The Fearless Road
Entrepreneurial insights, stories, and advice on embracing fear, breaking boundaries, and achieving goals on the road to success.
Join Michael on a captivating odyssey down 'The Fearless Road' and brace yourself for a life-altering transformation. This groundbreaking podcast is not merely a conduit to success; it is a profound exploration of courage, authenticity, and the pursuit of passions. With each episode, Michael and his dedicated team embark on a quest to uncover the secrets to triumph and support the unwavering determination required to chase dreams fearlessly.
The Fearless Road is committed to exploring the road to success and empowering our audience to navigate this journey with confidence, resilience, and fearlessness. Pursuing your passions and being yourself requires tremendous inner strength and vulnerability. It’s important to consistently recognize and appreciate the confidence it takes to follow your heart and your dreams. Stay Fearless!
The Fearless Road
08. RADICAL GENEROSITY: Bob DePasquale's Incredible Journey and the Powerful Impact of Giving
What is the true worth of generosity and how does it intersect with personal finance? It's an intriguing question, one that our guest, Bob DePasquale, founder of the Initiative Impact Financial Investment and Management Firm and author of Personal Finance in a Public World, thoroughly answers. With the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime of overcoming adversity – a college football injury, cancer diagnosis, and the psychological impact of 9/11 – and his experience advising thousands of families, Bob reveals how embracing generosity can transform not just our financial lives, but our personal lives as well.
This episode is a journey through Bob's personal struggles and the profound effect these experiences have had on his approach to finance and generosity. He offers an intimate glimpse into his life's challenges, from his college football injury and the uncertainty of cancer diagnosis to coping with the ripple effects of 9/11. These trials have taught him self-reliance and a deep understanding of fear – a force he believes can be mitigated by generous actions. He shares the moving story of Tim from Cannerford Sherald investment firm, who exhibited remarkable generosity before losing his life in the 9/11 attacks. Tim's spirit of giving continues to inspire Bob and forms a cornerstone of his philosophy.
We also delve into the societal implications of generosity, and Bob's belief that it is an essential trait that can foster a healthier and more harmonious world. He brings in a vivid anecdote about a tour guide in Israel who emphasized the importance of sharing, illustrating how the act of giving transcends cultural boundaries. In a riveting discussion, we explore how fostering a generous culture within organizations can attract top talent and loyal customers alike. Finally, Bob shares his insights on the journey of discovering one's life's purpose and the importance of living with intention. This episode is not merely a conversation about finance, but a profound exploration of generosity and its transformative power in our lives.
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Hey everybody, welcome to The Fearless Road Podcast. I am your host, Michael DeVous, and this week we are interviewing Bob DePasquale, whose purpose is not just a revelation but a practice, and he puts the work in every single day. Bob and I also had the opportunity to re-record this several times as we were having technical issues getting this off the ground, but I thought that it was important to share this episode with you during this time of generosity during the holiday season. With his book Personal Finance in a Public World, Bob uses his experience with thousands of families to share with you how to make wise money and technology decisions and, of course, learn how to be generous. I think it's timely, I think it's important and hopefully it matters to you. Hey, by the way, if you like what you hear, if you love the show, would you mind liking and subscribing, maybe sharing it with a few of the people that you care about this holiday season, and they'd be great. Oh, and get that gift, you know for everybody the book Personal Finance in a Public World. Everybody loves a finance book for the holidays, right? That's the gift that keeps on giving, so literally. So why do I look like Mr Rogers? Anyway, happy holidays everybody.
Michael Devous:Enjoy this episode from . Again, I'm your host, michael DeVous. Like and subscribe and of course, I'll put all the links I can down below. Much love to you and stay fearless. Bye. ["fearless Road.
Bob DePasquale:Podcast"].
Michael Devous:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to this week in the house. With me today is my special guest, Bob DePasquale. After a harrowing incident that nearly cost him his life and the amazing generosity of several people to save him, Bob DePasquale is embarked on a journey to find out how generosity can impact our businesses or organizations and, of course, our life Now. He spent 15 years learning how to apply the giving and gifting principles in his own business, and now it's his mission to help others do the same by showing leaders of organizations that have any generous culture and a mindset will attract better employees and better customers. He is also known as the generosity guy, the founder of the Initiate Impact Financial Investment and Management firm, as well as his book that is out personal finance Everybody. Please welcome Bob Pasquale.
Bob DePasquale:Why call me, not the plug.
Michael Devous:Woo-hoo. I wish I could put like a laugh track or an applause track in there, because I feel like we're just sort of like where's the? I hear you.
Bob DePasquale:Where's?
Michael Devous:the noise, but we're gonna bring the noise on our own. We're gonna bring the excitement and the energy here today on our own. Finance and beer, the two big Fs I mean there's a lot that goes on there, I would imagine. So tell me a little bit about you and your background. Get us caught up for our audiences. Just, I mean, I already know Bob, I'm familiar with him and his work. So that's unfair. But to the rest of our audience members and people that are listening out there, give us a little background story on you, how you got to where you are today and why. Generosity.
Bob DePasquale:Absolutely, Michael. Pleasure to be on the show here today, The Fearless Road. Fear is one of those F's that I just despise. I do not like being fearful, and so it's great to come on the show today and talk a little bit about the things in my life that combat fear. If you will and generosity is at the top of the list you talk about my story, what's going on in my life and catching people up. Man, it has been a hectic couple of months, if I'm being quite honest.
Michael Devous:Yes, it has. Ladies and gentlemen, you don't know, both Bob and I have been dealing with some technical issues on both sides of the trend, as well as issues at home with construction and noise and all these interfering elements that get in the way of us producing this particular episode. So we have tried multiple times and here we are, to give this to you. So hopefully today we nail it and if we don't forgive us, we'll get there, we're gonna get it done today.
Bob DePasquale:Ladies and gentlemen, that's right, we are, and so you know somewhat, Michael, but I don't wanna be that guy who makes it seem like you know, everything I've done in life is some massive obstacle. But to be honest with you that the past couple of months have kind of been a microcosm of my life. You know, there's been a lot of things that have been thrown at me kind of unexpectedly, and but I, you know, over the years I've learned to appreciate those challenges and they've challenged me to overcome fear, and so I've kind of I'm traveling that road as we go and I'll think you ever get over it. I think you learn how to understand it and learn how your body and mind best handles it. So yeah, I would be more than happy to talk to you a little bit about my story. Essentially, I'm a New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by just about everything else in life, and I live here in South Florida.
Bob DePasquale:That typical snowbird. Exactly I was a snowbird. When I was three years old, my parents chased my grandparents down here and decided to just live. You know, decided to move. So most of my family on both sides is up there in New York and my wife's family is actually from Michigan and man, is it cold up there. So we just love sitting down here in our beautiful paradise in South Florida.
Michael Devous:Do you like sitting in those postcards during the holidays? Yes, that's what we do.
Bob DePasquale:That's what we do. Our little Christmas card every year is our holiday card. Is us doing something more? People, people complain. Ironically, though, sometimes we usually do go up north to visit one of the families you know one of the sets of families, so I do get my taste of the cold weather, but yeah, I'm not a yeah, just enough to get back home.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, yeah, so Florida and most of my life and you mentioned about 15 years I spent in the financial industry. I actually was recruited out of broadcast. I'll tell you a little bit more about my education and my story in a moment but I have a massive degree of broadcast journalism. I didn't really use it too much for many years in my financial career, but I'm learning how to get back into it and use it more, and it's such a pleasure of mine now to speak with organizations, whether on a you know, on a recorded chat like this or in person. I mean, I just I love addressing people and having some training in that field has been a powerful force of what I do.
Bob DePasquale:And so you mentioned about generosity, and I had this thought while you were, while you were talking a moment ago, that I am so blessed and lucky to be in a career now that really lends itself to learning about the giving and generosity of other people. Like I just have to rely on others to put me where I'm at today, to put me in the professional situations that I had today, and so I don't know if I was always that person. You know, when I was younger I thought I was invincible and this kind of leads well into my story. But I don't know how many people out there were, you know, 18 years old, and they thought they were invincible and could take on the world and nothing can take them down. You know, Michael, I don't know if you felt like that, but I certainly.
Michael Devous:Yeah, bliss of youth, man. I mean, ignorance is amazing when you're young and you just don't know.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, and I thought, listen, I wouldn't go as far as arrogant. Maybe you can talk to some of the people that I grew up with, but you know I wouldn't call myself arrogant, but I was a pretty confident person. I thought, you know, even if mistakes would come in my way, I was so young and I had opportunities and but it took me, it took some really challenging times in life to realize that you can't go to low. You know you can't go through things and build your professional career or even your life or your family by yourself, and so that's been really, really powerful for. So, speaking of New York and Florida, I graduated from high school and I thought I was going to go back to New York for college and I had three reasons to go back to school. One of them was that opportunity to play football. The other one was one of the other ones was because my family was in New York and I really didn't know my cousins and my aunts and uncles that well. I was like what a cool opportunity. I'll be able to go to school and I'll be able to spend some more time with them. I always liked spending time with them when we did, but I didn't really know them very well. And then, finally, I suppose education was a reason why I went up there. Now, my parents probably wished it was higher on the list, but I had a chance to go to school up there too, and so little did I know that it was going to be so cold, but that's another story, and I actually spent those four years of my life in college in New York.
Bob DePasquale:But the critical part of the story and you know there's the details, Some of them you know. Michael and I had an opportunity to play ball, like I mentioned, and you know a college training camp is a little bit different. If you've ever played college ball or you're going to be playing high school while, you know what a training camp is. But it's a little bit different in college, A little bit more intense, it's longer, the days are super, super long as well, and early on in my I mean, I was a couple of days into my freshman season of playing football, trying to prove myself to my coaches and my new teammates, and I had what I thought was a pulled groin muscle. And so, lesson number one you think you're invincible. The first thing I realized is that a pulled groin muscle is a horrible injury. I mean, forget how a football feels. Oh yes, how do?
Michael Devous:you, rick, can you?
Bob DePasquale:pull the muscle down there.
Michael Devous:Oh yeah, I tore my gracilis completely off. I dislocated my gracilis and it wound up dislocating from my groin down to my knee.
Bob DePasquale:And then I had to have.
Michael Devous:I had to have it in rehab because they didn't want to do surgery. They had to manually roll it back up into my groin to get it to reattach on its own.
Michael Devous:So there was this really big African-American gentleman who was the rehab, the rehab coach or whatever that worked with me and I would sit, you know, legs open a Kimbo as it may be and and and he, you know, he would apply ice sickles, big, large popsicles with ice and stuff up and down it to sort of get it cold and numb, and then he would use his thumbs and he would slowly push it and roll that back up, I mean all the way up into the groin, Very, very, very, very close to my Great bases, you know, yeah, and the pain management of that alone was, was, was a, was a practice in order to, because they couldn't, they didn't put you on anything.
Bob DePasquale:You didn't take any pain.
Michael Devous:You just had to breathe through it. So yeah, it's so a joke.
Bob DePasquale:No joke. So you know, and so that type of injury is probably what they thought I had and I was doing these rehab exercises to try to rehab this grim muscle.
Bob DePasquale:I mean anyone out there and now that, now I know that, you know I mean you can't sit, walk, stand, you know, rotate your torso, I mean it's like there's a really debilitating injury for your groin. Yeah, the muscles down there to be to be heard. And so my college level, you know, like a graduate level, rehab exercise was to sit on this three wheeled stool and shimmy across the training room.
Michael Devous:Yes, yes, like it's almost like doing crab walk, but you had to do the hips. Yeah, the work, you had to work. I know what you're talking about. Yeah, I know that move Like.
Bob DePasquale:I'm straight. I guess it was supposed to strengthen the muscles down there or something. I don't know. All I know is that I look ridiculous, dodging people in this crazy training room or any given morning.
Bob DePasquale:And it was. I mean, it was just embarrassing, to be honest with you. And one day the peak of my embarrassment was our, our little head trader. And I say little because I mean legitimately he's a small guy and he would have to stand on this box in the middle of the training room to try to get everyone's attention. And it just seemed like that one moment when he was calling me out I think it was just me because it was so embarrassing but it seemed like it got suddenly got dead silent and everyone in the room could hear him scream across the room to me and they called me Bobby at the time and he was like Bobby, quit being a weakling, you got to get back out on the field and I'm like Day man, like I'm thinking to myself weekly, like you're five, six, 120 pounds, soaking wet.
Bob DePasquale:I'm running around and I'm trying to get a runaway from 300 pounders trying to tackle me. I'm no weekly, I have a serious injury here, bro, and I ended up having a more serious conversation with him a little bit later that day and he actually sent me to a doctor because of me. A week plus went by and it just wasn't getting any better. So he's like all right, go to doctor, get some tests. And you know, technically I'm an adult at that time, man Like I, you know it wasn't like I had my parents around or I had a drive.
Bob DePasquale:We lived up driving all over Long Island, new York, going to these different tests and I had ultrasounds, catscans and , MRI's I mean you name it every test in the book to try to figure out what was going on with my groin. Come to find out it wasn't a gracilis injury and I'll never forget this. These appointments were so long and if you've gone to the doctor before, especially when you go to a new doctor, you I mean you sit there and you fill out all this paperwork and medical information and all this stuff that I mean I can't even answer those questions now in my life.
Michael Devous:Forget when I was 18. Oh, and these weren't digital days. This was the clipboard they hand you with, like a packet of paper this thick that you have to hand write everything in repeatedly at every single doctor, yeah.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, and handwriting is. Penmanship is not one of my skills. I'm right there with you.
Michael Devous:It's chicken scratch all the way. Chicken scratch. Yeah, I'm surprised they even let me in the appointments.
Bob DePasquale:They probably thought I was writing an error, but so I go to all these appointments.
Bob DePasquale:I'm kind of getting in a rhythm, like I think I always memorized my parents you know member number on whatever their insurance costs you want, and I get to the last appointment. I knew that we weren't really sure what was going on, but this is the last scheduled appointment and this was the day that my parents had scheduled months ago to come up for my first ever college football game. Now, we knew I wasn't playing in the game at this point, considering I couldn't run or let alone walk, and so I, a couple of days later, was the game. But this was a Thursday morning. I expected to be in this appointment for hour, you know, at half the day, like typically I was.
Bob DePasquale:And so I walk in the doctor's office and you know the doctor was quiet as early in the morning, there's not much going on and I walk in the room. I mean it's like they were waiting for me to be there, like it was like I was the guest of honor. I walk in the door and immediately they called me up to the desk and like, hey, robert, great to see you and we're, you know, come right in. I mean, they took me right into the office. I didn't even have a chance to sit down. I don't think they take me into the room there. I sit down within 30 seconds the doctor comes in, so it's now. I've been in this office for a total of five minutes and it seems to be really fast. The doctor sits down, he looks me in the eye we're sitting across a desk from each other and he goes Bobby, you have cancer. Hey, how old were you? 18.
Michael Devous:Well, they, I mean, they couldn't have been looking for that. No wonder, I mean, it must have taken them so long to figure out what's going on.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, they weren't expecting that and they're. And the crazy thing was is I expected to get a little bit. You know, I mean I love podcasting, I love talking like this. I expected to have a little bit of conversation with the doctor.
Michael Devous:Like buy me a cocktail first, before you drop a bomb. Yeah like where's the drink? So were your parents with you. Were they in the room?
Bob DePasquale:So the crazy thing was is my parents were flying up to see my game at that moment, like I was in the appointment myself and they were on a plane.
Michael Devous:Oh, my gosh.
Bob DePasquale:And so the doctor looked at me and goes I know you're probably in shock, but we're going to hook you up with an oncologist. You're free to go. And that was it, that's it, that's it.
Michael Devous:And I'm like no here's some pamphlets Like here's a couple of pieces of paper that you know they always hand you pamphlet. Yeah, did you get a sucker or anything?
Bob DePasquale:No lollipops, no lollipops, no jolly rangers Nothing.
Michael Devous:Your life is fucked and good luck.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, no literature. I guess they thought. I guess they thought I was in college and I probably didn't want to read anymore, but so I left the office. I bet you were stunned, like I was like wow, I left in shock and it was kind of crazy. But the timing of this next part of the story is incredible. So I walk out of the office and then once again an office that I'm not familiar with, I don't know where I am and I'm just you know Limp out of the office.
Michael Devous:You limping. I'm disoriented to begin with, because I don't know where I'm at.
Bob DePasquale:And I'm in shock because I have cancer. I don't even know what to. I mean, I guess you could assume, but I didn't really, I didn't even come with.
Michael Devous:But did he tell you what type of cancer? Did he just say you have cancer, just said you have cancer.
Bob DePasquale:What?
Michael Devous:Oh, my God, oh my.
Bob DePasquale:God, I think maybe he was trying to not confuse, like trying to make it as easy as possible, like simple maybe not easy, but simple.
Michael Devous:Or I don't know.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, simplify it. My brain is going a hundred miles an hour and I walk out of the building, but you're like, you're like, but what about my groin?
Michael Devous:Yeah, so how did you associate those two things? Or were you just still spinning? No, I just still spinning.
Bob DePasquale:Honestly, Michael, like knowing me at the time, I thought if I had an opportunity to ask him a question, I probably would have asked him when I could play again. If I'm being honest, Right, right, that's the mindset of the 18 year old, somewhat crazy person, but also determined. Most of my life up until 18 was pushing through and I was raised in a very loving home. But I was an only child and they said you got to fend for yourself, Like you got to get stuff done If you want things to get done in the world. You know, my parents always used to tell me to fight for something that I cared about, and so I had. You know I was a pretty resilient person, so that was my thought. To be honest with you, If I even had one really.
Michael Devous:And that there was no one else to lean on. You know that you didn't have brothers and sisters. You didn't have like it's like, we're here for you, but the buddy when you got to the world, it's you.
Bob DePasquale:And that was my mindset. A hundred percent. That's a great way to articulate. I mean, I really didn't have anyone that I was used to leaning on, so I suppose that was good for me. You know, I don't want to think, I don't want to say people shouldn't have anyone to lean on. That's certainly not the case, but at least maybe for me at that moment it was, it was maybe it was good for me to kind of have the mindset to just power through.
Michael Devous:Well developing. Self-reliance is a skill set and the character building you know, adventure it's. Some of us did it because we were simply stubborn, you know, just stubborn. It was like fuck the world kind of an attitude. I'm going to do this regardless. But but those of us who grew up without that support system, or at least with the knowledge that we really didn't have one, developed that self-reliance much quicker and sooner, I think.
Bob DePasquale:And so I mean, the mind was just racing and the moment I walked out of that building, really not knowing what I was even going to do, I don't even know if I knew where my car was, but the moment I walked out of the building the phone rang we did have cell phones at this point and it was my mom and she was surprised that I answered the phone because she expected me to be in this doctor's appointment again for, you know, a couple hours, at least an hour or so, yeah, yeah, as all the other ones I got. And so I answered the phone and she's like hey, honey, you know I expected you to be in the appointment. Thanks for answering, but just want to let you know that we landed, we're in the car, we're on our way to your uncle's house. We'll meet you there. How'd the appointment go?
Bob DePasquale:And I said mom so about that, and obviously I had to tell her what the doctor said and the only thing that I could really, I mean she was dead silent, screaming all at the same time. You know, like it was such an emotional moment through the phone, and the only thing I could hear was my dad because he was in the car with her on the other side and he was yelling maybe not yelling, but to me it sounded like yelling. But he's Susan, susan, which is my mom's name. He's like you know what's going on, like even he knew something was wrong by my mom's reaction.
Michael Devous:You know to me, yeah.
Bob DePasquale:And so we met back at my uncle's house shortly after that and you know I had only child, you know somewhat of a mom's boy. I mean I had never been away from old for six weeks like that, or five or six weeks, whatever it was. And so I mean I gave my parents a big hug and kind of looked at each other still in shock and shed some tears, said a few prayers and we're like you know what do we do now? I mean, the 18-year-old, invincible kid suddenly has a life-threatening illness. It was really really challenging.
Michael Devous:Well, yeah, and especially being sent home without any paperwork or any kind of, you know, information, informative packet of any kind, like your parents must have been terrified. They didn't know what kind of cancer, they didn't know where it was, they didn't know, I mean, other than getting old to that doctor again, which you know they would have to wait, for they must have been just frightened.
Bob DePasquale:Well, yeah, they were scared and you know my parents will talk about it now and really, I mean the stories that they tell are really, really interesting because it really challenged their relationship, because they had never been so concerned about something before and when you don't know, especially early on, like I said, it was. Yeah, I mean there was a lot of talk about fear.
Michael Devous:I mean they were more filled from the house. I mean that's the first thing you think of is is it a death sentence from my child, you know? And to watch your parents face, that I mean while you were already handling it, but to see the terrified looks on their faces when they don't have the answers, it's gotta be very scary.
Bob DePasquale:And you said it exactly when they don't have the answers, and one thing I mean it would be hard, but if they knew they had to do something like really challenging that, they would have cut off their arm to save me, and that would have been hard, but at least they know what to do. You're right, they don't even know what to do. There were somewhat helpless at this point. So, yeah, that was a tough, tough time, Wow.
Michael Devous:So you're, you've made it home. I assume you didn't go to the game that day.
Bob DePasquale:So the game that was Thursday. The game was a couple of days later and so we knew obviously I wasn't playing and I, you know, and when it was an away game and so you know, when you're not playing in the game you don't travel with the team. So you know, I was so up close there. Now we ended up talking to the oncologist, I think probably the next day, who happened to be. By the way, this is part of the whole collaborative generosity story, but I don't normally mention this in the story just because it's another detail. But it's also interesting to point out that my one of my cousins' friends and she was in like first or second grade at the time.
Bob DePasquale:Her dad ended up being my oncologist and so the way we got connected with him and we were able to talk to him right away. So that provided a lot of relief for my parents. But he told me to continue to take in classes, so I didn't go back to Florida, I stayed in New York. And so it's that Saturday, the day of the first game, and my uncle's best friend comes over his house and his day was Tim.
Bob DePasquale:And we didn't know this guy because, you know, we lived in Florida. And so he walks into the house and he sits behind my aunt and uncle and they didn't even really have a chance to introduce him to parents. He just knew who they were. It's like he knew who they were. He walked right over to my parents and he pulls his keys out of his pocket and I mean it seemed like he was shoving them in their face, but I mean he was just handing it to them and he said Bob, it's Susan, here's my keys, take my car, you can have it for as long as you need. I can't imagine what you're going through with your son right now. And I was thinking of myself wow, that's the most generous thing that someone's ever done for me and my family. And I mean I just couldn't believe it. I was like, who is this guy?
Michael Devous:Yeah, that's an amazing, you know like to recognize that you guys were there, I'm assuming, without transportation, because they'd flown up and he was like you know what. Here you go. Let me just at least provide this for now.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, you know, and I like to talk about radical generosity, and that's to me, that's something that you know, that you do that someone else probably wouldn't.
Michael Devous:And that was the unexpected kindness.
Bob DePasquale:Who's going to give you their car. I mean, that was just nuts. And the crazy thing too was he didn't even know us and he was there for like 15 minutes and he just left. He did that. We talked for like a minute, he said goodbye to my aunt and uncle and it was gone. Wow. And we were like so he came over just to give us a car.
Michael Devous:So many of these incidents is were happening so fast for you Like, within the span of a few days, the instant of being told, the instant of your parents arriving, the instant of being generous, and then just switch, switch, switch, switch, switch.
Bob DePasquale:You know it all was very fast, were you still?
Michael Devous:spinning at this point, like was your head still spinning, you hadn't made sense of it or absorbed it, or where were you.
Bob DePasquale:In mental Michael. I have trouble making sense of a lot of things in life, and at 18, I was not prepared to make sense of anything. I mean, listen, I don't want to be too self deprecating, I mean I wasn't the dumbest kid, but at that point in my life it was sports and, you know, hanging out with my friend I mean that was what I was into. So, like I wasn't really thinking too deeply about anything, I think it was more like OK, this is just kind of what you do, you know, wow, and I did. However, what Tim did for us did really stick out to me, though. That I gathered Like that I picked up on something about that, and you know.
Michael Devous:I don't know if that was.
Bob DePasquale:You know, I don't think, to be honest with you, michael, that that was just natural right, Like I don't think I had this special desire at that point in my life to identify generosity. It's a lot different now and it's what I do, a lot of, what I do for a living, but I think it. There's just something special about that moment hit me and I'll never forget it. I think about it all the time and so and that was it, and Tim was gone, and so, continuing the story, a couple of days, a few days later, I went to my second ever college class on Tuesday morning and you know I don't want to say a normal day. I mean, obviously at this point things were not normal in life.
Bob DePasquale:But I came out of my second ever college class and I go to the cafeteria to grab something to eat. I had a breakfast burrito and I'm sitting there by myself watching the news. Now, I don't know the news station, I'm 18 years old, I don't even watch the news, but it's what's on TV. And add, one of those like old school tube televisions that's probably eight inches wide and it's hanging from a bracket on the ceiling, between the ceiling and the wall in the cafeteria.
Bob DePasquale:I can't see the material there and I'm watching the thing and all of a sudden they flip to this emergency and they show a plane crashed into one of the towers in New York City, not too far from where I went to school.
Michael Devous:Yes, yes.
Bob DePasquale:And I'm like, oh man, that's you know what a horrible accident. It's terrible. So I actually called my dad and said, hey, dad, you know, he was back on my uncle's and he's like, are you watching the news? And he's like, hey, I'm watching the news. You see this plane. And I'm like, yeah, it's terrible, and it was, it was riveting. But in less than I mean, maybe a minute later or so, bam, another plane hits the tower right next to the first one, and we didn't realize it at the moment, but it turns out that September 11 terrorist attacks were happening right then.
Michael Devous:Yeah, Most of us didn't know it, but the fact, the first time I, when I saw the first plane I thought it was, I thought it was a part of my brain was like this isn't real. What is this? Is this some kind of a joke? Is this some kind of a manufactured thing? It just it didn't add up for me and I couldn't even envision or fathom what it would take to get a plane to crash into a building in New York, let alone be cleared for that airspace, Like all the different things that my head was trying to add up you would have to be able to do.
Michael Devous:I wasn't thinking terrorists. I was thinking, well, who would do that? Nobody would do that. Like you know, this is America and that, that's, I think, that's that whole sense of safety that we that's assuming of safety that we had at the time came crashing down around us at that same time.
Bob DePasquale:I, I just didn't know what to think. I was like, okay, that's kind of crazy. And my dad said you better get in the car and get back to your uncle's house. That's not an accident. So he knew something.
Michael Devous:The car, were you in the car that that gentleman gave you?
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, oh, you better get back at his car and and get back to the and get back to your uncle's. So I hopped through the car. I mean I, I sprinted out of that place as fast as I could with my groin injury. That that was no longer a groin injury and I I mean I just I didn't finish what I was eating, that breakfast breed. I was probably still sitting there and I hopped in the car and it took me nine hours to drive. It was typically a 15 minute drive.
Michael Devous:Because everybody was on the roads trying to get out of New York.
Bob DePasquale:Yep, I'm in New York. I'm, I'm driving. I can see burning towers in the distance.
Bob DePasquale:I mentioned my master's degree of broadcast journalism earlier. I worked at a radio. I loved working in it, but I didn't like I would never listen to nine straight hours of a radio again ever in my life. But it was riveting. I mean I listened to all the coverage. Oh yeah, no one knew what was going on and I actually barely got off the highway. Thank God I was able to get off the highway and I ran out of gas just off the highway in my uncle's neighborhood and I remember my parents calling my parents somehow, you know, back then your cell phone battery. You know you weren't on it like the whole time.
Bob DePasquale:So it lasted the day, you know. So I still had cell phone battery left. I call my parents and said hey, you know I'm around the block, can you come help me push the car into the driveway? So we pushed the car in the driveway and I get out of the car, and it was a very similar moment. So when I got out of the car, when the day I was diagnosed and I looked at my parents and we kind of like were staring at each other like Wow, you know, I was in visible Bobby, you know, five days ago. Then suddenly I felt like my life might be coming to an end. Now we think the world might be coming to an end.
Bob DePasquale:I mean, it was just, it was unbelievably fearful, you know, just confusing. You just didn't know what was going on. And so my aunt was hysterical I mean, she was even more hysterical than we were, and because my uncle was on business the night before and he was supposed to come fly home that morning. Now he was in Denver. Now we didn't, but we didn't know at the time that the planes didn't come from there. So we were, we were concerned that he was on one of those planes because he was flying back to work, yeah, so maybe eight o'clock or so, he calls and he's like hey guys, you know, I'm really sorry.
Bob DePasquale:I'm sure you've been panicking. I'm fine, I'm alive. My plane never took off, I'm going to be okay, I'll try to catch a flight tomorrow. You know, everything's fine. Um, and then what we talked for a couple of minutes, whatever we were going to hang up, and he ended up saying you know, before I let you go, I got to tell you that you know my friend Tim, who you all met just a few days back. He was in the tower this morning and he died, oh my God, and that hit me like a ton of bricks. I mean, that guy, like I said, was just the guy who came over and gave, gave us his car, you know, for as long as we knew.
Michael Devous:That's Tim. Tim's the guy that came by and dropped off his car. Yeah, my uncle's best friend at the time. Oh my gosh, and now he's gone.
Bob DePasquale:So it turns out that Tim worked for an investment firm called Cannerford Sherald, which kind of brings my career in the financial space full circle.
Michael Devous:Wow, and talked about planning that seed.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, right, and so Cannerford Sherald you can go. I would encourage anyone out there to, especially if you want to learn more about some of the like behind the scenes. One up behind the scenes, but some of the, you know, human interest stories of 9-11.
Michael Devous:Yeah.
Bob DePasquale:Cannerford Sherald was, is an investment firm and they their main offices were there in the tower, one of the towers, and everyone from their firm except their leader his name is Howard Lutnik. So if you YouTube the Howard Lutnik press conference after 9-11, you'll see one of the most emotional press conferences from. I mean I wouldn't call him a regular guy because he was a you know, the leader of a massive investment firm, but I mean he's still a regular guy and he was uncharacteristically late that morning, would never not be in the office but was taking his grandkids or kids I think it was his son to school and just for whatever reason that day, because his wife had something going on and she could take him. So he was was one of the people who you've seen this some of the videos of people running like they're on the street near the, near the tower when it starts collapsing, and he's one of the people like running away from the tower and he ended up surviving at his press conference. He's like I lost everyone, like he. He's in such shock and so emotional that he just lost everyone and Tim was one of those people and it turns out that Cannerford Sherald and Tim himself were.
Bob DePasquale:They were known for being very, very generous people, a generous organization. They. They would donate office space for free, completely free, to my uncle's foundation for cystic fibrosis, which is a disease my cousin has, and so the foundation had prime office space in a towel in the in the world traits are in New York city because Cannerford Shell just gave them the office space and luckily, no one the only person that would typically be in the office that early for the foundation was Tammy, and she got stuck in the subway below, below the tower that day, and she survived and she's got some incredible stories of her own of how she made it out herself. But I tell you that because I think about this a lot, Michael. So Tammy, god bless she was spared and she's still alive to this day and can tell stories.
Bob DePasquale:But for some reason, tim, it wasn't meant to be that Tim would survive that day and Tim and all the people I can ever show were known for being extremely generous. And apparently Tim would say something to the effect of you never know when your last chance to be generous will be. And if you've listened to media or or you know you're, if you're alive in the world today, you've heard of the acronyms FOMO and YOLO. You know, free or missing out, or you only live once and you know, just go for. And do you know, do the dare devilish things that bullied me? I'm totally cool with people doing things to.
Michael Devous:You know to quench their thirst for adventure.
Bob DePasquale:Yes, but Tim would say you never know when your last chance to be generous for someone else's and it turns out that our family was his last chance to be generous and we're super thankful that he capitalized.
Michael Devous:Wow, I mean, that's a legacy he left you. How you know, how, the immense sense of responsibility you must have felt to own up to and be responsible for that last gift of generosity and learning how to pay it forward. Is that, do you think that's part of the reason why it planted a seed for you for generosity? Is that where this all began? And then you felt obligated, or at least I don't want to use the word obligated, that feels like that's uncharacteristic, unfair.
Michael Devous:But do you feel like it, like you just felt a sense of major responsibility to his legacy of giving and generosity, to do something with that.
Bob DePasquale:Absolutely, and I think the seed is a great way to put it, because it wasn't like you know, boom, I'm going to be the most generous person I could be and I want to go talk with organizations about building generous cultures.
Michael Devous:It didn't happen like that. Well, no, you still had to grow up and learn. You still had to develop a life and become an adult and establish something with the foundation. But, but it was there, the germination of the idea and the impact of the giving and that generosity in that moment it must have been huge, do you I have to mean your family thinks about his family to this day?
Bob DePasquale:So Tim had three kids. They were all very, very young. I think one of them was an infant at the time.
Bob DePasquale:All of them, and I mean, it was a terribly sad situation for a lot of families. So I don't want to make it seem like there weren't thousands upon thousands of people who lost their lives, but I'll never forget meeting Tim's wife, because she wasn't there that day that she came over. And you know we're still friendly with her to this day. And you know I understood at 18, I was old enough to understand what she was going through, having lost her husband with three young kids, and you know, a life to live. And so I think about that time in my life, that whole period of time from really from when I started going to some of those tests, all the way up to the day of 9-11. Actually, you know. So you're talking about a few week period of my life there, specifically the five days between the diagnosis and 9-11.
Bob DePasquale:But you talk about a seed and I'm glad you said it that way, because I live this is not an exaggeration whatsoever. I think about that period of my life every single day and I, I, and until I become incoherent, I will think about it every day for the rest of my life. And now, some days it's a happy, some happy memories. Some days it's a little more somber, like every year on actual 9-11 is usually a kind of a rough day for me. Yeah, but that seed is continuing to grow. I mean it's, it's a tree now I mean I'll be honest.
Bob DePasquale:but it's still growing up, still pruning and still learning, and so Tim absolutely planted it, but it's certainly certainly a journey. Well, the the.
Michael Devous:These are one of those, those quintessential moments where, if you stare into the abyss long enough, you can get lost in the, in the, in the timing that had to occur for these things to come together at this particular set of moments, for all of these things to happen in your life. It's almost unfathomable, or I don't even know if the word, I can't even remember. I think you got it unfathomable how it is that that, that, that these lines of people's lives, these moments that were just up by seconds, had to line up and occur just at this, in this way, for these set of events to occur and especially to impact you the way that they did.
Michael Devous:I mean, that's not lost on me that I think a lot of us don't have those kind of junctures and crossroads in our lives to reflect on. They may be smaller and less prolific and massive in terms of their impact, but for you to be standing at the crossroads of so many lives and and and be the a survivor but then a person who takes that in step with your journey and begins to make something out of it, I mean that's incredible. That's it's. It's no wonder that you're not. You know that you haven't. Are you writing about this? Are you adding that? I mean, I know you mentioned a couple of things in that you know your finance book and stuff, but are you planning on writing a little bit more of a like a autobiographical? Autobiographical?
Bob DePasquale:story to capture this.
Bob DePasquale:So you're putting the pressure on me, but the short answer is the short answer is yes, and you mentioned the word obligation earlier. I absolutely feel, you know, a sense of obligation to share my story because I think, yeah, I think I've learned over the years. I probably when it first happened, and even for for a few years after that, I I wouldn't have thought it could have, it could be impactful, but I understand that it is now because I've had many people tell me and so, yes, I do plan on writing. I have written about it and on certain occasions of my blog, but in some social posts I'm pretty active on social media, but I have not put it all into a book and so that's gonna take some time because, to be honest with you, Michael, I feel like I wouldn't be able to finish the book right now.
Michael Devous:And so maybe it's not the start it, but yes, well, and I have a couple of friends who've had some similar set of circumstances in their lives who feel like the sharing of that story in any way, shape or form that benefits them financially. They feel bad about, like they don't wanna benefit from it as a result, and so I think there's this sort of they harbor, this sort of like resistance to sharing it in that way, because it is inevitable, I think, that if you share it in a book form or what have you, that you could benefit from it financially. I think a lot of people feel reticent to allow such a thing to happen. But I think the story is so impactful and so it's so pivotal too, because in your journey to become the generosity guy, this is how lives begin. This is how journeys begin for us, when we really become and step into fully, 100%, the authentic version of our own selves. Right, which is not on a dime, it's not immediate. It is a journey we finally get to when we realize all the wonderful and impactful and major tragic things that happen in our lives have set us on this course. And we now must pay attention, cause when we weren't paying attention. Shit was falling apart, shit wasn't working, things weren't operating well, right, you know. And then, all of a sudden, we start paying attention to all those little times and all those little signals, all those little things that were course correcting you and you start to go with that flow. You step into 100% who you're supposed to be.
Michael Devous:Ladies and gentlemen, we are in studio for this road podcast with Bob Pasquale, who just shared an incredible origin story with his fear, I think, where it began for him, with the diagnosis of cancer in New York at the time when 911 went down, and the generous gift of a gentleman, tim, who offered his car at a life-changing moment, who was also lost in 9-11. We're talking about moments, moments that change us, moments that impact us, and moments that have created for Bob a bigger and more impactful journey. We'll be right back, okay. So you know we got literally down the road with you, on so many different paths here, to get to you, to where you are. I don't wanna get too far field from the impact of that story, but I also kinda wanna you know I need to jump into some of these questions but this impact of generosity, this moment of this gift that set you on a course.
Michael Devous:We sit today in a society. That is not how. I would not describe our society culture today as generous, I mean, and the me sort of. I think it's a double edged sword, or it's a two-sided coin, if you will. We are at a precipice of fear and scarcity, of dynamic political divergence and a torn and non-unified community. Right, do you feel a little fearful about generosity? How do you describe generosity in today's society, in today's culture? Where do you see it for us right now?
Bob DePasquale:Well, that's an interesting question about how I describe it in today's culture, because it is certainly different than even the way I experienced it when I was growing up, and certainly much, much different than it was years and years ago. And it's been around since the beginning of time. I mean, there are stories from some of the oldest writings and scriptures in the world that talk about generosity, and so it's been around. But yeah, it is certainly different in today's world. I think there's two things that stick out to me the most. Number one is and you kind of alluded to it, I think generosity has suddenly become the antithesis of self-support and success and achievement, and that one pains me. That point pains me because I see generosity as a collaborative experience, and I heard a message or a thought from a tour guide that I had on a trip this summer, and we could talk more about that trip too. I was actually in Israel. Considering all that's going on right now, I'm sorry that's what we're talking about.
Bob DePasquale:Yes, but our tour guide was a super, tremendously nice gentleman and he talked about the difference between giving and sharing, and it was really interesting to me the way he articulated it, because he essentially proved to me that it doesn't matter what culture in the world that you're in, that we were built and made to share with each other and we don't have to take each other down to be successful.
Bob DePasquale:When you talk about scarcity and that the difference between scarcity and the abundance might say, I think generosity certainly falls, or it should fall, on the abundant side, but for some reason we've got this idea or thought that generosity is something that is self. Well, it is selfless, but I don't think it's the opposite of selfish, and so it's actually a good thing and it's proven. I mean, I have data and I talk about this all the time with people and organizations the best organizations are the most generous and most giving. That's the first point, and the other thing related to generosity is I also. This one also troubles me a bit too, and this is kind of what helped me make a transition from working for a large financial organization to opening my own firm, because people were asking me about this, and their big concern was that they're not capable of executing on the generosity that they desire. And now whether that's giving financially, which obviously in my industry that's a big part of what we do.
Bob DePasquale:But also giving of their time, their intellectual property, other resources that they have, and they just felt incapable.
Michael Devous:And I just don't Sharing of themselves.
Bob DePasquale:I think yeah, they think they're incapable. And because it is related to fear. I absolutely believe it's related to fear. I talk about being on The Fearless Road Podcast. People think that giving is a fearful road and, if I'm being honest, I've seen some people transform their lives, whether it's financially or just their lives in general by going down the generosity road.
Michael Devous:Yes, and I think that you know. Going back to what you said about, there's a couple of human condition things that we're born with that I believe is natural for us. One is we are built to dream as humans, as small creators in this world.
Michael Devous:We are built to learn and I think, as you said, we're built to share, to take that learning and to take that dreaming and then share it with the world. And I think what's happening right now is we have turned a corner in a lot of our cultures and societies, where learning, dreaming and sharing have been darkened, shaded, shunted, shamed, pushed down it like I feel like those very natural parts of who we are are being left aside or being cast aside and not focused on, and I think that's a very dangerous path for us to be on. I think we need to really think about opening our hearts. I don't think we would be in the conditions and situations we are Israel or otherwise if we were bigger dreamers, better learners and bigger sharers of all of it.
Bob DePasquale:You know, I agree, and the thing that comes to mind, you know, when you mentioned those things giving, sharing, learning it all comes back to collaboration. For me, working together, it's just the beginning of time. Humans have to rely on each other to survive. And so all of those things. I think they happen to some degree in the world, but it's like an over-specialization or it's. They don't work together as much as they should. We don't need that. Well, it's not a practice.
Michael Devous:You know what I'm saying. We're not practicing it Like the businesses are practicing the art of making money, schools are practicing teaching, but there's not the art of learning, giving and sharing. You know what I'm saying. These things are not being practiced as a culture. We're not doing that Like we might do it once a year, at Thanksgiving, which is coming up by the way, or Christmas, when we're giving. You know the spirit of giving supposed to be in the holidays, right but as a year-round daily practice and mindset, yeah, I think we're far afield from making that happen on a regular basis as a culture and as a society.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, no, I'm right, I'm right with you. And they just they don't, they're not working together anymore. You're like it's absolutely okay for a business to make money. But, part of contributing to society is giving with what you have, and so I, if you'll indulge me, I have a quick little thought or story about this one.
Bob DePasquale:So, I fly Delta a lot. It just seems to go to the places that I want to go and I noticed that in the jet bridge the terminal, not the terminal, the jet bridge when you go on a Delta flight, in most of them there's various ads, and it's like this for all airlines, but one of them specifically is for their giving back, and I've happened to have done some international work with an organization called Habitat for Humanity. If anyone's interested in going overseas hoping they open up this program again, so you can go.
Michael Devous:My dad worked with them helping teach kids how to build homes. That's so cool. We got to talk about this. Yeah, it was great. It was very good.
Bob DePasquale:I've had tremendous experiences, so much so that I started leading trips and we haven't gone in years now because of the pandemic. But anyway, that's a shameless plug for Habitat for Humanity. But I don't know Delta very well other than I mean I know there are planes and I fly them and I have my sky miles numbered. But it seems to me that that ad is very kind of typical for a lot of big, large organizations, that they check the box of generosity, Like hey, we give money to Habitat for Humanity or we send our employees occasionally on these trips, and there's nothing wrong with that stuff. I think that's good, those are good places in the world. But what's the reason why these organizations are?
Bob DePasquale:doing it, and so my teaching or my thought, or the things that I like to share are all about how you need to make sure that the people in your organization or the people in your family, or that the reason behind the giving and the generosity is truly there, and that it's not just the kind of like you were alluded to before. It's not just this saying that you have to do or this obligation. It's something that should be part of the culture, and I worry that in today's society that, because we're over-specializing and everything fit into this little box, because there's so much information that it has become this thing that there's no culture around it. It's just an item or just an event. And I always say this generosity is not an event, it's a mindset, and there's a completely different shift there.
Michael Devous:Yeah, I was on a driving car with my dad recently on a trip to go actually get my computer fixed. He was asking me questions aboutwe were talking about fear. We were talking about motivational speaking, about consulting for corporations and companies and organizations, about fear. Specifically, he was asking how does this work into companies and what they're doing? Why do they need this? And I said well, it's interesting that you asked this because we've turned a corner.
Michael Devous:Back 15 years ago, companies were checking the box, meaning, in order to appear that they were good to society, in order to appear that they were participating in the community, in order to appear on all of these things, they could check these little boxes by putting out promotional ads that said we do this, we give back. Here's our philosophy on X, y and Z. Well, today we, the public, are so much more empowered. We can hold you accountable to that mission and that statement and that strategy and that purpose. If you don't, we will know it and, as consumers, hold you accountable and we will change the course of your stock value and change the course of our purchasing and buying power If you don't meet our standards for what it means to have an identity and a philosophy and a purpose, and so now companies are hiring people like you and hopefully me more to talk about how to develop a cultural, philosophical soul, a soul that has to be multifaceted, right, it can't just be one sided. It has to be developed and strategic in terms of who are you as a company and how are you developing as a soul, an entity by the way, you have the ability to be an entity in the eyes of the government.
Michael Devous:It was written there says you are an entity. Then how are you impacting society and how are you developing a socio-economic, philosophical and emotional strategy mission that meets the needs not only of your employees but of the community at large? And how do you follow through with that right? You have to be able to identify and not just check a box. It's much different today and it's turning a corner. I'm hoping to see in the next five to ten years because of what you and I do, what other people like that we do, even fellow speakers that we know at the Speaker Lab that are working with corporations to do this, but also what society does in holding companies, associations, organizations and corporations accountable to doing better by us right.
Bob DePasquale:I agree, and the work that we do, or at least the work that I do. I don't want to speak for you, Michael, but I trust strongly in your mission. But I'm not a sales trainer, I'm not a leadership coach, I'm not a business consultant, but I tell you what all of those things will improve if you have a culture of generosity around your organization, and I'm on bias because you can't have a mindset, you can't have a what is the word?
Michael Devous:You can't avoid the shift in your mindset if you're operating from a place of generosity, if you're participating, thinking, working, mission driven as a company, from a place of generosity, it's impossible to work against the altruistic nature of that very endeavor.
Bob DePasquale:Exactly, and I'll challenge anyone out there who's. Whether you're a leader in an organization or you're the, you know it's your first day in the job.
Michael Devous:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to I am your host, Michael DeVous. We got a little interruption in our tech and our signals. Bob and I have been. You know, at the beginning of the show we even mentioned it. I think both of us are a little cursed with this episode, but we are determined to get this finished. When we left off last time, I was mentioning to Bob we were talking about generosity as a cultural mindset in the workplace, specifically with leadership and how, adopting a mindset or working from that particular philosophy, you couldn't help but improve your organization and the employees in your organization if you're operating from a mindset, a cultural mindset of generosity. And Bob was mentioning that he would challenge anyone out there, whether you're a leader of an organization or whether it's your first day to stop thinking about generosity as just a singular event. So, Bob, will you please take us from that idea that you were and finish your concept, finish your thought there.
Bob DePasquale:Yes, I believed that generosity is a mindset and not an event, and the greatest leaders and when I say leaders, I don't mean leader and title, I don't mean necessarily the CEO or the president, although it absolutely applies at that level as well, but it could be just about anyone in an organization if you approach your work with a mindset of generosity, rather than thinking that generosity is some sort of event or something that's required of you to be part of an organization or required of you to be considered worthy, you're much more likely in fact, I guaranteed when we were previously recording that you will find your organization being more productive, because what happens is people want to be involved with organizations like that, and it could be a fortune buy-m挖 company. It could be a small, what I like to call a small impact project in your community. People want to do business and do volunteer work and do just about anything with an organization that makes them feel like they're collaborating for something greater than themselves.
Michael Devous:And I 100% agree with you. Of course I think I mentioned to you before. I was talking to my dad on a road trip recently. He was asking me about these things. He was specifically asking me about my guests, but people that I talked to and it's like what do they tell executives and what are they? What are they when they do these speeches and stuff? What are they sharing?
Michael Devous:And I said, well, it's interesting, because we are now entering a time and an era when organizations are now beginning to develop a heart, a mind and a soul. And it has to be congruent, and I mean congruent, it has to be an alignment with what they're presenting to society, what they're presenting to the community and what they're presenting to their employees, because we now have the opportunity to hold them accountable to who they are as an entity and how they serve, not just us, the employee, or the widget makers and the widget suppliers, but how they serve the community at large. And if they are not in alignment with who they claim to be, employees will feel that dissatisfaction and they'll even go someplace where they feel that it's an alignment with who they are and what their beliefs and what their philosophies are.
Bob DePasquale:I completely agree with that as well, and the word that stuck out to me when you just mentioned that was disingenuous and I've maybe to a fault. When I was younger, I was the eternal optimist. I always believed people what they said.
Bob DePasquale:but I've learned over the years that there's so many messages and so many definitions of success out there in the world that a lot of people are trying to achieve something that they may not even truly understand, and there may not be true mal intent, but they display something because they feel that they have to, and they're not doing it for the right reasons, and so that's exactly what you're talking about. Organizations that truly want to be generous and have a generous culture are the ones that will actually be that way and attract the people. You can put up a front that if I saw all you want on social media and say things, but once you hire someone and they are working in your culture, they know immediately if that's truly what should be, and I got in a discussion the other day with someone about the word authenticity and I feel like it's thrown out around a lot out there.
Michael Devous:We need to show it is our authentic, felt, absolutely it is. It's like a buzzword that just has been used and abused everywhere.
Bob DePasquale:Yeah, and in this case, though, organizations that are authentically like, truly authentic with their culture are the ones that are going to attract the right people, and you know immediately, especially for employees and I also personally believe you talk about your dad asking you what people tell organizations. I tell them all the time that a generous culture attracts the top talent and the most loyal customers, but especially the talent, especially the people that are working for your organization. They will know immediately if your generosity is authentic.
Michael Devous:And this it occurs to me. I was listening to NPR the other night and there was an episode talking about security, security in America. There's a couple of companies that are some of the biggest, largest personal and private security companies, and then actually there's one that employs over 300,000 Americans and they're just third or fourth in size to Walmart, and they had callers and people talking about the reason why they were having so many issues with local security, so many shootings, so many bad apples, if you will. And the security organization had said well, you know, we have a hard time keeping good employees and we have a hard. You know, we can't seem to keep good staff and they change out a lot so we can't get them trained. They were passing on the responsibility for doing good service and good work and good training to the fact that they couldn't keep good employees.
Michael Devous:And I'm like you, literally admitted that you have a culture where your employees A don't respect you. There is no philosophy that they're adhering to and they're not doing good work and they're not sticking around. That's a you problem. That's not a public problem. That's not an employee problem. That's not a staffing issue.
Michael Devous:That's an internal issue with the alignment, your misalignment with your philosophy and what you are delivering to your employees. If you had and ran a good company that paid them well and what they were worth a living wage, if you trained them well and respected them as individuals, if you treated them and the society that they serve equally right, if the same intention and the same altruistic like you say, generosity and respect, then you wouldn't have employees A not in alignment with what your services and policies are, b leaving you regularly and C not performing up to expectations. So I'm assuming that's what you bring when you do this training and this coaching and stuff for executive leadership and stuff in your workshops with them. When teach, it's not just about where to invest your money, to be generous and have a legacy. It's really a philosophical shift in the mindset and practice right.
Bob DePasquale:Well, 100%, and I love what you talk about. You know, it's not just giving your money, because that's a part portion of it, and I will point this out too, because it's probably a lot of people out there that might be listening and thinking well, you're you telling me not to, you know, give of our finances and not to donate to orgs? I'm not saying that at all. In fact, what I'm saying is, if the foundation of your organization is well defined, whatever that is, however you want to express yourself, whatever you think is generous.
Bob DePasquale:What's altruistic is the word that you just used, Michael, but not only will that help you be a better business, but it will also help make it easier to encourage, to get people to participate, for people in your organization to donate money, all those other things that we think of as chores that, like we talked about, maybe doing it to check the box of generosity, to make it, to give your organization the right brand, they become suddenly much more natural and simpler to get people to participate in because it's part of the foundation. They're not coming to work saying, all right, I got to get this project done or else we can get fired, or we got to hit our budget deadline and then, oh yeah, the other thing that I have to do when I'm done with that is now I got to go volunteer, now I got to go, you know, do some of the project. It's not like that at all. In fact, it's all part of it and it's actually enjoyable, and that's why people want to be part of your organization.
Michael Devous:Well, and I think you also are pointing to the fact that once you begin the process of adopting a generous mindset and a generous culture right, once you begin to define what that looks like for your organization as a leader, it impacts your HR department, which means it impacts your hiring, which means you redefine how you hire, who you hire, what you hire for, right. The entire framework of your organization and how people work for you and why they come to work for you now gets redefined. Because you can't you can't just put it on a piece of paper and add it to your message mission statement as a footnote and then and then not you know execute. If you're going to execute, it means it's coming down, it's trickling down, it's affecting every department, the way that it's defined, how you do the work you do, how you impact the community and your employees, and I think I'm hopeful that we're seeing a bit more of that in our organizations and I'm glad that you're doing that work with them. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're just joining us or you're coming into the tail end of it, we're with Bob DePasquale, the generosity guy who teaches and trains and coaches and mentors organizations, leaders and executives on how to adopt a generous mindset and a generous culture that impacts the philosophy and execution of your entire organization, from the top all the way down to the street and all the way to the shelf. If you deliver goods and services, so pick up the book, make sure that you get on board with him or hire him for your organization, because it really can create some impactful change In addition to that.
Michael Devous:You know, in your September 5th blog, you wrote that purpose is not a revelation, it's a practice, and you said that the idea of finding one purpose often leads to frustration and endless searching. People tend to expect a sudden epiphany or a life altering revelation that will uncover their true calling. While these moments can happen, they are rare. Waiting for such an epiphany can be a passive and disheartening experience. I love that you say finding your purpose is a practice and not just a revelation.
Michael Devous:I know a bunch of us have discovered and like oh my god, this is my purpose. I need to start doing this. But once you do, you know you need to create a practice around loving, embracing and making that purpose a part of your life. Number one, number two for those of us. So let me. These are two pointed questions. One I'd like you to comment a little bit about this statement Purpose is not a revelation but a practice. And two, for those of us who are younger and haven't really found our purpose yet and we're still sort of in search of it, how do we practice the art of that purpose when we really don't know what it is, and how can that get us to finding it on our way?
Bob DePasquale:Well, my response or commentary on the blog article that you're mentioning is that that came to me. I remember writing that or, you know, pushing through my thoughts. And I say pushing because, you know, here I've been one of those situations where you ask some really heavy thoughts and you're trying to like sift your way through what you, even what you're doing.
Bob DePasquale:So it came out because I had just experienced a couple of different things, you know, big changes in my life. I was thinking about what like? What, the meaning like, why did those things happen? And it made me realize that we're not in control of all the things that happen in our life. There's thousands, millions of external sources of forces outside of us that don't that we're not in control of, and so a lot of times those external forces can contribute to some kind of epiphany moment, like you mentioned or that I mentioned in the blog article.
Bob DePasquale:And so it can be easy. I think that you and mine is designed to take shortcuts so we can simplify and be more efficient, and so it can be easy to assume that all of these external forces have come together to form something that was actually your thought process or something that defines your reason for doing something. It can be a good reason to try and take on an opportunity, but it's not going to give you your life's purpose. I say purpose is a journey or a practice, because it takes time for you to understand what's most meaningful to you. You don't try something for the first time and realize it's your purpose. You might realize you love it, and there's a lot of things that I do in Michael. I have plenty of hobbies in my life. I love all of them, but none of them are my life's purpose. My life's purpose is to help organizations build generous cultures, but it took me a long time to figure that out.
Bob DePasquale:Yes, so here's your second question.
Bob DePasquale:If you are the type of person whether you're young in age or young in this journey of purpose, the first thing that I always tell people to do is, when they're considering this, is think about the things that they've spent the most time in their life on.
Bob DePasquale:And if you'd be so, I think you'd be surprised at a lot of what you write down. I always recommend you write it down. Think about the places and times and things that you've done the most in your life and consider those first, because I think a lot of us are a lot closer to finding purpose than we actually think, that we actually believe. We're looking at going back to external forces, we're looking at other things that people are doing in the world and what's being promoted and what the world tells us is great, and we're starting to think okay, I got to be in the, I have to walk in that direction, when maybe you've already been walking in the right direction. So that was the first suggestion. And then the second thing, or other things that you start going on beyond, that is, take opportunities, try new things. If you're still struggling, you got to look, and that's why it's a practice. So the practice is not a perfectly devout, desired habit that you do for a half hour every day.
Bob DePasquale:The practice is actually trying new things and stepping out of your comfort zone.
Michael Devous:And I would add to this, like I'm like you. There's a lot of things that I loved to do and have loved to do and have done because I like them or love them or I'm just good at it, but they're not necessarily my purpose. And I think I would add, in addition to discovering or taking a look at the things that you, you gravitate towards and do easily and do well During those times, can you name the moments when you feel 100% authentically yourself and to you feel recognized, acknowledged or appreciated in those moments for being 100% authentically yourself? If those two things happen simultaneously while doing something that you enjoy and you love, that actually might be your purpose. You might be able to make that into it, because you can do a lot of things you enjoy, but you may not feel 100% authentic there. You may not feel joy and happiness while doing it every single time, but if you can see how many times there was a line, I think that will pinpoint, you know, connect those dots.
Michael Devous:For me, when I looked back at it last year and was looking at what had come up was everyone was asking me was like you land on your feet? Fear is not a thing for you. You always seem to approach fear differently than everybody else. You seem to overcome it or be fearless in everything that you approach, and I just thought that this was lip service. I thought this was people being nice to me, families being encouraging, you know, you know, like you said, land on your your own, two, you land on your two feet, or whatever you know. And and when I look back, I realized I did have a different relationship with fear. I was approaching those moments and those challenges and those tragic changes and impacts in my life very differently than a lot of people were, and I began to look at and examine why. Then I began to look at okay, of all the things I've done in my life, right, which moments did I feel the happiest and the most joy while doing those things, and does that align with the way that I treat fear? And it occurred to me that using my skill set and entertainment and broadcast and interviewing people and talking to people about fear became the thing for me. Like, I want to examine this. I want to take a bigger, deeper look at my life and at fear, but I like the ability to be able to use all of these skill sets to produce a show where I get to talk to people about their fears, I get to talk to them about their journeys, and that felt more in alignment with my purpose.
Michael Devous:And so this, this now, is my practice, and you'd mentioned before too, I think it was Are you living it with intention, right? Not just accidentally doing some of the things that come next, or just doing the next thing in front of you simply because it's the next thing to do, or you just happen to be good at it. Or someone said, hey, you know you could do X, y and Z. I realized I wasn't doing. I wasn't actively working and living and doing those things with intention. I was just doing them because they were. They were what came naturally to me, but they weren't providing joy for me and they weren't providing good service, I think, at the other side, for those individuals I was giving them to. I think it could have been better if I was living with that intention and that, practicing that purpose.
Bob DePasquale:I think the human body and mind are amazing. They can sprint in, you know, short spurts and I don't want to say fake it till you make it, but I mean something that's not truly your purpose or joyful. You can do really well and you could support people. You can even work in the field and do some really good work, but for sustained excellence, not perfection, but for sustained excellence and joy fulfillment. I think it's key that you, that you find that purpose and that's why I mentioned in the blog that it's a journey and not a specific epiphany. It just, it just impossible. I've never experienced it that way. Anyone who's had some epiphany and then suddenly it changes their whole life and it's their complete purpose.
Bob DePasquale:In fact, I challenge people on that all the time when they I see this a lot on social media. I see people say stuff like oh, you know, my life was down in the dumps and I was doing terrible and you know I couldn't. You know I couldn't pay my bills and everything was terrible. And then I heard this quote and now I'm an online entrepreneur, you know, making $100,000 a week selling trinkets. And I always ask them I say I'm not saying you're not selling trinkets for $100,000 a week. But what was that moment that completely changed your life and describe it and I very rarely do I get a good answer. I hate to criticize people but it just. It doesn't work like that to me. It takes time. You don't see the grind that it is, until you right, until you recognize the result.
Michael Devous:Well, and you know this is a great way to wrap some of this stuff up we are on a journey, ladies and gentlemen. You're on a journey, you're on your own fearless road and if you want to maintain excellence and in generosity, Bob DePasquale is your guy. He can bring the mindset, the culture, the shift, the change, the questions that you need to ask in order to bring a generous mindset and a generous culture and a an idea of excellence, a consistency and excellence and performance and finding your purpose. I encourage you to get out there, get his book Personal Finance in a Public World. I encourage you to listen to his blog, I mean listen to his podcast or read his blog. We've given a lot of tips and tricks and things here over this, trying to get this episode out. But before we, as we wrap this up, you know, are there any other things you'd like to leave the listeners with some, you know, parting message or a final thought?
Bob DePasquale:My final thought is this I'll share a quote that I love and I heard it once. I've heard it multiple times now, but I heard it the first time, I think it was at a concert. I was a teenager, and the lead singer said you may not change the world, but you may change the world for one. And I've always remembered that, and I wasn't always working in the generosity space as I am now, but I'm more and more realizing how relevant that quote is in the work that I do today. So if you're someone out there, you're a leader in your organization. Remember, regardless of the title, you're a leader and you may not change the world, but you may change the world for one person that you would care today.
Michael Devous:And that's true. I think we have to remember that the impact of what we do might just reach that one individual who needs it in that moment. As I said before, there are no new words, but there are always new ears to hear, and what you hear here on , as well as on Bob's podcast, is new and could be impactful and could change your life and change the direction that you are headed in, and I think it's meaningful. So where can we find you, bob, other than I mean just to let us give us a little feedback? I know that there's your website and your podcasts and your blog. Where can people get ahold of you?
Bob DePasquale:Well, the website is https://www. bobdepasquale. com. All of my socials are on there @Bdepa you can check me out. And then, if you have financial questions, initiateimpact. com is our company and I would love to do it.
Michael Devous:Initiate impact.
Michael Devous:Okay, the Ems are always open on social, so hit me up and we'd love to talk about how generous your day is yeah, and I will put the links, of course, on the YouTube at the end of the copy of the blog and the transcript, and, of course, on all my social media and stuff that's going out to promote this episode. You will see it on there. This episode should be coming out this holiday season as we look at generosity and we think about being grateful and being generous to those of us around us, and we can make an impact and change the world. So thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us yet again, sticking with us as Bob and I get this episode done. Bob Depechevalet, the finance and generosity guy, thank you so much, my friend. I really appreciate you taking the time really to make this happen for both of us and I wish you the best going into the Thanksgiving holidays for you and your family.
Michael Devous:Yeah everybody, Stay Fearless, be well, be kind to each other and be generous. Don't forget All right. Thanks everyone, Thank you.