Top Ten Universal Principles of Success - The Crenshaw Family

Two years ago, Dave Crenshaw started a journey with one heartfelt goal: to share what he’s learned about success—not just with the world but with his kids, as well. In this final episode of The Dave Crenshaw Success Show, he sits down with Stratton, Ella, and Darci for an emotional reflection on the lessons they’ve learned together. Together, they explore the top 10 principles of success—timeless lessons that anyone can apply to create a meaningful, fulfilling life. From practicing daily gratitude and turning failures into stepping stones to letting passion fuel your career and building meaningful connections, they share insights inspired by 67 amazing guests. Gratitude, pride and a touch of nostalgia fill the air as they wrap up this incredible chapter. Join Dave and his family for a heartfelt send-off packed with wisdom, warmth, and a fresh perspective on what success really means. 

Action Principles


1. Practice daily gratitude.
2. Let passion fuel your career path.
3. Break big goals into smaller steps.
4. Turn failure into opportunities for growth.
5. Find a mentor; be a mentor.
6. Cultivate meaningful connections.
7. Prioritize education, especially in business.
8. Define your "why" and let it drive you.
9. Take strategic risks for big rewards.
10. Build a schedule that promotes a healthy work-life rhythm.


Suggested LinkedIn Learning Course:

Time Management Fundamentals

Dave Crenshaw develops productive leaders in Fortune 500 companies, universities, and organizations of every size. He has appeared in Time magazine, USA Today, FastCompany, and the BBC News. His courses on LinkedIn Learning have been viewed tens of millions of times. His five books have been published in eight languages, the most popular of which is The Myth of Multitasking—a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and online instructor, Dave has transformed the lives and careers of hundreds of thousands around the world. DaveCrenshaw.com

Transcript

Dave Crenshaw: 0:00

Every time you attempt, you gain something from it, even if it didn't turn out the way that. Speaking of which man, we went and did the painting on Saturday, we painted some penguins for Christmas. This is our tradition. Boy, I sure had a lot of practice during that one, I felt like it was probably the worst one. Well, welcome back, everyone. To the Dave Crenshaw Success Project. This is the show where I have been interviewing people to learn universal principles of success. And I think right now, we've reached the end of this project. And so what I want to do is do a wrap up episode with my children. That was the whole point of creating this thing was to help my kids learn universal principles of success. So we're all sitting here in my office together. Everyone say hello, hi, hello, and introduce yourself. Starting with Darci.

Darci Crenshaw: 0:55

I am Darci. I'm 11 years old. 11

Ella Crenshaw: 0:58

years old. Ella, I'm Ella, I am 15

Dave Crenshaw: 1:02

and Stratton.

Stratton Crenshaw: 1:03

I am Stratton, and I am 19 years

Dave Crenshaw: 1:05

old. So when we started this, you were all about two years younger, yeah. So it's been going on for a while, and I know that some of you have listened to some of the episodes. I know Darci has really been listening to the episodes, because I saw her every time she was folding laundry, she was listening to I still gotta do that today. Yeah. So what I thought would be nice was to sort of reflect back on what I've seen, what we've all seen and heard in the various interviews, and what we put together was a list, and I say we, it was my assistant, Victoria, and I, she's been helping so much with scheduling all of these interviews, and we put together a list of the top 10 principles. These are things that kept coming back over and over in the interviews that I did with people. And in fact, I asked Victoria said, How many people did we interview for this podcast? Anyone guess at the number?

Stratton Crenshaw: 1:54

I want to say 40 something. It's higher

Dave Crenshaw: 1:58

than that. It's

Stratton Crenshaw: 2:01

67 really.

Dave Crenshaw: 2:05

Like 48 or so. Yeah, if you don't count, yeah, if you don't count, the a couple of the episodes were double, like David Winford or Mike Blumenfield, but yeah, 67 total interviews and and from a variety of different nationalities, variety of different cultures, variety of career paths, even ages. And yet, some patterns started to emerge. So what I want to do is we're going to go through these one by one, and talk about them and share what you have learned about these, and then maybe answer some questions about it. Sound good? Yeah. Okay, so the first one, and this came up a lot, is one of my favorites, is practice daily gratitude. One of the more notable interviews where this came up was one of the first ones, Tahani Abuja. And she grew up as a refugee in Jordan, and they had hardly anything, and yet her family taught them to be grateful and talk about the things that they were grateful for on a regular basis, and she continued that pattern throughout her life and has taught it to her children. So what thoughts do you have about daily gratitude? Let's start with Stratton.

Stratton Crenshaw: 3:17

Yeah, I definitely feel like tahani's example of practicing daily gratitude is kind of a testament to how much it works, because she came from nothing, like absolutely nothing, yeah, and to see her go from nothing but still be grateful in that moment to when she does have, like, everything that she needs, yeah, abundance, right? And still, still be grateful for it. Like, like, the hard work and and the gratitude together, I think is something really cool. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 3:50

any thoughts girls? In addition to that, I

Ella Crenshaw: 3:53

try to do gratitude and, like, my own little way. I do it, like, after every single practice that I do, and I feel like it's helped a lot in the way of looking back after like, something hard and realizing that it wasn't all bad. It wasn't a disaster. It wasn't like, there wasn't a need for me to, like, burst into tears. It was, Oh, that was hard, but it wasn't all bad.

Dave Crenshaw: 4:19

Yeah, you learn things from it, and that's something in and of itself to be grateful for. I like that. Darci, any thoughts about gratitude? I

Darci Crenshaw: 4:26

just think that it's really cool, because if you're just grateful for one thing every day, even if you think you've had a bad day, you can almost always find something that you're grateful for, whether it just be that you had lunch or you got to talk to someone that day. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 4:45

that's so true. I absolutely believe that. And I feel like sometimes, whenever I'm having a bad day, and I feel like, oh my gosh, there's too much. If I just pause and think about, what do I have? What am I grateful for? That kind of recenters me, were there any questions? Questions that any of you had about that?

Ella Crenshaw: 5:03

Well, I know a lot of people like, keep like a journal, and my question is like, what's the value in writing it down compared to just like saying it? Yeah, thinking it.

Dave Crenshaw: 5:14

What do you think Stratton and Darci what? What's the value of writing it down versus just saying it? Because I do think there is value in it. I

Darci Crenshaw: 5:22

guess some value is you just get it out and you can see it for yourself, and you just have it there to know that you're grateful. It's not just like something that happened.

Dave Crenshaw: 5:34

Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Any other thoughts? Stratton,

Stratton Crenshaw: 5:39

usually when I do my daily gratitude. I just It's I don't write it down. I usually just think about it or talk about it, but there are some things that happen that I do write down because I'm so grateful for it that I want to remember it in the future and I can look back on it and go, Wow, that was something really cool. I'm grateful for that,

Dave Crenshaw: 5:57

right? Yeah, I have found that I am forgetful about a lot of things. My mindset is usually forward. What's next, what's in the future. I don't remember what happened in the past a whole lot. So writing it down, it becomes a nice record to refer to, and to say, oh, you know, like, maybe I'm having a hard time with gratitude. So if I look at the gratitude journal, and I think about just last week or the week before, oh, I was grateful for this. So that helps me. It's almost therapeutic to be able to look back and say, remember this, you did have gratitude. There was something good there. And I've also, I mean, this is not necessarily related to gratitude, but in general, there are some good things that come from looking back at that like, for instance, when I decided to go back into business coaching, I did that because, actually, your mom saw that Hi had, I had made a note about how, if things had gone well with my first attempt at business coaching, I would have kept doing it. I had completely forgotten about that, and her reading that and her telling it to me. Do you know that you said this? It inspired me to go back into business coaching, which has led to the the success that I've I've had. Now, right? All right, let's, let's move on to the next principle here, let passion fuel your career path. I would also use the word love. Let what you love fuel your career path. And most everyone, I don't actually, I can't think of anyone where that wasn't applicable in their success. One person that stood out to me, and he stood out to me many times over the last several years, is Simeon Corey, who is CEO of Evita, and he uses storytelling and video and that sort of thing to convey stories for other people, but it was his passion for storytelling that led him to do that, and the ability to blend that with video. And in my courses on LinkedIn, learning in particular, discovering your strengths, I talk about how you're going to have the most success in your career if you focus on three things, your gifts, your love and your skills. So loves is that really important part? Because a lot of people, they think, oh, I want to have money, right? I want to be successful. Who makes a lot of money? Oh, lawyers make a lot of money. Oh, doctors make a lot of money, and they pursue that, but maybe they don't love it, and about halfway through the process, maybe a couple of years into their career, they start realizing, Wait, I'm doing something I don't love, but if you flip that and you're doing something that you're passionate about, like I am with teaching and training, I'll put up with things that maybe I don't like. I'm willing to work longer than someone else who doesn't love their job. So having that passion really creates this really strong foundation for being successful in your career. What thoughts did you have about it?

Stratton Crenshaw: 8:57

So what if you're like passionate or you love something, but it's not possible to pursue it as a job like the opportunity hasn't arisen. Whether, like, let's say someone loves music, or they love writing, or they love they they want to be, I don't know politician. I don't know like things that when opportunities present themselves, maybe it could happen, but in the moment, there's nothing they can do about it. What? What do you do until then?

Dave Crenshaw: 9:24

That's a great question, and I think it's especially applicable for things that also have a hobby element to them, like music, like video games, like, I don't politics, but that that sort of problem. The problem with that is that so many people can do it, so many people want to do it. And the first thing that I would say to that is, is this valuable? Is there a way that this can be tilted so that it's valuable to other people? The other thing is, how good are. Are you at it? There's a there's a classic motivational speaker, author. His name is Earl Nightingale, and he said, and I'm paraphrasing, the amount of money you make is directly proportional to the demand for what you do, your ability to do it, and the difficulty of replacing you. So we've got a few problems with something. Let's just take music which I'm familiar with, because I had a band. Right? Number one, the demand for for that, how many people want to listen to great music? The demand using that formula is quite high, right? The second, though, your ability to do it, that's a big issue. And if I reflect back, and I'm really honest about myself, I would say I was very good. But that's not enough, right? Like you've got to be extremely good. You have to be at the top of the top of the top, because of the third one, the difficulty of replacing you. How many people want to sing, how many people want to get like the it's an Endless Pool, and all you have to do is watch one of those, you know, reality shows, like an American Idol or whatever, and realize that millions of people want to do this. So the difficulty of replacing you is really, really instant. All right, so if you're pursuing something, you really have to figure out. Number one, do people want to pay for this? Number 2am, I at the very, very best of this? And number three, How easily could someone come along and replace me doing it? If you can't answer those three questions, all of them positively, you're going to have a really hard time having a career, no matter how passionate you are about it interesting. But there are sometimes ways to take something that you're good at or that you're passionate about and put it into a different category. Again, I think Simeon is a good example that just telling stories. You know, a lot of people can do that. A lot of people want to do that. But what he did was said, companies want to tell stories. I'm going to help companies tell stories now, all of a sudden, it's very valuable. It's very unique. There's a market for it, and yet, he's still doing something he's passionate about, right? Makes sense? Yeah? Other thoughts, other questions, Ella or Darci, I

Ella Crenshaw: 12:19

feel like, like, my question I have is, what if you don't feel passionate about it anymore? What if you lose that passion, or, like, go through patterns of having it and then losing it? And yeah, that's a

Dave Crenshaw: 12:32

great question. So I'm going to reflect back on my time as a business coach, and occasionally I would have a client who was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to I don't want to keep running my business. It's too hard. It's too stressful. I'm I want to quit. The question I would ask is, if one thing changed, would you be excited about this again? For example, one business owner was continually having problems with employees acting out, not doing things, and it kept happening over and over. And so she was like, I want out of this. I don't want to deal with it. I said, if we could solve this one problem, would you be excited about it again? She said, Yes. So I said, Great, let's fix this one problem. And once we fixed that one problem, guess what? She loved it. Yeah, her passion came back from it. But I've also had situations with business owners where I say, if we could fix this, would that solve it? And they go, No, I don't want to do it. I'm like, I'd explore that a little bit more. And I'd be like, Okay, well, what about this? What about this? And it was, the more we drove, the more we realized they just weren't they just didn't care about the business anymore. And in that case, I would say, then you need to sell it. You need to get out of this, because if you're not passionate about your business, no one else is going to be and I think that's true not just with being a business owner, with your career, it is important to maintain that passion. Sometimes all you need to do is just make sure you're taking more breaks, like in my book, The Power of having fun, right? You just need to give yourself a break and then come back to it. You'll be passionate again. Maybe you have to solve a problem, but if you keep doing all those things and you still don't have love for it, you might want start to look at a way to change what you're doing. Maybe not quit, but change it in a different way, or look for a change, right? But I think that's the last thing that I would go for if you used to be excited about it in the past. All right, let's move on to the next one. The third one. Break big goals into smaller steps. I have a course on LinkedIn learning called making big goals achievable, and the idea is that you take something that's really huge and you say, what do I need to do today to move myself closer to that? One individual that really stood out with that was Ben mayforth, who's a climber for North Face, and he deals with special challenges, with his health, with his physical limitations, and. That can be really overwhelming to say. You know, I want to be a fast climber, and yet I'm dealing with all sorts of health issues and surgeries and things that I've been through. And so what he would do is break it down into daily routines, these little daily things that he need to do that would move him closer to it. In fact, I know your mom is a fan of this. I'm going to put Ella on the spot, because right now she's on our mom's swim team, or your mom's swim team. She talks about root versus fruit. Have you heard that a lot? Oh yeah, yeah. Darci, yeah. She got that actually, from a book. And I apologize I'm forgetting the name of the NFL coach who wrote a book and used that phrase. But the idea is, you focus on what needs to be done, the small little things, and that will naturally give you the fruit of what you're trying to accomplish. So I think that's that's a principle that's universal. Doesn't matter what career you're in doing the little things. Breaking big goals down into small parts that moves you closer to it. What thoughts do you have about that? Darci, I

Darci Crenshaw: 15:59

guess, like breaking up your big goals into smaller steps. It just makes it so, like, not so overwhelmed, because sometimes if you have like, this big goal, they're just like, looking at the end of it, and you're like, Okay, I've got to do this, but you don't know how. And you get stuck there. And, like, you're climbing mountains, and like, eventually you'll get over one mountain, but you still have, like, multiple more before you reach your goal. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 16:27

and that's not helpful, you know? It's interesting. We talked about having an imagination, right? It's good. It's important to have an imagination, but what if your imagination is seeing all the work that needs to be done to accomplish something like, I want to be a best selling author. I know a couple of you, a few of you want that as a goal. And you go, that is overwhelming. Think about how many words you have to write, how many books you have to write, how to market. All right, I'm I'm trying to make you feel a little bit a little miserable, right? Because you have really good imagination, so you can see all of that. But is that helpful in that moment to have that imagination? Not really? Yeah, it might help you plan. It might help you think about what needs to be done. But then what we need to do is we need to step it back and say, what's the halfway mark to that. What's the one quarter mark to that? What's the one month mark? What do I need to do? What's the one day mark? And you, you take that huge thing and just break it down and say, What's one thing that I need to do every day to move me closer to being a best selling author? And I'm going to put you on the spot. What do you what do you think is one of those things I know Stratton and Ella are the most active with this. So what's one thing that you need to do on a daily basis that's going to move you closer to that goal,

Ella Crenshaw: 17:48

honestly? Just right? Yeah, yep, word vomit and edit it later,

Dave Crenshaw: 17:54

right? Yes, that. I think that's part of it too. Is self editing, right? That's not a good thing to do in the middle of working on something. Do the editing later. And I'm not just talking about writing, right? Like, sometimes we're doing something and we're talking to someone and we're judging ourselves while we're doing it. Instead, do that later and work on it. Stratton, do you have any thoughts or questions about that?

Stratton Crenshaw: 18:20

Yeah, I mean, I really like, and I don't know if it was Ben who said it, but success is a series of small, consistent steps towards your goal. I don't know if that was you or him. I don't, I can't remember, but I wrote that down, and it's really good. I'll let the listeners go back and find that. Yeah, go find that, because it's really good. I think, I think that really is a good way of encapsulating what this whole goal is about.

Dave Crenshaw: 18:44

It's a great way to think about it. Okay, let's move on to the fourth one here. Turn failure into opportunities for growth. Oh, my goodness, we had so many things for that, so many interviews. One person who I really admire, and was one of the first interviews, was Kwame Christian, and he talked about how every failure moves him closer. He used the phrase, it's all practice, right? Every time you do it, every time you attempt something, even if it didn't work out, it's practice. And he had a failed business that he sold for a few bucks, and went and bought him the griddle, right? And that was, that was the most that he got. But that whole experience taught him things that have led to the amazing success that he's now, right now, having with teaching people about negotiation, and his podcast and everything. So it's easy to feel like, when something goes wrong, it's the end, right? And I think I've seen that a lot with kids your age, right now, there's a little bit of despair out there. Isn't there like, like, I made a mistake, and it's. Over. And unfortunately, I think that part of that is the way that our culture has been behaving toward mistakes. We're very quick to jump on someone's error and go, Oh, you screwed up. That's the end. We're that's the end of you, right? And I think I don't know, you can tell me if you're wrong, but when teenagers see that, they're like, I cannot make a mistake. I'm not allowed to do that, when, in fact, making mistakes and continually failing forward is actually the way to get to success. I don't what. What thoughts do you have about it?

Ella Crenshaw: 20:33

Yeah, I've had many friends, like on the swim team, where they'll come to me in tears and look, I didn't get the time, I didn't do it. I was so close, and I was like, okay, they were like, it was a really good swim. It should have been. It should have been that time. I was like, it was a good swim. It wasn't like, What now, like, the next step forward, and it takes them a minute and they go back in there, like, oh, all I needed to do that. And so they start working harder and practices. And they do get that time later. But there's a lot of, like, instant panic the minute they see something that they didn't want, that it like, honestly, like with the whole gratitude thing, like, honestly going back and being like, Oh, this wasn't so bad. What can I do further now?

Dave Crenshaw: 21:18

Yeah, as you're saying that, I've never thought of it this way, but failure is an indicator of where you are towards success, right? It's an indicator that I'm not there, but it's, it's also shows you what you need to do to get closer to it. So, yeah, that's, it's okay. In fact, it's great to fail. In fact, I think I quoted it like three or four times during the interviews. But I'm going to pull the quote off the wall right here. We're looking at Mr. Bob Ross. Every time you devote time to practice, you haven't lost. You're always a winner. Every time you attempt, you gain something from it, even if it didn't turn out the way that. Speaking of which man, we went and did the painting on Saturday, we painted some penguins for Christmas. This is our tradition. Boy, I sure had a lot of practice during that one, I felt like that was probably a worse one. What questions do you have or other thoughts that you have about this idea that failure is opportunity, is an opportunity for growth.

Darci Crenshaw: 22:20

One thought that I have is, I just think it's like, really important. Because one of the things in school that we've been working on, we like, read a book for something called Wit and Wisdom and delicitious principles. And one of the things from our book called but not buddy, is, how can enduring hardships help with personal transformation. And I think it kind of relates to this, because, like what we've said is, just by enduring hardships, you can become better at the things that you struggled with, and in the future, you can actually help someone else who struggled with the same things, and you can we a mentor to them? Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 23:02

another great example of that was sola Mahfouz, who was an Afghan she was basically in a society that was not allowing her to learn and grow, but she used that adversity to continually study and get a degree, and then that led to her having opportunity and getting out of that rough situation. So if someone's listening to this, and you're in a place of hardship right now, by continuing to push and continuing to work, it will pay off. It does pay off over time. You don't know when it's going to but it does eventually lead to that.

Ella Crenshaw: 23:35

I have a question with that is, you talk about using failure as an opportunity. But I feel like sometimes, like, failure can just lead to more failure. Like, how do you make it into success? Because sometimes it won't do anything.

Stratton Crenshaw: 23:51

This ties into my comment, so you're good. One of the examples from the previous section that you had Hector Quiroga, he mentioned that you have to view life as a test, and that if you keep failing in one area repeatedly, you keep trying and trying, and it keeps failing over and over and over, and there's nothing changing. That means that you need to adjust your approach to that thing, like when you experiment, you don't run the experiment and it fails, and you do the same thing again, and you talk about that, yeah? Like, what do you say insanity is? A lot of people say, a lot of people, yeah, the definition

Dave Crenshaw: 24:31

of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, right? So

Stratton Crenshaw: 24:36

to progress, I would say, try something else, experiment. And that would be my advice. From what I've learned from Hector is, is yeah, just try something new. Yeah. And

Dave Crenshaw: 24:47

well, and that ties into the next principle about finding a mentor and being a mentor. And I would include that with coaching. If you're continually failing at something, find someone who can help you with that. So let's, let's use. That as a segue to go into that one. So finding a mentor means finding someone who's achieved what you want to achieve, and is going where you want to go and asking them to help you. We could also put in there be a mentor find other people who are trying to achieve what you've achieved and helping them out. One notable example of that was Sam zarabi and Yaya Mansour, who actually were business coaching clients of mine and have created a very, very successful franchise of dental offices rodeo dental throughout the southwest United States. And they talked about how the mentors that they had in dental school not only helped them become great at dentistry, but about business, and inspired them about business. So I would say, Ella, we're going to use that to answer the question, you keep doing the same thing over and over? Find a coach, find a mentor. Have someone outside of you look at this and assess what you're doing, even on a on a simple level, this week, I had it. I I like racing cars on the simulator, right? We've got that in our basement Stratton, and I built that together. And I kept doing the same thing over and over. And so I hired a guy to come in and look at it. He's like, Oh, your braking is all wrong. And having that person outside of me, mentoring me, coaching me, helped me make an assessment, and I gained some time. It's it's a simple thing. It doesn't really matter. But that same principle is true for anything that you're trying to accomplish in your career. What impact have you had, or what ways have you gone out and seen a mentor help you? So far, I

Darci Crenshaw: 26:34

have a teacher this year, and she is amazing, like one of her things that she does is positive affirmations, which can be kind of hard sometimes to do, especially when you didn't achieve what you wanted to achieve in the first place. But I remember when I went to my most recent swimming, I went into that swimming and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do this. Like I can do this. Like I'm not gonna look at the people around me and I'm just gonna get my best time. I am going to go fast. And because of that, I dropped 50 seconds. Yeah, total. So that was

Dave Crenshaw: 27:13

exciting when that happened, yeah, yeah. So the mentor helped you do that, and they also to help you practice. You've probably heard the saying, practice makes perfect, right? Well, imperfect. Practice makes imperfect. If you keep practicing the wrong way, it's going to make that imperfect more often, and it also makes it permanent, right? Practice makes permanent. So if you practice imperfectly, guess what? You're going to do that over and over again forever. So a mentor can come in and help you change that. Also, a mentor can help guide you in just decisions that you're making, choices that you make in your career. Another example that came up was Mike Blumenfeld, who we had dinner with, love. Mike. Yeah. Mike's fantastic, and he was a guest on the show. Is also a mentor to Joe landolina, who was another guest on the show and helped him create crest lawn, which is that invention that helps stop bleeding. And Joe credits his success to Mike's influence, to Mike meeting with him on a regular basis and asking him questions and getting him to think about business in certain ways. What questions do you have about mentors?

Stratton Crenshaw: 28:28

So I have a comment from one of the episodes Aisha Purcell. She talks about how having a mentor and being a mentor are both really important and like, I agree with that. I've had teachers that really emphasized teaching other students in the class when you had figured it out, yes, and when you have had enough practice, you've had mentorship, you still have mentorship. And people notice that you're doing well at something, and they ask for advice. Like, I'd give them advice because like, that helps you remember what you've learned. Like they really talk about that, especially at least in the education system that we, like I grew up in, and the program that they had, they talked about how teaching was a really important way to remember things. And so tying into that, if you don't have a physical mentor, like someone to mentor you, what do you do? Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 29:21

it's interesting, because I answer this very question in one or two of my LinkedIn learning courses. I can't remember which one, but I talk about mentorship from afar, mentorship from afar. And the idea is that you choose someone who's at the place where you want to be, and you follow them and not follow them in the way like I just want to be entertained, but follow them, and then I want to learn from them, and I want to see what they're saying about things. I want to think about things the way that they're thinking. And there are lots and lots of opportunities right now to find someone who can mentor you from afar. And I really want to emphasize. This point too, you want to find people who are really achieving something meaningful, that you've seen that they've achieved something meaningful. There are also a lot of people right now who talk a big game, and they seem like they've accomplished things, or they're very energetic and animated, but they actually haven't done much, right? So you got to be careful about who you attach yourself to when it comes to that. But actually, I know someone who's been mentoring you from afar already. Who's that?

Stratton Crenshaw: 30:34

I believe that's Brandon Sanderson. Brandon Sanderson, right?

Dave Crenshaw: 30:38

And he not only has a good social media following and writes great books, but his courses are available online. You can go into his classes, and he regularly hosts a thing where he just talks about writing and his perspective on it. So that sort of thing is truly meaningful, because he's not someone who just talks a big game. He has accomplished a great deal in his writing career. I'll give you one more thing to this, and this ties into another principle a little bit, but you can also create sort of a level mentorship with peers through a mastermind, right? And Stratton and I have been talking about this recently, creating a mastermind, a group of people who are all trying to accomplish a similar thing, and you all help each other out. You give each other feedback, you give each other encouragement. History is filled with successful mastermind groups where people have worked together and accomplished great things,

Stratton Crenshaw: 31:34

right? And that ties really well into the next next topic. Yes, it does. Thank

Dave Crenshaw: 31:39

you for the segue, which is what's the next one? Stratton,

Stratton Crenshaw: 31:42

cultivate meaningful connections. There you go. Cultivate meaningful

Dave Crenshaw: 31:46

connections, meaning personal connections, meeting people, getting to know people, treating people with kindness, not necessarily because it's going to pay off or pay back, first, because it's the right thing to do. I'd say second, because it's a wonderful thing to do. And then, yes, in the end, it does pay off. It always does. You don't know where it's going to come from. You don't know who it is, but if you build meaningful connections, eventually it's going to come back to you. And there were lots of people on there. As I was looking at the notes, I had to go back to my friend, and you've all met him, Dean, Karrel, LinkedIn learning instructor. And I mean, I could go on about how wonderful Dean is at building connections, but I'll never forget that moment when Stratton I went in. We went and had oysters with him in central terminal, and then we sat down. And what did Dean have in his hand when we sat down with him? You remember this? He had, he had paper in his hand and printed on the paper, was my LinkedIn profile, and that shows you how you want to approach meeting new people. I remember that, look them up, get to know them. I don't think you need to print it out on a piece of paper. That's a little old school, but you do the research, you get to know someone. So when you meet them, you go, Hey, I saw the pictures of you and your dog. I thought that was adorable. Just making an effort to get to know someone when they've already been posting things online, shows that you care. Shows that you are thinking beyond just oh yeah, who are you? I can't believe how many meetings I've showed up where someone wants to help me in my career as an author and a speaker. And I show up to the meeting and I ask, I can just tell they don't know anything about me. And I'm like, did you do you have a chance? Did you have a chance to look at my business? Oh, no, I apologize I didn't get to it. But right, right? That is not professional, and that's not how you build connections. It's not about my ego. It's about the fact that here's someone who didn't take the time to get to know who it is they were getting to know who they were supposed to meet. What What thoughts do you have? Let's turn it over to Ella and Darci. What do you what do you think about connections? Or what questions do you have about it? One

Darci Crenshaw: 34:02

thing that I've noticed with connections, it's like I was actually talking to mom about this in the car the other day, and yeah, there are a lot of like, different groups at school, and I think that they all have their own connections. And I think that's like, just right, like the right people for them, like I have my friends, and those are the right people for need. Like the football boys, they have each other because they're interested in the same things. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 34:29

I I used to have a lot of stress because I felt like I had to make everyone my friend. But that's not true. I just need to find the people that I connect with right, and when I connect with them, then really focus on building that relationship. It doesn't mean that others are not valuable, or that at some point I wouldn't want to meet them, but I don't think that we need to put the stress on ourselves to feel like absolutely everyone needs to be our friend. I don't know if that's it's even healthy to have that, but. Every friend that you make, you have a potential to help them. They have a potential to help you, and you can build each other up. Ella, what? What thoughts or questions do you have? I

Ella Crenshaw: 35:10

feel like just using connections, like to help with these other concepts as well. If we have those good, solid connections with people, then we can lean on them when we have hard points, or they can lean on us and learning to rely on each other, not extreme levels, to have that support for just everyday life, yeah, and just to have happy moments and then feel sad moments with each

Dave Crenshaw: 35:39

other, yeah. I think that those connections can strengthen each other, but I also agree too, like you said, there are some things where maybe we're not equipped to help someone, and that really gets where to that mentor concept comes in, or coaching, like helping someone encouraged to get that kind of help as well. That also can contribute to the value of connections. But every person that you meet is meaningful. Every person that you connect with has value. And even if you don't think you're ever going to see them again, you treat them with respect, and you build them up and let them know that you believe that they are great and can accomplish great things. I really think that's incredibly valuable. All right, let's move to prioritize education, especially in what topic, business, business, right? I think you're all are tired of me talking about this, but I have become a big advocate for this now, and I believe it too, and it's interesting. I was listening to the replay replays of some of these and Mark Simon, who as the godfather of storyboarding, he says to his kids, and now I say to you, I will help support you in whatever it is that you study in college, as long as you also study business, I would encourage you, at the very minimum, to minor in business, no matter what else it is that you do. And one of the great stories, one of the great examples of that, is Angie Ford, who, again, was a client of mine, a business client of mine. And what was Angie Ford great at piano, and she was a piano teacher, and she just taught kids piano, but because she had that mindset of business, and the background of that business study that she had in college, it led to her creating a business, very, very successful business with multiple locations, and she was able to sell successfully. That all came from a piano teacher also studying business. Having that background will educate you about how to be successful and make money, no matter what it is that you do, thoughts, questions,

Stratton Crenshaw: 37:48

have a question. Yes, sir. So why would you say a minor opposed to, like, a major, or even on the opposite end, like, just some classes on the side, like, what about a minor? Specifically? Like, it's a good in between. But yeah, yeah, I'm curious. I think

Dave Crenshaw: 38:04

that's the answer. I mean, I think if you majored in business, you have increased the odds of your success substantially, again, no matter what it is that you attempt to do, because especially when you're still young, like, when you're in your 20s, you're still figuring out what it is that you want to do. That's where I was, and it was actually, actually your Uncle Steve, who recommended to me that I major in business, and I'm so grateful for that, because when I was doing that, that's when I stumbled across entrepreneurship, and that opened those doors. So yes, a major would be fantastic, but I don't think that's necessarily reasonable to expect of all of you, especially when you're more interested in writing, right? I think a minor is a great expectation, but not less than that, because it creates criteria that you have to complete. It's not just about jumping around and auditing a few classes about business. If you minor, you're going to have to take some core courses. You're going to have to take accounting, you're going to have to take finance, you probably have to take economics, you might even have to take a little bit of marketing. So you're going to get a really nice cross section. And the school is saying, here are the courses that you need to have in order to maintain business knowledge. And I think having those minimum criteria makes it a whole lot easier to make sure that you're learning what it is that you really need to learn to be set up for success in the future. Cool, all right, let's move on. Define your why. Number eight, define your why, and let it drive you. What do you think that means? Darci, I

Darci Crenshaw: 39:40

think, like, your why? Because you have your angle, right? And we were talking about, like, your fruit and root goals, yeah, that's the destination, yeah. So what's the why? The why is, like, why do you want to do this? Yeah, what

Dave Crenshaw: 39:57

drives you? What's the point of this? And a great example. Of this. I know you read his book. Is John straleki, yeah. I don't know if the others had a chance to read it, but he talks about how he went and took a trip around the world and started meeting all these different cultures, and it helped him understand why he does things and what really mattered, rather than just just pursuing a career, just because you're supposed to pursue a career. What did you gain from reading John's book. What's one thing you got out of that? I'd

Darci Crenshaw: 40:26

say the main thing that I learned there's this thing called the Big Five, and he relates it to like the African big five in the book. And the big five, it's like what you want to do, see your experience before basically, you die. It's not like your bucket list, but it's like the five main things that you want to do. So, I mean, the why kind of relates to that. It's like, why do you want to do these things? Like, what are you going to do to make those happen? Yeah, well,

Dave Crenshaw: 40:59

let's say that I want to visit lots of places in the world, or I want to have a certain experience in my life. Why pursue success in a career? Well, part of the reason why is so that you can have those experiences and be that kind of person. Now I'm going to put Stratton Ella on the spot here, not prepared for this question right now. What would you guess? Is your reason why? Why do you want to have, at this moment, have a successful career as a writer? Why even pursue that? What's the point?

Ella Crenshaw: 41:37

I've actually thought a lot about this. I've I've done like little YouTube research sessions, and a number of people have been like, you're gonna fail unless you figure out your while, like you're not gonna continue doing it. So I was like, Okay, I gotta think about this. And I think a big thing is I just, I like doing it, just in general, but I like creating something. I like creating this world, these characters, something that I can build, almost because I love reading and so the idea of having something of my own that I did and I worked for, and that people would love and cherish as much as the books that I have cherished. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 42:27

I think that's a fantastic motive to have. Yeah, what do you think Stratton, is it? Is it similar to Ella's, or is it a little bit different? Yeah,

Stratton Crenshaw: 42:35

I would, I would say that mine is very similar to Ella's. I love sharing the things that are in my head that I spend so much time daydreaming about and writing about. I love that shared experience. When someone reads it and tells me, I mean, it's not always positive, but sometimes they say, Man, that's I love that I want to come back and read that again. And in the end, it's creating more nerds. I'm creating more nerds that are nerding and geeking out about the same things that I'm nerding and geeking out about. And I love the thought of that and that shared love for something that I think is cool, and I want them to think is cool. I

Dave Crenshaw: 43:23

love it. And by the way, I would recommend to all of you to take that why like a little statement, and just put that up where you can see it every day, so maybe on your computer, next to that picture of Brandon Sanderson shaking his head. Sorry, that's an inside joke, but we had a picture of Brandon Sanderson and their mom put SMH next to it, like playing, yeah, stop playing video games. But you can put that up create more nerds, yeah, right, and put that on your thing. Pop quiz, what is my why? Hint, you can see it in this room,

Stratton Crenshaw: 44:05

collecting random objects. No you can.

Dave Crenshaw: 44:09

You can see the phrase on the

Darci Crenshaw: 44:12

wall, change one person's life today. That's it. Love that. That's

Dave Crenshaw: 44:15

why I do it. And one of the most notable moments of that, at least in the last year, you know that I've gone into prison and done done a lot of work there. I love doing that. And I remember talking to one woman, and she was talking about what she wanted to accomplish. And I don't even really know what the exactly what happened the conversation, but I just encouraged her. I was like, you can do this. I see this for you. And at the end, people were talking about their experiences, and she just said talking to Dave made sorry. Getting a little choked up here, but she said talking to Dave made me feel 10 feet tall, and that. Why I do what I do, right? And sometimes you can't do that on a personal basis. So for me, doing a podcast like this and having this conversation with all of you is an opportunity to do that on a on a broader scale. So maybe, maybe, I don't know if it happens every day, but maybe it's going to happen while I'm asleep. Maybe someone's life is going to get changed because of it. All right, let's move on here. We're on the home stretch. Last two take strategic risks for big rewards. Now it's a big concept. I put it near the bottom of the list because this is maybe one of the more advanced concepts. But the idea is risk and reward. If you don't take any risk, the reward is not going to be very high, but you need to be smart about the risks that you take. Not just not gambling, that's not strategic. That's guessing, right? Not guessing, but being strategic. Strategic is saying I have the data, I have information. And I'm going to go after this. One notable example of that was Kara golden, who's the founder of hint water. And she talked about how she worked on creating all these different water flavors, and it was just kind of something she was doing on her own. And then they went out and got funding. They went out and took risks. She talks about how she went into Starbucks and took a risk and did something that they told her not to do, which was to bring a sample of hint water, and that turned into a lot of success. What thoughts do you have about taking strategic risks?

Darci Crenshaw: 46:29

I have a question. Yeah, what if your risk like, what if you take your risk but it actually ends up causing a problem and it messes everything up? What do you do in that situation?

Dave Crenshaw: 46:42

Can you give me a what if example of that so that I understand what you mean?

Darci Crenshaw: 46:47

What if you wanted to open up a restaurant or something? Okay, yeah, so you go to this place, and you plan the time to meet with someone. You plan exactly what you're going to say, but you say it and they get really mad at you.

Dave Crenshaw: 47:04

Okay, well, let's take it. Probably what I think would be the more realistic version of that is, let's say that you're starting a restaurant and you have to go to the bank and you want to get a loan, right? That's a risk. You're putting yourself into debt to do it. And you talk to them and they say, No, I say, I'm not going to do it. Okay, so what would you do in that situation? I think, a couple. It's a really good example, because it it teaches us a few things. First of all, if you go to a bank in that situation and you ask for a loan, they want data, they want to see a business plan. They want to see that, you know, a pathway to make money. They will not just give you a loan unless you show them the strategy. So banks do that because they've had lots of experience way back in the day where they might have given someone a loan and they never paid it back because they didn't do the work like you're talking about, then it created a problem. You started this, you're in debt, the banks in like all of that. I've also seen lots of situations where people have started a business and it failed. If it couldn't fail, then it wouldn't be a risk, right? The trick is to take risks that you can afford to lose out on. So that's part of the reason why I encourage people. I know everybody has a different philosophy, but I encourage people to take those risks when they're younger. The younger you are when you take a risk, the less long term impact it's going to have in your life. Yeah, that makes sense. If I take a risk, and I'm married and I've got three children, and it fails, and I go into a lot of debt. Now I've brought you, all of you into this, but I took risks starting businesses before you were born, and the first time I did it, it didn't work out, and I had debt, but it wasn't so bad that I wasn't able to recover and come back from it, right? So take risks earlier rather than later. That's kind of a general principle about that. Did that answer your question? Darci, yeah, other questions about this.

Stratton Crenshaw: 49:14

I do have one, yeah. Should you ever take a risk where the outcome is out of your control entirely. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 49:25

there always is an element that's going to be out of your control, right? Right? I could start pursuing a career, and then something happens suddenly, and it changes the world, and it's no longer needed anymore, right? Like something happens with AI, I took a risk. AI came in and it wiped it out, and I don't have that opportunity anymore, right? So there's always an element that isn't under control. If you think you have total control, you don't, right? But what you do have is the ability to calculate odds, and you can look at certain careers, certain businesses, and say these odds are really high. These odds of me making money off of this risk seem much higher than the odds of me losing out. A good example of this actually, is Rosalie Guillen. She has a franchise, and the franchise is to sell macarons to people, which is fun, yeah. But the thing about a franchise, if you buy into it, is that a lot of the risk, not all of it, but a lot of the risk got, got smoothed out because someone already built a business model that you're buying into. So now the question really is, is this a good business model? Am I putting this model into the right place, rather than I'm just going to jump in cold and start a French pastry shop with no experience whatsoever. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes sense. So it's all about increasing the odds of success. I overheard this once from a mentor, someone who was speaking when I was going through the entrepreneurship program, and I've always remembered this, which is the probability of success equals one minus the probability of failure. It's kind of a complex way of saying, If you decrease the odds of failure, you're going to increase the odds of success. Okay, last one, and this one's really important, and it's something that kind of weaves a thread through everything that I teach, and I heard it from all the guests, which is, build a schedule that promotes balance. I might say that a little differently. I'd say build a schedule that promotes a healthy work life rhythm, meaning there's a pattern in your life that's healthy, where you're working and you're taking a break, you're working and you're taking a break, you're working and you're making time for yourself, for the people that you love, and to relax and have fun. And one of I know you're all gonna love this example, because you're all Formula One fans. My interview with peer to Sam Ella, and I'm probably not pronouncing the name quite right, but peer to is a wonderful guy, and he helps Formula One drivers find success, and one of the keys to that is balance, taking time for yourself, taking time off, making sure that you're sleeping, making sure that you're exercising, you're taking care of all these things, and that opens up the door to be successful in every other area of your life. Someone like to share some thoughts about balance.

Darci Crenshaw: 52:21

I think that balance, like having a balanced schedule, is very important because, like, I know there are a lot of interviews where you've heard people say that they were working themselves too hard, and they would work like, a lot of hours in one day. And it can actually, like, I think it can distract you from having fun and doing things other than work that's like, healthy for you and good for you to do, and it can cause problems. So it's always a good idea to step back and, like, think about yourself. Yeah,

Dave Crenshaw: 52:57

there's a word that I think is a little overused these days, but it is accurate here, which is sustainable, and sustainable means that can you keep doing this long term? And if you're working yourself 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, that is not sustainable in the long run, your body's going to give out, your mind's going to give out, you're going to be exhausted. So maybe you get a short term benefit from that kind of effort, but the long term impact is really poor, and your body is going to revolt, and maybe the relationships that you have in your life are going to start to decay. So you want to make sure that the schedule that you create is sustainable. And that's what we heard from several guests, is it used to be like that, and then they say, I realized that that wasn't going to work. I made a change and and oddly enough, that not oddly enough, but interestingly enough, that change corresponded with a lot of the success that they had in the future.

Ella Crenshaw: 53:55

I feel like this one is particularly hard for me. Ella, right now, there's a lot of stuff I have to do, I have to go to school, I have to go to swim practice, I have to eat dinner, I have to go to bed and get enough sleep for the next day. And so I'm left with this little bit of time that I'm like, Okay, I gotta do homework, okay, I gotta write, Okay, I gotta do all these things. I all these things that I want to do. And I'm like, okay, but I don't have enough time for all of it. And then I'm like, Okay, I have a little bit of time on the weekdays, and then on weekends, I can have free time so I can rest. But then my friends are like, Hey, we're here. Yep, you've been swimming. You want to hang out? And I'm like, Um, no. Basically, my question is, how do I find that balance when there's a lot of important things that I do need to get done and I cannot neglect?

Dave Crenshaw: 54:47

Yeah, a couple of thoughts, Ella, and I'm sorry that you're experiencing that right now, although I feel like it's going to be useful in the future for you to figure this out. First, a comment. It. There have been moments when your mom and I have talked about perhaps having you involved in something right, like maybe it's doing work for my business. And we always come back to the fact that you already have enough. We don't need to put more things on your schedule. You're probably not aware that we've had this conversation, but it has happened, and that is because we have seen, I have seen people get out of balance and trying to do too many things at the same time. And I have a saying in some of my courses, which is, don't fight the truth of time. People pay me to teach them the truth of time. What is the truth of time? It's really complex. There are only seven days in a week, there are only 24 hours in the day, and there's only one you That's it. And yet, a lot of people try to fight it. They try to pretend that maybe there are eight hours in the week, they try to pretend that there may be 25 hours in a day. Fact, you experienced this yesterday. Hopefully you're okay with using this example. You were trying to cram in making, she knows where I'm going. You were trying to cram in making some ginger bread dough, right? Yes, and we were in a hurry to get out the door, so you were rushing, and you underestimated how long it's gonna take. You went over the time that we needed to leave and what else happened. I

Ella Crenshaw: 56:26

forgot to put some of the ingredients exactly, so this morning I had to redo it all our ginger bread,

Dave Crenshaw: 56:34

right? But think about that, if you had not tried to cram that in, how much less time would you have spent making that gingerbread hours Exactly? And we see that all the time. I see that all the time, when people try to cram too much in, they make mistakes, and then it almost doubles the amount of time it takes to do things. So slow down and ask yourself, What can I not do or what can I do? Less. That's the first thing. The other thing, I want to just change some of the wording that you used. You used have to, have to have to, I have to do this. I have to do this. I can't do this. It was, it's all the absence of control, right? Someone's forcing you to do it. The reality is, you are choosing to do this. I chose to do this. I chose to take the these classes. I chose to enter the Honor Society. I chose to swim. Right? You recognize that these wall your choices, no one's making you do it. So because it's a choice, that means that you have a choice whether or not you're going to do it okay. So I feel like taking just that perspective opens up the door quite a bit, because you go, Wait a minute, I don't have to do all these things. I can choose to do it, or I can choose not to do it. The other thing that I would say is, along that list of the things that you choose to do that are very important, you choose to have fun. You choose to make that a priority. I wrote a whole dang book on this concept called the power of having fun. The book is too long. I admit it. I'm sorry if someone's read it, it's too long, but, but the truth is in that book, and it's very important truth, which is, you choose to make that a priority, it's a top thing, so that when you look at your schedule, along with swimming and along with homework, you see in there 30 minutes to watch some Japanese anime show, right? But it's a priority. It's something that you're saying. I can count on that whatever time that is, 730, to eight o'clock, I'm going to do that, and everything else has to fit around that. Another choice that you're going to make is sleep. This is how much time I choose to sleep. All of this is a choice. And now I'm not just looking at Ella, I'm looking at my kids. I'm looking at everyone listening. It's all a choice, and even if you don't have I've talked to people who are in tough situations, maybe they have to work two jobs, three jobs, you can still choose to have a five minute window that's an oasis that you count on and say, for these five minutes, I'm going to watch a silly YouTube video, and I count on that occurring at that point, and that break allows my mind to be refreshed, my body to be refreshed, so that I can go back and do all the other priorities that I have. So that was a really long answer that question, but hopefully it was helpful for you. Did it feel like I helped. Yeah, okay. Any last thoughts, kids, this is, this is the end. We're wrapping up this, this adventure that I started, we talked about risk. I took a risk and created this show and did this with you. It's been really fun. Have you? Have you gained something from it? I would hope so.

Stratton Crenshaw: 59:59

I've. Think I have I haven't, I'd be surprised. Yeah, yes.

Dave Crenshaw: 1:00:03

And the nice thing is, it's always here, right? You can always come back. You can always listen to the episodes. Repetition is a powerful teacher. Just because you heard it one time from someone doesn't mean that's the only time you hear it. You can always go back and listen to it. So pretty cool, huh? Yeah, I'm glad that we I'm glad that you gave me the why to do this. That was the reason why I was not excited about doing a podcast until I thought about helping my kids with it. So thank you for that. Why? Yeah, and thank you everyone for listening. If this is the first episode that you heard, I recommend that you do not make it the last go back and start listening to these other wonderful episodes that these wonderful interviews that we recorded, and remember always when you're listening, focus on the action. It's not just about the inspiration that you received. It's about the action that you take. So if you choose one action, you'll make their success story a part of your success story. Thanks for listening.

Darci Crenshaw: 1:01:07

You've been listening to the Dave Crenshaw Success Show, hosted by my dad, Dave Crenshaw, and produced by invaluable incorporated research and assistant production by Victoria Bidez, Sound Editing by Nikic Wright, voiceover by me Darci Crenshaw, and the music is by Ryan Brady via pond five. Licensing, please subscribe to the Dave Crenshaw success show on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you like to get your podcasts.