Episode 135 – David Hanscom

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David Hanscom 0:00
I fight for people to be able to take four or five hours of their life and forget about everything else. Just be in the presence of the moment that’s happening right now. Be in the presence of an opportunity to just let loose, let your hair down, have some fun, enjoy yourself, whatever issues that are going on in life, they’re still going to be there afterwards, we know that. But in this moment, in this time in this opportunity to celebrate something with either family or co-workers, or whatever the case may be, do that. Just forget everything else. Just do that right in this moment, right in this time.

Richard Matthews 1:29
Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what I can fix that I can help people I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…

Hello and welcome back to the heroes show. My name is Richard Matthews and today I have live on the line David Hanscom. David, are you there?

David Hanscom 2:31
I’m here. How you doing?

Richard Matthews 2:33
Awesome. Glad to have you here, David. So for those of you who’ve been following along with our traveling journeys, we are still in Fort Myers, Florida. And David, you’re also here from Florida said you’re up near Jacksonville area.

David Hanscom 2:43
Yes, sir. I’m in Ponte Vedra, Florida area which is right kind of between Jacksonville and St. Augustine kind of the beach side area.

Richard Matthews 2:51
Right. So that’s like like Daytona is up there too, isn’t it? That’s like where all the fancy spring break stuff happens.

David Hanscom 2:55
Right? We’re about an hour about an hour and 10 minutes north of Daytona.

Richard Matthews 3:01
Awesome. So glad to have you here. So before we get too far into this, this interview, what I want to do is just go through a brief introduction. So our audience who may not know who you are, can get a little bit of an idea. So David is a traveling event, emcee DJ, and wedding and event industry thought leader, and you have been trusted by some of the world’s top client based and become one of the most in demand event DJs across the country over the last 20 years doing everything from corporate events to you know, to big, like industry, music, that kind of stuff. Is that correct?

David Hanscom 3:37
Yeah, absolutely. But you actually made me sound more important than I realized I was. But that’s, that’s, it’s pretty cool to think back on all the things I’ve been blessed to be able to do.

Richard Matthews 3:47
That’s really cool. So to start off with, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you’re known for? What is it you do now? What’s your business? Like? Who do you serve? What do you do for them? Sure. So

David Hanscom 3:57
So it’s kind of a combination of I have a company called Y? entertainment, just like if you were asking the question. And that’s actually a question my parents asked me my whole life when I was younger, why do you want to be part of entertainment, because I did a lot of things that never really made me a lot of money in related to the entertainment world. And so when I started my company, I figured that hopefully my company would be the answer to their question. So I named the company Y? entertainment. And so we have a, we have a handful of DJs, that we vary between eight to 10, DJs, just depending, some of them are college students, and they’re with us for a season and then they move on and things like that. But with Y? entertainment, we service a lot of wedding clients, a lot of corporate clients, private events, sweet 16, parties, things like that. And I do usually, excuse me, I do usually work a lot of those events as well. But then also on the personal side of things, I do a lot of event hosting for corporate events, I do team building, corporate game show stuff, I always say if I came back in another life, I want to come back as a game show host on TV, I just think it’s so much fun to do that requires a lot of spontaneity and everything. So we do that. And then I also am a co host of a podcast and also a live show every Tuesday night, just helping new and kind of beginner people in the wedding and business industry just trying to help them. on the business side of things. I’m always I’ve always said that I really feel like people who are passionate about their craft really know what they’re doing when it comes to their craft. But sometimes the I call it the non sexy part of things, the business side of things, they don’t always invest as much time into those things. And so we try to help them with that help them create a business that hopefully is going to be long standing and sustainable for him.

Richard Matthews 5:43
Yeah, absolutely. That seems like that’s a that’s a really common problem. When you look at, at businesses, particularly small businesses, where it’s, it’s just like one or two or three people, they’re really, really good at the thing that they do, right doctors, you know, lawyers, dentists, DJs, apparently wedding photographers that they have a craft that they’re good at, but then you have all the other things that go into business, like your accounting, and your hiring of staff and, you know, processes and all the things that you know, make a business go around, you have to get good at marketing and sales and all these other other bits and bobs. So I assume you said you’ve been doing this for 20 years, right?

David Hanscom 6:17
Yeah, well, it’s probably been more than 20 years. But I always feel like I’m old when I say any more than that. So it’s probably been more than 20 years, but we’ll go with that. It’s a nice round number.

Richard Matthews 6:28
Nice. So So when when did you sort of realize that that there was more to running a event and DJ style business event, just actually doing the work?

David Hanscom 6:41
You know, interestingly enough, believe it or not really early on, I think I realized early on that I was when you get into DJing, it’s just kind of like you think about it, like there’s no formal education for it. It’s just kind of one of those things you decide to do. And you learn through either working for another company, or, you know, again, when I started, there wasn’t things like the internet to search, and there wasn’t YouTube videos out there to teach you and all of those things. So it was it was. Your podcast didn’t exist, I was a different way, a different way, a different world. And so I just, I just knew that there was two things, I knew that I loved music, and I knew that I loved being a class clown. So I figured this would be a great job for somebody who likes those two things, right? So I really started going out and talking to a lot of people that were already established doing this, and say, Hey, listen, is something I think I really want to do. But I know the basics of the fundamentals of DJing. And the basics and fundamentals of music. What I don’t necessarily know, is the back end, how do I run a business? How do I do you know, how do I create something that sustainable enough for me to actually consider doing this as a career and not just doing it just because it’s fun. And so I think just like I say, early on, I really saw that. And so I started analyzing a lot of businesses, and I started talking to a lot of people that were willing to hire me to subcontract for them. And I would tell them right up front, like, this is something I think I want to do one day for myself. But I also know that I’m not, I’m ignorant in the business side of things. And I don’t want to be I want to learn, I want to understand I want to grow. So it was really something kind of early on. And I’m glad I did, because it’s really helped me be able to make that shift of understanding the importance of teaching new people getting into it, and the next, the next generation of creative people, the value and the importance of that stuff as well.

Richard Matthews 8:38
Yeah, that’s really, really fascinating. It’s also really smart because you said you, you said you started young, like in high school, is that right?

David Hanscom 8:44
Yeah, when I was in high school, so I thought I was gonna play pro baseball. That was my, my goal in life was a play pro. And I say in life, like I was only a high school kid, but but my goal there play pro baseball, but I ended up having reconstructive surgery on both of my ankles before I even graduated out of high school caused me to basically have to learn how to walk three times in my life, every time they did another surgery, I had to learn how to walk again. So I felt like life has just taken me in a different direction. And this is where it ended up taking me I had an opportunity to work. It was one of those situations, my dad was in the military, and I went to a Department of Defense school. And so I had enough credits to graduate. But if I wanted to stick around and try to play sports, I had to go to school half a day and do something like a co op work type thing half a day. And so I chose to work at the radio and television station, and I just kind of fell in love with it from there.

Richard Matthews 9:36
Awesome. So I think that’s a good jumping off point for your origin story for the for the actual business, right? So we say on this show, every good comic book hero has an origin story, it’s the thing that made them into the hero they are today. I want to hear that story. Basically, you know, were you born a hero, were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to get into the radio, television and entertainment business? Or did you actually like, did you have a job anywhere in between those things? And like, basically, how did you how did you become an entrepreneur from just this, you know, the desire as a high school kid to to get into the entertainment business.

David Hanscom 10:06
You know, I think that’s awesome. And probably the origin would would the best analogy would probably be the, the bit by the spider thing, because when I ended up going over to the radio and television station, it was like, it was just on base. Again, my dad was in the military. So it was just on base. And they threw me into the DJ booth. And they said here go, believe it or not, we actually playing records at the time. And they were like, hey, just go play some records. And if you if you want to say something every once in a while in between, you’re welcome to do that. There’s probably only like eight people listening to you. Just be sure you don’t swear. I was like, okay,

Richard Matthews 10:42
that can handle that.

David Hanscom 10:44
That’s not enough. But but so then what happened was I started asking them, like, Can I play music that I that I think people would want to hear? Can I play music that I think seems relatively popular. Now another part of this story is that we were stationed on the island of Bermuda. So it wasn’t like in America, it wasn’t in, you know, mainstream America as you will we were stationed on the island in Bermuda, which is 11 miles long and two miles wide at its widest point, when you think about how small that really is. And the amount of people that were on the island, it was kind of neat to be able to, especially at that age, it was neat to be able to be a voice that people heard. And again, no social media, so I couldn’t post pictures of myself on Instagram. I couldn’t, you know, create a Facebook page that people could follow and things like this during that timeframe. So it was really interesting that I started getting people calling in to the radio station and requesting songs. And I would have people call in and say, Hey, we’re having a little gathering next weekend, could you come out and spend some tunes for us and things like that. So I think that’s really kind of like as the analogy the spider that bit me and just said, Hey, man, like, this is pretty fun. This is pretty exciting. And the real interesting twist of the whole story is that any other time other than what I’m doing, do you know DJing or emceeing an event or whatever it might be, I’m actually a very introverted person. So my natural personality is to very much be an introvert. And so it was, it was a learning curve that I really had to go through. And I think being in radio, where I’m in this box where nobody really sees me, but everybody hears me and I communicated with people but I didn’t see them in front of my face. So That fear of if you’re up in front of an audience, and it’s you hear these stories about when you’re up in front of an audience, and there could be 100 people out there that think you’re the best thing under the sun, and there’s one heckler out there, that’s like picking his nose and you know, you know, flashing stupid signs at you and things like that. And you always hone in on that one guy. And it’s just, I felt like I was that guy. So it’s not the guy doing it, but the guy that honed in on that one guy, and so it really helped me with that. And then and then as I started getting paid to do it, because, I mean, at that point, I wasn’t getting paid. But then as I started getting paid to do it, I was like, wait a minute, there, there could really be something here. And I went to my parents, I said, Hey, I really want to give this thing a shot. Could you guys loan me some money to buy some equipment? And that’s kind of really how it all kicked off.

Richard Matthews 13:12
That’s really awesome. And like, it just struck me to the you said said a minute ago. People are asking you to spin some tunes. And he said he started off with records and like he literally on the old days, you had to spin them. Right. You’re absolutely right. So that’s that’s it’s funny for for just how much it’s changed. But also like just that the story is really interesting that you you started off with a radio show in what you said Bermuda. Yes sir,

David Hanscom 13:37
in Bermuda Yep.

Richard Matthews 13:39
So did you actually increase their listenership by changing changing sort of how it was working?

David Hanscom 13:44
I probably Yeah. I mean, because when I started there, it was really just kind of it was maybe just kind of safe, like traditional, old school style of music at that time frame. And there was just so much, you know, so to put some context to it. This was like in the early 90s. So this is when things like hip hop music really started hitting the airwaves, dance and techno music really started hitting the airwaves. And this was stuff that they had never even played in

Richard Matthews 14:16
Garth Brooks, right?

David Hanscom 14:19
Oh Garth Brooks, yeah, even even so even the country stuff, right. So all of these new genres of music started really hitting the airwaves hard and heavy. And it wasn’t just rock and roll and pop anymore. And so I was just, I was just always so fascinated about all these different types of music. And I said, hey, let’s, let’s get this out here. Let’s, let’s let people hear this. And so, you know, I don’t know if I revolutionized anything. But I do think that I was able to expose the people on that on that base to music that maybe otherwise they wouldn’t even know existed.

Richard Matthews 14:54
Yeah, that’s cool. I always I always, I’m a country music fan, personally, that’s why I brought up Garth Brooks. But yeah, he was like, early 90s. And it was the first time country music actually became popular. Right. And, and it became like, a legitimate genre of music was after him. Sure

David Hanscom 15:11
Yeah, it wasn’t necessarily so 20. And so like, you know, my, my dog ran away with my wife and took a case of beer on the way out the door kind of stuff. Like it was, it was a little bit fun topic. Like, like stories that they were telling in the song. So yeah, absolutely. It really kind of exploded. So you had again, you had all those different genres that were exploding on the scene. And I’m just like, yeah, we need to let people hear this. Like, we need to let people you know, be exposed to this music. So it was fun. It was a cool time to think I was only am I was probably only 17, 18, 17 years old at that time. It’s just yeah,

Richard Matthews 15:47
it’s really cool. And like, if you look back on it, the the 90s is really gonna go down probably in history as a music revolution, because it changed a lot of a lot of music industry change to them. So yeah, and then right at the end of that, like the late 90s, early 2000s, is when it all started shifting digital and changing it really changed the change the music industry completely.

David Hanscom 16:06
Sure.

Richard Matthews 16:07
So well, that’s really it really interesting story, I want to talk a little bit about your superpowers, right. So you know, we say every iconic hero has a superpower, whether it’s a fancy flying suit, made by a genius intellect or the ability to call down Thunder from the sky. In the real world heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with, or developed over time, it really energized all of your other skills, right? It’s the thing that connects everything together for you in the background. And that superpower is what allows you to help other people, right to help them slay their villains and come out on top in their own journeys, right. And so with that sort of framing, what do you think your superpower is in your business?

David Hanscom 16:44
This probably was my most exciting question. You were gonna ask me to be honest with you. Because I was like, when you told me about about kind of how this was going to go. I was like, this is the one right here. And the reason for that is that I did an interview a few years ago for a trade magazine within our industry. And they asked me a very challenging question. They said, define yourself and your style in one word, if you can. And I sat there for a second and the first thing that I thought about was chameleon, that was the word that came to mind chameleon, but I also think that this chameleon mindset is probably a superpower in this context, because I I have just really realized that I’m not in the music business, I’m not in the DJ business, I’m in the people business. And what I provide people is entertainment, through music through my voice through whatever it is that I’m doing. And if I understand that there’s going to be different age groups of people that are at these events, there’s going to be different ethnic backgrounds, there’s going to be different religious backgrounds, there’s going to be different people are going to be in different places that are lives, some people are going to be really happy about what’s going on in their life, some people are going to be there, and they’re like I was forced to be here. So I’m just going to, you know, suffer through this company event thing, if I was able to understand that I, if I find a way to relate to each one of them all at the same time, then I can get their buy in, I can get their trust, I can get their belief in me. And I can get them to understand that, hey, I only have a very, when you think about the grand scheme of life, I only have a very condensed small amount of time that I’m going to be with you. And I want that to be the best time it can possibly be. So let’s figure out a way to make that happen for you. And so for some people, there, you know, there’s always some groups of people, there’s those folks that are very sarcastic and very, they always want to, they always want to Jab, Jab, Jab with their little sayings or little things like that. And and I understood that I can communicate back and forth with those people that same way. And they’re receptive to that. But I can’t do that to this other person on the other side here who is kind of just quietly sitting there, they’re probably very much introvert the way I normally am in my in my normal life. And I and I see that and identify that, and I’m not going to communicate with them the same way that I’m communicating with this other guy who’s constantly trying to just, you know, peck like a little bird, peck, peck, peck, peck peck and try to see if he can knock me off my game. Like, I’m not going to communicate with those two people the same way. But I’m still going to be able to relate to those two people at the exact same time.

Richard Matthews 19:22
Yeah, that’s a it’s a difficult skill to to pick up to, especially if you’re doing this live like onstage in front of an audience. Right? So working with these people and being able to, you know, what is it like chameleon or you know, put in the superhero thing like Mystique be able to change your personality? Like, you know, like that too? Yeah, exactly with the different people. Yep.

David Hanscom 19:44
Yeah. And I try to teach that to other people, the people that work for my company, kind of the second part of your question, like the people that work for my company, I’ve constantly tried to teach them that saying, like, I if one of them right here, they probably sat beat it into their head, but I do it on purpose, because I want them to understand that we are in the people business. The deliverable that we provide them is music and entertainment, but we’re definitely in the people business. And if you can understand that, and you can master that you could go a long ways.

Richard Matthews 20:14
Yeah, just like it strikes me and you say that, like your your deliverable is is music and entertainment, but like the deliverable if Have you seen the greatest showmen? Oh, yeah. And one of the lines he says in there, he’s talking to the what’s the guy’s name, the reviewer guy who’s like reviewing stuff and is always telling me stuff sucks. I can’t remember his name. But anyways, at one point, he’s like, how can you be excited doing all this fake stuff? He was like, the smiles don’t look fake. Yeah. And he like he cuz he understood what he was delivering, right? He’s Delivering Happiness. And it sounds like like, that’s, that’s the business you’re in, you’re in the business of Delivering Happiness. And that, that changes based on you know, the person that’s in the room, you have to do different things to make them have that experience.

David Hanscom 20:57
Sure. And I mean, we’re we’re definitely not doing funeral parties, which I don’t mean that to be disrespectful at all. But I mean, like, most of all of the events that we’re doing are posed to be or supposed to be a happy a celebration, for some reason, whether it’s a wedding celebration, whether it’s a company celebrating having a great year, that year, or a sweet 16, or any of these ideas, you know what I mean, or just a team building function where a company wants to bring their staff together and their employees together and just do something fun and something bonding, to bring them together? Like all of those things are set up and designed to be happy occasions. And yeah, there potentially can be some pain points in them. But when especially when you start thinking about team building, and and those types of exercises, yeah, sometimes there are some pain points that are in there. But working through those pain points together to get to a positive outcome is the whole goal of the thing in the first place. So yeah, I think it’s I think it’s great. And I love that line about the smiles don’t look fake, and I don’t really think that you, I don’t really think that you can you when you can make people smile, that you can make them do anything. Because at that point, I feel like they’ve let their guard down. And they’ve said I feel comfortable with this person. I feel okay with this guy. He’s not here to harm or girl, they’re not here to harm me. And I want to enjoy my time with them. And that’s that’s a really cool switch when you see it flipped.

Richard Matthews 22:21
So just sort of like a you know, another aspect of that that superpower has has that come into your marketing as a differentiator for why someone should hire you guys, or should bring you guys on as opposed to like one of your competitors?

David Hanscom 22:36
I think so, um, because a lot of times, I’ll talk to a client and they’ll they’ll say, for example, they’ll say, Are you just trying to think, thought, man. Are you going to take requests from our guests? There’s a prime example. And I’ll say, would you like us to take requests from your guests? Like, letting them know that I want to do whatever you feel is going to best set up this situation to have a positive outcome. And, and there are a lot of people that do what I do that that really kind of have their set way of doing things. And they the beauty of life is that that’s okay. There’s a clientele out there for people, or for a DJ, for example, that says, here’s what I play. Here’s how I play it. I don’t take requests. I don’t you know, like, this is what I do.

Richard Matthews 23:23
It’s a show. Right?

David Hanscom 23:25
Yeah. And there’s somebody out there for that person. And for me, I would just rather say to the client, tell me your vision of how you want this thing to look and tell me your vision of how you want this thing to happen. I’ll be happy to offer you some tips and suggestions and ideas and maybe some pitfalls that I’ve seen happened based on what you tell me. But at the end of the day, I want this to represent your vision of what you think it should be like, and then I want to work together to figure out how to blow that completely out of the water and exceed those expectations.

Richard Matthews 23:55
Absolutely. Yeah. So the flip side, then of your superpower is your fatal flaw, right. And just like every Superman has his kryptonite, or Wonder Woman has her bracelets of victory that she can’t remove without going mad, you probably have a flaw that’s held you back in your business, something that you’ve struggled with, for me, it’s a couple of things, things like perfectionism I struggled with for a long time that kept me from shipping product. Because you know, I could always tweak it a little bit more fixed a little bit more. And really, it was just fear of actually bringing things to market, or, you know, lack of self care, which mean, I’d let my clients walk over me and not actually have any solid boundaries set up. But I think more important than what the flaw is, is how you’ve worked to rectify it, or get over it, or deal with it in your business so that you can continue to grow and flourish. And hopefully sharing that will help the people listening here learn a little bit from your experience.

David Hanscom 24:44
Sure. So I think there’s probably two things, one of one of them I alluded to earlier, which is the fact that I definitely am an introverted person in my normal life. And so there’s, there’s a lot of times where I do believe that that got in the way of me being able to have opportunities that that I missed early on, because I was like, oh, they’re not gonna think I’m good enough. Or, you know, they’re just all the silly things that you tell yourself. When you’re when you’re an introverted person, I don’t want the spotlight on me, I don’t want everybody to see me. And it was just something that I had to work through and had to get over. And I actually had a mentor that taught me to create this avatar. And at the time, that term wasn’t he didn’t use that term. But I know that’s a term that people are, I think, in the business world are familiar with, now they create this avatar of like this perfect event host is perfect person doing the job that you want to do, like, all the way down to how do they dress? How do they walk? How is their inflection in their voice? What is their name, create a name for them. And he said, you become that person, like, almost like you’re acting like become that person, when you go out and do these things. So that psychologically it’s not David doing them, it’s whoever this avatar is that you create, and then he and then he said, the next part of this, you’re going to think I’m crazy. But one day, you’re going to come back and tell me that I was right. He said, eventually, David is going to become almost jealous, not necessarily jealous, but almost look at this Avatar and be like, wait a minute, I can do this. Why am I Why am I being somebody else, this is me doing this, I can I can do this. And that really is what happened. And so I think that that’s super helpful for anybody who is nervous and maybe introverted and afraid of what other people are going to think, is to maybe try that approach. Maybe just if you have to fake it till you make it. I mean, I’m not I’m not a huge fan of that term. I think it’s used way too often. But it just has some context. I think that makes sense. If you have to fake it till you make it then so be it. And then secondly, and and the second one, and I think it’s it’s a spin off of the first one. But when eventually when the internet became more prevalent, Facebook, Instagram, all these things became more prevalent. And people are posting videos all the time and photos of themselves all the time. This is the other thing. I just would continue to keep saying to myself, like who really wants to hear what I have to say, who really cares what I have to say? And I would say this to myself, like over and over again. And then I finally said you know what? It really doesn’t matter how many people want to hear what I have to say, if what I have to say can help one person, then I’m like doing a dis justice, if I don’t at least put it out there. And that’s when I just started decided to start doing the podcasts that we do now. And that’s when I decided to start doing the weekly live show that we started doing right now. Because I said to myself, if somebody hadn’t helped me, I wouldn’t be where I am today. And the best way for me to pay it forward and give it back to that person is to do the same thing. And don’t worry about if 100 people watching, you are like, that guy’s full of malarkey. If one of those people looks at you, and says, I can relate to that, and I and I can understand that, and that can help me make a change in my life, then it’s worth doing what you’re doing.

Richard Matthews 28:10
Absolutely, and I love I love the the metaphor of having a persona that you step into when you go to perform, because it’s actually something that I have, I have seen a lot of high performers do. Right. And I’ve heard heard this everything from, you know, Michael Jordan, when he steps onto the court to, you know, high performing CEOs, right, and like to, you know, even like, what you’re doing is, is you have a persona that you step into, and you act as that character. And what’s funny is people think acting is fake. But if you actually look at your life, right, that’s the whole, you know, the fake it till you make it thing, which I think is a terrible phrase, because it’s, it’s not fake, right? action is real, right? And when you take action, you are defined not by your thoughts, you’re defined by your actions, right? Your actions are actually what make you who you are. So if you create a persona, and then step into that persona and act that way. That’s why you get to the point where you realize that Okay, that’s actually me, right? Because that’s your, the actions that you’re taking. And it’s actually if you’ve, if you look into the entertainment industry, with actors, when they have to play characters that are real antithesis of their human character, like their actual person, it can, it can cause like, psychological issues, right? Like, when they have to play bad guys who are just like the worst of humanity, it like, it impacts them because of how they’re acting. Because acting is is is how you define yourself. And so it’s actually a really powerful strategy for, for changing yourself, right for improving yourself is to pick who you want to be, and then act like that person. Right? And then that, that changes, changes you right into that person, which is, you know, it’s a powerful way to, you know, pick this up to improve yourself.

David Hanscom 30:04
Absolutely. Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, I think for me, the most, you know, I always try to follow the philosophy that I definitely don’t ever want to be the smartest person in the room. I mean, you know, sometimes, sometimes we’re just by circumstance that happens. But, you know, I always want to surround myself with people who are doing the things that I want to be doing, so that I can hopefully learn from them either by observation, or by formal teaching, or by just osmosis. Sorry, osmosis eve yeah, you know what I mean? But I just, I just believe in the power of being around people who are where I want to be in life and just learning from what they’re doing.

Richard Matthews 30:46
Yeah, and that’s a powerful strategy for growth, as well as just, you know, changing the room you’re in, right, if you’re in a room with people who are, you know, have bigger dreams than you have. Or have a different set of what they think is, what would you call it? different version of what their limits are, right? So if they’re their limits, or like, you have limits that are here, and then their limits are like, way up here, it changes, it changes you, right? where you’re like, maybe, maybe, maybe I’m putting my limits or our self like self imposed. Right, and I can I can change them and do those things.

David Hanscom 31:20
I think one of the one of the interesting things in life, to me is when you think about the thought of gravity and how strong gravity is, right? gravity is what the strongest force on Earth, I don’t know. But let’s say at least one of the strongest forces on earth. And gravity only pulls one way, which is what pulls down, down. Okay? So if we understand the philosophy that if if you’re allowing people to always pull you down, that’s always going to be a stronger force than you trying to pull them up. And so that’s not to say that you can’t help people. But that’s also to say that if you allow yourself to keep continuing to be drugged down by negativity and drugged down by a mindset that just doesn’t resonate with where you are in life, you will never reach your full potential because these things are going to continue to keep pulling you down. And sadly enough, you aren’t strong enough on your own to pull yourself up from that and so that, for me using that analogy is the reason Why I like to be around and surround myself with these individuals and with these experiences and circumstances that are, in my mind, greater than me, or where I want to be in life.

Richard Matthews 32:39
Absolutely. So I think that, that makes for a good transition for my next question, which is about your common enemy. Right. So every superhero has an arch nemesis thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world, right? In the world of business, it takes on a lot of forms. But generally speaking, we put it in the context of your clients, right? The people who hire you, and it’s a mindset, or it’s a flaw that you’re constantly having to fight to overcome, so that you can get them the result they’re looking for. Right. And if you had your, you know, magic wand, and every time someone you know, sign on the dotted line, you could just pop them on the head with your magic wand, and you wouldn’t have to deal with that anymore. What is the arch nemesis in your business?

David Hanscom 33:19
You know, I think the arch nemesis in, in my business in my industry, and my clientele is that probably they are. And I use this term earlier. And I know and I don’t mean it in a negative way whatsoever, but probably they are one of the most ignorant clients that a business has to deal with. And what I mean by that is most especially when you think about from the standpoint of a wedding client, so we’ll take them as an example, because that’s a lot of what I’m talking about in this in this context. This is, a lot of times the first time they’re having this experience, this is the first time they’re getting married, this is the first time they’re creating a wedding celebration, and so on and so forth. They don’t have anything to compare it to normally, they don’t have any prior experience into it normally, yeah, some people get married two, three times, whatever. But the majority of the client is, this is the first time then they’re a first time buyer, maybe the best way to use that term. And so they don’t understand the things that we understand. And using the old analogy of riding a bike and you teach somebody how to ride a bike, and most of the time you forget more than you know that you have to teach them. And so there are just so many things that are super important in the execution of this event for a client, that a lot of times they think it’s just mean you know, like meaningless and not important and irrelevant. It doesn’t it doesn’t matter if you know we go through this worksheet, it doesn’t matter you know, you guys do this every weekend of your life, you know what you’re doing and, and I just think that they’re it’s an injustice that they’re doing to themselves because I don’t know that I would want to have somebody handle what is perceivably, or a lot of time said, one of the most important days of somebody’s life, I don’t know that I would want to have somebody handle that, for me, that’s just going through the motions that just putting it on autopilot. And whatever happens happens Good luck. Like, people spend good money on events, people spend good money on celebrations. And they’re also much like a live TV show. They, once they happen, they happen. And it’s not like you can watch the event and just be like, Ah, you know what, let’s get together next week. And, and we’ll do it all over again, like, you and I are doing this, this, you know, interview right now. And if I totally screwed it up, you could always just be like, Alright, David, let’s just start over again, because this is not working, right? And we could do that. And then put that out in the world for everybody, the

Richard Matthews 35:51
audience would never know.

David Hanscom 35:53
Exactly, exactly. But in my world, I don’t have that opportunity. I don’t have that chance. And so I just, I just, I really, and also, the other part of that is that our industry hasn’t done a really good job of creating a level of understanding for the client to understand the difference between people who truly, passionately care about your event, and people who are just going through the motions, and I just wish there was a better, better way for that. So I think those are probably the two archnemesis that I face a lot. It’s

Richard Matthews 36:25
really interesting that you say that because I paid my way through college as a wedding photographer. And so I went to a lot of weddings and photographed a lot of weddings. And the thing that constantly popped up to me was that, generally speaking, unless they had a wedding planner, the photographer or the DJ, were the most experienced person in the room. Right? And, and it’s like, they’re all freaking out about what’s supposed to happen next, and you’re like, hey, you need to cut the cake. Right, like, like do that in the background. Like, you know, you sort of know what the process is supposed to be because you’ve done a lot of these things. And most of the time, they don’t unless they have a professional around who’s actually guiding them through that process.

David Hanscom 37:07
No, absolutely. And and and the scary thing is if the most than the most experienced person in the room really doesn’t have that much experience themselves. Now that now that the event is really in trouble.

Richard Matthews 37:19
Yeah, and I remember how many times they’d be like, Oh, we want to do this photography. stuff and We’re like, we want to do all the the group pictures here. And at the time, I’m like, I’d be like, Well, you know, you all you have, you have to all get to this next thing, we do all of that you’re out, you know, and there’s like, you’d have, you’d have to, like coach them through the steps of their, their wedding just so they knew. Like, because they don’t know, right, they don’t know what they don’t know. And I think, you know, ignorance is a great way to say it, but the, it’s they’ve never done it before, right. And so as the professional in the space, you have to sort of educate them on like what needs to happen.

David Hanscom 37:53
And I think I think the more that the more. And so this goes back to relationships, right? This all comes back to my comment earlier about being in the people business, if we if we’re able to take time to establish a mutual respect with our client, so that they understand, if I offer you suggestion, if I offer you an alternative to what you want to do, it’s not because I want to go against what you want to do it because in between the two of us, I have a lot more experience in this than you do. And and you’re paying me and you’re entrusting me, because you want this one time experience to be the best it can be. So sometimes, you just got to have a little faith and, and and on our side of it, we also have to realize that especially when it comes to wedding, there’s a difference between weddings and corporate events when it comes to the money. But with weddings, it’s such a very personal attachment to the money like either either the couple themselves, or the parents or somebody have been saving money all their lives for this day. And so there’s such a personal attachment to that money associated with that event. And, and so it’s important for, for that communication, to be there for them to realize that we understand that we realize that you are probably spending money that you’ve either saved forever, or your grandparents get saved forever to give you or somehow or Lord forbid, even using credit cards to pay for their wedding, and then we’ll pay it off later. We understand the the what comes with that and the emotions that come with that.

Richard Matthews 39:23
Yeah, so I’m just curious if this has ever happened, because I know it happened a couple of times when I was doing the wedding photography stuff is if you have, you know, during the reception, and everyone’s dancing and stuff like that, or particularly when the bride is getting up to dance with the the groom or something like that. And you have a request for a song that is completely inappropriate for a wedding. Like the, you know, the whole, the whole lyrics of the song are about cheating on your wife or something like that.

David Hanscom 39:49
So what’s even actually what’s even more funny than that, and then I’m gonna go back to you to answer that question. But what’s even more funny about that is when sometimes they will ask for a song for their first day, this might have been what you’re getting your point you’re getting at, but they would ask for a song for their first dance. And you had and you say to them, have you really listened to the lyrics of that song, because it’s not a love song whatsoever.

Richard Matthews 40:10
You’re like, that’s the song about cheating on your husband.

David Hanscom 40:14
But this is a love song by any stretch of the imagination. But to your point, like so right now with, you know, in the day and age that we’re all living in the elephant in the room COVID-19 is, is is creating a necessity to do things differently than we’ve ever had to do them before with social distancing and things like that. And normally, we’re so used to people coming up to us and making requests and things like that. And, and that’s, you know, been kind of frowned upon lately. So we all have to kind of find ways to address that and still be able to have this this symbiotic relationship with our audience. And so, like we use a program at our events, it’s a program called request now. And essentially, what happens is a guest in an event, there’s a special phone number that they can text a request into. And then we have a program on our computer that shows us those song requests. And so the most popular request right now is that lap WAP, WAP song that is an incredibly inappropriate for a wedding. But I mean, at the end of the day, you know, it’s funny to like I had this conversation with somebody the other day, and I said, but when you say it’s inappropriate, it’s really like in what terms like it might be inappropriate to you. But if they’re okay with it, then is it really inappropriate? I don’t know. I had a had a client one time asked me to play all the unedited versions of the songs that they want me to play. Normally, we obviously we play the kind of clean radio edited versions, at events just to be respectful to people and things like this. And for about two weeks, like it was a really interesting topic of conversation amongst me and the staff that work with us because I was, I just I like to play devil’s advocate about a lot of things. And I’m like, if you think about the fact that the couple that asked us are, they’re younger, they’re in their 20s, which means that they’ve never lived the day without one of these, which is a cell phone. They’ve never lived the day without one of those. They’re never known life without one of those. They’ve never known a life without iTunes. I’d never known a life without Spotify. They never known a life without YouTube, and all of those resources, provide them songs. They are unedited versions of the songs and unless there’s some level of censorship going on within their household, which I’m not here to judge, it doesn’t matter to me. But if it’s not happening, then that’s normal and customary to those people. And is it really fair for me to censor the situation, if that’s normally normal and customary to their household? And that was just a question I started posing, because I try to really be open minded and think about a lot of things. I worried that I’m going to offend somebody else in the event. But is it fair for me to do that? If that’s what they really want it their event? So it’s interesting stuff?

Richard Matthews 43:02
Yeah, it’s an interesting conversation, you probably have to have to where you’re like, Hey, I’m, you know, I’m open to doing that. But you know, you also have a bunch of, you know, audience guests, are you sure everyone’s gonna be okay with that, and, you know, just back to that education piece, and you’re like, hey, if that’s really what you want, we’ll do it.

David Hanscom 43:15
Well, my typical disclaimer, and again, this has only happened like once or twice. And my typical disclaimer has always been, if you want me to do that, the only caveat that I ask is that, in the beginning of the event, I need you to, when we have everybody in the rooms attention, I need you to take the microphone, and I need you to tell your guests, we have given the DJ permission to play music that is unedited, if that offends anybody. We want to let you guys know this now. But I want them to take that responsibility, because I look at it, like everybody in the room is a potential future client for mine. And that could be the they might think I’m the greatest, you know, everything else they might think is absolutely great. But then they hear a song Come on, that’s, you know, dropping f bombs and this and the other thing, and they’re like, nah, I don’t really want that in my event. So maybe this is not the right guy. And then you know, so I miss out on a potential opportunity in that in that situation where normally I wouldn’t even be doing this anyways. So I’ve always just which goes right back to that business and marketing skill set you have to have in order to run your business well, right. Right.

Richard Matthews 44:24
Cool. So I think that’s a good point to flip sort of flip the script there, right? So if your common enemy is sort of that, that first time buyer mentality, then the other side of that is your your driving force, right? And you know, just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it that you fight for in your business?

David Hanscom 44:46
I fight for people to be able to take four or five hours of their life and forget about everything else. Just be in the presence of the moment that’s happening right now. be in the presence of an opportunity to just let loose, let your hair down, have some fun, enjoy yourself, whatever issues that are going on in life, they’re still going to be there afterwards, we know that. But in this moment, in this time in this opportunity to celebrate something with either family or co workers, or whatever the case may be, do that. Just forget everything else. Just do that right in this moment, right in this time.

Richard Matthews 45:32
Yeah, that’s really a really powerful, right, I was I was writing the script the other day for the first episode of our travel blog, because we’ve been traveling for several years. And I’m finally getting around to actually editing the videos we’ve had for several years. And one of the things that I wrote in the first little section of that is, like, you know, every once in a while, if you pay close enough attention, you can get a glimpse of magic. And the magic essentially, is a moment of absolute presence, right? When you’re actually here, in this moment, enjoying what’s happening right now, which is so hard to do. And, you know, it’s something that traveling allows you to do, it’s something that, you know, events, when you get to go to a cool event, like a wedding or something like that, that it just forces you to drop everything else out of your mind and focus on what’s happening right here right now. And it’s those moments in life that create the, the lasting memories, right, the stuff that you look back on in years. And remember, and it’s interesting that like, that’s your business, your business is helping people create those moments,

David Hanscom 46:35
I had a situation where I was doing an event, this was like a fourth of July event. And so you can imagine it was it was in downtown Jacksonville, thousands of people all gathered waiting on the fireworks and all of that stuff. And I was down there doing some music. And I see, like, almost like weaving through all these people see this guy like barreling up towards me and, and I didn’t recognize them. And I was like, well, this is weird. This guy is like, intently coming directly directly at me, like, should I be afraid or what’s going on here? And he finally gets his way up to me. He says, Hey, man, hey, you were the DJ at my wedding. like six years ago, man, people still talk about it, we still talk about how much fun we had yadayada. And and I mean, he’s probably gonna hate that. I’m gonna say this, but I honestly didn’t remember who he was. I mean, in my defense, like, I probably do about 250 events a year, like, and that was. Yeah you do a lot of them. Do the math, right. But, but, but it was just like, to your point, like creating that memory, where he saw me in a sea of thousand people, and who knows about the number but roughly a thousand people. And he made it a point to barrel through all those people to come say to me, great to see you. We still talk about how much fun you made our wedding. And it’s awesome to see you again. Like that is that’s not a MasterCard moment, man. Like, I don’t know, what is its magic. Yeah.

Richard Matthews 48:05
It always reminds me of that Disney movie with the the people who live in your head, little characters, I can’t remember the name of the movie is right now, but it’s the you know, they have the island memories. Okay, the The, the, what they call them? it’s like their, this has created a piece of their personality. Right. And I always figured that the in the real world, those those memories that create a portion of who you are, are the ones where you were completely present in the moment.

David Hanscom 48:34
Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s really cool. And to do the same thing, it’s very easy for us to get distracted. And this is a, you know, you mentioned the marketing. And between the marketing side of things and the education of our staff side of things, I always try to remind them, you know, stay in a moment of what is happening at these events, because there are just little things that can happen, that you have the power, remember, you have one of these, you have a microphone, you’re the loudest person in the room. And I don’t mean that obnoxiously. I just mean that you have the ability to accentuate a really special moment that maybe otherwise would be missed. So if the odds so there’s two things, two ways to look at this, if the audience is going to miss it, and you’re able to save them from missing it, then that’s just another layer another level of professionalism and, and caring that you bring to that event. If you miss it, and the audience doesn’t miss it. And you missed it because you were looking at your damn phone or something else. You were being distracted by something else that you otherwise didn’t have to be distracted by. Then that’s, that’s bad on you. Like if they all saw and you didn’t, that’s terrible. I just so you know, it’s easy to be distracted. I mean, I’m the I’m the owner of the company. I got six people working for me sometimes all at the same time, and they’re all texting me asking me questions and things like that. And sometimes I just have to send a blanket text Everybody and say, Hey, remember, I’m working in event right now too. It’s not fair to the to my customer to have to be fielding all of these things that you guys shouldn’t be asking me anyways, if it’s vitally important, okay, whatever. But if it’s something you already know, just deal with it and get with me after this, the night is over or whatever.

Richard Matthews 50:19
Yeah, you have to like you have to like, teach them the processes. So they’re like, Hey, I know how to handle the situation when it comes up.

David Hanscom 50:26
Yeah. And that’s like to say, you know, I’m being a jerk. And I don’t want to hear from you. It’s just that if it’s something you can handle on your own, I don’t need to hear about it. Tell me about it tomorrow.

Richard Matthews 50:36
Absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about some practical things for your business, right, I call this your heroes tool belt. And just like every superhero has awesome gadgets, like batarangs, or web slingers, or laser eyes, or a big magical hammer, I’m gonna talk about top one or two tools you couldn’t live without in your business. It could be anything from your notepad, your calendar is your marketing tools to something to use to actually deliver your experiences. Anything you think is absolutely essential to getting your job done. Anything might be interesting for our audience to hear about.

David Hanscom 51:04
Well, a calendar is definitely I could not live without my calendar on my phone. I and the program calendly. Not to not not that I’m trying to plug them. But ever since I discovered the program, calendly, like I live and die by that thing, because people contact me to schedule either meetings or phone calls or things like that non stop constantly, all day. And I’m just like, I don’t know, I don’t know if I’m coming or going. Like, if I don’t have that near me. I don’t even know what answer to give them. So now, I’m just like, here’s the link to my calendly. Go on there. And I promise you, if you put something on there, we will connect, because that’s what I live by I live by that darn thing. So definitely that from the just the behind the scenes, keeping the keeping the train moving side of things. And then from from the performance side of things. as funny as that may sound, I think just my eyes and my ears just being able to see and observe what’s going on and hear, hear the as weird as it sounds, hear the temperature in the room, but just hear how people are. There’s a lot of times where I can pretty much almost identify how an events going to go just by the first few minutes of people coming into the room, just the observation of what’s going on. And I think that’s allowed me to, to, to grow and learn how to gauge what I’m going to do. Like, literally I’ll go into an event and have like, I’m either going to be A, B, C, or D. Or I might just be A, B and C. And I don’t even know which one is going to be until I see what they’re doing. Because I want to be able to respond to who they are, how they are what they are, so that they get out of me the best thing that makes sense to them. So being able to see and hear those things are vitally important to me to make sure that I’m able to do that.

Richard Matthews 53:03
And it goes right back to like being present in the moment like you actually have to be paying attention. You have to have your mind and your senses engaged in what’s happening. Right there right now. Yep. Yeah. And so just an interesting thought on the calendar too, is that it’s it’s the one question that I get the most consistent answer to on this show. almost to the point of sounding, what do you call it like, repetitive that I asked that question all the time? And the number one answer, like 85, 90% of the guests, we have my calendar. Yeah. And the The interesting thing about that is, is it seems that all all the entrepreneurs who have success, they live and die by their calendar, right? The same way. And people who are not entrepreneurs don’t always understand that, right? Where they look to me like it’s kind of crazy that you live and die by your calendar. And you’re like, No, you don’t understand, like, my business is my calendar.

David Hanscom 53:54
Well, I think to your point, ironically, I just had this conversation last night with somebody talking about the difference between somebody who owns a business and somebody who works a job. And there’s nothing wrong with either one, whichever choice, whichever path whichever decision somebody chooses to go down, that works for them. That’s perfect. But when you own a business, you don’t, you don’t ever clock out. I mean, some people get to a certain point in their in their business in their life where they can. But truly, if you’re the owner of the business, I would challenge to find very many people that can turn their brain off 100% completely from their business, for any, you know, length of time. Sure, we can all say, Okay, I’m going to take the weekend and I’m just going to put my phone down. I’m not going to do anything. But I promise you at some point in time in their brain, they’re thinking about what am I missing, because I put my phone down and there’s probably something going on that I should be paying attention to, like you just can’t get away from it. Whereas a lot of people if they work in corporate America, they work work or job or something like that. They clock in at whatever time they clock in at the clock out at whatever time they clock out, they don’t have their work email on their phone. So if you email them after work hours, you’re probably not going to get a response from them until the following day. And quite honestly, they don’t care because they’re like, yo, that’s work stuff. That’s not that’s not me stuff, that’s work stuff. And, and when you when you own a business, I just don’t think you have that same mentality. And so and you also understand that the most valuable commodity to you is your time, you don’t ever get it back, you can get you can make money again, you can always make money again, but you never get time back. And so you have to take advantage of every hour that’s available to you for personal and professional reasons. And so having that calendar and having that resource to go to, and keep all that, you know, organized for you is vital.

Richard Matthews 55:55
Yeah, it’s almost like you haveyour if, and I cuz I’ve worked in corporate America before, you have like a separate identity, right? You have your as my work identity. And then when you walk out the doors, you back to yourself, right? Your own identity. And like, what happens at work just doesn’t matter, right? It’s not there. But like, when you’re a business owner, you just have the one, right? And it’s all got to be like, like I tell my wife all the time, like are like if you want me to be there gonna make sure it gets on the family calendar. Because otherwise, like, it’s just not, it’s not there. Like it all needs to be on there. Like everything from what we had my daughter’s birthday party last night at a Mexican restaurant, it’s gotta be on the calendar, right? Just, you know, because that’s just how how my brain works and how you have to just think through your business like, Hey, I blocked out the whole evening from, you know, three o’clock till the whole rest of the night just to spend time with my family, but it’s on the calendar, right so that I can disconnect from everything else that’s on the calendar, and just be like I’m here. It’s also

David Hanscom 56:49
It’s also part of the habitual thing that works for you like I have, I go to orangetheory for session three times a week, it’s on my calendar, like I don’t just think about it like it is on my calendar. I try to go get a massage once or twice a month, it’s on my calendar, I take my dogs to go get their nails trimmed every three weeks. It’s on my calendar. Like every literally just about, like you said just about everything I do is on my calendar. And every time somebody says to me, Hey, can we do this? Can we do that? I don’t know. Look at my calendar. I have no idea. I know what I’m doing today. I don’t know what I’m doing in three weeks from now look at my calendar.

Richard Matthews 57:27
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So my next question for you then is about your own personal heroes. Right? So every hero has their mentors, right? Frodo had Gandalf Luke had Obi Wan Kenobi, Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, spider man had his Uncle Ben, Who were some of your heroes, were they real life mentors, speakers or authors peers for maybe a couple of years ahead of you? And how important were they at what you’ve accomplished so far? In your business?

David Hanscom 59:29
So I don’t know if this will be seen. But right behind me is a big poster of Michael Jordan. I know you can see that. Yeah I can see it was definitely definitely a hero, I guess you could say definitely an influence on my life. for a lot of reasons, number one because of work ethic. Number one, or excuse me, number two, because I feel like he really learned how to transcend basketball and he was he was he was beyond just recognizable as a basketball player. And in recent times, people have maybe feelings about him differently than maybe they did back in the 90s, on some of the things that they’ve seen, and but I think Michael Jordan is a good example of somebody who the old saying goes, you should never meet your heroes. Like, I don’t think I’d ever want to meet Michael Jordan, in fear of, what if? What if we didn’t get along? Or what if he was kind of this jerk to me or something like this, like that? I think that would really deflate me. So in a way, I’m kind of glad that I’ve never met Michael Jordan. And I definitely don’t like my whole existence. And life doesn’t revolve around Michael Jordan, but some of the work ethic and some of the the drive to be the best the drive to say, Is there another level in me that can be found, and if so, I want to find it. Like, those are the things that I drew from him early on, when I was younger, and in sports was my entire life. I mentioned that earlier in the talk here, right. Then it would move into some people, the the mentor that I mentioned to you who told me about this avatar, and that was somebody I met when I did live in Bermuda and I was, you know, young and growing up then. And that was, that was a big influence on my life. Then next would be a mentor of mine by the name of Ray Martinez, who unfortunately, about two and a half months ago lost to COVID. He was somebody who taught me a lot of things about understanding the difference between confidence and cockiness or confidence and arrogance. And he was also in this industry as well. And when I was younger, that was a very hard, hard line to walk. Because when so much notoriety, and all of this seems to be coming so easily, and everybody wants to be around you. And, and, you know, in certain arenas, like people want you to take pictures with them and sign autographs for them. And you think yourself like, I’m nobody, but then eventually it kind of goes to your head, like, I don’t know, maybe I am somebody more important than I realized I am. And, and he used to always say to me, David, don’t, don’t ever believe your own press clippings. Don’t ever believe your own press clippings. Just stay focused, stay grounded, stay the good person you are. But still be confident about what you do be confidence, excuse me, be confident in the skills that you’ve learned and be confident in the things that have always been in you. And you just had to learn that they were there. And that was just that stuff is just so impactful to me. Because the reality is I love helping people. There’s nothing more exciting to me than helping other people find their success. And, and so I think I really got that from him.

Richard Matthews 1:02:48
Yeah, that’s a it’s a hard lesson to the whole difference between cockiness and arrogance. And, and actually, having like, the confidence, yeah, and, and I always put that in for in my echo in my own head, it’s, it’s a humility and understanding what humility is, and humility. A lot of people think that it’s a denial of your own skills, and that’s just not true. And humility is is accepting that a you know, we are fallen human beings, right, we have our our problems and the things that are, you know, that make us human. But we also have that spark of divinity, right, that we have, we have the skills and the creativity, and the stuff that we’ve we’ve, you know, poured our heart and souls into that you are, you are perfectly within your image, call it like purview, I guess to, to hold out there for the world and be like, Hey, I’m actually this is something I’m really good at, and I can help you with or I can improve your life because of these things. Right? And it’s, like, true humility is understanding both sides, right? Understanding that, hey, I’m human, and I make mistakes, and I have problems. But also, I’m extremely capable, right? And here’s the areas that I’m capable and where I can give my value to you.

David Hanscom 1:04:04
Or I don’t think anybody should ever be afraid to be really, really good at anything. I think people should be afraid when they think that they can’t still get better. That’s that’s kind of one of the things I’ve always said to myself, if there ever comes a day where I don’t think I can get any better at what I’m doing that I want to stop doing it and just do something else.

Richard Matthews 1:04:25
Yeah, when you become when you’ve when you have, what you call it? If you’ve ripened completely, the only way forward is to rot and fall off the tree. That’s,

David Hanscom 1:04:33
That’s a great analogy. I love that.

Richard Matthews 1:04:36
So cool, like so one of the last questions I have here for you is about your guiding principles, right. And it’s one of the things that makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code for instance, Batman never killed his enemies he only ever sent them to Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, want to talk about top one, maybe two principles that you regularly use in your life. That you know, maybe you wish you knew when you first started it out on your own hero’s journey.

David Hanscom 1:05:01
Number one, I think that we’re, we’re never promised anything. We’re never owed anything in life. If you want it, you got to work for it. If you want to be the best, you have to do the things it takes to be the best. There’s you don’t want to look for shortcuts shortcuts. The first word in that is short shortcuts are typically short lived. And, and I think that early on, I saw so much success that I was able to take a lot of shortcuts. But then there was a period of time where all of that kind of dip down and then I had, I had to work my, I’ll say, worked my butt off Sorry, I had to work my butt off to, to get back to where I even where I was, and then and then to go any further than that point. So I think just knowing that you get out of life, what you put into life. And that transcends across work that transcends across relationships that can transcend towards your personal feeling about yourself, like all of that applies to everything, not just work. And then the other one, I think I alluded to it earlier is just never stopped growing, never stop growing. I love that analogy that you made about, you know, once you’ve reached the level of ripening, the only thing you can do is rotting. And I don’t ever want to rot like I want to continue to keep ripen. You know, I just I keep searching and keep looking for what is that next thing. And also, I think it’s important for people to understand that that is not a sign of discontent, that is not a sign of not being appreciative of who you are. Because I think sometimes and I’ve even people have have had people say that to me like, dude, aren’t you just content with where you are? Or are you not happy about what has happened to your in your life at this point? And and I’m like, you don’t you? Don’t you don’t get it, then I’m a million percent happy about those things. But I want to drive myself to find out. Is there something else? Is there something else out there? And if there is, is that something that I could pass on to the next person?

Richard Matthews 1:07:16
Yeah, I call that that whole mentality contented ambition, right? Where you learn to be happy and joyful with where you are. But you know where you’re going, right? You have a destination, right? Because if you’re, if you, you know that it’s the whole, the joy is in the journey kind of thing. If you ever reach the destination, then you You’re not going anywhere you’re not doing anything. So you can be happy about where you’re at. But if you don’t also have somewhere where you’re going some sort of growth path or something that you’re actually trying to strive for, and you’re not doing anything, right, you’re you’re stationary. And that’s like, it’s not how you build a business, or grow a business or live your life, right, you always have things that you’re building towards. And for me, it’s always something that really got a lot of clarity for me when we started traveling full time, was realizing that like, you know, we have, it’s like, you know, hey, we want to get to New York. Right? And but knowing that, it’s like, hey, that’s where we want to get but like we have to enjoy where we’re at now. But also like, you know, you plan maybe the next couple of days, but you don’t plan every single day from here all the way till where your your ultimate goal is. So it’s it’s really it’s an interesting concept of learning how to have that contented ambition. Yeah,

David Hanscom 1:08:33
yeah. And I and I think that an excessive level of contentment, though, is very dangerous, too, though. I think when and not to say that you were saying that by any stretch of the imagination. But I think that people can fall, you know, because when people say, aren’t you content, aren’t you content, and I always say Listen, if I’m content, it means I’m not focused. Because I just feel like if I’m content, I’m resting. You know, I’m in a state of rest, I’m in a state of everything’s fine. Everything’s cool. I don’t have to do anything anymore. It’s all coming to me. It’s all coming to me. And, and I, and that’s dangerous. Because let’s be honest, man, human beings, for the most part are pretty lazy people. Right? So it’s, it’s pretty quick, and it’s pretty easy to just fall into laziness. And I’m sure that a lot of people during this COVID timeframe have found that out. It’s another interesting dynamic about how we always want the opposite of what we have until we have that and then we want the other thing back again, I know that I know that when I was working like you know, 18 days straight or at night straight before I had a night off to do anything. I’m like, Oh goodness, I can’t wait till I till I can have a day off. I can’t wait till I don’t have to think about anything and other and then COVID hit and then I wasn’t doing any events and then I was like, Holy moly. This sucks. I don’t know what to do now. Like I have no idea what to do. And and until like this shift happened where We were doing like events and doing things with people through zoom calls. And through hybrid type situations or virtual type situations. I mean, we were literally doing nothing. And like it took about, I don’t even think it took 48 hours for me to be like, I’m not gonna be good with this at all. So I just really think that, like people, temporary contentment is great, but don’t, don’t fall on that contentment, like, be content, enjoy it, and then get back on your horse and keep riding.

Richard Matthews 1:10:30
Keep going, it’s because it’s all about about the journey where you’re going. And you know, knowing knowing that sort of, you have a path that you have to go. Because we are not meant to be stationary in anything in our life and our mentality and our business. And you know, anything that we’re doing, we’re meant to be moving. Absolutely. So that’s basically a wrap on our interview. But I do finish every interview with a simple challenge. I call it the hero’s challenge, and it is a selfish little thing I do that helps me get access to stories I might not find on my own. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? first names are fine, why do you think they should come and share their story on our show the first person that comes to mind,

David Hanscom 1:11:16
first person that comes to mind, I would probably say Nick my co host. He’s that’s who I would say probably the co host on my show that does with me is the first person that comes to mind because he has he is somebody who in a very short period of time, has has taken the lessons that have been taught to him and applied them and amazing ways just amazing ways. And me and his journey really is just beginning. So interesting guy for sure.

Richard Matthews 1:11:48
Absolutely cool. So we’ll reach out later and see if we can get him on the show. So in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people who are standing around and cheering for the acts of heroism of our heroes so are analogous on that show as we close is I want to find out where people can find you if they want to hire you for an event in the future. Where can they light up the bat signal so to speak and say hey, David, we got an event for you to come in and and DJ for us. And I think more importantly then where is who are the right types of people to reach out and say, hey, yeah, we would love we’d love to have your help.

David Hanscom 1:12:18
So first answer your question. All social medias. My name is David Hanscom. And I’m assuming that could be the spelling of that will be in the show notes or something. It’ll be in the show notes. People mess that up. But all social medias and I and by the way, I follow everybody back that follows me I make it a point to do that. So and I want to communicate with people I don’t want to just be ghost followers like just for numbers like let’s let’s actually create a relationship in this situation here and see if we can help each other in one way shape or form. And then of course, my website is just David Hanscom.com. So I try to make it very, very simple, very, very, you know, the old kiss method of things. So I tried to do that. And then ideal client would would really just be anybody who is looking to celebrate an event or, or put something together that isn’t afraid to push the boundaries of what they think is possible. And and not just live within the confinement of four walls. And then some tables, like there’s so many other really cool things that we could do. And, and with a little bit of open mindedness and maybe just a little bit of exploration, we can take something that would otherwise just be just like everybody else’s event. And we could take it to something that’s even way beyond that. So those those are the kind of people I love working with.

Richard Matthews 1:13:40
Absolutely. Cool. Well, David, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It’s been a fascinating conversation. And if you’re listening today, and you are having an event coming up and you’re looking to again, take it to the next level and turn it into a memory, definitely take the time to reach out to David and his team. It sounds like you would really enjoy having him at work with you. And again, David, thank you for coming on the show. You have any final words of wisdom for our audience before I hit this stop record button.

David Hanscom 1:14:03
I would say just keep living live every day like it might be your last day don’t have any regrets. Don’t have any regrets in life whatsoever. Go after whatever you want to go after. And if you fall short, you didn’t fail you just found one other way not to do it. And just keep pushing and you’ll find you’ll find the right way. Just don’t ever stop. You know, going after what you want in life.

Richard Matthews 1:14:24
Absolutely be complete in your debt. Right. Thank you very much, David.

David Hanscom 1:14:30
Thank you very much as well.