Everyday Life Lessons with David McBee

As a professional speaker and trainer, David McBee has inspired thousands of salespeople and business owners all while his own relationships suffered. After many years of struggling, he decided to make a change. Though David was a fan of self-help books for years, he realized he more often tried to get others to follow the advice than he would follow it himself. With this newfound understanding, David mapped out a plan to improve his relationships. Part of that plan was to read 20 minutes a day, every day, from a quality self-help book and apply the wisdom to his own life.

Today I'll chat with David about his top tips for stress relief, mental and physical health, and building financial wealth.

Connect with David:
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialdavidmcbee/
Online: http://www.davidmcbee.com/
Everyday Lessons Everyday on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/davidmcbee
David's book "Everyday Lessons Everyday: A Journey From Grumpy to Grateful"

Connect with Magic:

A Magical Life Podcast on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/amagicallifepodcast/

On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholisticnaturalhealth/

Online: https://wholisticnaturalhealth.com.au

A Subito Media production

Transcript

Magic Barclay: 1:00

Welcome back to a magical life. I'm your host magic Barclay. And today I'm joined by David McBee. David is an author trainer and professional speaker. He works with sales representatives and business owners around the world, teaching and creating curriculum about the intricacies of internet marketing considered an expert in his field. David is known for his passion, his sense of humor and talent for making the complicated, simple. Born and raised in the suburbs of Kansas city, this Eagle scout, and a BFA in theater from Avila university and spent his twenties as a sales person and entrepreneur though, David found success in both. He preferred the personal development side of business and switched his focus to training. Helping others become their best selves is what led him to write everyday lessons. Every day David's humble hope is to enhance his readers lives emotionally and spiritually. With his honest look into his journey to gratefulness. David is married to his best friend and they have a son and a daughter. His passions include family travel, barbecue, Jeeps, and the outdoors and reading. Welcome David.

David McBee: 2:21

Thank you magic. It's

Magic Barclay: 2:24

lovely to have you here. What an eclectic bio.

David McBee: 2:28

have you ever heard the same? I'm a Jack of all trades is a master of none. Yes. Did you know that's only half of the same. What's the rest a Jack of all trades is a master of none and still better than a master of 1 0

Magic Barclay: 2:45

1. I love that. What are we here that

David McBee: 2:47

bit? I don't know. I think the original vote has been ruined. You know, it kind of implies that you should focus on one thing, but I've never been able to do that in my whole life.

Magic Barclay: 2:58

Neither have I. So you're in good company today. Great. Terrific. Now that is your official bio, but the way that we got introduced, you had another buyer there and I need to. Ask you some questions about that because just talking off air, I mentioned to you what attracted me to your speakers profile? And there's a line here that says a few years ago, I was so anxious and angry that I nearly lost my family. Everything irritated, me, everything annoyed me. My family walked on eggshells around me and I'm pretty sure there's a lot of people in the world. Whether they be entrepreneurs or working for a company that feel the same, that their families are walking on eggshells around them. And particularly a lot of men, because there's so much pressure to provide, to have stability. And that internal pressure that people can put on themselves can really alienate the family. So how did you go about making a change?

David McBee: 4:06

Well, I guess the best way to answer that is to kind of. Explain kind of where I was in life and why my family was walking on eggshells around me. So I would say that I was, doing very well in my career. Uh, I was getting to travel all over the country. I was getting a lot of respect at my job. A lot of, I felt very valued in. People would fly me in and I would speak in front of a hundred people or 30 people, whatever the training or event might be. And everybody made a big deal out of me. Right. And then I would get home and my family couldn't even pick up a dish or, or they, they couldn't remember to do their chores or they barely said hello to me when I came in and there was just like this childish part of me that was like, Don't you guys know how special I am. Nope. Why aren't, why aren't you like really excited and why don't you follow directions? And we can't, you just do the things I asked you to do, and I'm embarrassed to talk about that version of myself, but I would really lose my temper quite a bit. Um, especially when I had just spent three or four days in a beautiful Marriott, you know, I'm the only one there. There's housekeeping cleaning up after me every day I would come home and it just be toys all over the place or dirty dishes or, you know, blankets on the floor, like pick the blanket up. Right. And these things just made me so furious and I would try to hold it in, but I would lose my temper. And then everybody was just, oh, great. Dad's home. And it was just an uncomfortable situation. Does that kind of paint a picture of like who I was.

Magic Barclay: 5:56

It certainly does. And I know I've been in that situation myself, come back from traveling and you know, it's great when you have a room to yourself and everything's done for you and then you come home. You know, the cat litter hasn't been scooped or the dishes in the sink and not in the dishwasher right next to the sink. And you just think, why am I doing all this, but why am I killing myself, missing them one when I'm away. And then I come back and I can't stand the thought of being here. And I think we have to put in perspective why we're doing what we're doing, what we're getting out of it personally. Really look at what we're missing out on when we get home, when we do things like that.

David McBee: 6:43

Right. And I, and the sad thing is I felt really justified in being angry. You know, like I'm paying the bills. I bought dinner tonight. I, this, that I I'm running this household. And I just felt very underappreciated and it wasn't that they weren't appreciating me. I, I wasn't treating them with appreciation either. You know, it was a two way street. And one day I remember everyone was, we have a kind of an island in our kitchen. Everyone was sitting around the kitchen. It was like seven in the morning. Everybody's getting ready to start their day. And I was off to the airport and I was like, well, I'm, I'll be gone for three or four days. So you guys later, and they just kind of barely said goodbye to me. And that was, that was powerful. I remember getting on the plane plane takes off. I don't know what it is about planes, but every time I get on a plane, I say a little, a little hello to God. Like, please let me live. Right. And, uh, and this time though, I was like, but if I don't, at least my family will be happy. And that was, uh, that was an incredibly terrible thought to have in my head. Like, there'll be happier without me. And I really felt that way. And I feel like I'm, I'm going to lose them. I've got to do something different. Because they're happier when I'm gone than when I'm there. And that was, that was a real hard pill to swallow.

Magic Barclay: 8:09

So I guess David, the next question listeners are asking in their minds is, well, how did you do that? How did you make that change?

David McBee: 8:18

Well, I figured there were a couple of things I could do. I could go to therapy, you know, I could. I don't know, talk to someone, join a men's group, uh, Ang anger anonymous, if that's a thing, right. Anger management. Um, but ever since. Early twenties. I have been a big reader of self-improvement books or really any kind of content that would help me be better at my career as a salesperson and a sales trainer. I've read so many sales books, right. And I had read a handful of books on just personal development. And every time I found myself at a, a season in my life when I was reading. I realized that I was better for it. And so I thought to myself, okay, I've got to start by fixing myself and I've got to learn more about handling these relationships. So I picked out a handful of books and I decided I'm going to read it every single day, no matter what, for 15, 20 minutes a day, minimum something from a positive self-improvement book or a book on relationships, it's going to help me improve these relationships over time. And that's exactly what I did. And I call it my journey from grumpy, a grateful, I learned a lesson every day and I implemented those lessons. And over the course of about eight months, I changed from within. I wasn't able to change them. You never can change someone else, but I changed me and that made all the difference. I read books like don't sweat the small stuff and you can't help. But read that book and say, who cares if there's dirty dishes in the sink? You know, my daughter is 13. I think she was about 13 at the time. W she's never going to be 13 again, before you know it, she's going to be off to, she's going to have a driver's license, run off with some boyfriend and go to college and I'm not going to see her. So these books made me realize how valuable that time was. And I tell people all the time, I literally learned exactly how to behave and how to be a better version of myself by simply reading.

Magic Barclay: 10:42

I love that part of my morning routine is to sit in my sauna after a walk and read. And that just starts my mind for the day. And it starts me thinking better, not only about myself, about the things that I can do for the world and the things that I can help people with. And then I hear people say, oh, I don't read because you know, it's boring. Or takes too much time. And my answer is, well, you just haven't found the right books,

David McBee: 11:14

right? Well, I tell people if you're not growing as a person, as a human you're dying, there's no stain still you're either growing or you're dying. And I had given up for not embraced reading for so long that I was dying. I was dying inside. I had this really short fuse. I was mistreating my family. I wasn't appreciating them. Super high expectations of them expecting them to be perfect, expecting them to be versions of themselves that no one should be expected to be. So what happened was, you know, little by little, I would learn these lessons and I, and I kind of kept a journal. I was like, I here's the lesson I learned today. And here's how it impacted my life. And that's how the book came about. I didn't really set out to write a self-improvement book. I always thought to myself, who am I to write a self-help book? I'm just some guy that's been struggling. Yeah. I've had some success in my career. Yeah. I'm a pretty good seller and trainer, but who am I to write a self-improvement book? And people tell me this isn't one of those self-improvement books that preaches at people. It's really just my journey. And what I've learned is people are very similar to me and they can learn a lot from reading my journey. And it's not a preachy self-help.

Magic Barclay: 12:36

I love that message because that is so true. You don't need to be preached at, but you do need to identify with the author or at least identify with the message and any good self-improvement or self-development book. There'll be a part in that where you go, oh, I'm not the only one. And once you've done that, you realize that. You are nothing special. No one is there's no problem in the world that no one else has ever experienced. So get on and do it. Stop using it as, as an excuse and start healing yourself. Now, speaking of healing, we do talk healthier and we don't just talk about the physical. Health includes the emotional and the spiritual. So in self-development I guess they all come in. So what can your expertise do to accelerate health,

David McBee: 13:39

Well, I tell people all the time. Physical health is, is it's not easy, but it's simple, right? You eat the right things and you exercise and those two things should keep you fairly healthy. Right? I think that, um, I equate reading every day, very much to exercising every day or at least regularly. Right. Because I know when I've gone for long periods of time, when I don't exercise. I just am a slug. Right. I gained a little weight. I'm just not feeling it. I'm just, I don't feel as physically. Good. As when I'm exercising. And I think that same parallel exists with emotion and your mental abilities. Like if you're reading your, you don't have that mental fog. Yeah. Have that, that gray just I'm existing. I go to work. I come home, I watch TV. I top of beer, whatever, when you are reading, it's very much like when you're exercising, you're better for it. Emotionally, even it's a lot of times reading inspires you to work out too. Right. So I think that it's very similar in that. In that parallel that I, if I read every day or I read five days a week, it's a lot like when I exercise every day or exercise five days a week,

Magic Barclay: 15:01

so true. And, you know, we, we spend so much time looking at the physical health and I think we do tend to forget that those incremental steps that we take in our mental health, emotional health. Really do count and they do reflect physically as well. And I think this is what you can get from a book. It can be just a tiny idea on how to start your day or a tiny idea on how to look at how you respond to something during the day. And that will just have such an explosive effect on your health.

David McBee: 15:42

A hundred percent, a hundred percent. There is a chapter in, um, don't sweat, the small stuff. And, uh, well, no, this was in the last lecture and it was written by Randy Pausch, who was, um, he was, had terminal cancer. And he basically wrote this book, you know, as he was passing and he went to hang out with his nephew and niece and he had this brand new car and the mother, his sister said, gosh, do not spill anything. And uncle Randy's car, whatever you do, you know, that would just be tragic. And I'm a car guy. And I was like, yeah, if you don't spill in my bed, I'm in my car. That would just, oh, I'd lose my mind. But a re. In all his wisdom, took a Coca-Cola, popped it open and poured it all over the back seat of his car. And he did this for the express purpose of telling his nephew and niece that people are way more important than stuff. And I just thought that is so beautiful. And that is a lesson I needed to hear. Like stuff is just not that important. I put a lot of. A lot of importance on stuff. I shouldn't, I know a lot of us do, right. You get a little scratch or your crack, your iPhone, you lose your mind. Well, so what it's just stuff. Right? And so when I read that, I remember how powerful it was. I mean, it's been three or four years since I read that. And I just shared the story with you, almost word, for word, as the way I read it, it had such an impact on me that I remembered the next time something happened to my stuff. Like, uh, like I have a, a beautiful blue Jeep that I take off road and it's, I have so much fun with it, but a lot of the times when I go off road, I'll hit a branch or I'll get a dent or whatever. And I'm just, I can, I can handle that now in a way that I couldn't have before because of the lessons I learned through reading. And that was just one example of a lesson I learned that absolutely shaped my life and. Pointed me in a trajectory that is a lot healthier than the one I was on.

Magic Barclay: 17:50

I think that's a really important message. As you were telling that story and the Coke was opened and poured all over the car. I think I nearly had a heart attack because I'm a car person too. But then when you said the lesson, I was like, wow. Yeah. Okay. Who cares about the Coke? I get it. I'm not going to tell my kids that. So I hope they don't listen, but you know, It's an important lesson and really making sure that you look after what's important is key. And I guess for me, in, in my life, I've been really downsizing, a lot of things, planning on taking my family to a property soon. And so we're getting rid of clothes that we don't wear because our lives have changed. We don't go out anymore. Who needs fancy clothes? You know, getting rid of books that are either outdated or adjust, don't believe in the philosophy of them anymore, someone else can enjoy them. They'll get something out of them. And, you know, really just going, take, taking a stock take, I guess, of everything in our lives and going what's important. The important things are the family and we're all moving together. The important things are. The books that I use every day or the books that have really taught me something fantastic in life that I hope my kids pick up one day and all the other stuff is just stuff.

David McBee: 19:20

Absolutely. And how many, heads of households are out there working 50, 60, 70 hours a week and they justify it by saying I'm doing this for my family. I mean, it's great that you can buy your family nice things, but I'd rather be broke with a dad, then, then have nice things. You know, I think that's more important. So I try to find that balance between providing for my family and also being there for my family.

Magic Barclay: 19:58

So true. So true. Now look, we do talk wealthier and I was just saying all fair. I love the answer that you gave, which is you prefer not to give specific advice, which is great because now I can ask you in person, what are your top three tips to creating wealth? Be it not just financial, but personal and emotional. Now we've already mentioned reading books. Is there a book? You think could apply to building wealth?

David McBee: 20:30

Okay. Let's talk well for a minute. I, uh, I was big into network marketing in my twenties. So network marketing like Mary Kay and Amway and stuff like that. Right. And I did very, very well. I had something like 8,000 people in my organization. I had a check in the mail every day, but Sunday and just was killing it. And then. The IRS decided they weren't big fans of the network marketing company I was in and they shut things down. And suddenly I went from being real wealthy to being flat, broke, like bankrupt broke. And it was then only then that I really started to learn about money. Like my mom and dad provided for me, but we never had a lot of money. They just spent what they got, you know, paycheck to paycheck, like. I was going to say Americans, but I'm gonna say humans. Right? And so after that happened to me, I decided, okay, I need to learn this. No one's ever taught this to me. And there was one book that was really powerful. It's called the richest man in Babylon. Are you familiar with that book?

Magic Barclay: 21:40

I have heard of it.

David McBee: 21:42

All right. Great. Well, I'd say it's a self-help book kind of, but it's written as like a fable and it's all about this idea of taking 10% of your income and turn it into future wealth. Right. And that is such a simple, easy thing to say, but very, very few people actually do. But I did. I embraced that lesson with all of my heart and I started putting a minimum of 10% of everything I ever made away in savings. And one of the other things is you got to pay yourself first, even though you've got a hundred bills and you may not have enough money to pay all of them, you got to pay yourself first. And so I would put away 10%. Every single time I made money. And I can tell you now at 51, I'm doing real good. That 10% has grown into quite an egg. And I'm very excited about that. But more importantly, I'm teaching my kids to do. My daughter she's 16. She just got her very first job. And her first paycheck was$327. And I said, what are you going to do with that$327? She said, I'm going to put$32 in savings. My son, same thing. He's got. He started a 10%, uh, savings and an IRA when he was 20 he's 22. Now he's got$5,000 in there. And I know that by the time he's retirement age, that'll be a million dollars or it should be, it's kind of on track to beat. And all you gotta do is put away 10%, put away 10% earlier, you start the better off you're going to be. If you're in your thirties or your forties or fifties. And you're hearing this for the first time, you don't have any. Yeah, might have to dial that 10% up to 15% or 20% or 30%, but pay yourself first and invest that money. And it will increase exponentially over time. And again, that's not a new concept. A lot of people have heard it, but for my money, what I want your listeners to know is that, that book, once again, at a time in my life, when I needed help with something, I turned to a self-improvement book and reading that book. Shaped the course of my life. It is the reason that I have, um, retirement account now because I followed the instructions in that book. Does that answer your question about wealth or do you need something else or something additional

Magic Barclay: 24:17

that pretty much answers it. And I guess we've already talked about emotional wealth with changing. Little things so that you can actually enjoy the big things. So I think let's get onto our final question for this episode. And we do talk about weight issues here. So have you ever battled your weight and if so, what was the trigger to lose it? And what can you offer the listeners to reduce stress? Because we know that's a key issue in weight problems.

David McBee: 24:48

I, uh, I have had a little bit of a battle with. Um, I would say this I'm probably about 20 pounds heavier than I want to be right now. At one point I was maybe 30 or 40 pounds heavier, and this was in my early forties. Um, and my father had open heart surgery at the age of 43. So my family. You know, we grew up on bacon, you know, and, uh, I actually watched a movie and maybe you're familiar with it, um, called fat sick and nearly dead. Have you ever heard of that one? Oh yes. Love that. Right. So that one was very powerful for powerful. For me. I didn't feel like I could just juice for 90 days. Like the, the main guy in that movie, but I did switch to smoothies for breakfast and lunch every day for about six months. And I lost like 30 pounds. What I discovered though, was that you can't do something incredibly drastic. As a diet or the minute you stop doing it, you'll gain the weight back. And my father has been like that his whole life, his way, it's been a rollercoaster because he goes on no carbs or he does, you know, keto or whatever it is. And he loses the weight and then he goes back to doing what he was doing. And so I think my advice, my best advice for anyone who's battling weight is. Do something that you can continue to do forever for forever. Right? If you think you're going to give up ice cream. That'll be great for a couple of weeks while you give it up. But the minute you start eating and again, you're going to be right back where you started. So instead of giving up ice cream just don't eat so much of it, have ice cream once a week, maybe instead of every day, it's all about finding balance. It's all about, um, making healthier choices that you can live with forever. That's my best advice for, for weight loss and physical.

Magic Barclay: 26:53

I think that's so important to get across to the listeners. And that is you don't have to set goals. You know, you can achieve that by making small changes, small steps, which we discussed earlier in this episode. So this is a recurring theme here. Making small steps can lead to the big thing. And it's not a spade that you get there it's that you really enjoy the journey and you don't resent yourself or resent the people around you while you're doing it

David McBee: 27:25

a hundred percent. Now that I'm 51. Uh, the things that I did before to lose weight, they don't work like they do. My metabolism is slower. And, uh, so I've, I've kind of. Come to the conclusion that if I want to eat barbecue, cause I'm in Kansas city, barbecue capital of the United States and my. Although the Texas folks will argue with that. And I kind of agree with them, but if I want to eat the way I want to eat, then I've just got to balance that out with exercise. I try to get my 10,000 steps every day. I try to exercise five days a week. Um, and I tell people who say, eh, you know, you're a little heavy for your weight. I say, promise. I promise I would be way better. If I weren't trying, if I weren't making healthier choices, my dad's a big man. I would be a much bigger man, but I'm kind of good with being just a smidge overweight. I'm fine.

Magic Barclay: 28:23

Now David people can find you on Facebook at official. David MK, B Instagram, David McBee, and David McBee on LinkedIn. You also have Twitter. We do love to offer the listeners freebies, and I know you have a fantastic podcasts. So where can listeners find your podcast?

David McBee: 28:48

All of my podcast episodes live on YouTube. So if you go to youtube.com forward slash David McBee, there's I think 60 or 70 episodes of everyday lessons every day. And those podcast episodes are kind of like a continuation of my book. I continued to read, I continue to learn lessons and I continue to apply them in life. And that's what. The first season of everyday lessons every day the podcast is. And then the second season I started inviting guests, folks like yourself to share with me the everyday lessons that they've learned over the years. So I would love for anybody to go to YouTube and check out those episodes. Um, but I would also say this, if anyone wants a copy of my audio book, Um, if they buy the printed book on Amazon or whatever, just shoot me a note and I'll give them a link to the audio version as well.

Magic Barclay: 29:52

That's very generous. Thank you. Now, David, I would love to record our next episode with you because I want to learn all about this book. So listeners for now go forth and create your magical life.