The Heallist Podcast
Heallist is on a mission to empower holistic healers, one story at a time. Join founder and serial entrepreneur Yuli Ziv as she connects with inspiring voices in alternative healing who’ve achieved true abundance, while also providing practical insights into building a conscious business. Whether you're deep into business expansion or looking to take your healing practice online, tune in every other week for new episodes and insights and visit Heallist.com to explore our tools.
The Heallist Podcast
Amplifying your voice as a conscious leader with David Trotter
Join us as we connect with David Trotter, a life transformational coach and publisher of Awakened Magazine about the remarkable journey that took him from a conservative Christian background to becoming a prominent figure in the realms of healing and spirituality. David opens up about his mission to amplify the voices of emerging healers and conscious leaders through Awakened Magazine, emphasizing how aesthetics can enhance the delivery of transformative messages about love and healing.
We dive into the ethical dilemmas and challenges that come with branding and marketing in the wellness industry. David shares his insights on maintaining authenticity and honesty in service delivery, and the importance of managing client expectations realistically.
Wrapping up, David offers wisdom on amplifying your voice and sharing your unique message with the world, reminding us all of the importance of our passions and services.
Check out Heallist.com for digital tools created just for holistic healers.
Welcome to the Healist Podcast, where we inspire and guide healers through business expansion. We give voice to incredibly abundant healers to share their stories. We dive into the quantum field to unlock the energies of conscious creation. We also develop digital tools to help you grow, which you can find on HealLesscom. I'm your host, Yuli, and I'm grateful you chose to join this space. Now let's go deep.
Yuli:Hello, my dear friends, welcome to another incredible episode of the HealLess podcast, and today we have a really exciting special guest. David Trotter is a publisher of Awaken Magazine and a life transformational coach with 25 years of experience helping people in the areas of healing, spirituality and leadership. At the age of 18, david sensed a call into ministry and completed his undergraduate and seminary work in preparation to become a pastor. After 10 years of starting and growing churches in Southern California, he was burned out from trying to fill an internal hole of not enoughness, which resulted in burnout, implosion, healing and a new chapter of life. He is the author of a dozen books, including Empowered to Rise and Superconscious Conversations, producer-director of four feature films on important social issues and a certified breath work and guided meditation facilitator.
Yuli:Wow, that's quite a bio and I'm just so excited to have David here. And our topic today is really, really important and it's about amplifying your voice as a conscious leader, and I couldn't imagine a better guest to do so. And I like to set intention for each episode, and for this one it's pretty easy. It's in the title. It's how can we help, how can we give tools, inspiration, advice for our incredible community of healers, conscious leaders and lightworkers to raise our voices, to show up, to become more visible, more vocal in this crazy, chaotic world that we're living in. And, david, welcome to the podcast.
David:Julie, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be with you.
Yuli:All right. So we're going to dive right in. As I told you, we like to get the practical advice at the very beginning and then we can unfold from there. So I'm just amazed at discovering the Awaken magazine. I'm just amazed by this opportunity for a lot of those emerging healers and emerging sorry, the emerging leaders in the space to become more visible and tell their stories and be presented in a way that is very, I would say, flattering, but also empowering, right and very deserving of their influence. So tell us, how did you come up with this format, this mission? How did it all come about? What was the story behind it?
David:Yeah, you know, obviously it flows out of my own life transformation of. You know, as you mentioned, I have kind of stepped into this world of spirituality, coming out of more of a conservative Christian background. But I began to meet over the last five to seven years so many incredible leaders, speakers, healers, lightworkers, and as I meet them I go man, so many of them are kind of hiding behind the modality, like really passionate about the modality, really passionate about people can be nervous about promoting themselves, like oh, this is stepping into this like three-dimensional world of kind of this game of marketing, and it kind of can feel like a game. They've got such an important message, such important work that if I could use my background the last 16 or so years I've served clients in the area of marketing if I could help them amplify their voice by giving them a boost of credibility and a boost of visibility, they would be able to impact people that I personally would never be able to impact or reach. They would be able to bring more healing, more love, more transformation, more awakening to our planet than I could.
David:And so, oh my gosh, if I could find a way to promote them in a really beautiful, engaging way. That's what I'd like to do, and so I started seeing some other digital magazines on the market, and you know, everyone has a different vision and a great you know niche niche. But I thought, okay, if I could create something for the niche of people that I believe in so strongly and do it in a way that was both very aesthetically pleasing, beautiful and engaging, that would help people and a lot of the magazines that I see maybe aren't as aesthetically pleasing as I think this group of people deserves in order to get their message out. And so that's why we've worked hard to create something that is both beautiful and engaging for healers and leaders.
Yuli:That's so, so incredible and such a brilliant idea. And I have to touch on one point that you mentioned, that about being aesthetically pleasing, because I feel like sometimes for me it's also like internal conflict because, coming you know us being spiritual beings right and working in those energy fields, we often feel like the glam aesthetics right, something that a glossy magazine would have, is not necessary in our spiritual world and it's all about the message and the energy behind it. Why did you decide to kind of step into this aesthetically pleasing form and kind of go with it?
David:Yeah, you know, for whatever reason, we live in a world where certain things catch our eye and beauty is obviously very subjective and when I say aesthetically pleasing, I don't mean the people that are on our cover.
David:Everybody's beautiful, right In our own way, everybody's handsome in their own. But it's more of the packaging the way that the graphics are put together, the way that the page loads, the way that the website is presented, all of those things. We do live in a world where things catch our eye, and so, well, if I've got an important message, I want to package it in a way that catches people's eyes. Right, I can be saying something about love or healing or transformation, but if it's not compelling, if it's not packaged in a way that catches people's eye, they're never going to hear it. And so you know, I think I learned that even from my time in being a pastor. For over a decade, I started churches that were very visually and compelling in terms of like what you heard. I utilized the tools of marketing and branding in order to help people hear a message that was ultimately life-changing. And so I'm bringing that same tool to the table, just with a slightly different modalities, right?
Yuli:No, it's so interesting and it's just amazing and fascinating that you have that combination in you. I think that's a very rare combination in people. You know have that deeply spiritual side and religious background in your case, but also being so super aware of the marketing and the creative arts Someone who comes from a creative background, like myself. I always valued it. But part of me also has a little bit of a conflict, like I mentioned before. Or, you know, and a lot of healers, they have the point when they say why do I have to, you know, invest in my presentation? Why do I have to package myself? Why do I have to, you know, hire an expensive photographer? Why can't just people see me as I am? And this is by raw kind of authentic self, right? And you providing this counter argument saying, well, you know, if you want to reach the masses like you just have to maybe package a little bit right.
David:Yeah, you don't have to, you don't have to do any of those things. But I do see that the people that do choose to go that route and do it in a way that's authentic to them, not something that's not them, right? It is weird when you see a photo of somebody and then you meet them in person and you're like, oh, that's the same person that would have guessed that, right? No, no, no, we're not looking for that. We're looking for authenticity. You know, it's just utilizing the tool of getting someone's attention. So if I give a talk, for instance I've given hundreds and hundreds of talks If the very first thing that comes out of my mouth is the most intense thing that I'm trying to communicate, you're probably not going to be able to hear it. Right? That's the core message. But if I communicate from the very beginning, something that catches your attention, that pulls you in, that feels compelling in a certain way, you're more prone to listen. It's the same thing that we're doing with visuals, is? It's just presenting the very first thing as something that's compelling, that causes you curiosity to go. I want to learn a little bit more, I want to take that in, I want to see what that's like, and that's the strategy right. Like, and that's the strategy right. You don't have to use that strategy, but we find that people who do tend to get a little bit more eyes on what they're doing, and that's ultimately the goal. The goal and this is so, so important I teach my coaching clients this people that I work with the goal is not performance. The goal is service, always, and so whenever we're thinking about whether it's being on a podcast interview or presenting an article or a talk or social media post it's not to perform in order to please other people or to get people's attention. The ultimate goal is to serve.
David:How am I trying to bring transformation, healing, awakening love to the table? And then, if there are tools that help me get people's attention in order to do that, then I want to use those. Some tools, though, I will say I will say Uli, some tools are out of alignment with, maybe, our values, and so that's a constant question to go what are my values and are these tools out of alignment? This might be controversial, but I'm going to share this.
David:I have seen some healers that will utilize their physical bodies in order to get attention right, and even the initial image that's presented on a reel right. That's an attention-getting image that you may have seen, and then all of a sudden it goes to to the actual message. That's transformation and healing or something like that. For me personally, that would be out of alignment with what I would want to present to people right. For other people it may not. That's an attention-getting tool, but we always have to ask is this an attention-getting tool that is in alignment with who I am and the values that I'm bringing to the table? So it's a question I'm always asking.
Yuli:It's so interesting and so deep. I feel like there's no right and wrong. I agree with you, but it is something that I find that like one of the most interesting, like challenges, and that's why I built the business of Healist to help healers to be presented properly. But it's always the question of you know marketing right.
Yuli:The area of marketing is known for its manipulative nature and it's built on using psychology to grab attention to sell things right. So in a way, we have to play this game Like there's no other way, especially if you're trying to sell services online to clients that potentially you know might come recommended, but maybe new people that just met you and they need to learn about you and they or you need to catch their attention. Are there any other ways to do so that are not necessarily manipulating as some of those marketing tactics are? And it's been like a big quest. I don't think there's an answer, but it's been a big quest of mine. With someone who's also done marketing for the past two decades mind, with someone who's also done marketing for the past two decades you know what are the most authentic ways to, yes, play the games and maybe use some of those tools to our advantage, but also to stay authentic and make sure that you know people are not manipulated in some of those spiritual practices that healers are offering.
David:It's tough, I think. For me it's a constant question, like, even there's only one spot left. You know, I will work with because, locally, my partner, she owns a meditation and breathwork studio here in Southern California called Behind the Lids, and so we do certifications, breathwork certifications, a guided meditation, a sound and all these things and there will be some people that we work with, facilitators, to go, okay, I'm going to put on my Instagram there's one spot left Right, and I go is there only one spot left? I mean, like, if there were two people that signed up, would you take the second one? Well, of course I would. Okay, well then, why are we saying there's one spot left? Like that's out of alignment with our values? You're lying to people like that, doesn't you know what I mean? Like, so that's a question that I'm always bringing to the table is like, well, wait, is this really true? Like, is it really what we would do? You know and I think that's a good exercise because it keeps me honest with how I'm, you know, presenting things People will even ask me that with the magazine, they'll go okay, do you have statistics on the people that participate as executive contributors in your magazine?
David:Do you have statistics on the number of leads that they've gotten by doing that and I go no, I don't and I never will, because I'm not going to utilize that to overpromise something. I can't promise you anything. What I can promise you is I'm going to present you in a beautiful way and here's the audience that I'm going to present you to and in large part, the results that you get are dependent on how much you leverage the branded content that we create together. Right? But I don't want to be in a position where I'm over promising and under delivering. I will always want to under promise and over deliver.
Yuli:Yeah, and it's always. I mean, it's a great point that you mentioned that. The conversion rates, right, all those marketing terms, or the lead generation, it's always a question or the ROI, another favorite one, sorry, turn on investment, right. Well, if I do this, what is it going to guarantee me how many spots, how many new clients I get? And it's always been a challenge, and my area of expertise for years was influencer marketing, which is very similar to that, and I love the parallels, by the way, because I think and I talk about it a lot, that healers are the new influencers of this day and age. But it was always a challenge because the influence, and especially if you apply the energetic level to it as well, how do you measure that? How do you measure that energetic impact, the cognitive impact, the potential long-term impact that this, maybe piece of content had on a person that sometimes even subconscious, right? So suddenly the ROI becomes really impossible to measure.
David:Yeah, very difficult, very difficult. And you know, overstating oh, I just get so nervous, personally, about overstating the potential result, you know, because I just I want people to know I'm here to serve, right, our organization is here to serve, and so here's what I can promise. Here's the unknown, here's the desire, here's the vision. I can cast the vision and go. This is what we're going for, but I can't promise, you know this thing. Here's what I can promise I think that that's true even with healers and facilitators of different experiences to go. Here's what I've seen in the past.
Yuli:I can't promise that that's going to be for you, but that's my desire, that's what we're going for, yeah absolutely, and it resonates so much because this is exactly the question that we have to address at Healist as well. You know, our mission as a platform is to present their profiles in the way that are. You know, make it easy for clients to book their services. That's really, that's the service.
David:Yes.
Yuli:We make it so easy for someone who sees this page to say, yes, I want this service and book it in two seconds. Right, but in terms of the guarantee, will someone book it or will we drive clients towards this page? There's no guarantee. We just provide this beautiful tool, this presentation, to the client. So in a way, we're in a similar business.
David:I thought I would get hundreds of leads by putting this profile up on Healist. What happened, yuli? Right, it's like, ah, and you know we can't control what other people's perception is. We can present, you know, communication, but it's like people are bringing their own hopes and dreams to the table. Yeah, it's a fascinating world of marketing and how do we utilize the tools, once again, to grab attention? But then the point is not to just perform, and I guess the reason why I focus on performance versus service is a lot of the clients that I work with are so concerned about, they're anxious about how they're coming off, how they're being presented to the world, Like I've got to be perfect in this way and it's like, well, okay, yeah, we're playing this game of marketing and branding, but ultimately the goal is service. So if you're there to serve, then a lot of that anxiety then just kind of evaporates because I go well, I'm here to just help. That's my goal.
Yuli:Right. So talk more about the right presentation and some of the concerns that people bring to the table when they come and they say, okay, I'm ready for this big next step of being on the cover of a digital magazine, which I'm sure comes with a lot of anxieties for this audience. What does that process look like?
David:The process in terms of like actually working with someone.
Yuli:Well, I think there's two parts complicated question, one psychological part, and, you know, making sure that they're comfortable with the way they're portrayed, and how do you present them and how do you choose the right branding, the right message, or do they come to you already with that, with all those things figured out? My guess would be no, but I'm curious to hear from you. And then the second part ends on a more practical level and production level. How does it actually look like and how does it work?
David:Yeah. So some individuals do come to the table with a very clear message and here's what I do and how I do it, why I do it, the benefits of working with me. One of the challenges for a lot of healers is they start with one thing, they start with one modality. So let's just say, somebody had some sort of issue, they received some Reiki treatments or sessions and they're like, oh my gosh, I've got to be a Reiki healer. So they go through Reiki process. They've got Reiki 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, reiki, platinum, right, all of them. And then they go okay, now I like sound healing. I'm going to add that because that would be really helpful. And then you know I should get breath work, and then I should probably get. And so they come with like 10 modalities and they've got all these amazing tools. But then the challenge is how do you communicate what you do Right? And so helping them go all right, is there a certain niche that you primarily focus on? Let's focus on that niche, and then let's focus on what is it the primary result that you're trying to help them with? And so we try to help them kind of narrow that down and hone in on one particular thing. So one of the things that I always ask them during our consultation calls is if you could use publicity in order to grow one aspect of your work, what would it be? Well, I really wanna focus more on one-on-one clients that are women, that are, you know, kind of dealing with this Okay, great. Or I really want to grow this group program. That's a one-year program, so we try to hone them in on what that thing is that they are wanting to see results on, and then, of course, if they're featured on the podcast, hone in on that as the specific part of the conversation.
David:Psychologically. You know, I'll have people that you know that join us as executive contributors. You go. Oh my gosh, I'm so nervous on the podcast, I've never done one before I go. Well, I've done hundreds. I literally have interviewed hundreds of people. I'm great at helping you share your story because I'm genuinely interested in your story, at helping you share your story because I'm genuinely interested in your story. So I'm just.
David:You know, I give them six to nine questions ahead of time to go. Here are the questions that I'm going to ask you. Would you like to add any questions? Would you like to subtract any questions? Let's make sure that the questions are going down the road. That's going to really set you up to win in terms of communicating your message, and then you know you can hear them take a sigh of breath of relief. Okay, all right, I'm for you, I'm for you. That's the whole reason why we're doing this is I'm for you. So I'm going to set you up to win. Then really asking them questions that help them hone their message.
David:Oftentimes, when you've been doing something for so long, you don't know what you know, right, you don't realize I'm assuming all of these things. You don't realize, I'm assuming all of these things. So I will oftentimes ask them questions that might seem very rudimentary, very simple, but it's because I don't want to assume that the audience that's listening understands anything. So what is Reiki? Oh, how does energy work? How does that impact? If I was dealing with a challenge, how might Reiki help me? I don't want to assume that people know that right.
David:Or we had someone that I just interviewed yesterday that is bringing consciousness to the military. Believe it or not, this individual is working in the US Army. They've worked for the Coast Guard, now they work for the State Department and they bring consciousness into the conversation in order to bring equity into this environment. Oh, okay. Well, how would you define consciousness? What does that mean in your environment? What is equity? How is that helpful to have in the workplace, or what does it look like when it's not in the workplace? So, all of those questions along the way, I find that not only do they help in terms of the content that we're presenting, but I'm kind of like consulting the individual along the way, making them think oh, you know, I've never thought about that before. Yeah, okay, I should probably think about that you know, that before?
David:Yeah, okay, I should probably think about that, you know, and that's fun because I'm for them, right, I'm helping them, I'm just I'm wanting them to expand, because it goes back to the core vision of if I can help people promote what they're doing and increase in credibility and increase in visibility and get more clients, that means they're going to bring more hope, healing, transformation and awakening to the world, and that lights me up.
Yuli:That's an incredible service. Well you, thank you for your service to this community and um. I don't want to assume that our listeners know how they can work with you and what services the um, the magazine, provides, so if you can touch on that in a more practical ways, that would be great.
David:Yeah, so Awaken Magazine is a platform to amplify the voices of conscious healers, leaders, teachers, coaches, authors, facilitators, and we hone in on that niche and essentially we say, okay, how can we take what you do, your work, their wisdom? We just package it in a beautiful and engaging way. And so the way that we work with individuals is actually through two different membership options. They're 12-month memberships because we want to work with people over a protracted period of time and see that impact and growth in their business. And those memberships one is more entry level, where they have the opportunity to present an interview about themselves and publish it through the magazine and also be able to publish monthly articles through the magazine, anything that's focused on spirituality, personal development, health and wellness relationships. And then also there's more of a premium publicity opportunity where they are featured on the cover and the podcast and presented it through video and audio and the written word. And yeah, and so all of that is just a way to present them to the world.
David:We have an audience, of course, that we present them to via email and social media, but then our goal is that they're taking this branded content that we've created together that's beautifully engaging, and they're presenting it to their audience through email and social media, and I see it every week. We have a different executive contributor on the cover every single week and I see them post it and tag us, and it's comment after comment Yuli, you look amazing. Oh my gosh, you deserve this. I love the interview. The article that you presented was so great, and these are people that already believe in them, already have eyes of credibility. Credibility goes up even with their own audience, which means, ultimately, they'll be willing to be more, willing to work with them or share their content. So, yeah, that's how we're supporting healers, teachers, leaders by just presenting their content in a beautiful way, and the ultimate goal increased credibility, so that they would be more trusted by their audience and ours, and then increased visibility, so that they would be able to reach more people who would want to work with them.
Yuli:Incredible. Yeah, it's a really amazing opportunity for anyone that is a holistic healer or a leader in the space. And I wanted to ask, as someone again comes from a creative background, how do you make them look so amazing and every cover is just outstanding and so captivating and all the content on your website or in the magazine. So what does that process look like? Because I can see a lot of leaders kind of look into it and say, oh, I would love to maybe see myself on the cover, but I don't know if I'm a cover material or I have the right content to appear. So talk about that more of a creative production process perhaps.
David:Yeah, so all of the images that we present are images that are submitted by our executive contributors, and so we do encourage them to get the best possible photo that they have available to them. Some people are able to present professional images. That would be our first choice. The cover is a headshot. We do have a great team that photoshops things to, you know, make it look amazing. Oftentimes the background of a photo is not conducive to a magazine cover, so we'll change out the background and then, depending on the person's desire, you know, we'll make some Botox adjustments to the face, but that's based on what the person desires, of course. And then, you know, I'll even work with the individual because I'll have some people go.
David:You know, I just I don't know. Even I've never had a photo shoot. Where do I get a photographer? I live in this small town and I go no, there are photographers in your small town. I literally will go on, share my screen and jump on Google or even Craigslist and just Google photographers. They're like, oh my gosh, there's all these photographers. And I go, yeah, and you know what They'll probably do a headshot for you. You could probably get a headshot for even 75 to $150 just for a headshot Like if you, if that's what you needed and you can use that image in lots of different places, if that's what you needed and you can use that image in lots of different places. So it's just coaching people through that process that maybe aren't as savvy, and that's okay. Ultimately, that gets me my goal, which is to present them in a beautiful, engaging way so that they ultimately will have more visibility, more credibility and, ultimately, impact more people.
Yuli:Yeah, no, that's incredible that you're able to turn the headshots into such a beautiful cover. It's really a skill and I absolutely agree with you encouraging more and more people in this profession to seek professional headshots in general, even if they just put it on their social media profiles or their Healist profile. It's such a huge difference. And, to add to your great recommendations, I find a lot of the local Facebook groups often will be a great source to find local photographers. That's why I find a lot of photographers for just personal affairs especially. So I'm sure all of you have some local groups that you can reach out and ask and a lot of times you will find people that are even either offer it for a very small fee or even for an exchange, because if it's something that goes into a magazine and there's a way for the professional to credit them in some way, it's someone who's starting out, let's say, in the area that to be, or you can exchange it for a session. Maybe they need maybe that photographer needs a breath work session.
David:Yeah, absolutely yeah. You know, for people who have not been in the world of marketing or PR or that kind of thing, all of those things can feel daunting. Oh my goodness, how am I going to look, you know, and is the person going to charge a lot? And I don't even know where to ask or what to start. You know you got to go for it. I just ask, you know, ask the questions. It's okay, be a be a learner. What does this look like? How much does it charge? What do I get in return? What should I wear? How should I look? You know all those questions. It's okay. Like you got to start and you do it once, then you're you're a pro. You do it again, right?
Yuli:right, and a lot of photographers can actually help with even a wardrobe selection or even if you do wish to have like more professionally styled, like hair, let's say.
Yuli:They will refer you to the right people and they will give you some advice, because they want their photos to be as good looking as possible as well. They have the same mission as you do. That's right, so it could be a creative collaboration. But, yeah, I think it's something you know having a great headshot. I can't speak enough for that, and thanks for your great suggestions and for emphasizing but also to creating an easy way to take those headshots and put it on something on the cover of a magazine. I think it's something that makes for people maybe a little easier to envision themselves on it. Okay, just all it takes, it's a headshot and it's a great interview. That all the thoughts and wisdom I already have that's all it takes to put it out there. But I think a lot of people just don't realize how that a lot of what you do and the way you present they already have that right.
David:Yeah, and the key thing that I tell them is our world is desperate for what you have to offer. It's absolutely desperate, like our world needs what you have. You wouldn't be doing this if you didn't think that our world needs it, and I'm just coming along confirming it, saying, yes, our world needs your energy, healing, your breath work, your meditation, your yoga, your coaching, your whatever it might be. Our world needs it, and so, in order for people to find out about what you offer, we want to present that, whether you work with Awaken Magazine or Healist or whatever, there are lots of different tools, and so we just got to get you out there, because your message deserves to be heard.
Yuli:Absolutely. If I can amplify it right now 10x or 100x, I will do, and all we do here in this podcast is amplify voices of healers, basically, and it's just amazing to have this magazine that is able to do that also in a visual way and a visually compelling way. So, david, I mean we talked a lot about your service, but I'm also really fascinated by your story and especially you know all of your journey, but this really unique combination of all of your marketing wisdom with the spiritual path and your own teachings as well, can you take us on this journey please?
David:Yeah, yeah. You know one of the reasons why I love images and marketing so much. I started out in photography when I was 14. I got my very first camera. I grew up in Kentucky and this was back with film, yuli, you may remember film.
Yuli:I do, I do.
David:So I started out when I was, I think, a freshman in high school, developing black and white film in the darkroom for the school yearbook and newspaper, and I did that for eight years, all through high school, all through college. I actually thought I was. My goal was to be a sports illustrated photographer. I just loved, I won awards in photographing sports. I actually worked for a newspaper in Northern California doing sports photography. But when I was a senior in high school, I sensed this calling into Christian ministry and so I ended up, instead of going back to Western Kentucky University and studying photojournalism, I came down to Southern California to what is now Vanguard University and got my degree in pastoral ministries and a master's in church leadership. Then I went on to Fuller Theological Seminary where I got a degree in cross-cultural studies with an emphasis in church growth, and I became a pastor.
David:I was a pastor for over 10 years and I utilized a lot of these tools that we're talking about marketing and branding and communication in order to just capture people's attention, in order to communicate a life-changing message. I did some crazy stuff, haley, when I was a pastor. I mean I had a full size city bus wrapped with our church's logo. I mean, the whole bus was like wrapped. And then I had a car, a Scion XB right when it came out, fully wrapped, matching the bus, we would go to community events and pass out bottles of branded water with, like, the logo it's just serving, right, just serving. Getting people and the other churches in the city were just like shaking their head like, oh my gosh, what is this guy? This is so inappropriate to get people's attention in this way. We should just be talking about Jesus in our normal boring way, right. And I'm like no, you got to like have fun, like connect with people, right.
David:So the challenge for me, though, in 10 years of ministry, was that, as you read earlier, I was trying to fill a hole of not enoughness inside of me that I thought if I could help enough people grow the church big enough, then I'd finally be somebody like, I'd finally feel enough. And so, about 16 years ago, I just hit a wall of burnout and made a transition where I started utilizing those skills of marketing to help for-profit and nonprofit clients. But it also gave me the freedom to have some time, because I worked for myself as a solopreneur with contractors, where I started asking questions kind of outside the box of what I had been teaching and what I had been taught, and so I started asking questions around personal development coaching, started doing some coaching myself, because that's all about helping people right. And then I fell into filmmaking because I wanted to tell some life-changing stories. So I did a documentary on orphans in India that was on Netflix for a couple of years, called Mother India Life Through the Eyes of the Orphan. It's still on Amazon.
David:I did a documentary on sex trafficking in the United States because I saw the issue of trafficking not only in other places, I physically saw it. And then I began to learn about it in the United States and so I featured six female abolitionists who had become aware of the issue of trafficking in their cities and then opened up aftercare homes. So we featured a woman in Baltimore, nashville, little Rock, houston, dallas, sacramento, and that film just was so amazing. I did a couple more films and then I started because I love telling people stories.
David:I started a podcast called Inspiration Rising focused on female entrepreneurs, because I found that a lot of women 30 to 60, were interested in all the stuff that I was doing ministry or marketing movies and I did several hundred interviews and in the course of those interviews, yuli, I started interviewing a lot of people that were spiritual type entrepreneurs. These women were coming on talking about energy and psychic stuff and medium and Reiki and I'm like these people are weird. I mean, these are just some weird people and you know I'd laugh with them and I go you know, in my old life you'd be satanic, you need an exorcism or something you know and I get them laughing and then the more times I talk to them I go this is my tribe, these are the people that I've been looking for, because this is all about connecting to the divine, a higher consciousness, and experiencing transformation, healing, awakening, and so it really gave me the freedom to open up my mind and heart to a more inclusive spirituality. And then I started you know, the gateway drug of sound baths here in Southern California. I'm like, well, okay, this is awesome. Then I got into breath work and guided meditation and got certified in those things. And actually my partner, as I mentioned, mandy she owns a studio, so we teach these classes there every night of the week and have lots of facilitators to do that.
David:So, yeah, just obviously a fascinating journey. I have a deep reverence for my heritage and through my own experiences with mediumship and channeling in the last couple of years, I actually have well, I feel emotional even talking about this. I have a deeper connection to Jesus than I ever did when I was a pastor, like in my own times of meditation, slash, channeling. Jesus is there with me and there's a connection there that feels so life-giving and permission-giving, rather than restricting and like constraining about right, wrong, good or bad. Like it feels so healing and transformative. And you know, there you go. I'm on the journey, I'm learning, I'm growing.
Yuli:Wow. Well, I'm grateful for your openness and vulnerability here and just sharing this incredible story and I think I've heard anything like that before Anyone who kind of come from this pretty, I would say leadership position in the religious world and stepped into the journey you're now and it's just really fascinating to me and I'm curious if the Awakened magazine was one of the channeled messages that you got. How did that come about?
David:Yeah, no-transcript is doing this in India through the work of orphans. So it's all about I love amplifying voices, but also there's a little bit of a competitive side of me. I will tell you.
Yuli:I don't know. Oh, tell me more, I love that. I will tell you. I don't know. Tell me more, I love that.
David:Have you ever taken the Gallup Strength Finders assessment? Have you ever done that particular one? Okay, so the Gallup organization came up with these I don't remember how many. There are 32, 36 strengths, and the whole point was that in Western culture, we tend to focus on our weaknesses in order to grow in our own lives. So if you ask the average person, hey, in order to grow in your life, should you focus more on your weakness? And like changing that or focus on your strength? In our culture we say weakness like just statistically, and they're going no, no, no, you can only grow your weakness like this much, like 10%, let's just say arbitrary number versus if you focus on your strength, it's going to escalate, you know, really big. So they do an assessment with your top five strengths and minor command.
David:Anytime there's a need for leadership, like, hey, I'm going to jump in and try to help. There's input. I'm always looking for input and learning from others. Futuristic, I can see things in the future that maybe other people can't see. But one of those the other one was activator. If something needs to be done, like okay, I'm on it activation.
David:The fifth one, though, is competition, and coming from my Christian background, I always saw competition as bad or evil, like, okay, you shouldn't, like, that's not, like it's not against other people, we should be for right.
David:So I was like I don't understand how competition could be one of my strengths and they go no, no, no, competition's not against other people, it's about always growing, learning and elevating whatever you're doing. So part of that, you know, I saw some other digital magazines on the marketplace. Part of that, you know, I saw some other digital magazines on the marketplace, in the marketplace, that I didn't find to be very aesthetically pleasing, you know. I felt like they were maybe a little bit like the mission was strong, but that aesthetic quality I felt like was maybe lacking a little bit. And so part of the, you know, goal of Waken Magazine is I go, I want to have the most beautiful magazine that I can without. You know, hey, you can never be Vogue because you're hiring photographers to do those covers and create everything right. So I'm working in the confines of utilizing user submitted content. If I can work with user submitted content, then create the most beautiful thing possible, let's do it and let's see if we can, you know, really grow this thing to amplify voices.
Yuli:Love that. Well, thank you again for your service and for sharing your stories. I can't believe that our time has come to an end and I feel like I have still a million questions for you. So maybe there will be part two one day, but just and thank you for amplifying those stories. Really, it seems like the thread and everything you've done is to help amplify people's stories, which is incredible service. Any last words of wisdom for our incredible audience?
David:I would just remind you the world needs what you have to offer. It's desperate in need of whatever that service is, that thing that's pulsing in your heart that you know you want to bring to the table. Our world needs it. And then, number two I would just encourage you to find ways to get the word out, to get people's attention about that, in ways that align with your values. So, hey, if that's signing up with Heat List or working with AwakendMagazine or the plethora of other opportunities and platforms, or just using Instagram, facebook, twitter, linkedin, tiktok, get the word out, because our world needs what you have to offer.
Yuli:Absolutely. Thank you, David. Pleasure having you on our podcast.
David:Great to be with you, Yuli. Thank you for the opportunity.
