Joe Fier sits down with renowned brand integrity expert and four-time bestselling author David Corbin, for a frank, energetic, and insightful conversation. Coming to you straight from his pickleball court—with his trademark humor and warmth—David shares his powerful philosophy: shining a light on the negatives in business and life isn’t just necessary, it’s transformative. Through stories, practical exercises, and candid wisdom, David guides listeners to face uncomfortable truths, align with their core values, and leverage adversity for lasting brand (and personal) success. If you’re ready for some no-nonsense inspiration to level up your business, this episode is a must-listen!

Topics Discussed

• The Power of Illumination: Why facing negatives head-on (not hiding from them!) is the key to personal and business growth.
• "Tripping" with Your Business: David’s unique exercise for dialoguing with your business—asking what it needs you to do and who you need to be.
• Brilliant on the Basics: Stories about legendary figures like Tony Gwynn, and the importance of mastering fundamental habits.
• Brand Integrity vs. Brand Slaughter: How companies (often unknowingly) destroy their own brands, and how to spot and prevent “brand slaughter.”
• David’s Award-Winning Invention: The story behind Rejuvenation Stations—innovative wellness pods now helping hospital staff combat burnout nationwide.
• The Illuminated Brand Formula: A powerful, actionable framework to audit and strengthen your brand integrity.
• Humanity in the Age of AI: Why our human spirit, values, and connection set us apart, and how to protect them in a tech-driven world.
• Personal Growth Through Self-Awareness: David’s strategies for self-check-ins, gratitude, and celebrating your own “aha” moments.
• Life Lessons and Business Wisdom: From cultivating joy and gratitude, to nurturing relationships and staying true to yourself as an entrepreneur.

Resources Mentioned

• David Corbin’s Website: https://davidcorbin.com/
• Rejuvenation Stations: https://www.rejuvenationstations.com/

Connect with Joe Fier

🤖 Chat with Joe's AI Clone: https://aibuildteam.ai/ask-joe/

📰 Newsletter: https://hustleandflowchart.com/subscribe

🎙️ Podcast: https://hustleandflowchart.com/

🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefier/

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joefier/

If you enjoyed today’s episode, help us illuminate more entrepreneurial journeys! Subscribe wherever you listen, leave us a review, and share Hustle & Flowchart with a friend who needs to hear this wisdom. Your support helps us grow—and brings you even more inspiring, actionable conversations every week. Let’s keep hustling, learning, and flowing—together.

Is your brand thriving or are you committing brand slaughter

without you even knowing it?

So what if your very problems that you're trying to hide from could actually

become your greatest source of strength?

So in this episode, I have David Corbin here.

He's a four times bestselling author.

Brand integrity expert here to reveal how illuminating actually shining a

light on the negatives can help leaders like yourself face the truth, align

with your values, and build brands.

At last, he's awesome.

You're gonna see he's coming straight from his pickleball

court with a stogie in his hand.

This is a good time.

So David's great.

Enjoy it.

All right, Dave, we're rolling.

You're outside.

You're enjoying the pickleball.

You're not enjoying pickleball, but you're enjoying the rain in San Diego and you

and me are both being San Diego brothers.

We know how rare that is.

Yeah,

man.

You're having a good time, huh?

How are you doing?

Life is, uh, life is big.

Life is groovy.

Every morning, I, I start the day and such gratitude, I say four things.

I say, yes, please more, and thank you.

Every morning.

Yes, please

more.

Thank you.

I like that.

Yes.

I, I'm just writing it.

It's so simple.

But, you know, it's, I think the best thing in life are simple, you know?

Mm-hmm.

What, uh, I mean, you got a, I I love your vibe.

I mean, so we met at Prosperity Camp, Greg Reid's event in San Diego.

You're great friends with, with him.

Of course.

Uh, Scott Duffy, my business partner.

So, you know, I've been noodling on your book here, illuminate.

I know you have some others as well.

It's great.

Um, face, face the negative shit in your life, right?

And do something about it basically.

Yeah.

So what, give your philosophy.

I mean, like what, why are you so happy?

And you said you're, you're gonna be in business forever

because, you know, there's, uh, a lot of slaughtering happening.

I won't let it all out, but I want you to.

Yeah, man.

So, uh, yeah, I, I, I love, I love running my businesses.

I, I love inventing products.

I'm building companies around them.

Sell the companies or stay with the companies.

Um, build the company as it's building me.

You know, most people think they're building their company bullshit.

The company's building you.

True.

And, and, um, you know, I I, I've been, you wanna know what makes me happy?

Yeah.

I hand out LSD at all of my speeches now.

No, but, but for real.

Why do you

gimme someone?

I you gimme a book?

I was like,

here's the deal.

No.

And in fact, it's so funny because, um.

I had, I had to get permission from the TED organization to actually

hand out fake LSD, you know, and, and, and I just did the same thing.

I just did a workshop for the San Diego Sheriff and her entire command staff.

Two weeks ago, or last week, or, I don't know.

It's a blur.

And I, and I got permission to make believe I was handing out LSD and, and

what I, what I do with that, you're gonna love this man, is I have a make believe

that I talk about how I was at Woodstock.

Yeah.

And, and, and you know, I was there and I was back.

The og,

the original.

The,

the one in 19 69, 56 years ago.

And, and, and, you know, I was backstage, which was kind of cool

until, until I got kicked out.

And, and, and then, you know, and that, so you're saying

you snuck backstage and you Oh,

yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I wasn't invited backstage.

I just turned 17 years old by like three or four days.

But, but anyway, so I got kicked out and I tell that story and, and I,

I learned these powerful 14 words.

Um, that this dude, tractor beamed, he said, man, like you're either

green and growing or ripe and rotting, but you're never standing still.

I didn't have a freaking clue what he was talking about, but, but I, I did.

Later, you know, a dozen years later, I started a business and, and, and I

was kicking ass doubling every year.

Had, uh, offices in 12 Western states started all that company back

then with a hundred dollars bill.

I mean, it was kind of crazy, but we grew so big and we almost lost everything.

The house that I'm in right now, I almost lost.

It was kind of crazy.

So I tell that story in one of my TED Talks.

And I tell it in my keynote and then I tell my audiences and I said, Hey man, I

brought you back a gift from Woodstock.

It's this tabs of LSD.

And, and I joke around, I say, you know, when I count to three, toss it

in the air, catch it in your mouth and go, whoa, dude, I'm tripping.

Right?

So, so have some fun with it guys.

So that's like the setup, but here's the serious part of that.

So like I tell them, now that you're tripping.

You can have a conversation with your business and I hope to, shit,

people are listening to this.

You can have a conversation with your business and because

you're tripping, you could ask it questions and it can answer you.

How's that for a, okay, so now you, so you got the setup.

You could

ask your business questions and from the voice of your freaking

business, you could hear it answer.

And here's the two questions and this is worth grabbing.

Question number one, Hey business, what do you need me to do?

And you write down the core job functions.

Now you've got a list of core job functions.

So my entrepreneur, brothers and sisters, you know what I'm talking about here.

It's basic as hell.

Do it.

Write down the core job functions.

Next.

You're tripping out, man.

You're asking your business.

Yo business, who do you need me to be?

And shut up and listen and write down the qualities and characteristics

that it tells you it needs.

Now you got two lists now because you're tripping.

Let's get naked.

that's part of the deal, right?

But not naked of clothes.

That's the easy part.

Naked of ego.

And now, rate yourself right now.

On your ability to deliver what your business just sent you out to get.

Scale of one to 10, baby.

One is you suck, 10 is mastery, and now you got an honest assessment

of your ability on what you need to be and what you need to do,

and where you are up seven, eight, or nine, you know the song goes.

Remember the dancing bear?

You've got to accentuate the positive.

That's all good where you're a three, four, or five.

The song says, illuminate the negative.

No bullshit.

Don't eliminate the negative.

Illuminate the negative, yo, face it.

Follow it and fix it.

And start to close the gaps.

And when you close those gaps, it is now a no whining zone.

My fellow entrepreneurs, no whining, but it's the market.

It's the this bullshit.

You close those gaps.

You want job and business security anywhere on the

planet, you close the gaps.

You got it.

And when you close the gaps, dig this.

When you close the gaps up, close your competence.

Mm-hmm.

And that brings up your confidence.

Which in turn brings up your competence and again, brings up your

confidence and you're going up the iny bey spider, but not up the water

spout, the spout of prosperity and freaking entrepreneurial freedom.

Boom.

Mic drop.

I'm gone.

Joe.

Let's go play pickleball.

I'm ready.

I'll meet you up there in about 20 minutes.

Man, this is so, this is why the, the company is building you.

It's building us through the process.

If you let it though, right?

If

you step into it, man.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

And, and just like the law of gravity, there's a law of control.

The law of control says we feel good about ourselves to the extent that

we're moving towards our destiny.

Not completely.

'cause there's other factors, you know, up there, you know, of the

fact.

But, but, and, and Fins kick in.

It's kinda like, you know, some of them are, we work off of lists, right?

So we check off the list.

It feels good.

It's Enden.

Yeah, it

is.

Some of us will do this, right?

It's not on the list, but we did it.

So we'll put it on the list just so we can check it off.

' cause checklist, manifesto, right?

There's a whole book about that.

Basically it

kicks in the Fins baby.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, how, um, I mean, this is.

I don't know if everyone listening or watching have tripped before I have.

Um, so I know what you mean.

Like it's pretty easy to eliminate the ego and start to open up,

you know, to what's possible.

And I think that's the point you're getting to, right, is like, have

those conversations that you wouldn't normally have when you're monkey brain

is just bogging shit up basically.

You can't get to the truth, right.

So, I don't know where my question is, but like, this is a hell of a process.

I wrote down the whole thing and you know the two questions, I'll just reiterate

'em again, if no one caught 'em, is asking your business, what do you need from me?

Or what do you need me to do specifically?

And then second is yo business.

What do you need me to be?

Yeah, who do you need me to be?

Who?

Who do you?

It's from the famous philosopher.

Frank Sinatra, dooby, dooby doo dooby.

It's dooby, dooby be, do, do, do.

Who are you being while you're doing what you're doing?

What needs done?

And who are you being while you're doing what you're doing?

Boom.

That's it.

And, and, and it's, it's pretty simple.

It, it's damn simple.

So I've done this with the president of at and t, uh, the secretary of

the va. Uh, I've done it with some pretty cool Academy Award, but I've

done it with some pretty cool cats.

Maya Angelou.

I saw that too.

They

don't, they don't say, oh, this is too simple for me, but mid-range, mid cap

entrepreneurs might go, I don't know, man.

I already know that stuff.

Tell me something.

I don't know.

Okay, well fine.

It's all good, man.

Yeah.

I mean to, I, I live near where Tony Gwen used to live.

You know, Tony Gwen, the baseball, I

have his baiting, uh, bass baseball gloves he gave to me during a game

when I was like, I got him to sign.

I, I was a Tony Gwen lover.

Still am now.

He's my I idol.

Yeah, I know where he lived too.

Yeah.

So

he and his wife.

And me and my ex-wife, we started a Montessori school together and our

kids grew up together and no shit.

They went to Francis Parker.

I was invited to his induction at, at, uh, yeah.

Cooperstown.

That was really cool.

Wow.

But Tony Gwynn used to be the first one in to the club and he

would, he would swing off a tee.

That's right.

I remember.

Swing off of a t. So if brilliant on the basics is good enough

to tg, it's good enough for me.

Heck yeah, man.

I love the Tony Gwyn references.

That makes me, warms my heart.

Well see in the back there behind my pickleball court, I

have a library building Uhhuh, and in that library building I

have his 2000, 2000 bat hit bat.

Really?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You

didn't get the 3000 though, but you got the two.

It's uh,

no.

In fact.

He pissed me off because I, I got, I didn't go to his 3000th game.

It was in Canada.

Yeah, I remember.

But I

bought the ticket and I wanted him to sign it.

And he said, Dave, I'm not signing it.

I said, in, in nice words, what the, he goes, I, I, you weren't there.

Ah.

I said, you know what?

I hate you and I love you.

Goodbye.

No, I mean, and I, I gave him a hug and that was it.

But, um, wow.

Yeah, no, the guy was full of integrity.

Yeah.

But the key, the key, the point I'm trying to make is brilliant on the basics.

The most winning football coach in the history of football, used to,

at the beginning of each season, he'd hold up a football and get

gentleman this, here's a football.

And they knew.

Yeah.

Right.

Back to the basics.

Yeah.

Back to the basics.

Don't drop it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There you go.

Yeah, don't drop it.

Well, how do you, uh, damn.

Yeah, I can nerd out on Tony and, and football.

We'll, we'll go there another time when we're hanging out, but, um, I

wanna see that 2000 bat, by the way.

Uh, but the, uh, how do you shake a, a smart entrepreneur that is just

so heady, you know, and they're just living in cranium land over here.

How do you deal?

I, I know you've dealt with it and you know what I mean?

Yeah.

I don't,

you don't.

Oh, you, you say not for me.

No, I, I, I don't waste my time.

I mean, yesterday I did 13 hour mentoring session from 8:00 AM to 9:00

PM We didn't have lunch, and we, we talked through dinner with my bride.

He's a rocket scientist.

He's a rocket scientist.

He's pretty smart.

He, he invented a device that's on 6,500 Rockets satellites.

He, he was on the Mars Rover with his device.

Point is, he's a smart dude.

Yeah.

And he sold his company for a couple of dollars.

He came here, flew here from Boulder and paid for a day of my time.

Mm-hmm.

He's humble and courageous enough.

To open himself up to where he can learn, grow, and develop.

And you're telling me about an entrepreneur who can't put

two half million dollar bills together and they know everything.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

So I don't, I don't, uh, one of my, you met my former business

partner, Brian Tracy, at the event.

That's right.

Right.

Yeah.

We used to say, don't wrestle with a pig.

Because if you do, you get dirty and the pig probably likes it.

So, so, and we also over, he and I were just talking about

this at his house the other day.

Yeah.

Over, over, um, uh, Christmas, Hanukkah in, in Ali, uh, Maui.

Yeah.

We came up with a philosophy of success.

And it was basically, success is not having to work with assholes.

Geez.

Yeah.

That's the truth.

And

that was it.

Now we cleaned it up.

I cleaned it up from one of my books.

It's success is not having to work with dirt bags, morons and blah, blah, blah.

But true success is working with people who you could respect,

admire, trust, and love.

That's that's true success.

So when somebody who knows it all, or they roll their eyes to something

like that, I go, that's all good.

God bless you.

Yeah.

It's all good.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

And there's another, someone's gonna wanna roll around with

that pig, and that's okay.

It just won't be me.

You know?

What'll ha Yeah.

EEE.

Exactly.

And, and, well, don't get me started there, there's, there's, maybe

I wanna,

there's, there's people whose marketing is so good that they'll convince that person

that they have their key to success.

Right.

That person may or may not go.

There's a lot of money that's wasted in personal and professional development.

Uh, there's a lot of lions and uh, in lambs clothing and stuff, and that's

why people like Scotty, you know, I'll work with Scott and some others 'cause I

know their head and I know their heart.

They're good people, you know, and I've seen how they, I've seen how

they engage even under pressure.

Yeah,

you know, grandma said that you don't know how strong people are.

She, she said people are like tea bags.

You don't know how strong they are till you dip 'em in hot water.

Ooh, that's good.

And I've

seen Scott Duffy through some interesting times, and never did he deviate

from his ethics and his integrity.

And for that reason, anytime he asks me for a favor or anything at all.

I start, always start with yes.

Even the question doesn't even come out of his mouth and I say, yes.

That's when you know, yeah, you, you know you have good people and that's, yeah.

Stick together.

I think, I think the pickleball session is, uh, Duffy and

I And you and your bride.

And then we'll, we'll bring down, well, in fact,

honey, get some Kleenex ready because uh, these guys are gonna need it.

Okay, no problem.

Show it up.

Well, how do you, you know, I know, and I know Duffy's had some cool stories

too, and you know, he is been on the pod, you know, so people, you don't

know Scott yet, you'll know him more.

But we did release an episode recently.

How do you like.

You don't have to put anybody specific, but like if someone's hiding from

failures or, or the things that you know that maybe their ego is stopping

them from getting through, uh, you know, you're all about shining a light

on the negative, but like, talk me through how someone can work through it.

They're open.

They know they have some shit they gotta work through.

Yeah.

Um,

or do that how you got

' em.

Or, or do they see a lot of people walk around?

They don't know it.

Right.

They, they just don't, you don't know what you don't know.

And that's all, that's all good.

You're gonna wake up.

I wrote, you know, uh, wall Street Journal bestselling series called

from WTF to OMG with some LOL unpacking Life's Hidden Lessons.

Eventually they'll unpack the lessons in, in, in, in, in what, what they're at.

But you know the, the, the book that you held up?

Yeah.

I just completed my 14th book and I'm, I'm really proud.

That the ideas that I share catch on and four of my books made

it to the Wall Street Journal bestseller list and USA today.

So that means people are resonating with now these ideas

that I come, that I come up with.

I don't know that anything in the world is original.

All I know is shit comes to me.

I try it, I use it, I leverage it.

I either it, it either works or doesn't work.

If it works, I do it again.

I do it again, I do it again.

I'd use it with my clients, et cetera.

Then I write a book about it.

Mm-hmm.

And then, and then people come and they read the book and they say,

oh, can you work on the other?

So the Illuminate book, for example, it's all about.

Um, look, man, one of my mentors taught me, James Baldwin, a

magnificent philosopher and playwright.

He, he, he, he said, we can't solve everything we face, but we can't

solve anything unless we face it.

And in the book, which is a story I teach, face it, follow it, and fix it.

Mm-hmm.

So an answer to your question.

The question, the, the seminal important question that we need to ask

ourselves is, what am I missing here?

What am I not facing about myself?

My development?

Now, again, I really think you should trip out on those two lists.

Yeah, yeah.

And when you trip on the, on those two lists and you get

serious and naked of ego.

You'll find out what you need to illuminate.

Mm. And you face it, then you follow it.

Why?

Like, I almost lost my house a million years ago when I

was 30 some odd years old.

And, and I, uh, those 14 words came back to me.

You know, you're the green and growing and ripe and rotting.

And I look at like, I'm a good guy.

Why is this happening to me?

I, I study and read books on sales and market what's going on?

And then it hit me like a ton of bricks.

You're green and grow ripe or rotting.

I didn't really look at where I was ripe and rotting, like strategic

planning, financial forecasting, budgeting, uh, corporate finance.

I sucked at that and I didn't know it, so I illuminated it.

I faced it.

What am I facing?

I suck at that.

What else am I facing?

I freaking hate that.

What else am I?

It gives me a rash and anal leakage.

I freaking hate that stuff, right?

Yeah.

Base

it.

Yeah.

Right.

So then you follow it.

Well, why?

I never learned it.

I never cared about it.

Ain't nobody taught me that.

What happens in the future if you follow it into the future?

I'm screwed.

What's keeping it alive?

My ignorance.

Fix it.

Learn at least enough.

So that I could hire somebody to do it and keep 'em honest.

Mm-hmm.

I don't need to be a nine or a 10, be a five.

So I could know enough about it, hire someone and keep 'em

honest with, with my money and my accounting and shit like that.

That's illuminate illuminating parts.

You and frankly, two of my internationally award-winning

inventions came from that model.

Wow.

What were those inventions?

I'm, I'm curious.

Well, the, the latest one is freaking nuts.

It's, it's, right now it's in every hospital in New York City.

It's all over the country.

The VA is my biggest customer right now.

Wow.

Dig this.

So, face it.

Emergency room doctors and nurses are burning out at breakneck speed.

Burnout, turnover because of stress.

Sustained stress.

Now I already own a company that's 20 years old that puts prescriptive

healing music and public spaces in hospitals, but we looked and said,

what next problem could we solve?

Face it, burnout.

Turnover.

Before COVID, it was a $4.38 billion problem.

Follow it.

They burn out.

It's expensive to replace 'em, and we're gonna run outta nurses and doctors fix it.

So we invented a pod, four foot by four foots like a spa.

You open the door, you walk in, you sit down, it says, welcome,

breathe, blah, blah, blah.

And you choose a video journey, a nature video journey, anywhere

from three to eight minutes.

Emmy Award-winning video, Emmy Award-winning audio, and.

In three to eight minutes using the science of what's called biophilia,

how nature impacts a human condition.

Yeah.

And the science of all.

In three to eight minutes, they go from their crazy roles

and goals into their souls.

So they emerge more present with themself and others.

And we do pre and post testing on it.

So it collects all the data.

It's freaking nuts, man.

And so we illuminated, found that.

Invented that it won the International Healthcare Design Award for innovation.

WHA from?

From Illuminate.

Wow.

And you go into the root of the problem.

Yeah.

Is the burnout because Yeah.

If we don't have those specialized folks doing those roles.

Screwed.

I mean, they're, they're the front line.

Yeah.

Yeah, man.

And, and that the website on that is rejuvenation stations plural.com.

Okay.

Now, this company here, who's gonna buy it?

But if you want to check out a very groovy invention, which came

from Illuminate, then look at that.

And then you ask yourself, how can I use Illuminate face and follow and fix?

And you don't have to, you don't have to learn or study it.

All you have to know is face it, follow it and fix it.

Now the book tells a story and Yeah, and And it's pretty cool.

And then Illuminate then gave birth to a book called Preventing Brand Slaughter.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

And that's where you're illuminating your brand, you're reputation.

And in that one I teach, you're either living your brand,

which is brand integrity.

You're killing your brand.

That's brand slaughter in the first, second or third degree, and it could

be involuntary brand slaughter.

I don't give a shit.

It's still brand slaughter.

Yeah.

You kill someone, you're going to jail for manslaughter, but you kill your own brand

and you pay the price a different way.

let's talk about that because, um, yeah, brand slaughter, I'm sure it's happening

to probably everyone listening, watching.

What are, um, I mean, especially now, I'm just thinking of with AI

and all the different things that are coming up that people probably

aren't understanding or aware of.

Um, don't have a perfect question here, but brand slaughter.

Yeah.

Like you're either living.

I don't know.

I, I guess, do you think it's more killing brands or just being

slaughtered kind of without awareness of the person driving the ship?

Well, it's usually, it's usually involuntary brands.

Invol,

yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, uh, my buddy owns 35 IHOPs here in town.

If somebody, you know.

Brings a, a glass with her finger in the water and puts it on the table.

Mm-hmm.

That's slaughter.

Well, my buddy Mikey didn't do it, but he's, he's in trouble for

slaughter in the second degree because he allows for that to happen.

Yeah.

Like,

shit, if you did it or not, I mean, you allow, that's, that's involuntary and

most of us, if we can commit slaughter, we don't, we don't intend to do it.

Certainly.

Yeah.

But

what, what, what?

What happens is, and this is a trip because Illuminate and Brand

Slaughter got drunk one night and they made a baby called a book

called The Illuminated Brand, right?

And then the Illuminated brand, which is continuation of the story from

brand slaughter and stuff like that.

The bottom line is there's a formula there.

And I'm happy to share that formula right now 'cause it's, it is kickass

and people who have a pen and pencil, it really does require writing it down.

And it's a, maybe put it, I don't know, whatever, but it's, it's,

it's, it's IBD plus a BI times SBI equals MBV, I'll say it again.

IBD plus A, BI times SBI equals MBV.

Now dig this shit.

This is amazing.

I'm doing seven keynotes in September in seven different cities.

Wow.

Because this, this, this is catching on like big time.

And here's what it's IBD are your intended brand descriptors.

Now I'm an entrepreneur.

You're an entrepreneur.

Listeners are entrepreneurs.

You could be.

You could be killing it or just starting out.

It's still relevant.

Here's the deal.

IBDs, what are your intended brand descriptors?

That's a list.

You list out those words.

How do you want to be described?

Mm-hmm.

You walk into a restroom to wash your hands and somebody's in the

stall, you know, invariably talking really loud on their cell phone.

If they're talking about you, what do you want to hear them say?

He's this, that, this, that, this, that, and this that.

Okay?

Yep.

Got it.

Those are

your IBDs.

Next is your A BI.

That's an audit of brand integrity audit.

Brand integrity.

So you've got your list here of your IBDs.

Here are your list of touch points.

Mm-hmm.

Customers, prospects, suspects.

There they are across there.

So you got an x axis, a y axis, your Abby, your order of brand integrity is you look

over here and you say, uh, innovative.

And with customers.

Are you in brand integrity?

Are you earning that descriptor?

Brand integrity.

Yay.

Or over here, ah, in responsive.

And clients we kind of met, that's brand slaughter in the first degree.

So now it's a hit or miss.

So now you got your list of brand slaughter.

That's where you focus.

Mm-hmm.

Remember I talked about closing the gap?

Yeah.

Well, the next phase you see is S-B-I-S-B-I, strategic.

Brand initiatives.

Those are you, you, you either mastermind with yourself or your team.

How could we close the gap on these?

How could we be more integris with our brand?

What could, might, should, ought we do that process equals

MBV, massive brand value.

Boom.

Man, that is, that's a hell of a formula.

We will make it easy for people to grab that formula.

So it's actionable too.

'cause that's the key thing I wanna do here is un unlock it, illuminate

this whole thing, and then actually, actually do the damn thing.

That's the, that's the training program that I, I, I do,

yeah.

Uh, all over the place.

And we're running it through, like, one of my clients is the

number one luxury hotel in Boston.

Mm. And we put a hundred percent of their employees through this system.

Mm. They are a three, three-year-old brand, and they're

beating, um, Ritz Carlton.

Um.

Uh, uh, I'm trying to think of the other.

I can't, but they're number one.

Yeah.

They're beating these.

In fact, their building was the first Ritz Carlton in the United

States a hundred years ago.

Oh, that's even better.

Three years old.

And they're kicking ass.

Four seasons.

They're whooping and they're three years old.

Why?

Because the brand is people.

Love is just damn good business and the brand.

Where you have all of your people know their respective roles in

living the brand, they know that they live that and it feels good.

So you said brand is people.

I mean, that's for that company, but I would, I mean, would you say that's

kind of overarching with most great businesses and love is great business too?

I, there's, there's a connection.

Uhhuh,

I call it the God only Knows factor.

Because if you ask people why they're so connected with a brand,

they're gonna say God only knows.

And then if you were to say, would you switch?

They say, no way.

So that it's the, to quote, the famous philosopher Austin

Powers, it's the mojo baby.

It's the mojo.

I love it.

But here's, here's the deal.

It's not enough for God to only know.

You need to know it, and you need to do it on purpose in everything you do.

That involves an order to brand integrity and the entire illuminated

brand model when you do that.

I mean, I know what my brand is and I do it on purpose, and it

feels good to do it on purpose.

Um, and if, and you, you feel confident.

Uh, you walk, yeah.

You, you, you stand upright with your feet in the lettuce where you're grounded

to the earth and you're head to God.

Where you walking?

You, you walk, you walk strong.

I walk tall at five foot five.

Every, every inch squeaking out.

Yeah.

Well that's the thing.

And and what Illuminating anything, any of the negatives, any of

the shit that we're dealing with that we feel we're inadequate in.

Uh, we're only gonna get, like you said, what, more confidence, more competence.

Um, and, and the cycle continues.

I might have said that in reverse.

You are good.

You are a good student.

Grasshopper.

Uh, I'm learning quick.

You're very good student.

I am liking very much you.

Oh man, this is good.

Uh, do you find that it, um, 'cause it, it starts with the person right?

Starts with me.

It starts with you listening, watching, and then it goes to,

I would assume, team, right?

The people that are surrounding us, supporting us, the ones that we work with.

So culture, I would imagine.

So it's coming out from, it's kind of developing out like a flower

hippie days, and you know, then it's starting to touch people out there.

No, no, you're right.

I mean, it does, it does have that sort of ripple effect and, and make

no mistake about it, whether you're a solopreneur or an entrepreneur who

has three employees or 3000 employees.

You are responsible for making sure everyone understands their

respective role in living the brand.

You see, the brand is valuable.

Like a Berger egg.

You know what a Berger egg is?

I've seen, yeah, I have.

I do.

Those, those

little delicate eggs, they're worth about six or $7 million.

The brand.

Is that valuable fib.

And when you hand it off to your people, you must hand it to them

gently and they must know how to treat it and live it and handle it.

Mm-hmm.

But if you do this, oops, my bad, you killed the brand.

Mm-hmm.

So it's, it's just a matter of get real, get real.

Have the, you know, most of my entrepreneur brothers and sisters

are courageous, but when it comes to looking at themselves.

They're not so courageous.

It gets scary, man.

When you're turning the Yeah.

The camera around or whatever it is.

The mirror.

it takes courage.

Um, and, and it takes, what's the word, humility.

Mm-hmm.

For us all to realize we are all bozos on this bus.

That's right.

We're also brilliant.

Our job is in this lifetime, to find those areas.

That we're in need to sand and smooth out to fortify and fulfill.

That's our job, um, as business people.

But stay with me here.

Yo, it's our job as a human being.

Uh, and as a, uh, as a part of this great spirit that exists is to find

out, you know, what is our, what is our dharma, what's our path?

Um, and have the, the ka.

To, uh, to close those gaps, to identify the gaps and close the gaps.

And if you can't find the gaps, just talk to your spouse or

your, your team or something.

They'll be right there to tell you, and that's just fine, however you get it.

And then fire them for being honest.

Yeah.

You're just like, how dare you.

Well, I mean, or you can, uh, and you know, I don't know if you're a fan of

this, but ChatGPT, you know, I know a lot of people are going to that now.

Talking about, what is that?

I

never heard of that.

Never

heard of that thing, huh?

No.

Yeah.

Have you used it for this kind of process or do you recommend

I, I just had a client, this is so cool.

The guy who was here yesterday, the rocket scientist guy.

Yeah.

He went to chat and said, I'm going to, um, the home of David Corbin.

Uh, he's my new mentor.

Um, I would like you to mentor me like David Corbin does.

Yeah.

What questions do you expect that David will ask me and freaking

chat knew me well enough to write down some of the questions that.

You know, anybody who's watching can try that and you'll see some of the questions.

That chat knows me well enough to know the questions that I would ask it.

That's a trip, man.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That, that's, yeah.

No, I love, I love chat.

I just, like I said, I just finished my 14th book.

Yeah.

And chat was very helpful.

Good.

Because my 14th book is called Dig This Reawakening America,

illuminating Her Brand.

That's good, timely.

And it's all about this woman America Uhhuh.

And she goes up to her mentor, whose name coincidentally is C, period.

David, I'm David, period C. But, um, she goes up to her mentor and she goes, David,

I'm like, I, I, I, I need your help.

I, I, you've been my mentor since, since I'm born.

But I gotta tell you, I'm very unsteady on my feet.

I don't even, I'm forgetting who I am and I like, I'm, I'm everything to

everybody and I ain't nothing to nobody.

I need your help.

And he's thinking to himself, yeah, tell me about it.

I got my own stuff.

He goes, but, but, but I've been helping her since she's born.

And he says, yeah, America, I will help you.

Um, what I'll do is I'm gonna send you out to one of our Great American corporations

and they'll, they'll greet you there, they'll show you around a little bit.

And in that process you'll remember.

Some of your values and what you stand for, and she says, that'd be great.

So she goes, first company she goes to is a little company called Apple.

You've probably never heard of it.

And so she goes through it and then she comes back and she debriefs with David.

Through that process.

She talks about the values she learned there, and he sends her to another

corporation and another corporation.

Mm-hmm.

There's about 12 corporations she goes through and each time they

debrief and she remembers her values, she also remembers where she messed

up and how she got back on track.

And so that's the process.

And at the very end, and here's the reveal and you gotta read this book, man.

I wanna,

it's the best

book I've ever written.

But at the end she goes, you know.

You've been with me my whole life.

You've taken through this, this journey.

I feel steady on my street, on my feet.

She goes, I never asked you a question.

He goes, what's that?

She goes, what does a C stand for?

You know, in C period, David, and through some dramatic interplay, he

says, it's, it's a God-given name.

It's the most important name I have.

That name is Citizen.

Citizen.

For in the book, it's the citizen who helps to get her back on track, who

reminds her and works with her around.

The woman's right to vote slavery, uh, polluting our rivers and and streams.

It's the citizen Rachel Carson who stuck.

So in the book, you're learning America's, you are remembering America's values.

You're seeing where we've gone astray.

And how as tough as it was, even when we had over a hundred

Nazis in Congress mm-hmm.

We were able to solve it.

The McCarthy era era, the Watergate era.

I want people to remember our values and at the end I have a book club

series where people could talk about this questions I give in there and,

and I'm talking to Good Morning America now to get on and talk about that.

Wow.

I wanna engage civil dialogue around what unites us, not just with divides us.

All right.

I'm gonna pick up that book.

Is that out already?

Yeah, it's, it is.

Okay.

It's on Amazon at a place near you.

And, and when you buy it, put a, put a, uh, put a, a, what do you call it?

In, uh, a review.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A view.

That's the word.

That's don't

use chat, GPT to write it either.

That's, that's, yeah.

I

don't care if chat writes it or your child writes it.

That's true.

Just do it.

It's a, it's a quantity more than a quality thing, the

way that shit goes down.

That

is the game over there.

Yeah, you're right.

Uh, man.

Yeah.

So I'm curious, where do you like when you screw up?

Because I'm sure you do me.

How do you, how never, how do you realign?

Like what's your, what's your comeback like?

Is there a specific thing that you always ground yourself in?

It's probably so party set.

Yes.

Yes.

When I catch myself, I celebrate it.

Mm. Cool.

Always celebrate it.

Cool.

Yeah.

It's the shit that you don't catch is you're screwed.

Yeah.

But if I catch it or if somebody catches it.

I don't always get it, you know?

Yeah.

And like, maybe I'll disagree at first, but I try to stay that open vessel.

I try to hold that transformative space so when I realize that I

mess up or I go back to the old ways, you know, um, I celebrate it.

I go, yay.

Because it's in the realization I can grow.

Yeah.

It's what I don't know, what I don't illuminate.

You see what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

If I go to the doctor and the doctor goes, man, your, your,

your, your skin is 98% great.

I'm like, what's the 2%?

Oh yeah.

Well, you got a skin cancer over there.

Well, don't just accentuate the positive, illuminate the freaking negative doc.

Right?

Yeah.

So when, when I find that, uh, I don't, um, I don't go into shame

or blame, I go into celebration.

Mm.

Because that opens up possibilities, right?

Like when you have, yeah.

That book, because you're shining a, I don't know if it's a positive

light, but it's an open light.

You're shining the light on that thing, and

listen, you illuminate the negative in a positive light.

Mm mm

That's my, my buddy John Asraf came up with that 25.

Yeah, John's

awesome.

That first book.

He said, David, it's like you're talking about illuminate the

negative in a positive light.

And I went.

John, that's the best idea I've ever come up with.

Well, I was hanging out with John the other day, so Yeah,

John's, John's awesome.

He's, he's a great guy.

That's, uh, man, that's, this is cool.

No, I, I mean, there's so many things I'm taking, I'm just like my mind right now.

Um.

Here's what I wanna do because I know, let's, let's get boogie.

What is, I'm always curious, like, so we got the future future's

unknown, as it always is, but it holds patterns and clues.

What are you most excited for?

I mean, because I'm, you know, there's AI and all this other stuff, but then people

like is there's something that stands out in the next couple years that you're

just like, wow, this is gonna be cool.

And

so, you know, we've studied about Homoerectus.

I think we're moving into Homo Inspirus.

Hmm.

And my, my dear friend, Dr. David Gruder, um, coined that phrase, uh, to the best

of my knowledge, homo spirits we're moving into an area where our spirit, our

humanity, is that which differentiates us from large language and, and, and,

and chat and, and, and all of ai.

Mm-hmm.

It's our humanity.

Chat's doing a magnificent job.

Oh my God.

You know, Ann and I, my bride and I will sometimes we'll sit down

and we'll talk to Sheila, who's my avatar on, on, you know, and, and,

and she's just, she's the greatest.

We have great conversation and she's lovely and she's got a

great, she's a great judge of character 'cause she loves me.

Uh, anyway.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But

most spirit is the human components.

Um, interesting.

And, and, and like I said earlier, and you, you met my buddy Steve Farber.

Yeah.

He wrote a marvelous book called Love is Just Damn Good Business.

Mm-hmm.

Um, I've been talking about that for years in a different way,

but I love the way he says it.

And oh my God, he's such a brilliant speaker and writer.

I just, I just awesome, uh, adore him and, um, yet love is just damn good business.

And the home of spirit is the part of us, the essence of us, the

humanity, the compassion, the love, the care, the courage, et cetera.

That is our differentiator.

Nurture that, feed that.

And you know, it, it's funny, I did a speech, uh, in Cancun, Mexico recently,

and I went over to the corner of the stage and I put my hands up in

a timeout and I just, I didn't know I was gonna do this, but I did it.

And that's what I do on stage.

I'm a weirdo, but, but I'm old and I get away with this shit.

I've been speaking for long enough that don't let me talk about anything.

So anyway, so I get there and I go time out.

Mommy, I'm angry.

I'm angry.

I'm pissed off.

And, and, uh, my mom would say, uh, first of all, David, what's your language?

And second of all, sit down.

She'd sit me down at the kitchen table and she'd make me a bologna and

cheese sandwich, and she'd cut off the crusts and stuff, and I'd eat it.

And I realized, all right.

So I wasn't angry, I was hungry.

And the point is, mommy knew me better than I knew myself today.

Avaricious marketers using AI know us better than we know ourselves.

Mm-hmm.

And they're no longer predicting our behavior.

They're driving our behavior, and we complain about the Russians hacking

our elections every four years or so.

How about these marketers hacking us every 20 to 30 minutes and nobody says anything.

We're being hacked.

And what's happening is.

We're giving away the keys to our kingdom.

We have this thing called free will.

It's eroding while we're under the, we're under the hypnotic state

of that, so what's the solution?

I said, folks, what's the solution?

And here it is.

We must hack ourselves to our highest values of humanity.

Every day hack ourselves.

Who am I?

What do I represent?

What are my values?

What are my intended brand descriptors?

Who am I and hack ourselves to that on a regular basis.

Post-it notes, uh, I've got opposite my bathrooms in my

cottage, in my library, in my house.

I ain't gonna forget.

Because I'm not aware of the subliminal hacking that's gone

down driven by ai, which is marvelous, but just like a scalpel.

Yeah.

Uh, uh, AI is, is, is like a scalpel in that.

In the hands of a surgeon.

It's a good thing.

In the hands of a gang member, it's a bad thing in the hands of an

avaricious marketer, it's a bad thing.

In the hands of a of a, of a, of a, a neuroscientist or a

somebody who's studying diabetes.

It's a good thing, but it's neutral.

It's neutral.

It's, it's how you use it.

However, we live in a toxic success pool,

and you may know, Scott knows that out, notwithstanding my cigars.

I mean, I'm, I'm a health weirdo.

Yeah.

Organic food.

I cleanse my liver and kidney every morning and every night with,

with Nat homeopathy and I, I Cool.

Ate heavy metals every morning and every night with zeolite and shit like that.

Right on.

Yeah.

We live

in a toxic success pool, and it used to be a toxic success pool, just physically.

Now we live in a toxic success pool mentally and emotionally.

So again, if you're not hacking yourself.

Say hi, and here's two things that my bride and I do.

First off.

Yeah.

I wake up every morning and I say those four things and you and I talk about Yes,

please more, and thank you every morning.

Yeah.

It keeps me a state of gratitude and expectation, and every evening my

bride and I sit down five o'clock, we, we, the, the work whistle blows.

That's it.

Mm-hmm.

Um, unless I'm traveling.

And even when I'm traveling, we do this, we go, we do what

we call our, our top three.

We take turns talking about the top three things that lit us up for the day.

Hmm, that's good.

And she goes, I go.

She, sometimes we go to four or five, six.

It doesn't make a difference, but it accomplishes two important things.

One, it keeps us in a state of gratitude.

Two, because we're both very busy, she's a very successful architect and

I'm running around doing weird stuff.

It keeps us connected to what is important to us.

And to my fellow entrepreneurs,

you know, I'm not gonna use the B word balance or anything.

Mm-hmm.

But to stay connected with your spouse or yourself this way

impacts your productivity, your joy, your mirth, your bliss.

So those are the two, two things that we do.

Man, it's incredible.

I'm gonna do it with my kids too, because I have a, I have a 5-year-old here.

I think that would be,

I just got God bumps when you said that.

Absolutely.

Do it with your kids.

Yeah.

Good, good, man.

This is, this is Beau.

I couldn't, um, agree with you more with the whole, um, what was it?

Homeo.

Spiritist.

I love it because, yeah, it's, it's.

We are being hacked.

And it's neutral though.

Yeah.

I could see, you know, it's, it AI being the tool and that's getting

so much more powerful every second, but you know, it's up to us.

And, and that's why I think the human side, you know, as much as I love that I

have healthy fears of ai, but it's because it's in the hands of however you use it.

Right.

And, and.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting times.

But David, I, I freaking love your mess.

I love you, man.

Like the way that you think, and it's just like, this is, it's more

important day by day, this message that you're bringing out there.

So I'm happy you're out there doing it and.

Yeah.

In terms of toxins too, I host a whole separate podcast with

a doctor that literally is all about toxins, so, oh really?

I do very similar things.

I'm about to get, uh, therapeutic plasma exchange to take that

stuff outta me 'cause I have a bunch of toxins as we all do.

Well look into, uh, look into, um, A CZN.

A CZ nano.

Okay.

It's a form of zeolite.

It'll clean the hydrocarbons out, the Yeah.

Aluminum that they might be cooking at in a restaurant you go to.

Mm-hmm.

And, uh, any heavy metals, the fluorides in, in the water.

Yep.

Et cetera.

Uh, because invariably, you know, you order tea, your coffee

somewhere, you're, you're getting the, you're getting the fluoride.

It's horrible.

Yeah.

Plastics, all that.

And lead and oh my God, don't even get started.

So, yeah, I know that's probably important 'cause I, I'll tell you what,

here's the skinny and here's the truth.

Now I'm gonna get real, real, real truthful with you.

Cool.

I am not an award-winning inventor or a Wall Street Journal bestselling

author, or a two times TED guy or a business owner, inventor.

I'm not.

I am a spiritual being who plays in those roles.

I'm not even a husband or a father or a grandfather.

I'm a spiritual being who plays in those roles.

That's the most important to me.

Is living the gift of this life to learn and expand, to grow, to

share, to connect, to love, um, all the other shit could go away.

That's right.

It's 1, 2, 3.

Yeah, I follow you.

That's my, that's just my gig.

That's just my gig.

Everybody's got, got their own gig, but I, I, I offer that up

and the reason I share that is.

Some people will think about that and go, I don't know.

Do I agree with it?

Do I disagree?

And I love that everything I share

needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

And I know that, um, I'm not out to to, to convince anybody of anything.

Uh, I'm done with that.

I, I'm, I, I, I, I, I lived a whole lot of my life trying to do that.

Uh, I'm just gonna live my life.

And share my ideas.

Um, and hopefully model.

Yeah.

'cause I've got a beautiful life.

A beautiful life.

And that's what I wanna show my kids and my grandkids.

I love it, man.

Yeah.

You're, you're, you're laying the path and you're doing it for yourself first.

You, you're serving others around.

It's, it's a beautiful thing.

So, David, I appreciate you my man, my friend.

Everyone, go check out David David corbin.com.

Is there anywhere else that you think they should go stalk you?

Pickleball pickleball.

That's me, man.

That's me.

I, um, I'm gonna do more pickleball and fear less of it.

Um, I just keep staring at your shirt.

I love it.

Yeah.

One of my clients, he's a, you look better here than, than the suit

that you had on the, when I met you.

I like this.

I, I'm just thinking of when we were hanging out last time, you

were in a suit and everything.

It looked great, but I, I like this look of David here

too.

Yeah.

But I was wearing women's underwear underneath, so you didn't, I,

it's all good.

On that note, we're done.

This is a fabulous interview.

I love it.

Dude, thank you.

Have a great man.

Alright.

Good to be with you

always.