Ep609: Dave Clare – Don’t Buy Stuff to Band-aid Your Unhappiness

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello, fellow risk takers and welcome to My Worst Investment Ever, stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community, we know that to win in investing, you must take risks but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. And that mission has led me to create the Become a Better Investor Community. In the community, you get access to the tools you need to create, grow and protect your wealth. Go to MyWorstInvestmentEver.com, right now, to claim your spot. And fellow risk-takers, this is your worst podcast host, Andrew Stotz, from A. Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guest, Dave Clare, Dave, are you ready to join the mission?

Dave Clare 00:47
I am ready to join the mission. I thought it was already part of the mission. Sorry. Let's go.

Andrew Stotz 00:53
Let's do it. You are ready. You've got your mission. And we're going to learn more about that. So let me introduce you to the audience. Dave, let's start off with this. Purpose, leadership, and simplicity are the keys to success in shaping your business evolution for well over two decades. Dave Clare has been a practitioner that has led multiple businesses in and through commercially and organizationally challenging times, bringing care, compassion, and urgency to his process. Dave's legacy in the making is one of achievement, fulfillment, and joy in the workspace. And, Dave, take a minute and tell us about the unique value that you bring to this wonderful world.

Dave Clare 01:41
Awesome. Thank you, Andrew. So yeah, so many years ago, I started an organization called circle leadership, which was to help create this shift in leadership from an ecosystem of leadership to an ecosystem of leadership in organizations, where we can actually care about the people in our organizations as humans first employees second. And that way, we can get rid of all this top down concept of leadership and create an all around sense of leadership in the organization. So that people actually have more meaningful lives meaning and work being a key component of that, we could create more meaningful work for people. And where people could bring their best self to work and become even better because of the work that they're doing in the world. Right of that, and the whole premise of why circle leadership exists then is to help leaders to evolve themselves and their businesses to stay relevant. Because we saw too many people growing out of business. Too many businesses, people were being more for more. And then also when the market shift or changed, or something like what happened in the world in the last couple of years comes along and wiped out a lot of people as businesses and livelihoods. And we want to stop that from happening.

Andrew Stotz 02:47
And how would you describe the problem that, let's say a business leader is facing that would cause them to search out and find your business?

Dave Clare 02:58
Yeah, the simple thing is, is if their businesses plateauing, they're working longer and harder than they ever have just to keep it plateauing. They know they have really great people, they know, they care about their people, but they just don't seem to be able to get the momentum or movement happening that they need to have happen. And it's just taking more energy and time and possibly money just to keep it where it is. You know, you know, we work with successful people, they just know that they need to they just don't know maybe not know how to do it,

Andrew Stotz 03:27
guys. And finally, just for the listeners who are interested in what you're talking about, what's the best place for them to go to follow you to see more about what you're doing or learn more about your business?

Dave Clare 03:40
If you want to follow me more, you can just go to DaveClare.com D a v e C l a r e .com. Or our company's circle leadership global.com

Andrew Stotz 03:51
Got it. All right.

Dave Clare 03:53
Don't take too long.

Andrew Stotz 03:54
Yes. All right. I'll have links to that in the show notes. Anyways, so now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one goes into their worst investment thinking and will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it then tell us your story.

Dave Clare 04:07
Yeah, absolutely. I'm trying to post the timeline in my head, like when it would end in around 1999 or 2000. I was back in Canada. I live in Australia. Now. I was a Canadian. I was back in Canada in a place called Barrie, Ontario and I was a licensee of a large international the world's largest personal and organizational development company at the time. And I just come off a very successful year and I thought this is great. And I want to do you know really embed myself in the community and things like that and so I thought all along we've got my house which we've invested in and then if at all you know take the leverage the equity in that and I'm gonna buy a building and I'm going to set this new Center for Leadership Excellence in the community and the V this group and replace where leaders can come in and, you know, get away from it and, you know, sit them and had like a library or have boardrooms, it was kind of like this really cool concept I thought at the time. And it would make us stand out and like, well look at look at Dave and his company at the time, which was named 1877 1877 leading. And that was because our one 800 phone number was 1877. And then all the letters of the numeral numerical matching of the word leading so it made it sound like we've been around, you know, 1877 leading, it's our name, it's our number was the kind of the catchphrase at the time. And this was a community of like, 120,000 people. And I'd worked really hard to position myself into the, you know, the, the business community in that space. And so then I've found this really old building, and then we've, you know, like all do that. And then we bought this whole building and then had to renovate the whole thing and had old knob and tube wirings and lath and plaster walls. And it was it was like with the sixth house ever built in the community in which I lived in so the house was over 150 years old, back in 2000. And I thought, oh, yeah, I'm gonna make this place and everyone's gonna want to come here and just be amazing. And then we're doing that then. Then I thought, You know what, I'm gonna buy a bunch of GM some really nice cars and invested in cars and stuff that the teams and we kept renovating the building, buying new furniture, and we just kept spending, spending, spending spending, in a business that at the time really wasn't one that was just a cash flow business. So you lived and died by the sale of the programs, if I wasn't selling programs, I wasn't making money. There was no, like recurring revenue model, there was no I wasn't really building equity. Because even if I sold the business, it was based on me. So there was no, so all I was doing was increasing expenses. And that to create this place, and then the price of cars and insurances in Canada was not very cheap. I assure you, even though people may seem to think that North American prices are a lot less than other places, but I'll tell you what our insurance was the same price as, as the actual loan repayments on the vehicles. So yeah, so I just kept spending money on that stuff. And just wanted to really was looking really good, I want everything to look really good. And I wanted to look really good. And then you know, like I was resting on my laurels, like how great I was, and where I was positioned at the time. And I was like a big fish in a little pond. And that was a realization later, but I felt like it was just one of the big fish now. And I look at all my clients. And these are very, extremely successful people with, you know, companies that were the front of their house, there had Mercedes, and BMWs, all parked in front of these big organizations of 500 employees, they all lived in big houses. And you know, those are the people that I serve. So I said, well, I need to look like those people, I need to I need to have a big fancy cars and my own house, my own office building on my own. So I invested in all that stuff.

Andrew Stotz 08:05
And it's out of the candidate, like when was the day that you thought to yourself, This is all falling in or what happened to kind of bring this to an end for that particular chapter in your life?

Dave Clare 08:21
Well, one of the key reasons was divorce. So my then wife and I and mother of my kids, she chose to leave us which was I thank her for every day and not in a bad way because I wouldn't have the life I have now if she hadn't because I would never have left. And it was definitely not her. No, it takes two to tango, our relationship where it was at. But the but that and then right on the right at the cusp of the global financial crisis at the same time, so it only go through divorce. So my team could see the tension in the team because my wife worked in the business. Then teams started disappearing a little bit and then the global financial crisis came along and I was upside down on the house and upside down on the business and lost 70% of my client base. At the same time, because of we had we were heavily invested in a lot of our clients were in tier one automotive and at the time in southern Ontario, when the global financial crisis started happening, Obama reached into southern Ontario and pulled a lot of the automotive plants and put them back into America. And a lot of our clients then their businesses were decimated, therefore my business was decimated.

Andrew Stotz 09:29
And can you remember a specific day that was like the worst day when it was all kind of crashing in on you?

Dave Clare 09:36
I couldn't remember the specific date but I do remember falling in a like a lucky like, you know what am I dumb like? Here I'm supposed to be the success leadership person and everything like that in business. And it was probably one of the most what I felt at the time was the most embarrassing moment of my life. See there after the wife had left, and then you know, I'm upside down on that, I'm looking at stuff I have to sell things ahead is probably the most embarrassing moments when I had to sit down in front of a what they call them now, but prison helps you consolidate your debts, pollination services, just to look at how I could even survive and feed I still had my two kids to take care of. And, yeah, and, you know, accommodation wise, and everything like that, and I just really had virtually lost everything.

Andrew Stotz 10:30
Wow. And I know, you know, part of this show is about the authenticity of sharing those moments, which you share them very well. And I think for the listeners out there, you know, you may find yourself trapped in a situation that you got yourself into, as I often say, when I talk to young people is that you will be the source of almost all of your problems. And if you can figure out how to not be the source of your problems, you will be better than most people as far as getting through life in a better way. But so tell us what, how would you describe the lessons that you learned from this?

Dave Clare 11:10
Well, there's several, there's so many lessons I learned from this one, obviously. I can I can explain why I gotta understand the lesson better? Yep. Yeah. I was actually miserable. I was unhappy, in my relationship. And once again, so that was, that was on me, I was conditioned to believe that marriage was forever and everything like that. And so

Andrew Stotz 11:35
when you say that you're talking about in the lead up to this, it's not just that moment, right? Okay.

Dave Clare 11:40
This is how it all pumped to the stage where I had all these things. Because when, when this was said, My, my, my worst investment ever was in my ego. Because I was unhappy. So I was interesting in things that I thought would make me happy on the outside, but couldn't be happy on the inside, and then damn it, I'm gonna find a way to be happy on the outside. Right. And that was, I guess, for me was like, This is how I got in this space, I was so unhappy that I needed to buy things to make me happy to get that dopamine to talk about today. Is this why I want to buy myself a nice car, if I'm going to be miserable in my life feel I am as a person in my relationship and everything like that, well Dammit, I'm gonna have a nice car, then I'll have, I'll have a nice office building, and I'll do all these things. And then that's why I kept spending because I was actually trying to buy happiness rather than happiness within me. And so I was my ego was hurt. And therefore my ego needed healing. And the way to heal the ego was to buy stuff. So so like, when the ego jumped in, where am I more so like, My soul was actually one of those hurting if I really wasn't like was my soul was hurting, like, you know? And then my ego said, No, we're talking about this, I'll buy you a bunch of stuff and make you feel good about yourself. And so that's where I bought all that stuff. Because I was unhappy. Inside I was unhappy. So on the outside, I look happy. But on the inside, I was unhappy. And what bought all these things. And without it, you know, it's funny, like I go back and read like, did I know that at the time? Did I actually deep down know what I was actually doing? But I did it anyway. Like, I don't I don't know if I can answer that question yet.

Andrew Stotz 13:16
Or Absolutely, just go just go rushing through life lap, particularly when you're young, like you just do it.

Dave Clare 13:24
Yeah, because I was wouldn't at that stage, I would have been about 30 to 99 at 3333 or 3435, when I started to realize that, you know, started to buy all this stuff. And then by 2000 and 789 Yeah, then that's when the thing had already gone through the divorce by then I'd met a new lady in my life in 2007, we got married, and then then I had the responsibility of taking care of like her and, and her son was and my son who's born into my life, and yet I was still upside down on all this stuff. And I was, you know, it was it was amazing. So for me, it was all the unhappiness that I'd had that I've bought stuff to make myself feel better. And so my advice to anybody when you're looking at things saying Is it is it your Are you trying to make yourself feel happy instead of actually buying something because you know, this is like people go by so it's nice dopamine hits like, Oh, I got this. But that is not the answer. I need to do some more deeper soul work on myself. An order that rather than just trying to buy stuff and bandaid my unhappiness, if you will,

Andrew Stotz 14:37
what, just out of curiosity, because I faced when I was young, I faced a time where you know, everything was collapsing in on me and I was dealing with addiction and all that. Yeah. And I got in rehab and treatment and that luckily saved me and has kept me sober for 40 years now. And so it's where are often at work to bring me serenity. What was it? You know, obviously, you know, you talked about your, your, your new wife that you got, which sounds like was a person that brought a lot of value to you? What were some of the other things that you went through at that time that started waking you up? Besides obviously, the smack in the face is the first thing. You know, that brings us on our knees to then be open for help. What was the help that you got?

Dave Clare 15:26
Yeah, great question. Yeah, so certainly finding someone, a partner in life who loved me for who I was. And it takes I'm pleased this not to take anything away from my ex wife, just a wonderful human being. And I wouldn't be where I am today without would have the two beautiful kids that I have today without her. But yeah, finding that person who believed in me as a person, and loved before, like she, she came into my life at my lowest. So like the fact that she's still here today, that she came into my life at my lowest I had a, you know, a six and a nine year old kids who are amazing human beings today. And she accepted me that so I figured, well, if you can love me now with where I'm at, like, this is gonna be awesome. But the best thing was, was actually an unlimited one lessons, I learned about authenticity and being vulnerable, that it's all bandied around today, as the latest, we'll call his trend and leadership, but is, when you get real, real with yourself first, and you're willing to be vulnerable with others, I sat down with a whole bunch of clients and just talk to them about what was happening and what went on, and the support that I got, and the care that was shown by these amazing human beings around me, and it's quite funny how some people that you wouldn't expect it to step up, stepped up, and other people you thought would step up, step back. And to me, I've really only got to understand who my friends were, who had real relationships with, rallied around to support us through that and have our back through as we were, you know, looking at how we can rebuild our lives and, and move forward. So it's really, really important once given great lessons, look at your network, you know, I always read in the books of the good was always say, you know, show me, the 10 people you hang around with, and I'll show you. And it was interesting to see the people that I was hanging around with those who stepped forward and those who stepped back. And that really helped me to understand, like having that really powerful support network was critical. And then obviously, the right financial advice and getting some advice for some people about how best to handle it. I wanted to take responsibility for where I was. And it took me a long time to recover from that. I'm sure a lie. But you know what, slowly but surely bounce back and rebuild

Andrew Stotz 17:43
it, which is a great lesson for the listeners, no matter how far down you go. You can turn around and think that that's maybe I'll share a few takeaways from mine. That's the first one. The second one is whenever you start or growing any business, I always like to think bare bones, keep the absolute minimum on costs, and drive revenue to be way in excessive costs. So that's the first thing that that I think about the other one, I I have a counselor when I was in treatment many years ago that said to me, never compare your insides to other people's outsides.

Dave Clare 18:26
Oh, beautiful. Yeah.

Andrew Stotz 18:29
I really started recognizing that. We're all messed up inside. And there's nobody is exempt. No. And a great example is you know, Robin Williams taking his life despite the fact that he has everything and everything at his disposal to have an amazing life. And yet he took his life. So never compare your insides to other people's outsides. And I'd say that's probably my two lessons. One is a business one, bare bones when you're starting off, particularly, you know, well, maybe all of your business career barebones to a certain extent and keep that revenue significantly above the costs. And then never compare your insides to other people's outsides. Is there anything you'd add to that?

Dave Clare 19:19
Absolutely. And you lose weight, get back to the some of the lessons that I've certainly learned once. And I remember, Jeff Bezos talked a lot about this. And you look at the early pictures of Amazon, and they have like, doors and desks and stuff like that, you know? And he said, Well, if it doesn't add value to our clients, or help us improve the service to our clients, then it's, you know, why would we spend money on it? Right? And so, whereas I was spending money to make myself feel good and to look good and stuff, and I wrote down in my notes, like, I only invest in stuff that adds value to our clients now, if it doesn't have it, what's going on? Please understand, like, Why care deeply about the humans in our team and make sure that they have all that they're comfortable. And they're they're, you know, have all the tools necessary to perform their work and their duties at the highest level. And you know that they're achieving their own goals and stuff like that, because we care for them as human beings, they can. But the thing is, if we're investing in it, it's got to add value to it. And from a business point of view, if that's value to our clients, awesome, is, you know, how do we get more to our clients without charging them anymore, and then still find a way for us to make more on the bottom line of our business. So it's kind of like, that's, that's the philosophy. So that's, you know, that whole revenue above expenses. Then now, I also work purely on ratios, like so that, it's if you from a business point of view, we must be excited. So scaling your business or whatever, if you're growing your business, you're going to want to achieve more than you might need to add more to achieve more. So if you know you can go from $10 million to $20 million. And you were making a million when you were doing 10. Now you make 1.2. When you're doing 20 million, well, you're actually making less, right, but you've added 10, you've doubled the risk of your organization while you're doing it, right? And because you've had to add more to make more rather than saying, What if you could achieve more with equal to or less than? Right? So if you can still generate, you know, $15 million in revenue, but then make a $1.8 million on the bottom line? You know what I mean? Like, so how do you look at it from that perspective? So what to me, I look at the ratios, how do I maintain my cost to income ratio? Or whatever? Or how do I, rather than just looking at the net profit anymore, and then looking at the gross profit margin? So if we want to do this, here's how much we're willing to spend? How can we achieve more and serve, like give more to our clients, and help them achieve more without spending more to do it? You know, because that because like, say, We, the people, I've asked, one of my clients asked me once, are you ever gonna have an office building? And I'm like, No, not likely. Especially in today's world, I'm here in my home studio, I have this amazing studio that's set up like channel seven, or whatever, any rate any TV station, because our clients around the world we serve, deserve to have the highest level experience they can without me physically being there. Yeah. And so I invested in that so that their clients would have a better experience. But then I'd rather do that than spend money on an office building.

Andrew Stotz 22:13
And next time somebody asks you that question, you say, let me introduce you to Andrew Stotz, and episode number XYZ, and listen up, and you'll know exactly why we're talking over zoom, or we're meeting in a leased office space for a period of time that I'm doing some event or whatever. So, alright, so based on what you learned from this story, and what you continue to learn what action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Dave Clare 22:42
For me, the simplest thing, and this may sound either corny, or cliche, or whatever the best investment that I've ever made since then, is investing in myself. And that's what I got. For me, I started like, what was the best investment that I ever made? And it was the one when I started really investing heavily in myself in terms of who I was, as a person, you know, and I invest heavily I just did a live stream this morning about reading, and how do I raise content and context for myself, and that, because I know if I'm happy on the inside, I don't have to try and force happiness on the outside. And I don't have to make poor decisions on the outside that window, you want to get the inside, right? Because how many people do you know who are you know, gazillionaires were totally miserable in their lives. And if I've learned anything over this time, the times I've been really high and really low is that I'm happiest when I'm happy on the inside, not happy on the outside. And I'm also a better business person, a better husband, a better father, I'm a better everything good to me, the most successful people in the world are the ones who understand that it's not just success is not just a business thing. It's like who you are as a person. And I'm so proud of the dad that I am today, the husband I am today, the business person, the business partner, you name it, because on the inside.

Andrew Stotz 24:00
Fantastic. And what is a resource that you'd recommend for our listeners?

Dave Clare 24:07
Well, one thing with my, one of our core values, it's certain leadership is wisdom, which is learned from experience, right? So that's why we're practitioners of everything. So having been up and down, lost everything, gained everything back, lost it again, gained it all again. And then, finally, in the last five or six years, developed a system or process with our clients the way that we serve the world and take care of ourselves. What I always offer to people, happy to do this to anyone who's on the show and reserved for like a 30 minute free whiteboard session. Online. I can like put it right up on the screen from the coolness of my studio here. No obligation, no expectation. You want to just sit down talk about your yourself. Your leadership as an individual. I mean on leadership starts with self leadership. And we're business wise, we're lucky to have a free whiteboard session with them so they can just go to my website, Dave claire.com The backslash contact and then there's a Contact page there and you say free whiteboard session. And they can just comment that they saw they listened to us on your show. And all I have for those every week that I allow for, so you want to get them on and they do get taken up. So

Andrew Stotz 25:16
okay, great. And I'll have a link to that in the shownotes. Ladies and gentlemen take Dave up on it sounds like a great opportunity. Last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Dave Clare 25:28
My number one goal for the next 12 months. My number one goal, I haven't looked yet which I think it shouldn't be my personal goal. Certainly number one personal goal for the next 12 months is to free myself up from the responsibilities I have in our business. So I can focus more out of our business. Exciting. Yeah, they can do we will work in an on their business, we help pull them out of business. So I need to be like the astronaut. When astronaut goes into space and they look back at the earth when they come back down to earth, they have a whole totally different perspective. So my role is a leader of our organization, as I call it, the guardian of the philosophies and principles in which it was founded on my role is to be have that astronaut that space of view of of our global organization. So my goal the next 12 months is to, you know, evolve our team in a place where I'm freed up to be able to do that.

Andrew Stotz 26:21
Your goal is to keep flying into space further away, but with amazing vision.

Dave Clare 26:29
As the as a leader of your organization, it's your job to cast the vision hold division, so others can see. But too many people are afraid to see a big vision because they're uncertain of the future. And then they're missing the point of having a vision so

Andrew Stotz 26:45
well, listeners there you have it another story of laws to keep you winning. If you haven't yet joined the Become a Better Investor Community just go to MyWorstInvestmentEver.com right now to claim your spot. As we conclude, Dave, I want to thank you again, for joining our mission and on behalf of A. Stotz Academy I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Dave Clare 27:13
Don't be afraid to fail.

Andrew Stotz 27:15
Perfect. And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our well fellow risk takers. Let's celebrate that today. We added one more person to our mission. To help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your words podcast hos Andrew Stotz saying, I'll see you on the upside.