189. The Journey from Adversity to Unicorns and Rainbows: Daniel Knight's Story

In this episode, Colette Brown welcomes Daniel Knight, who experienced a drastic life shift after his father was arrested for money laundering. Knight shares his journey from living a posh life to facing numerous hardships, including his father's deportation and ensuing responsibilities as the man of the house at a young age. Despite struggling academically and emotionally, Knight found mentorship and resilience, eventually creating the successful community Unicorn Universe. This organization connects people to foster reciprocal relationships and support purpose-driven missions. Daniel discusses the importance of relationships, the value of abundance thinking, and offers insights into building meaningful connections. The episode delves into Knight's inspiring story and emphasizes the transformative power of unity and collaboration.

Episode Highlights:

01:03 Introduction to Daniel Knight's Journey

01:45 A Drastic Change at Eight Years Old

04:20 Struggles and Responsibilities in Childhood

06:40 High School and Finding a Mentor

08:38 Post-High School Fresh Start

10:07 The Birth of Unicorn Universe

13:17 The Importance of Building Relationships

17:26 Inspiring the Next Generation

25:57 Final Thoughts and Advice

Find out more at:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/10x_unicorn/

Website: https://www.unicornuniverse.io

______________________________________

Connect with Colette:

Instagram: @wellnessbycolette

Website: love-colette.com

Thank you for listening to the Limitless Healing podcast with Colette Brown! It would mean the world if you would take one minute to follow, leave a 5 star review and share with those you love!

In Health,
Colette

Transcript

[00:00:00] Colette Brown: [00:01:00] Our next guest grew up in Spain and immigrated to the States and was living the American dream until there was a drastic change of events, which took him spiraling down, unsure of where to go. However, today he has found his way. And is here showing up to inspire others to be their best selves. It is my great honor to welcome Daniel Knight.

[00:01:28] Colette Brown: Welcome Daniel. 

[00:01:29] Daniel Knight: Thank you, Colette. I'm excited to be here. I appreciate you having me on. 

[00:01:32] Colette Brown: It's great to have you. And I'm really excited to share about the unicorn universe. First of all, I just have to plug that. But I'd love to just take this time to let people get to know you a little bit better. So I'd like you to take us back to a moment in childhood where you were living this great life.

[00:01:52] Colette Brown: And then overnight, it just literally changed. 

[00:01:56] Daniel Knight: Yeah. It was, I was about eight years old when just [00:02:00] everything flipped on me. Basically I was living in a very nice neighborhood in Utah and the FBI had swarmed my house, essentially raided it and they had found evidence from my dad breaking the law.

[00:02:15] Daniel Knight: He had laundered something like 10 million for the Colombian cartel and they. Had enough evidence to bust him. So he got arrested. And before I knew it, I was living in my grandparents basement. My five sisters were sharing one room and I was sharing a bed with my brother and we just lost everything. And it wasn't long after that, that he was.

[00:02:39] Daniel Knight: Put into federal prison and ultimately deported where he then lived in Spain, and that's where he lived for, the rest of his life, and it was just nonstop, one thing after another going wrong, it seemed yeah. I was about eight when this all started happening. I think a lot of the things were going on before a lot of the people in my [00:03:00] family were even born.

[00:03:01] Daniel Knight: And yeah, so that's just a little bit about how that all happened. 

[00:03:06] Colette Brown: Wow. And so you have this kind of, would you consider a more carefree life leading up to when you were eight and everything changed? 

[00:03:15] Daniel Knight: Yeah, no doubt we had nannies, we had babysitters, we, they would even go with us on trips.

[00:03:22] Daniel Knight: And it was pretty easy going. We had, like I said, this really big house in a nice neighborhood. My dad actually had built like a swing set that was more of a fortress. It had these four pillars with a rope bridge between it, a zip line In the backyard, there was a big open field behind us.

[00:03:40] Daniel Knight: So he would take his riding lawnmower out there and cut the field into a mini golf course or a dirt bike course. Like he was pretty creative with a lot of that stuff. And carefree, easygoing, posh life, a hundred percent. That's. That's what it was. So yeah, I, I would say so and I didn't really ever think [00:04:00] anything of it.

[00:04:01] Daniel Knight: I just lived this lifestyle. I was a kid and we had a bunch of money and that was that. I really looked up to my dad because he was always doing different businesses and doing different things and it was inspiring, but I didn't realize until everything changed that everything was a lie. 

[00:04:19] Colette Brown: And that's hard. And how does eight year old Daniel receive that? What did that look like? 

[00:04:24] Daniel Knight: It was, at first confusing, it's hard to go back to that age in life, but I feel like I was old enough to understand a little bit. Cause I was always like, involved with my dad. I would go to work with him.

[00:04:40] Daniel Knight: He would have me work at his bakeries. When I was that old, I was going with him to the bakery to help make stuff in the morning. And so I was just really close to him. So it wasn't like I didn't completely understand, but it was like, all of a sudden, a lot of things made sense. I didn't really ever understand what my dad did.

[00:04:58] Daniel Knight: So it made sense all of a sudden, [00:05:00] right? But I had to quickly grow up because While he was in the halfway house, which is essentially a place where you spend half the day at work, the other half in jail there weren't a lot of answers, but once he actually got locked up and all that he told me, he called me from jail one day and he told me that he was.

[00:05:19] Daniel Knight: In prison now, he wasn't gonna be out for a few years and that I had to be the man of the house and I think I was nine at that time. And so I didn't really know what that meant. But I know I had to step up and do the things that weren't getting done to the best of my abilities, which Looked like fixing the vacuum or changing light bulbs or, whatever it might be that my mom needed help with.

[00:05:42] Daniel Knight: Wow. And that's like what a responsibility it is for a child to take that on and not really have context or knowledge or a mentor. Of any sort to help guide you in that. And so you proceed on through [00:06:00] elementary school. Do you feel that it affected your education at all? 

[00:06:04] Daniel Knight: Absolutely.

[00:06:05] Daniel Knight: I really didn't care about my education at all. And I think I used all of these experiences as an excuse to get out of things or to, blame on why my grades were not great. I always thought that I didn't like to read but I do and I always thought I was terrible at it, but I just didn't ever practice.

[00:06:24] Daniel Knight: I went through most of my school without really reading any books just because I didn't enjoy it and I didn't want to do it. my education definitely lacked. Somehow I managed to graduate from high school. But it was a challenge. It was definitely a challenge. And I think, when you talk about having a mentor between the times I was eight, nine years old, until I was about 12, I was acting out quite a bit.

[00:06:52] Daniel Knight: I got in a lot of trouble and I didn't really have anybody to turn to. I had my mom and she [00:07:00] is a great person to look up to, but she was also going through a lot herself. Everything got ripped out from under her. She had seven kids she had to take care of. All of a sudden didn't have any money.

[00:07:10] Daniel Knight: she wasn't working before that. So it was like a lot all at once. And on top of that, a couple of years into this, she ended up getting breast cancer just on top of everything else going on. As far as like a male father figure to look up to. I didn't have that till I got into some trouble in middle school and ended up suspending me until the end of the year.

[00:07:32] Daniel Knight: And so I ended up going and working with somebody who was a family friend and he turned into somebody that I really looked up to. And so I think had I not had that mentor type of person. Who knows what would have happened because he kept me working. He kept me out of trouble and I had some sort of accountability.

[00:07:50] Daniel Knight: But, without that I look back to that point in my life and think about a couple of the decisions I made that kept me away from some really bad [00:08:00] lifestyles. And I'm really grateful that There was just enough there, right? Just enough of my dad's voice in the back of my head. Enough of this other guy, his name's Greg.

[00:08:09] Colette Brown: Enough of him just being there and being that encouraging factor to do the right thing. I'm very fortunate at the end of the day, all of these things that have happened. I'm pretty lucky to be where I'm at now. Yes. That's, it's so true. And if we look back and analyze everything I think we'd all be a little shocked at how we got to where we're at.

[00:08:30] Colette Brown: But some have it way more of an uphill climb than others. So you graduate high school, where do you find yourself? 

[00:08:38] Daniel Knight: So when I graduated high school, I really wanted to have some sort of a fresh start. I had a name in my area because of what happened in middle school and it wasn't the greatest.

[00:08:51] Daniel Knight: And I wasn't like your typical LDS kid. I was troublemaker. And so a lot of my friends weren't even really allowed to hang out [00:09:00] with me. A lot of that would have changed after high school, but I just wanted something new. So I moved down to St. George, Utah, which is about four hours south of Salt Lake.

[00:09:08] Colette Brown: So pretty. 

[00:09:09] Daniel Knight: Oh yeah. I only spent a couple of years there, but it was such a blast. And I went there for college to go to Dixie state college and it was just amazing. Cause I didn't know anybody there. I wanted it fresh. Slate just, kicking off the year with something new. So I did that.

[00:09:26] Daniel Knight: I only lived there for a couple of years, like I said, cause I. Was feeling limited at a full time job that I worked my way not to the top, but to where they didn't have any openings to progress. And so they said, if I wanted to go up to salt Lake, then there might be more options. So I was like, okay, I'm not somebody that likes to be limited in that way.

[00:09:45] Daniel Knight: I moved up here. I ended up leaving that company shortly after which a lot of people said would probably happen because it was just like a different dynamic. So anyway and then after that went into car sales and that was my path along with [00:10:00] running some sort of business on the side pretty much at every point in my life.

[00:10:04] Daniel Knight: so that's what happened after high school. 

[00:10:06] Colette Brown: Okay. And now why don't you tell people what you're doing today and what brought you and led you into the unicorn universe? 

[00:10:17] Daniel Knight: Yeah, sure. So now it's all just magic and rainbows and unicorns and fun. Great. Exactly. Yeah. It really is.

[00:10:26] Daniel Knight: And it's funny because, I say that and people, I'm sure you've heard the phrase, it's not all unicorns and rainbows. But it like is for me and it's just so amazing because. My company is unicorn universe and we're all about bringing people together, which is just so exhilarating and it's fun like I get to just meet new people all the time, figure out who I can connect for them that can help them in their business or their personal life, whatever it is that might help that person out based on the conversation.

[00:10:53] Daniel Knight: We'll make introductions and that's really what it's all about. So we created Unicorn Universe as a [00:11:00] way to give connectors in the world an opportunity to get paid for those connections that they make. And through the structure that we created, which is largely just people paying a referral fee for introductions that are made, we decided to create a community, which really just reinforced the whole unicorn DNA, which I sprinkle in all over the place when I'm talking to people.

[00:11:23] Daniel Knight: And if I'm speaking, I'll just touch on the unicorn DNA, but it's essentially 16 elements that define what we call a unicorn. And I won't go into all of them, but it's ultimately people that think in abundance, they're reciprocal. They want to support each other and collaborate and work together to accomplish their dreams and their dreams of creating a greater impact in the world.

[00:11:46] Daniel Knight: And so we'll align people with each other who have a purpose driven mission to, fight something or change something or make something better in the world, because we think they can support each other with achieving that goal. And those are the kind of people that are in the [00:12:00] community they want to do good stuff.

[00:12:01] Daniel Knight: And it's just, it's literally magical you know it is all magic and rainbows because That's just what we do. The rainbows, we look at like the bridge to connection and the magic is what happens from that connection, 

[00:12:14] Colette Brown: and it encompasses. Every industry, I just want to put in there from finance to AI to wellness, it just, it covers everything.

[00:12:25] Daniel Knight: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So we have, let's see, these three planets, each of the little circles around our logo is a planet where we call them unicorn solutions, unicorn access, and unicorn wealth. Which basically is just the category that the different businesses fall under. And so we like to believe that people can have the next unicorn company with a solid idea and then the right connections and resources.

[00:12:51] Daniel Knight: And solutions to get to where they're trying to be. They just need to take the action necessary to make it happen. So we help them with all of [00:13:00] that. 

[00:13:00] Colette Brown: Amazing. I love that. So what has been the most magical experience for you coming into the unicorn world that you're in today that maybe you wish you could have whispered back to your eight year old self and share it and imparted some wisdom.

[00:13:17] Daniel Knight: Yeah, easily the most impactful thing in my life has been aligning with people, spending time with people, connecting with people at a deeper level. Because when I was a kid, I quickly put up a wall of not letting people into my life because I felt like I kept losing my dad over and over again. And so I wouldn't want to get too close to people because it would make me feel like, I could just lose them.

[00:13:42] Daniel Knight: And it wasn't just my dad. I moved like seven times in two years. And so that was a lot of school hopping, losing all my friends. It was long enough, long ago enough that you didn't really keep in touch the same way that we do now. There wasn't any social media to [00:14:00] do that. Lost a lot of.

[00:14:01] Daniel Knight: Friends and close people in my life. And so it just made it really hard to connect with people and through starting unicorn universe, I was still behind the scenes. I started out as the chief operating unicorn and in time transitioned into the chief executive unicorn role, just because that's just what needed to happen.

[00:14:21] Daniel Knight: And. By doing that, it got me much more involved with people and making connections and getting to know people and building relationships. And it just really helped me learn how to help me learn the value of connecting with people in a very personal way. And it's just through that repetition that it's really helped me see the value of it and just how important it is.

[00:14:43] Daniel Knight: And the more I look into it, the more valuable I realize that it is both as a service that we provide, but then just for people in general, for their longevity, for their happiness, for, the leverage in their lives, for the things that they want to accomplish or the things they want to [00:15:00] help other people accomplish.

[00:15:01] Daniel Knight: So that's really what it would be. If I could tell my eight year old self one thing, it would be. Don't be afraid to build relationships with people. 

[00:15:09] Colette Brown: I like that. So what do you tell people today that come to you and say, I'm shy, I can't do it. I'm not a people person, whatever, like with the excuses that come, what advice do you give them?

[00:15:22] Daniel Knight: Don't be afraid to build relationships with people. No, but really like it can be challenging, but The more you do it, the more, the easier it becomes. And it's just such an important thing. And even though we can be shy at times, we just need to be ourselves, and that's really the key to it.

[00:15:41] Daniel Knight: And a lot of this comes down to being authentic. And when you know your values and you know what you stand for, the kind of people you want to spend time with, then you don't really need to worry about being yourself or being afraid to be yourself because. It just doesn't matter. You end up weeding out the [00:16:00] people that aren't a fit, and you find the ones that are, and you live an amazing lifestyle when you just spend time with people whose values align with yours.

[00:16:07] Colette Brown: Yeah. And if you have, it could be the flip side where you have so many connections, but not all of them are serving you, then that's not healthy either. And to really be mindful of the people you put around you because proximity is everything. If you want to attain your goals, put yourself around people who have done it or are on their way there that challenge you to show up and be a little bit better than you are today and pay it forward to be a mentor, help people out that are on their journey that really are desirous of getting to where you're at and not just, sucking your time and energy to like, that's not either good, 

[00:16:47] Daniel Knight: Yeah, 100%. That's one of the things about being in the unicorn universe community is that while yes, you might find business and yes, you might be able to get or send a referral through the [00:17:00] community. You're also just surrounded by people who think differently, who think outside the box, who are at different stages of business where they can either help you in some way, learn with something that they've gone through.

[00:17:11] Daniel Knight: Or you can help them because there are people at all levels of business in the community, and they're there to both support and get support. And it's a very reciprocal thing that we do. And the way we do it is focused on that. The people above all else. 

[00:17:25] Colette Brown: I like that. 

[00:17:26] Colette Brown: We were both involved in a public speaking event this weekend in New York and we're able to go into. Public school and speak with some Children and it was really phenomenal to see the way that they received it.

[00:17:42] Colette Brown: And you know that sometimes when you're working with kids, they might be busy and distracted or budding in or doing something, but they hear everything. And if you just think back to when you were a child you hear it. You might not want to show that you do, [00:18:00] but to be there, to share some wisdom, some insight.

[00:18:04] Colette Brown: We told stories of when. We were younger things that we are going through and it really resonated with a lot of them and to just show up and in your community with your own children, your own family. That's where it starts first. Like I think nurture your own first, your family and put your attention and love there and then let it spread out.

[00:18:24] Colette Brown: And That was, it was so beautiful. What was your favorite takeaway from the speaking event? 

[00:18:30] Daniel Knight: Oh man, from the speaking event with the kids at the school, for me it was definitely, it was really interesting to be there. Just given my history in school and always feeling like a bad student I never thought I would be like.

[00:18:45] Daniel Knight: The assembly and it wasn't just me. Of course it was all of us, but we were the assembly. And here I am looking back to when I was in school and that very first class that you and I actually got to do together, I felt so aligned with the kids that were [00:19:00] in there because there's this specific group of kids that were jumping in and making jokes and talking throughout the.

[00:19:07] Daniel Knight: Presentations that we were giving and I just saw myself in them immediately when we walked in the room I just knew like I was in that group like always piping in and cracking jokes And I was never on the other side until the weekend where I was like, man, how disrespectful like you just don't see it that way when you're a kid, but It was just amazing to me to know that we could be in a place to inspire people who we used to be right, who that's really what this is all about is helping people understand information in a way that we didn't know at that time.

[00:19:45] Daniel Knight: And that's what we do as speakers, right? The whole purpose is to share our experiences so other people can benefit from them. And so that was really impactful to me. And just. It just reaffirms the opportunity we have [00:20:00] as adults and as people that have gone through things to be able to help other people out with understanding what to do in those situations so they don't have to struggle with it themselves, right?

[00:20:10] Daniel Knight: And so that to me was the most inspiring part, biggest takeaway for me is just how important it is to keep getting out there and especially in the schools, right? Because if we can share that wisdom, as far down as possible, and it's just going to help society in the longer term overall.

[00:20:27] Colette Brown: Yeah, I saw the kids interact with your story. Where they really, they could identify with you because your dad was taken away. You were stepping up to be the man of the house. you had all these younger siblings and I saw them connecting and. Shaking their heads.

[00:20:45] Colette Brown: And one of the kids called you out on your name. I know that because it's Daniel night, but he said, but you're a Spanish. 

[00:20:53] Colette Brown: Yeah. That was pretty funny. Just goes to show that they are listening. They are paying attention. Yeah. 

[00:20:58] Daniel Knight: So night is my [00:21:00] grandparents name on my mom's side. And in Spain, you technically take on both last names, but legally here in the United States, it's Daniel Martinez.

[00:21:08] Daniel Knight: They go by night because of various purposes. A lot of it tied to what happened, with my dad. 

[00:21:15] Daniel Knight: And that's hugely why I go by a different last name. 

[00:21:18] Daniel Knight: And I don't look Hispanic very much. But when the name comes up, I've had that adjustment. I didn't know what it feels like to be immediately judged for being something other than the average or, whatever. there's a lot more to it, but I ultimately want to attribute my legacy to something that is greater than what the current Martinez legacy has been attributed to.

[00:21:44] Daniel Knight: So it all tied into that. And when I switched it from Martinez to Knight, like publicly, it's still not legally changed, but I told a bunch of people, cause I was at this turning point where. A lot of the people from the past were no longer in my life, but I knew the people I was [00:22:00] bringing into my life going forward were like my next phase of growth of people that I was going to spend my time with.

[00:22:07] Colette Brown: So I need to change it now. I let everybody know, Hey, I'm going by night. And as soon as I did that, it was really weird because I felt like I had this different level that I had to live up to. And yeah, it was like driving down the road and I was just like, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to change my name because of the honor and the legacy that I want to live. I need to step it up. So it was interesting how it affected my mindset in that way. That's really fascinating. I enjoyed that. I just thought that was the neatest thing that he was paying so close attention and and called you out and it was a beautiful time.

[00:22:39] Daniel Knight: I thought it was pretty funny. It was a blast. That was so much fun. 

[00:22:42] Colette Brown: It was. It really inspired me to want to do that more and really connect with kids and their future and we need to really show them and be there for them because we don't know what goes on behind closed doors either.

[00:22:55] Colette Brown: Things can look like they're okay and yet they might not be. [00:23:00] And just to hold that compassion and space and give them a smile. Acknowledge them. Maybe that's all they needed because they're not even getting that at home. So It was a good reminder to just give back and do something charitable.

[00:23:14] Colette Brown: I really loved how you did the breath work exercise with them. And anytime you and I go to another speaking engagement, and we're both linked up like that, we should try to tie it together because you're the breathwork exercise that you did goes really well with my story about my dad because, everything that he did, illegal being, part of how he got taken out of my life was just half of it, right?

[00:23:40] Daniel Knight: The other half was him dying from a heart attack. And I think that had he practiced regular meditation and breathing and knowing how to control his step or his stress. That he could potentially still be here today. And so that was another huge thing that I really just [00:24:00] resonated with was. Just how valuable it is, what you're doing and everything about, helping people live a better lifestyle through their wellness.

[00:24:08] Daniel Knight: It's just so important.cause I don't think he did. I don't think my dad ever meditated. I shared over the weekend, went home, was super stressed out and. I've experienced these times where my heart was pounding like so bad from stress that I could look down at my shirt and see it literally beating out of my chest, and there was a very definitive time where I Decided to, step away from my desk because I was stressed out of my mind that I felt like I was going to die of a heart attack right then.

[00:24:36] Daniel Knight: This was like a couple years ago, and I went and I meditated for the first time, and before I knew it, my heart wasn't pounding like that. Because I realized, my mind can stress out to the point where it can cause my heart to do that. It should be able to do the inverse. And it should be able to de stress my heart rate as well.

[00:24:55] Daniel Knight: So I didn't know what to do at that time, but I was like it sounds like meditation. So I [00:25:00] had never meditated, but I went and I downloaded an app and looked up a course on stress. And I listened to that and it was gone. And I learned that stress is a choice. And it doesn't serve anybody to stress. And so since that, like literally Colette, I have not felt that way ever since learning that it's a choice and that it's not something we've have to go through, 

[00:25:22] Colette Brown: but we all need reminders, even if we know it, there are those moments where it's just stressful and but to have the knowledge to have it around us, to be reminded. And to actually do it is really good. 

[00:25:34] Daniel Knight: Yeah. So 

[00:25:35] Colette Brown: good idea on collaboration. I think that's a good idea. 

[00:25:38] Daniel Knight: And that's what it's all about. Everything I focus on being around unity collaboration is a huge part of it.

[00:25:44] Daniel Knight: And so we have a synergistic talk, then we can find ways to tap into each other's speeches. I think there's something there for sure. 

[00:25:54] Colette Brown: Yeah. All right. So I have a question that I ask everyone the end. [00:26:00] Okay. And It is. If this was your last message that you had to broadcast out to the world, what would it be?

[00:26:08] Daniel Knight: It would be to ditch the scarcity mindset and focus on living in abundance, to work together in unity, to create joy in the world. 

[00:26:21] Colette Brown: I like that. I do like that. And that will help everyone because I think if you're coming from a place of abundance, the abundant mindset, then. Your whole perspective shifts and you're no longer in the scarcity and stressed.

[00:26:35] Colette Brown: About the lack of what you want. So I think that's such a sage advice from the chief executive unicorn. You heard it yourself. Is there anything else that you'd like to share with us today, Daniel? 

[00:26:49] Daniel Knight: I would say that's it, and really just going back to the connecting with people. If you're afraid to connect with people and you struggle to make those connections.

[00:26:59] Daniel Knight: [00:27:00] Introductions of yourself just to go for it. Say hello. Give people a smile. Look people in the eye and don't be afraid to build relationships. 

[00:27:08] Colette Brown: Great advice. I like that. And where can people find you? And we'll put this in the show notes. 

[00:27:13] Daniel Knight: On Instagram, I'm 10 x unicorn, or LinkedIn, I'm 10 x unicorn.

[00:27:19] Daniel Knight: Or you can visit me at, I think it's unicorn 10 x.com and that has all of my other information. And of course, unicorn Universe being unicorn universe.io, where we help make the unbelievable achievable. 

[00:27:34] Colette Brown: All right. I like that. Daniel. It's been an honor to have you with us today and you sharing your rainbows and unicorns and light with the audience.

[00:27:46] Colette Brown: And I encourage everyone to go check out the work that Daniel's doing. See how you can get involved in his online space and there, they actually have events that they do too. So see how you can get involved if that resonates [00:28:00] with you. And Daniel, thanks again. I really appreciate you, your spirit, your time.

[00:28:06] Colette Brown: And I appreciate just what you're doing in the world. 

[00:28:09] Daniel Knight: Same to you. I appreciate you having me on. 

[00:28:11] Colette Brown: Thank you, Daniel and everyone else until next time. Be well.