Today's guest, Kevin Davis is a coach to wealth advisors, a self described barbecue pit master and a creative genius. He single-handedly identified Ray as, The Luckiest Guy in the World, which was visionary and the start of it all! Kevin considers himself a librarian of sorts in that he collects wisdom from all sources and crafts it into concepts to help his clients take control of their lives. Sounds just like The Luckiest People in the World! Kevin's engaging stories and commentary are appropriate for anyone who wants to take control of their life and live it to the fullest. Learn more about The Luckiest People in the World at www.theluckiestpeopleintheworld.com
Find Kevin Davis on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/kevin-davis-7b809939
TRANSCRIPT
This is Changing the Rules, a podcast about designing the life you want to live, hosted by KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world.
KC Dempster 0:15
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Changing the Rules. I'm KC Dempster, and I'm here with my co host Ray Loewe. And we're at the wonderful Wildfire Podcast studios in beautiful downtown Woodbury, New Jersey.
Ray Loewe 0:29
You got that all in? That's pretty good.
KC Dempster 0:31
Yes, I did. And we've got a great show for you. Today, we're going to be talking with an old friend and I'm not talking age old. I'm talking known for many years, and I'm really looking forward to it. And we're going to talk about the luckiest people in the world and taking control of your life and and living the life you want to live.
Ray Loewe 0:50
And we're gonna throw in some changing the rules in there, too. And before we get into this, I have an announcement. Oh, it's national popcorn day today. Now, this is important. This is a chance to support your local community because as movie theaters have not been pushing popcorn lately,
KC Dempster 1:11
are they even open?
Ray Loewe 1:13
Well, who knows? But, but have some buttered popcorn later today and celebrate? Okay. Okay, so, Kevin Davis? Yes. Okay, now I have I have three things to say about Kevin. Okay. Okay. Coach to Wealth Advisors. And he certainly was one of those to me when we were in that business. Barbecue pitmaster.
KC Dempster 1:37
intriguing,
Ray Loewe 1:38
extraordinary. And last but not least creative genius.
KC Dempster 1:43
That is definitely not least Oh,
Ray Loewe 1:45
yeah. So Kevin, Kevin, quit blushing. We can we can see it online over here. But But I have to tell a quick story before we let Kevin in here. And that is years ago, Kevin was on an advisory board to me. And he was he was a key part. And we were sitting around in our conference room one day, and we were talking about what was going to happen as I divested myself of my financial planning practice. And we were talking about all the great things that I can do. And these guys were really got me going and, and Kevin finally perked up over on the other side of the room. And he said, Well, you know, if you can do all that, you're going to be the most interesting man in the world.
KC Dempster 2:31
I think he said, the luckiest guy in the world
Ray Loewe 2:34
No he said interesting. And then he said, we can't use that. That's, that's a beer commercial. So he came out. So he came up with the luckiest guy in the world. And Kevin, it is stuck ever since. And thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I think I was lucky before you said it. But I feel even luckier now. So welcome, welcome to Changing the Rules.
Kevin Davis 2:58
And thank you. Great to be here.
Ray Loewe 3:00
And and I know you're down there and hopefully Sunny, warmer Atlanta than it is up here up north. Okay, and I'm anxious to talk to you because you recently put some stuff out on LinkedIn that I think is absolutely phenomenal. And and we want to milk that for the show today. Because you've always been a great coach to financial advisors. But I think you're a great coach to people too. So let's start out with some of the things that you did in your little video releases. And let's talk first about improvise, adapt and overcome.
Kevin Davis 3:39
Oh, super well, thanks. And it's it's so much fun to talk with you. I had forgotten about that day sitting around the table in the conference room. What a fun day that was. So yeah, you know, this improvise, adapt, overcome, you'll find I am. What I'm really good at is I'm a librarian. I don't know that I have a lot of brilliant original thoughts. But I'm really good at cataloging things that other people say or that I, I hear about and maybe figuring out where they can apply in other parts of life. So here's a a fun piece of useless historical knowledge. I grew up in the Capital District region outside of Albany, New York. And when I was growing up, there was this guy who started showing up on the evening news, who was this rising boxer and the guy was he was ferocious. They would actually show his entire fights on the evening of the local evening news because they would take less than a minute. And it was Mike Tyson. Oh, we all we all know Mike Tyson now but I remember when he was this 19 year old beast in this, you know grainy footage that someone would would shoot there and these poor people who were I suppose Really good amateur boxers, he'd dispatch them in sometimes seem like you're five or six swings and they were down. Yeah. As he came into prominence and you know, became the the individual he was somewhere along the line, he had this great Mike Tyson line and it was just so much him, because I don't think it was ever intended to be this brilliant wisdom was just him talking smack. And what he said in an interview one day was, "Hey, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
KC Dempster 5:33
Wow. I you know, I've heard that before. And I absolutely love it because it is 100% true.
Kevin Davis 5:40
Yeah. And and, you know, I just laugh now because it was born out of just cocky self assuredness about how true that was in the boxing ring. Yeah, no matter how much these guys were preparing, he'd walk out there, and he just punched him in the mouth. How's that working for you, buddy? Yeah. But, you know, I got thinking about all of this recently, because that's what that's kind of what COVID did to all of us. It really didn't matter what your plan was business or personal or family. We all got punched in the mouth last year. And you know, what do you do with that. And so then I got thinking about a another classic from the 80s. I'm clearly a child of the 80s. Heartbreak Ridge, the old Clint Eastwood movie. And you know, so many memorable lines in there, it never got the play that maybe some of his other movies did. But there's a point in there. And it was just one of those throwaway lines almost, that just stuck with me, where I don't know the platoons complaining. And he just kind of looks at them and says, "We're Marines. we improvise, we adapt, we overcome." And off he went. And I thought, what wisdom in that simple little line, because that's really where I think we've all been, is we had to improvise. And we did. And then we had to shift to adapting. And I think a lot of people did, but it's that last step that I think's interesting is, you know, the shift from adapting to overcoming, which is acknowledging that it's changed. You've got to change as well, if you want to move on, you can't just sort of live in that spot. And I guess I view adapting, it's like, treading water in a river. It it doesn't work, you're going off or you're going down the river, you're not staying static. And so that's just kind of where I think we've all been as how many of us have found a way to say, we've got to get back to living and running businesses and running lives and having families. How do you do that? What's that look like? So that was kind of the impetus of all of that.
Ray Loewe 8:02
Well, you know, I think there are a couple things are really important that just came out of this. We need to have plans. But I think you quoted on your The last time I saw a quote from one of our presidents. Yeah. Why don't you get that in here right now? It's perfect.
Kevin Davis 8:23
Sure. So it was Dwight D. Eisenhower, and I had a little fun with it. I said, he tweeted that, and I was thrilled, because actually a few people said Twitter wasn't around back then. I was glad they were paying attention
KC Dempster 8:36
I thought the same thing, but I didn't have anybody to say it to.
Kevin Davis 8:42
So what he said, and this is fascinating, because there's a speech he gave, I think it was 1967 to a whole group of learned individuals around the military preparedness of the country. And he said plans are they're worthless, but planning is everything. And I read that and I actually read the whole speech because I wanted the context, I went back and found it. And what was really intriguing is, you know, he made the point is that, you know, we have these plans. And the problem with having plans for emergencies is precisely that you don't know what the emergency is until it shows up.
KC Dempster 9:22
Right? You're until you get punched in the face.
Kevin Davis 9:25
Yeah. And so I'm like, wow, maybe mike tyson had been studying. Maybe not, maybe not. But he's, I thought about that a lot. Because he said, you know, planning is what's critical because it builds this, this muscle this ability to stop and quickly think about what's going on around you and assess and make some decisions and then decide how you're going to go forward. And, you know, Ray, obviously, we you know, that we've had lots of conversations about planning. You know, whether it's A lot of times it used to be planning financially having a financial plan in place. And what's the purpose of that to let you kind of live life the way you like to enjoy it, but that presupposes you have a plan of what that look like. And so this whole idea of planning, I think, is really key. because it uses muscles and builds that strength so that when you really need it, you can do it. Well not just sort of sit there. But But here, here's the fun part. And you've got plenty of experience with this. In your experience, Ray, how often do you see people actually take the time to sit down and very thoughtfully, plan? What have you seen over the years?
Ray Loewe 10:46
Well we did a conference not too long ago as a virtual conference, because we weren't compliance. Okay. And we, we did a little planning questionnaire. And it amazed me out of the group, almost nobody planned quarterly. A couple people said, Well, I kind of look at things once a year. And a large percentage of them said never.
Kevin Davis 11:14
Yeah. That's, think about that. You know, that that's the equivalent of, and you'll laugh because this is your background. I know, you've been swimming for years. And, you know, my, one of my daughters is a competitive swimmer in college. And so I've been in the pool over the years a little bit. That's the equivalent of saying, I'm going to go swim a mile in the pool today. Excellent. How much have you been swimming lately? Oh, boy, I was in the pool six months ago and I did five laps...I hope lifeguards are strong and notfeeling sick today, you know?
Ray Loewe 11:52
Yeah, you know, and, and part of the problem here is if you don't take the time to think about where you're going, the odds are, you're not going to get there. And and even if you start moving forward, you know, you're not prepared for these contingencies, like COVID. And, you know, we all found our plans were just kind of beat up. But those people have planned to have a real edge, I think and go from there.
Kevin Davis 12:18
Yeah,
Ray Loewe 12:18
you know, there's a couple other things that you talked about recently. You, you talked a little bit about the S curve.
Kevin Davis 12:27
Yeah.
Ray Loewe 12:28
So fill us in on that
Kevin Davis 12:29
. So that we call it the business S curve, because that's the context it's usually talked about. But when you really look at it, it applies to everything in life. So if you think of these sort of three stages, you know, in the life of a business, or relationship, or what have you that that first stage, the formative stage, you're looking for a pattern of success. You know, it's interesting, it's exciting, if it's in business, nobody's making any money. But if it works, you kind of shift into the next stage, the normative stage. And this again, in the business context is where things are going smoothly, they're growing, you know, you scale and staff up, if it's in a relationship you've got out of that early stage of is this going to survive, and now you're in hey thi, this is great. But invariably, there's a spot where you hit a wall, and things start to change. Most people miss that. And and they keep doing what they've always done. And you know, what that will lead to is just in time, you just kind of you miss it. And you know, as I like to say you ride that wave right down into the ground. On the other side, again, what great leaders do and what thoughtful people do is they identify something changed here, we've got to retool, we've got to really rethink how we do things. Look for the the best of what was working and and figure out what do we keep? What do we add things like that? When done, right, that sort of launches you to the next level. Now, that's all in a business context. But you know, we've got to think of it in a life context as well, because here's what I find is interesting. Normally, that's an organic process. Every company goes through it in their own timeframe, every relationship goes through it in their own timeframe. But something crazy, I'd say unprecedented, even though that words been overused happened last year with with COVID. And the way we literally shut the world down. Every company and every person out there got thrown into this, this bubble of chaos. That's what's around the wall. Same time. Yeah. And I've never seen that happen before. And now here's, I guess the beauty of understanding that the hardest part of that process where you kind of retool is having to admit and determine that Oh, something really radical changed. We got to do something different. Right. And there's, there's usually a lot of all now not us, right? Well, guess what? Yeah, all of us. You can't deny it. None of us can
KC Dempster 13:33
Right. We'll look at how many of us thought that the shutdown was only going to last two weeks.
Kevin Davis 15:08
just unbelievable. So the good news is we're all there. So that allows us, I think, some great freedom to say Oh, given that, then what? How do we go forward and start to retool? Now, I'll throw this out. And we had talked a bit about this Ray, one of the things that concerns me is not only do I not see enough people planning because I think there's sort of living in this perpetual holding pattern bubble, a things bubble. Yeah, they're just kind of enjoying being in the bubble of chaos. I see a whole lot of people living in fear. Yeah. And and that just worries me long term because nothing, nothing productive. nothing good ever comes out of living in fear. And I'll give you a wonderful story. And I don't know if I ever even shared this one with you. You know, my grandma was an amazing woman. She She left us about a little over 10 years ago. She grew up in Rhodesia, which doesn't exist right now. Zimbabwe. She she was in World War Two in North Africa. As a nurse, she then was married living on a farm out in the wilderness of Rhodesia, or you know, literally Gran's packing heat, because there's lions and leopards and legitimate animals that will kill you.
KC Dempster 16:31
She sounds like an amazing woman.
Kevin Davis 16:33
And Ray, you know, because I know you've been there, I have a picture of a leopard that you took of the house here. You know, she she lives through a communist revolution that led to a 40 year dictatorship under Robert Mugabe, she moved to two other countries. So she lives in three countries in her life. We're visiting her in New Zealand and there are these geothermal pools by this lake. And we're all going to go sit in these hot tubs that they have all naturally heated. And in the first trip My dad is like, No, you can't Mom, it's it's too dangerous because your heart because the water is hot. Right? I could tell you she was ticked. So we're going back a couple years later, and I just kind of, you know, being the son who likes to poke the bear, a bit I'm like, Dad, what are you gonna do this time? When grant says she wants to go cuz you know, she's gonna say, well, we, my mom calls our family doctor. Doctor, down here in Georgia lays the whole thing out, right? Because she figures she's going to shut her son up by having the doctor backing them up. Right? And here's what the doctor says. And he knew Gran he had met her before knew the whole history. He goes, wait a minute, wait a minute. She's 89. She's survived wars, multiple countries, all this stuff. And you think her going in some hot water is bad idea. Let her make the decision when the worst thing that could happen. And my dad's like, well, she could have a heart attack and die. And he goes, Yeah, doing something on her bucket list that she's been thinking about for years. With the people she loves the most. What's wrong with that?
KC Dempster 18:12
Right and who hasn't taken a hot bath?
Kevin Davis 18:16
What I thought to myself, wow, this woman was fearless in the face of all kinds of legitimate danger.
KC Dempster 18:24
Right, right.
Ray Loewe 18:25
Hey I'm used to this. I'm in hot water all the time. All right, we need to move on a little bit, because our time is getting short. And you have we have pearls of wisdom here. So talk to us a little bit about toddlers learning to walk.
Kevin Davis 18:43
So this is one of those crazy things that struck me as I was looking at some pictures of my kids. And I guess that meant I was getting old and feeling nostalgic, you know, back when they were young. And it's amazing, because you watch a kid learning to walk and what do they do? They they try to stand up, they pull themselves up, they're super shaky, they fall down, you know, they fall forwards, backwards, they bump all kinds of things. We never yell at them and tell them they're stupid and they failed. We always encourage them and say you're doing great. And what do they do? Well, they learn something from what just happened. They kind of figure out a different way to stand up. They wobble and shake, they adjust their balance a little bit. And they take a step. Now usually they fall over but they get up and they do it over and over and over again. And it occurred to me what changed because what that would be if you took away the fact that was a toddler learning to walk and you said it was a person trying to figure out how to do something. Most of the time we would say boy, they stink at that. They can't stand up they fall over off you're train wreck. But we don't write because what they do is they are I used to say failing fast and I've changed it because I thought that puts too many people in the wrong mind. set their learning at an amazing speed. They're improvise adapt overcome savants, right? Yep. They just they're processing, learning, adjusting tweaking, about the only adult I can think of that I would say was a genius at being a toddler in real life was Thomas Edison. You know, because he didn't think of doing it the wrong way as failing. He just wrote that down as, okay. A plus B doesn't equal C, let's see which one does, right. And kept moving. And so I feel like we're sort of in that mode right now of the faster we can do things learn from them. not worry about, Oh, I didn't get the outcome I expected. What was what was good in there? What maybe wasn't what you're looking for. Okay. Well adapt.
KC Dempster 20:49
Exactly differently.
Kevin Davis 20:53
You know, so that that's, that's something I've been talking to my my kids about, and just a lot of people in business about as well right now.
Ray Loewe 20:59
Yeah. And and you had, you know, again, it's, it's part of a process and, and a couple of things that you mentioned in your process, as you look at what's different, what's right, and what's missing. So take a moment and comment on that before we get into the final crescendo here.
Kevin Davis 21:17
Sure. So those were three questions. a dear friend of mine, Joe Colavito, shared with me years ago, and they always struck me as being great questions. And you know, Ray, we I know you and I have talked over the years about what a gift a good question can be. Because it can really give us some clarity if we ask it and think about it. And so you know, you start with the What's different? Well, here's the good news. That's not a hard one to answer right now. Normally, that's pulling teeth, because you know, you're trying to get someone to admit they're in the bubble of chaos. And "no everything's fine." Well, yeah, everything's different. And so I love that we get some simple, quick clarity on that. as to what's right, I think is really important. We tend to go to the things that are wrong so quickly. Okay, who cares about the wrong things? What are the right things? Let's, let's take those and let's build on those. And I think that that's whether it's in business or relationships, or how we, how we interact with our family and friends right now, I think that stuff's really important to hone in on what's right. And Ray, we can do another five podcasts talking about the education system, I know we have a passion.
KC Dempster 22:34
Let's not open that can of worms today.
Kevin Davis 22:37
We won't deal with that one today. But but then what's missing? Okay, so if we say here that here's what's different here, the right things, here are some of the things that are missing. I think that gives us kind of a really reasonable look at the playing field. But then what do you do with that? And and, you know, I just was with an organization just this last week, we took an organization through this exact process where we asked those questions, then based on those answers, what you do and this I stole unashamedly from the the best selling book, Blue Ocean Strategy, you remember from back in '04? I do? I do. Yeah. And they had this, this wonderful little diagram. And and, you know, it was a big, thick, complicated book, and I'm, you know, what can I say, I'm a guy who likes barbecue. So pictures resonate with me. And I don't know if I can tell you much about the book, because I read it, you know, 14-15 years ago, but I remember the diagram, they had this simple four quadrant diagram that they used as a process where you start on the bottom left, and you ask yourself, you know, given what we just learned, by asking those other three questions, what do we need to do less of what do we reduce in life? Then your upper left quadrant is what do we eliminate? What do we just need to stop doing altogether? Your upper right quadrant is what do we need to increase or do more of? And then your lower right, the fourth one is what do we need to create that doesn't exist. And it's an ad some fascinating case studies in there. But I'm really encouraged. Now, that's quick to describe, right? We spent a whole day looking at this with this organization, and there'll be a lot of good follow up discussions that come out of it. But if you really stop and take the time to first ask those three questions, to sort of see what the landscape looks like, and then to kind of work through a process, looking at you know, what do we need to do less of what do we need to eliminate? What do we need to increase? What do we need to create? It is fascinating what you're going to come up with. It'll, you know, for some people it'll be revolutionary, it could really change the way they're approaching life.
Ray Loewe 24:52
And it's a plan. Yeah. In a bubble of chaos, You know, I think the wisdom that you shared with us today is magnificent. And KC will put on our Rob podcast notes how to reach you and where you're at so that people can find you and, and follow some of these things because it just shows how great a coach you are to both people and financial advisors and business people And uh. Kevin, you're, there's no question. You're one of the luckiest people in the world, the luckiest people in the world design their own lives, and then live them the way they want to under their own terms. And you've done just that, ever since I've known you. And, and it's a shame, we didn't get a chance to talk more about pit barbecue. I remember you dropping off at the office one day, you know, meat for lunch, and it was just incredible. So so you know, here's a guy who, who has great creativity, the luckiest guy in the world. Remember, he created that he's a brand master. Second of all, you've seen some of the coaching wisdom that that he shared with us today. And and finally top that off with. He's gonna do this. While he's roasting meat. What?
Kevin Davis 26:23
I'll leave you with a couple of thoughts. Keep watching the stuff I'm putting up on LinkedIn, because I think in two videos, I'm going to find a way how to tie in barbecue. And I'll give you a link to a YouTube video that I shot of me telling you how to how to cook the best ribs you've ever had. And, and there might be one about Turkey that I just saw that we just finished last night.
KC Dempster 26:48
Oh, okay.
Ray Loewe 26:50
Well, you know, Kevin, go ahead finish up.
Kevin Davis 26:53
I was gonna say I've sort of I'd love to end with this, this thought, because we've talked about some things that I hope encourage people, I hope they challenge people. But you know, as you said, it's not the hearing, it's the doing it right? You have a plan, you got to go do something with it. You know, that age old saying you can lead a horse to water? Well, how's it end?
KC Dempster 27:13
But you can't make them drink?
Kevin Davis 27:16
Yeah. So remember, my parents are educators. And they started a STEM Academy 25 years ago. And so my dad posted something last week out on social media that blew me away. And yeah, I mean, when it's your parents, you're allowed to be skeptical because you know, all the stories. And he said, you know, puts it up there, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. And then it goes dot, dot, dot, unless you make sure they're really thirsty by feeding them salt first. And I thought, what a great perspective, talk about changing the rules. Why can't you make them drink, it just means you left a piece of equation out. And so I hope today, maybe what we did is we gave people some salt and made them a little thirsty.
KC Dempster 28:02
I think you did.
Ray Loewe 28:03
Yeah, I think you did too. And you know, thank you for being with us. Thank you for being a longtime friend and mentor. And thank you for joining us as one of the luckiest people in the world. And there's more to follow. So have a great day. And thanks again for being with us.
Kevin Davis 28:20
Well, I appreciate it. It's been an honor. Great chatting with you guys.
KC Dempster 28:24
and tune in everybody next week when we will be talking with one of our good friends from the Chicago land. And with more, more, more ways to help people be the luckiest people in the world
Ray Loewe 28:37
and get out of the bubble of chaos or what a great line. Yeah.
KC Dempster 28:42
Thanks again.
Thank you for listening to Changing the Rules a podcast designed to help you live your life the way you want and give you what you need to make it happen. Join us next week for our next exciting topic on Changing the Rules with KC Dempster and Ray Loewe, the luckiest guy in the world.