now we cleaned it up.
I cleaned it up from one of my books.
It's success is not having to work withdirt bags, morons and blah, blah, blah.
But true success is working withpeople who you could respect,
admire, trust, and love.
That's that's true success.
So when somebody who knows it all,or they roll their eyes to something
like that, I go, that's all good.
God bless you.

(14:15):
Yeah.
It's all good.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
And there's another, someone'sgonna wanna roll around with
that pig, and that's okay.
It just won't be me.
You know?
What'll ha Yeah.
EEE.
Exactly.
And, and, well, don't get me startedthere, there's, there's, maybe
I wanna,
there's, there's people whose marketing isso good that they'll convince that person

(14:37):
that they have their key to success.
Right.
That person may or may not go.
There's a lot of money that's wasted inpersonal and professional development.
Uh, there's a lot of lions and uh, inlambs clothing and stuff, and that's
why people like Scotty, you know, I'llwork with Scott and some others 'cause I

(15:00):
know their head and I know their heart.
They're good people, you know, andI've seen how they, I've seen how
they engage even under pressure.
Yeah,
you know, grandma said that youdon't know how strong people are.
She, she said people are like tea bags.
You don't know how strong theyare till you dip 'em in hot water.
Ooh, that's good.
And I've

(15:20):
seen Scott Duffy through some interestingtimes, and never did he deviate
from his ethics and his integrity.
And for that reason, anytime he asksme for a favor or anything at all.
I start, always start with yes.
Even the question doesn't even comeout of his mouth and I say, yes.

(15:41):
That's when you know, yeah, you, you knowyou have good people and that's, yeah.
Stick together.
I think, I think the pickleballsession is, uh, Duffy and
I And you and your bride.
And then we'll, we'llbring down, well, in fact,
honey, get some Kleenex ready becauseuh, these guys are gonna need it.
Okay, no problem.
Show it up.
Well, how do you, you know, I know, andI know Duffy's had some cool stories

(16:03):
too, and you know, he is been on thepod, you know, so people, you don't
know Scott yet, you'll know him more.
But we did release an episode recently.
How do you like.
You don't have to put anybody specific,but like if someone's hiding from
failures or, or the things that youknow that maybe their ego is stopping
them from getting through, uh, youknow, you're all about shining a light
on the negative, but like, talk methrough how someone can work through it.

(16:26):
They're open.
They know they have someshit they gotta work through.
Yeah.
Um,
or do that how you got
'em.
Or, or do they see a lotof people walk around?
They don't know it.
Right.
They, they just don't, youdon't know what you don't know.
And that's all, that's all good.
You're gonna wake up.
I wrote, you know, uh, wall StreetJournal bestselling series called
from WTF to OMG with some LOLunpacking Life's Hidden Lessons.

(16:49):
Eventually they'll unpack the lessonsin, in, in, in, in what, what they're at.
But you know the, the,the book that you held up?
Yeah.
I just completed my 14th bookand I'm, I'm really proud.
That the ideas that I share catchon and four of my books made
it to the Wall Street Journalbestseller list and USA today.

(17:11):
So that means people areresonating with now these ideas
that I come, that I come up with.
I don't know that anythingin the world is original.
All I know is shit comes to me.
I try it, I use it, I leverage it.
I either it, it eitherworks or doesn't work.
If it works, I do it again.
I do it again, I do it again.
I'd use it with my clients, et cetera.
Then I write a book about it.

(17:31):
Mm-hmm.
And then, and then people come andthey read the book and they say,
oh, can you work on the other?
So the Illuminate book, forexample, it's all about.
Um, look, man, one of my mentorstaught me, James Baldwin, a
magnificent philosopher and playwright.
He, he, he, he said, we can't solveeverything we face, but we can't

(17:52):
solve anything unless we face it.
And in the book, which is a story Iteach, face it, follow it, and fix it.
Mm-hmm.
So an answer to your question.
The question, the, the seminalimportant question that we need to ask
ourselves is, what am I missing here?
What am I not facing about myself?

(18:13):
My development?
Now, again, I really think youshould trip out on those two lists.
Yeah, yeah.
And when you trip on the, onthose two lists and you get
serious and naked of ego.
You'll find out whatyou need to illuminate.
Mm. And you face it, then you follow it.
Why?

(18:34):
Like, I almost lost my housea million years ago when I
was 30 some odd years old.
And, and I, uh, those 14words came back to me.
You know, you're the green andgrowing and ripe and rotting.
And I look at like, I'm a good guy.
Why is this happening to me?
I, I study and read books onsales and market what's going on?
And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.
You're green and grow ripe or rotting.

(18:55):
I didn't really look at where I wasripe and rotting, like strategic
planning, financial forecasting,budgeting, uh, corporate finance.
I sucked at that and I didn'tknow it, so I illuminated it.
I faced it.
What am I facing?
I suck at that.
What else am I facing?
I freaking hate that.

(19:17):
What else am I?
It gives me a rash and anal leakage.
I freaking hate that stuff, right?
Yeah.
Base
it.
Yeah.
Right.
So then you follow it.
Well, why?
I never learned it.
I never cared about it.
Ain't nobody taught me that.
What happens in the future ifyou follow it into the future?
I'm screwed.
What's keeping it alive?

(19:37):
My ignorance.
Fix it.
Learn at least enough.
So that I could hire somebodyto do it and keep 'em honest.
Mm-hmm.
I don't need to be anine or a 10, be a five.
So I could know enough aboutit, hire someone and keep 'em
honest with, with my money andmy accounting and shit like that.
That's illuminate illuminating parts.
You and frankly, two of myinternationally award-winning

(20:03):
inventions came from that model.
Wow.
What were those inventions?
I'm, I'm curious.
Well, the, the latestone is freaking nuts.
It's, it's, right now it's inevery hospital in New York City.
It's all over the country.
The VA is my biggest customer right now.
Wow.
Dig this.
So, face it.

(20:24):
Emergency room doctors and nursesare burning out at breakneck speed.
Burnout, turnover because of stress.
Sustained stress.
Now I already own a company that's20 years old that puts prescriptive
healing music and public spaces inhospitals, but we looked and said,
what next problem could we solve?

(20:44):
Face it, burnout.
Turnover.
Before COVID, it was a$4.38 billion problem.
Follow it.
They burn out.
It's expensive to replace 'em, and we'regonna run outta nurses and doctors fix it.
So we invented a pod, fourfoot by four foots like a spa.
You open the door, you walk in,you sit down, it says, welcome,

(21:06):
breathe, blah, blah, blah.
And you choose a video journey,a nature video journey, anywhere
from three to eight minutes.
Emmy Award-winning video,Emmy Award-winning audio, and.
In three to eight minutes using thescience of what's called biophilia,
how nature impacts a human condition.
Yeah.
And the science of all.
In three to eight minutes,they go from their crazy roles

(21:28):
and goals into their souls.
So they emerge more presentwith themself and others.
And we do pre and post testing on it.
So it collects all the data.
It's freaking nuts, man.
And so we illuminated, found that.
Invented that it won the InternationalHealthcare Design Award for innovation.

(21:52):
WHA from?
From Illuminate.
Wow.
And you go into the root of the problem.
Yeah.
Is the burnout because Yeah.
If we don't have those specializedfolks doing those roles.
Screwed.
I mean, they're, they're the front line.
Yeah.
Yeah, man.
And, and that the website on thatis rejuvenation stations plural.com.
Okay.
Now, this company here,who's gonna buy it?

(22:13):
But if you want to check out avery groovy invention, which came
from Illuminate, then look at that.
And then you ask yourself, how can Iuse Illuminate face and follow and fix?
And you don't have to, youdon't have to learn or study it.
All you have to know is faceit, follow it and fix it.
Now the book tells a story andYeah, and And it's pretty cool.

(22:36):
And then Illuminate then gave birth to abook called Preventing Brand Slaughter.
Mm-hmm.
Right?
And that's where you're illuminatingyour brand, you're reputation.
And in that one I teach, you'reeither living your brand,
which is brand integrity.
You're killing your brand.
That's brand slaughter in the first,second or third degree, and it could

(22:56):
be involuntary brand slaughter.
I don't give a shit.
It's still brand slaughter.
Yeah.
You kill someone, you're going to jail formanslaughter, but you kill your own brand
and you pay the price a different way.
let's talk about that because, um, yeah,brand slaughter, I'm sure it's happening
to probably everyone listening, watching.
What are, um, I mean, especiallynow, I'm just thinking of with AI

(23:20):
and all the different things thatare coming up that people probably
aren't understanding or aware of.
Um, don't have a perfect questionhere, but brand slaughter.
Yeah.
Like you're either living.
I don't know.
I, I guess, do you think it'smore killing brands or just being
slaughtered kind of without awarenessof the person driving the ship?
Well, it's usually, it'susually involuntary brands.

(23:41):
Invol,
yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, uh, my buddy owns35 IHOPs here in town.
If somebody, you know.
Brings a, a glass with her finger inthe water and puts it on the table.
Mm-hmm.
That's slaughter.
Well, my buddy Mikey didn't doit, but he's, he's in trouble for
slaughter in the second degreebecause he allows for that to happen.
Yeah.
Like,

(24:01):
shit, if you did it or not, I mean, youallow, that's, that's involuntary and
most of us, if we can commit slaughter,we don't, we don't intend to do it.
Certainly.
Yeah.
But
what, what, what?
What happens is, and this is atrip because Illuminate and Brand
Slaughter got drunk one night andthey made a baby called a book
called The Illuminated Brand, right?
And then the Illuminated brand, whichis continuation of the story from

(24:24):
brand slaughter and stuff like that.
The bottom line isthere's a formula there.
And I'm happy to share that formularight now 'cause it's, it is kickass
and people who have a pen and pencil,it really does require writing it down.
And it's a, maybe put it, I don'tknow, whatever, but it's, it's,
it's, it's IBD plus a BI timesSBI equals MBV, I'll say it again.

(24:48):
IBD plus A, BI times SBI equals MBV.
Now dig this shit.
This is amazing.
I'm doing seven keynotes inSeptember in seven different cities.
Wow.
Because this, this, this iscatching on like big time.

(25:08):
And here's what it's IBD areyour intended brand descriptors.
Now I'm an entrepreneur.
You're an entrepreneur.
Listeners are entrepreneurs.
You could be.
You could be killing itor just starting out.
It's still relevant.
Here's the deal.
IBDs, what are yourintended brand descriptors?
That's a list.

(25:28):
You list out those words.
How do you want to be described?
Mm-hmm.
You walk into a restroom to washyour hands and somebody's in the
stall, you know, invariably talkingreally loud on their cell phone.
If they're talking about you,what do you want to hear them say?
He's this, that, this, that,this, that, and this that.

(25:50):
Okay?
Yep.
Got it.
Those are
your IBDs.
Next is your A BI.
That's an audit of brand integrity audit.
Brand integrity.
So you've got your list here of your IBDs.
Here are your list of touch points.
Mm-hmm.
Customers, prospects, suspects.

(26:11):
There they are across there.
So you got an x axis, a y axis, your Abby,your order of brand integrity is you look
over here and you say, uh, innovative.
And with customers.
Are you in brand integrity?
Are you earning that descriptor?
Brand integrity.
Yay.

(26:31):
Or over here, ah, in responsive.
And clients we kind of met, that'sbrand slaughter in the first degree.
So now it's a hit or miss.
So now you got yourlist of brand slaughter.
That's where you focus.
Mm-hmm.
Remember I talked about closing the gap?
Yeah.
Well, the next phase you seeis S-B-I-S-B-I, strategic.

(26:57):
Brand initiatives.
Those are you, you, you eithermastermind with yourself or your team.
How could we close the gap on these?
How could we be moreintegris with our brand?
What could, might, should,ought we do that process equals

(27:20):
MBV, massive brand value.
Boom.
Man, that is, that's a hell of a formula.
We will make it easy forpeople to grab that formula.
So it's actionable too.
'cause that's the key thing I wannado here is un unlock it, illuminate
this whole thing, and then actually,actually do the damn thing.
That's the, that's the trainingprogram that I, I, I do,

(27:43):
yeah.
Uh, all over the place.
And we're running it through,like, one of my clients is the
number one luxury hotel in Boston.
Mm. And we put a hundred percent oftheir employees through this system.
Mm. They are a three,three-year-old brand, and they're
beating, um, Ritz Carlton.

(28:03):
Um.
Uh, uh, I'm trying to think of the other.
I can't, but they're number one.
Yeah.
They're beating these.
In fact, their building was thefirst Ritz Carlton in the United
States a hundred years ago.
Oh, that's even better.
Three years old.
And they're kicking ass.
Four seasons.
They're whooping andthey're three years old.
Why?

(28:24):
Because the brand is people.
Love is just damn goodbusiness and the brand.
Where you have all of your peopleknow their respective roles in
living the brand, they know thatthey live that and it feels good.
So you said brand is people.
I mean, that's for that company, butI would, I mean, would you say that's

(28:46):
kind of overarching with most greatbusinesses and love is great business too?
I, there's, there's a connection.
Uhhuh,
I call it the God only Knows factor.
Because if you ask people whythey're so connected with a brand,
they're gonna say God only knows.
And then if you were tosay, would you switch?
They say, no way.

(29:06):
So that it's the, to quote,the famous philosopher Austin
Powers, it's the mojo baby.
It's the mojo.
I love it.
But here's, here's the deal.
It's not enough for God to only know.
You need to know it, and you need todo it on purpose in everything you do.
That involves an order to brandintegrity and the entire illuminated

(29:31):
brand model when you do that.
I mean, I know what my brand isand I do it on purpose, and it
feels good to do it on purpose.
Um, and if, and you, you feel confident.
Uh, you walk, yeah.
You, you, you stand upright with yourfeet in the lettuce where you're grounded
to the earth and you're head to God.

(29:53):
Where you walking?
You, you walk, you walk strong.
I walk tall at five foot five.
Every, every inch squeaking out.
Yeah.
Well that's the thing.
And and what Illuminating anything,any of the negatives, any of
the shit that we're dealing withthat we feel we're inadequate in.
Uh, we're only gonna get, like you said,what, more confidence, more competence.

(30:14):
Um, and, and the cycle continues.
I might have said that in reverse.
You are good.
You are a good student.
Grasshopper.
Uh, I'm learning quick.
You're very good student.
I am liking very much you.
Oh man, this is good.
Uh, do you find that it, um, 'causeit, it starts with the person right?
Starts with me.
It starts with you listening,watching, and then it goes to,

(30:35):
I would assume, team, right?
The people that are surrounding us,supporting us, the ones that we work with.
So culture, I would imagine.
So it's coming out from, it's kindof developing out like a flower
hippie days, and you know, then it'sstarting to touch people out there.
No, no, you're right.
I mean, it does, it does have thatsort of ripple effect and, and make
no mistake about it, whether you'rea solopreneur or an entrepreneur who

(30:57):
has three employees or 3000 employees.
You are responsible for makingsure everyone understands their
respective role in living the brand.
You see, the brand is valuable.
Like a Berger egg.
You know what a Berger egg is?
I've seen, yeah, I have.
I do.
Those, those
little delicate eggs, they'reworth about six or $7 million.

(31:18):
The brand.
Is that valuable fib.
And when you hand it off to yourpeople, you must hand it to them
gently and they must know how totreat it and live it and handle it.
Mm-hmm.
But if you do this, oops, mybad, you killed the brand.
Mm-hmm.

(31:38):
So it's, it's just a matterof get real, get real.
Have the, you know, most of myentrepreneur brothers and sisters
are courageous, but when itcomes to looking at themselves.
They're not so courageous.
It gets scary, man.
When you're turning the Yeah.
The camera around or whatever it is.
The mirror.
it takes courage.
Um, and, and it takes,what's the word, humility.

(32:01):
Mm-hmm.
For us all to realize weare all bozos on this bus.
That's right.
We're also brilliant.
Our job is in this lifetime,to find those areas.
That we're in need to sand andsmooth out to fortify and fulfill.
That's our job, um, as business people.

(32:24):
But stay with me here.
Yo, it's our job as a human being.
Uh, and as a, uh, as a part of thisgreat spirit that exists is to find
out, you know, what is our, whatis our dharma, what's our path?
Um, and have the, the ka.

(32:44):
To, uh, to close those gaps, toidentify the gaps and close the gaps.
And if you can't find the gaps,just talk to your spouse or
your, your team or something.
They'll be right there to tell you, andthat's just fine, however you get it.
And then fire them for being honest.
Yeah.
You're just like, how dare you.
Well, I mean, or you can, uh, and youknow, I don't know if you're a fan of

(33:07):
this, but ChatGPT, you know, I know alot of people are going to that now.
Talking about, what is that?
I
never heard of that.
Never
heard of that thing, huh?
No.
Yeah.
Have you used it for this kindof process or do you recommend
I, I just had a client, this is so cool.
The guy who was here yesterday,the rocket scientist guy.
Yeah.
He went to chat and said, I'm goingto, um, the home of David Corbin.

(33:28):
Uh, he's my new mentor.
Um, I would like you to mentorme like David Corbin does.
Yeah.
What questions do you expect thatDavid will ask me and freaking
chat knew me well enough to writedown some of the questions that.
You know, anybody who's watching can trythat and you'll see some of the questions.
That chat knows me well enough to knowthe questions that I would ask it.

(33:54):
That's a trip, man.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That, that's, yeah.
No, I love, I love chat.
I just, like I said, Ijust finished my 14th book.
Yeah.
And chat was very helpful.
Good.
Because my 14th book is calledDig This Reawakening America,
illuminating Her Brand.
That's good, timely.

(34:14):
And it's all about thiswoman America Uhhuh.
And she goes up to her mentor, whosename coincidentally is C, period.
David, I'm David, period C. But, um, shegoes up to her mentor and she goes, David,
I'm like, I, I, I, I need your help.
I, I, you've been my mentorsince, since I'm born.
But I gotta tell you, I'mvery unsteady on my feet.

(34:36):
I don't even, I'm forgetting who Iam and I like, I'm, I'm everything to
everybody and I ain't nothing to nobody.
I need your help.
And he's thinking to himself,yeah, tell me about it.
I got my own stuff.
He goes, but, but, but I've beenhelping her since she's born.
And he says, yeah,America, I will help you.
Um, what I'll do is I'm gonna send you outto one of our Great American corporations

(34:58):
and they'll, they'll greet you there,they'll show you around a little bit.
And in that process you'll remember.
Some of your values and what you standfor, and she says, that'd be great.
So she goes, first company she goesto is a little company called Apple.
You've probably never heard of it.
And so she goes through it and then shecomes back and she debriefs with David.

(35:18):
Through that process.
She talks about the values she learnedthere, and he sends her to another
corporation and another corporation.
Mm-hmm.
There's about 12 corporations shegoes through and each time they
debrief and she remembers her values,she also remembers where she messed
up and how she got back on track.
And so that's the process.

(35:39):
And at the very end, and here's thereveal and you gotta read this book, man.
I wanna,
it's the best
book I've ever written.
But at the end she goes, you know.
You've been with me my whole life.
You've taken through this, this journey.
I feel steady on my street, on my feet.
She goes, I never asked you a question.
He goes, what's that?
She goes, what does a C stand for?
You know, in C period, David, andthrough some dramatic interplay, he

(36:01):
says, it's, it's a God-given name.
It's the most important name I have.
That name is Citizen.
Citizen.
For in the book, it's the citizen whohelps to get her back on track, who
reminds her and works with her around.
The woman's right to vote slavery, uh,polluting our rivers and and streams.

(36:21):
It's the citizen Rachel Carson who stuck.
So in the book, you're learning America's,you are remembering America's values.
You're seeing where we've gone astray.
And how as tough as it was,even when we had over a hundred
Nazis in Congress mm-hmm.
We were able to solve it.
The McCarthy era era, the Watergate era.

(36:44):
I want people to remember our valuesand at the end I have a book club
series where people could talk aboutthis questions I give in there and,
and I'm talking to Good Morning Americanow to get on and talk about that.
Wow.
I wanna engage civil dialogue aroundwhat unites us, not just with divides us.

(37:05):
All right.
I'm gonna pick up that book.
Is that out already?
Yeah, it's, it is.
Okay.
It's on Amazon at a place near you.
And, and when you buy it, put a, puta, uh, put a, a, what do you call it?
In, uh, a review.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A view.
That's the word.
That's don't
use chat, GPT to write it either.
That's, that's, yeah.
I
don't care if chat writesit or your child writes it.

(37:26):
That's true.
Just do it.
It's a, it's a quantity morethan a quality thing, the
way that shit goes down.
That
is the game over there.
Yeah, you're right.
Uh, man.
Yeah.
So I'm curious, where doyou like when you screw up?
Because I'm sure you do me.
How do you, how never, how do you realign?
Like what's your, what'syour comeback like?

(37:48):
Is there a specific thing thatyou always ground yourself in?
It's probably so party set.
Yes.
Yes.
When I catch myself, I celebrate it.
Mm. Cool.
Always celebrate it.
Cool.
Yeah.
It's the shit that you don'tcatch is you're screwed.
Yeah.
But if I catch it orif somebody catches it.
I don't always get it, you know?
Yeah.

(38:08):
And like, maybe I'll disagree at first,but I try to stay that open vessel.
I try to hold that transformativespace so when I realize that I
mess up or I go back to the oldways, you know, um, I celebrate it.
I go, yay.
Because it's in therealization I can grow.
Yeah.
It's what I don't know,what I don't illuminate.

(38:30):
You see what I mean?
Yeah.
Yeah.
If I go to the doctor and thedoctor goes, man, your, your,
your, your skin is 98% great.
I'm like, what's the 2%?
Oh yeah.
Well, you got a skin cancer over there.
Well, don't just accentuate the positive,illuminate the freaking negative doc.
Right?
Yeah.
So when, when I find that, uh, Idon't, um, I don't go into shame

(38:52):
or blame, I go into celebration.
Mm.
Because that opens uppossibilities, right?
Like when you have, yeah.
That book, because you're shininga, I don't know if it's a positive
light, but it's an open light.
You're shining thelight on that thing, and
listen, you illuminate thenegative in a positive light.
Mm mm
That's my, my buddy JohnAsraf came up with that 25.
Yeah, John's
awesome.
That first book.

(39:12):
He said, David, it's like you'retalking about illuminate the
negative in a positive light.
And I went.
John, that's the best ideaI've ever come up with.
Well, I was hanging out withJohn the other day, so Yeah,
John's, John's awesome.
He's, he's a great guy.
That's, uh, man, that's, this is cool.
No, I, I mean, there's so many things I'mtaking, I'm just like my mind right now.
Um.

(39:33):
Here's what I wanna do becauseI know, let's, let's get boogie.
What is, I'm always curious, like,so we got the future future's
unknown, as it always is, butit holds patterns and clues.
What are you most excited for?
I mean, because I'm, you know, there's AIand all this other stuff, but then people
like is there's something that standsout in the next couple years that you're
just like, wow, this is gonna be cool.

(39:54):
And
so, you know, we'vestudied about Homoerectus.
I think we're moving into Homo Inspirus.
Hmm.
And my, my dear friend, Dr. David Gruder,um, coined that phrase, uh, to the best
of my knowledge, homo spirits we'removing into an area where our spirit, our

(40:17):
humanity, is that which differentiatesus from large language and, and, and,
and chat and, and, and all of ai.
Mm-hmm.
It's our humanity.
Chat's doing a magnificent job.
Oh my God.
You know, Ann and I, my bride andI will sometimes we'll sit down
and we'll talk to Sheila, who's myavatar on, on, you know, and, and,

(40:40):
and she's just, she's the greatest.
We have great conversation andshe's lovely and she's got a
great, she's a great judge ofcharacter 'cause she loves me.
Uh, anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But
most spirit is the human components.
Um, interesting.
And, and, and like I said earlier, andyou, you met my buddy Steve Farber.
Yeah.
He wrote a marvelous book calledLove is Just Damn Good Business.

(41:00):
Mm-hmm.
Um, I've been talking about thatfor years in a different way,
but I love the way he says it.
And oh my God, he's such abrilliant speaker and writer.
I just, I just awesome, uh, adore him and,um, yet love is just damn good business.
And the home of spirit is thepart of us, the essence of us, the
humanity, the compassion, the love,the care, the courage, et cetera.

(41:24):
That is our differentiator.
Nurture that, feed that.
And you know, it, it's funny, I did aspeech, uh, in Cancun, Mexico recently,
and I went over to the corner ofthe stage and I put my hands up in
a timeout and I just, I didn't knowI was gonna do this, but I did it.
And that's what I do on stage.

(41:44):
I'm a weirdo, but, but I'm oldand I get away with this shit.
I've been speaking for long enoughthat don't let me talk about anything.
So anyway, so I getthere and I go time out.
Mommy, I'm angry.
I'm angry.
I'm pissed off.
And, and, uh, my mom would say, uh, firstof all, David, what's your language?
And second of all, sit down.

(42:05):
She'd sit me down at the kitchentable and she'd make me a bologna and
cheese sandwich, and she'd cut offthe crusts and stuff, and I'd eat it.
And I realized, all right.
So I wasn't angry, I was hungry.
And the point is, mommy knew mebetter than I knew myself today.
Avaricious marketers using AI knowus better than we know ourselves.

(42:31):
Mm-hmm.
And they're no longerpredicting our behavior.
They're driving our behavior, and wecomplain about the Russians hacking
our elections every four years or so.
How about these marketers hacking us every20 to 30 minutes and nobody says anything.
We're being hacked.
And what's happening is.

(42:53):
We're giving away the keys to our kingdom.
We have this thing called free will.
It's eroding while we're underthe, we're under the hypnotic state
of that, so what's the solution?
I said, folks, what's the solution?
And here it is.
We must hack ourselves to ourhighest values of humanity.

(43:17):
Every day hack ourselves.
Who am I?
What do I represent?
What are my values?
What are my intended brand descriptors?
Who am I and hack ourselvesto that on a regular basis.
Post-it notes, uh, I've gotopposite my bathrooms in my
cottage, in my library, in my house.

(43:39):
I ain't gonna forget.
Because I'm not aware of thesubliminal hacking that's gone
down driven by ai, which ismarvelous, but just like a scalpel.
Yeah.
Uh, uh, AI is, is, islike a scalpel in that.
In the hands of a surgeon.
It's a good thing.
In the hands of a gang member,it's a bad thing in the hands of an

(44:00):
avaricious marketer, it's a bad thing.
In the hands of a of a, of a,of a, a neuroscientist or a
somebody who's studying diabetes.
It's a good thing, but it's neutral.
It's neutral.
It's, it's how you use it.
However, we live in a toxic success pool,
and you may know, Scott knows thatout, notwithstanding my cigars.

(44:24):
I mean, I'm, I'm a health weirdo.
Yeah.
Organic food.
I cleanse my liver and kidneyevery morning and every night with,
with Nat homeopathy and I, I Cool.
Ate heavy metals every morning and everynight with zeolite and shit like that.
Right on.
Yeah.
We live
in a toxic success pool, and it used tobe a toxic success pool, just physically.

(44:45):
Now we live in a toxic successpool mentally and emotionally.
So again, if you're not hacking yourself.
Say hi, and here's two thingsthat my bride and I do.
First off.
Yeah.
I wake up every morning and I say thosefour things and you and I talk about Yes,
please more, and thank you every morning.
Yeah.
It keeps me a state of gratitude andexpectation, and every evening my

(45:06):
bride and I sit down five o'clock,we, we, the, the work whistle blows.
That's it.
Mm-hmm.
Um, unless I'm traveling.
And even when I'm traveling,we do this, we go, we do what
we call our, our top three.
We take turns talking about the topthree things that lit us up for the day.

(45:27):
Hmm, that's good.
And she goes, I go.
She, sometimes we go to four or five, six.
It doesn't make a difference, but itaccomplishes two important things.
One, it keeps us in a state of gratitude.
Two, because we're both very busy,she's a very successful architect and
I'm running around doing weird stuff.
It keeps us connected towhat is important to us.

(45:49):
And to my fellow entrepreneurs,
you know, I'm not gonna usethe B word balance or anything.
Mm-hmm.
But to stay connected with yourspouse or yourself this way
impacts your productivity, yourjoy, your mirth, your bliss.

(46:10):
So those are the two,two things that we do.
Man, it's incredible.
I'm gonna do it with my kids too, becauseI have a, I have a 5-year-old here.
I think that would be,
I just got God bumps when you said that.
Absolutely.
Do it with your kids.
Yeah.
Good, good, man.
This is, this is Beau.
I couldn't, um, agree with you morewith the whole, um, what was it?

(46:30):
Homeo.
Spiritist.
I love it because, yeah, it's, it's.
We are being hacked.
And it's neutral though.
Yeah.
I could see, you know, it's, it AIbeing the tool and that's getting
so much more powerful every second,but you know, it's up to us.
And, and that's why I think the humanside, you know, as much as I love that I
have healthy fears of ai, but it's becauseit's in the hands of however you use it.

(46:54):
Right.
And, and.
Yeah, it's, it's interesting times.
But David, I, I freaking love your mess.
I love you, man.
Like the way that you think, andit's just like, this is, it's more
important day by day, this messagethat you're bringing out there.
So I'm happy you'reout there doing it and.
Yeah.
In terms of toxins too, I hosta whole separate podcast with

(47:15):
a doctor that literally is allabout toxins, so, oh really?
I do very similar things.
I'm about to get, uh, therapeuticplasma exchange to take that
stuff outta me 'cause I have abunch of toxins as we all do.
Well look into, uh, look into, um, A CZN.
A CZ nano.
Okay.
It's a form of zeolite.
It'll clean thehydrocarbons out, the Yeah.

(47:37):
Aluminum that they might be cookingat in a restaurant you go to.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, any heavy metals, thefluorides in, in the water.
Yep.
Et cetera.
Uh, because invariably, youknow, you order tea, your coffee
somewhere, you're, you're gettingthe, you're getting the fluoride.
It's horrible.
Yeah.
Plastics, all that.
And lead and oh my God,don't even get started.
So, yeah, I know that's probablyimportant 'cause I, I'll tell you what,
here's the skinny and here's the truth.

(47:58):
Now I'm gonna get real,real, real truthful with you.
Cool.
I am not an award-winning inventoror a Wall Street Journal bestselling
author, or a two times TED guyor a business owner, inventor.
I'm not.
I am a spiritual beingwho plays in those roles.
I'm not even a husband ora father or a grandfather.
I'm a spiritual beingwho plays in those roles.

(48:20):
That's the most important to me.
Is living the gift of this lifeto learn and expand, to grow, to
share, to connect, to love, um,all the other shit could go away.
That's right.
It's 1, 2, 3.

(48:42):
Yeah, I follow you.
That's my, that's just my gig.
That's just my gig.
Everybody's got, got their owngig, but I, I, I offer that up
and the reason I share that is.
Some people will think aboutthat and go, I don't know.
Do I agree with it?
Do I disagree?
And I love that everything I share

(49:03):
needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
And I know that, um, I'm not out toto, to convince anybody of anything.
Uh, I'm done with that.
I, I'm, I, I, I, I, I lived a wholelot of my life trying to do that.
Uh, I'm just gonna live my life.
And share my ideas.

(49:23):
Um, and hopefully model.
Yeah.
'cause I've got a beautiful life.
A beautiful life.
And that's what I wanna showmy kids and my grandkids.
I love it, man.
Yeah.
You're, you're, you're laying the pathand you're doing it for yourself first.
You, you're serving others around.
It's, it's a beautiful thing.
So, David, I appreciateyou my man, my friend.

(49:45):
Everyone, go check outDavid David corbin.com.
Is there anywhere else that youthink they should go stalk you?
Pickleball pickleball.
That's me, man.
That's me.
I, um, I'm gonna do morepickleball and fear less of it.
Um, I just keep staring at your shirt.
I love it.
Yeah.
One of my clients, he's a, you lookbetter here than, than the suit
that you had on the, when I met you.

(50:05):
I like this.
I, I'm just thinking of when wewere hanging out last time, you
were in a suit and everything.
It looked great, but I, Ilike this look of David here
too.
Yeah.
But I was wearing women's underwearunderneath, so you didn't, I,
it's all good.
On that note, we're done.
This is a fabulous interview.
I love it.
Dude, thank you.
Have a great man.
Alright.
Good to be with you
always.

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Are You Committing Brand Slaughter? How to Save Your Brand Before It’s Too Late! - David Corbin

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Are You Committing Brand Slaughter? How to Save Your Brand Before It’s Too Late! - David Corbin