He Made Millions at 24… Then Lost It All | Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky

Intro & Highlights [0:00]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: We passed Bon Jovi’s house when I was a kid. My dad told me, he said, those are rich people, but we’ll never be rich. It was something I I was told I couldn’t do, and if you tell me I can’t do something, just gimme a little bit. I’ll figure it out. 

Charles Eide: This week on cleared for takeoff, I have Dan Big D Sakowski here.

Dan is a serial entrepreneur who’s built many businesses and sold them successfully. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I don’t touch my phone for the first two hours of the day. 

Charles Eide: That is such a hard. Thing to do. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: As soon as you wake up, you grab your phone and you’re checking in on everybody else, but yourself and your family. You’ve allowed the world to dictate the rest of your day.

Discipline is the root of everything that you do, and that’s why people don’t understand. Oh, you’re a coach. People pay you. Yeah, you pay to go to college. You went to college. They taught you out of a book, but they never used the shovel. I used the shovel, sold the shovel, bought another shovel, sold that shovel too.

So at the end of the day, I could teach you how to use the shovel. 

Charles Eide: Why doesn’t achievement alone fix the insecurities? We have? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Milestones will continue, right? So people have a goal, and once they hit that goal, now they feel empty [00:01:00] because there’s no fulfillment anymore. As I made a lot of money, I lost a lot of money.

Who cares? My success is about me. Once you remove yourself from the equation and you make it about someone else, I’ve got three kids that need to live by understanding that it’s more than you. Everyone said, do you regret going bankrupt the 24? I said, absolutely not. It was one of the best lessons I’ve ever learned in my life.

The biggest mistake I made was

Discipline Starts with Desire [1:24]

Charles Eide: Dan, big d Sakowski. Yeah. It’s good to have you man. Thanks for coming. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Appreciate it, man. 

Charles Eide: So you’re really known for this idea of discipline. Like obviously you’ve got your own podcast, you do a lot of cool stuff. You speak, you inspire people. But I want to talk to you about discipline. ’cause I think it’s one of those things that leaders can struggle with.

You know? I know that I do. If I don’t have a trainer meet me at the gym, I won’t do it. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: And you know, beyond obviously physical fitness, help me understand [00:02:00] what discipline is and how you’ve developed your muscle of discipline through the years. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Well, so I think discipline starts with desire. You have to desire something greater than you are and where you are, and then you have to figure out the discipline to get there, the steps it’s gonna take.

Um, all of the little things that you have to do day in and day out to get to that place. A lot of people think just because they have an idea, just because they wanna be somewhere, they’re just gonna arrive. It doesn’t work that way. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So I believe my discipline started, uh, when I was younger. Uh, I was in the, the fitness world.

From Fat Kid to Fitness Discipline [2:37]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I was a fat kid when I grew up and then I got involved in the gym. 

Charles Eide: So you grew up as a fat kid? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Fat kid. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: So deep down you’re like, I’m gonna fix this. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. So I started playing football. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Started working out, you know, and I didn’t know any difference that my parents comforted me with food, you know, like that’s the way we did it.

I still played sports. I was just had a fat gene in me that I couldn’t get rid of. Once I got introduced to the weight room and once I started seeing a difference of [00:03:00] what could be, I became super disciplined. I started like reading Flex Magazine back in the day. Uh, just really doing things at a age of 15 and 16 at most.

People were doing, I was meal prepping, measuring my food 

Charles Eide: in, in like high school? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: In high school. 

Charles Eide: In high school, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: yeah. 

Charles Eide: That’s better than most students would do. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Bringing tuna fish and string beans to lunch for school. That smelled. But I knew that it was good for you. Like strip, no mayonnaise, no nothing, just a can of tuna fish and raw string beans, you know?

And um, I just started seeing the change and I remember my senior year, like I was jacked, dude. I mean my wearing a tank top, my back muscles, everything. And that’s just something that I never thought I would see. But a lot of times people don’t become disciplined because they don’t see the action, you know, taking course, and they don’t see the result soon enough.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You know, and especially in today’s day and age, we live in a shake and bake microwave generation where everyone wants to hit the 32nd button. That’s why everyone’s doing all this stuff. Lose weight, do this, do this, do [00:04:00] that. But at the end of the day, there’s no quick way to get anywhere. Good. But if you want to get there faster, you’ve gotta be disciplined and figure out what that’s gotta look like.

Charles Eide: So you said it starts with desire. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Right. And I think about desire and with social media and scrolling, you know, every time you move your thumb there’s like some new. Idea or fad or thing or product, you know, how do you hone in on the stuff that matters, that actually make, moves a needle for you? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: If I told you how many hours a week I spend on social media, you wouldn’t believe me.

Less than one, 

Charles Eide: less than an hour 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: a week. 

Charles Eide: Yet you’re kicking out tons of social media content. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Pay people to do it 

Charles Eide: so you don’t even engage. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I engage, uh, I engage in my, you don’t 

Charles Eide: consume. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I don’t consume. I engage in my dms, you know, when they’re important. Um, I have people who tell me if they’re important.

It’s just not a sales pitch. Hey, answer this dm, Hey, do [00:05:00] this. Like, have people who are overlooking everything. And, um, going back to desire, desire is a starting point of all achievement and everything looks shiny, everything looks good. But if you lose focus on the goal just because something shiny. You don’t want it bad enough.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And that’s just kind of the way I put it. 

Charles Eide: I think about building businesses and selling them. Right? I’ve, I’ve built one and sold one. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: At the current business I’m in, I’ve been doing for 23 years. You’ve done a lot more than that. How, how do you know the things you need to do to build a successful business and sell it When it comes to the discipline to create something that somebody’s actually gonna pay you for?

Building & Losing a Business by 24 [5:49]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So you don’t just start a business and sell it. You’ve gotta learn all the things that you need throughout. So my first business was a major success in the [00:06:00] beginning, but a major failure at the end. So 17 to 24 made just under 4 million bucks, you know, profit that was net profit 

Charles Eide: by the time you were 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: 24 4, lived in a almost 5,000 square foot house.

Charles Eide: What was the business? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: It was construction business. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Um, living in almost a 5,000 square foot house of 24. My neighbor’s kids were older than I was. Um, Escalades, S 50 5:00 AM g, everything. Why? Because I got portrayed in Image as a child and there was something on TV called MTV Cribs. 

Charles Eide: I remember that.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And, and the image of success was stuff, 

Charles Eide: stuff. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So I was like, if I work my S off, I’m gonna have a whole bunch of stuff. Yep. And that’s gonna satisfy me. So, 

Charles Eide: and at 24, what do you know? Right? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You don’t know nothing. You know, I had everything, but it wasn’t that I felt empty, it’s that when it was all gone, I realized I chased a dream That’s never gonna amount to anything.

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You know, I had no purpose. My purpose [00:07:00] was to accumulate things to look like something. So that taught me a major list lesson. So I was disciplined enough to get the stuff, but I wasn’t disciplined enough to keep it. So now things gotta change. So I think every single season of our life, you know, when things get better and greater, we learn something.

Two things happen. People try to go through something and when they try to go through something, it takes an enormous amount of time to go through it because they have an emotional attachment to it. Or you’re gonna figure out how to grow through it. And if you grow through it, you pull the lessons out of it and you figure out, okay, this happened, this happened, this is why this happened, and here’s what I need to make happen next time.

So the quicker you can work on, uh, going from the go to to the grow through your life will just change. 

Charles Eide: So how do you know what you need to, how do you know where 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: you need to grow? So at that time, I was young, I was cocky, and I was confident. 

Charles Eide: [00:08:00] And you were very muscular, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: apparently. Yeah, I was big. Um, so 

Charles Eide: you were, you had all, you had the trifecta.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah, I had to draw the fine line of. Do I wanna be cocky or do I wanna be confident? Because cocky was like, I know I’ll get it, I’ll get it. Whatever I can do what I, you know, whatever. Like I live this life Confident was knowing that I’m gonna get it no matter what. I’m gonna figure it out. But when I hit that rock bottom portion of my life, and I had two sons already at a young age, and I walked home that day and they were both breathing, they were alive, and they were excited to see me.

I go, dude, I was doing everything for the wrong reasons. So I said, okay, number one, I need purpose now. Not just passion for material. I need purpose number two. What’s the one thing that I was missing over the course of the last seven plus years that I would do different? Everyone said, do you regret going bankrupt the 24?

I said, absolutely not. It was one of the best lessons I ever learned in my life, and I don’t think I would be the man I am today if I didn’t go [00:09:00] through that. The biggest mistake I made was I didn’t ask for help. So I had a mentor early on, 16 years old. So Rich Dad, poor Dad’s a book that so good. Everyone reads right.

Charles Eide: So good. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I had a rich dad and I had a poor dad. My dad was my poor dad. My rich dad was a guy, Dave. He was the only job I ever had for one year of my life. 

Charles Eide: So you were living the book? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I was living the book, 

Charles Eide: yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And Dave told me when I was 17, leaving high school, he said, I believe in you, bro. I had tunnel vision at that point.

I didn’t care what else he said. I didn’t care what else he did. I didn’t care what else was going on. Someone just told me, I’ve never heard that in 17 years that someone believed in me. But that was my fuel. Dave’s like, you’re not ready. I’m like, I’m ready. You already told me you’ve believed in me. That means I can do it.

So everything else got turned off. So I regretted the fact that now I was confident enough to go after it, but I wasn’t disciplined enough to listen. So if I would’ve just listened to Dave. I [00:10:00] would’ve learned how to control it. I would’ve learned about money fluctuation. I would’ve learned about market fluctuation.

I was in business and a good market. I never saw a bad market till the phone stops ringing. 

Mm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And I’m blown through a million dollars in cash that I had, and now it’s almost all gone. So if I would’ve just asked for help, that’s when I hired my first coach when I was 24, because I know I couldn’t do it by myself.

Finding Purpose Through Kids [10:21]

Charles Eide: I want to ask you about coaching. Before we do that though, I want to ask you, you had said you gotta have a reason bigger than just material stuff, money. Yeah. More, more, more. And you mentioned your kids. How important were your kids in that drive that you developed? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So I think if I didn’t have kids that young, um, I may have maybe.

Not came back so fast, but my back was against the wall and I had a couple reasons why I needed to figure it out. 

Charles Eide: Two pretty good ones, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: right? So when you have some reasons why you gotta figure it out, you’re gonna make a decision or you’re [00:11:00] gonna have people try to feel bad for you, but nobody cares. So those kids were important for me.

And they were young. I mean, bro, three years old and a year and a half young. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And, uh, but I saw life beyond that and I, and I saw something that was bigger. And what I realized was that they can, even though they’re young and they don’t understand, they can never see me give up. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I’ve seen so 

Charles Eide: in in you, you were like, I can’t let my kids see me quit.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I’ve already achieved more than my entire family. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: At this point in my life, and I’ve already lost more than my entire family. I’ve stepped outta my comfort zone. I’ve stepped outta everyone’s comfort zone. And I did things that people. Thought were impossible and I made them possible, but I knew that if I was able to do it once, I can do it again.

But now I have to figure out how I put all this stuff together. And my driving reason was to show these kids, no matter how they are from today to back then, that no matter how [00:12:00] tough life gets beat out of it right back. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. And you think those lessons, those lessons were things that they saw you live. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So let’s put it this way.

My daughter is about to be 16 

Charles Eide: and mine too. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Uh, great age. Lemme tell you, we wish we could hit them with a spoon like our parents did. Right. 

Charles Eide: Dude, I was looking at pictures the other day of when she was like seven or eight, and I was like, I miss her. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Dude, I was watching a video today. My daughter was probably like, uh, eight years old.

She’s sitting on a rocking chair. Yeah. At the boardwalk eating an ice cream cone. Yeah. I’m like, where’s that kid, man? I was literally on a plane watching it. 

Charles Eide: You’re like, I just missed this little version. And now you’re like kind of a grownup. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. You talk to me like you’re older than me. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Like they, like, 

Charles Eide: they know 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: more, like they know more.

They know more. So my daughter at eight years old, so you asked like, do I think they knew or how did they know? Nine years old, she was asked to write something in school. Who’s the strongest person, you know? 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You know what she wrote? [00:13:00] My dad, because no matter what life throws out of me, never gives up.

Charles Eide: Stop it at 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: eight, eight years old. So she, 

Charles Eide: she knew this. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: She knew it. 

Charles Eide: How did she know it? You must have been talking to 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: me bro. Failed business. She wasn’t around successful. She was around, you know, towards the back half of it. Then another failed business. She was around. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You know, watched 

Charles Eide: you 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: crazy marriage, you know, through almost, you know, into a divorce.

Daughter’s Impact on Divorce Decision [13:26]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: She was around. My daughter’s. The reason why I divorced my ex-wife. 

Charles Eide: Really? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. Because I knew from my boys, like both of my boys are business owners today, they’re successful. And I knew I could instill the man behind them and what they needed to do in the business world. My daughter at eight years old says, why don’t you sleep in bed with mommy?

And a light bulb just goes off in my head like, all right, so she just asked me this at eight. My boys never asked me this. ’cause they don’t care. They don’t know what’s going on. They don’t care. [00:14:00] Girls have different emotions. So if I continue to do this, what am I doing to my daughter? Forget about my ex-wife.

Who cares? It’s already. What am I doing to my daughter? I’m teaching her that this is okay, she’s gonna inherit this behavior. She’s gonna be with a man who doesn’t give her the relationship she deserves. And I’m just gonna make that, okay. So literally the next week I filed for divorce, 

Charles Eide: that must have been hard.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Listen, I mean, at the end of the day it wasn’t hard for me because bro, we already knew what was coming. And then my ex-wife made it totally like dramatic divorce. Like crazy dumb. But I became very close to my kids because of certain patterns that I wasn’t willing to take on. And me and my daughter are super close.

Charles Eide: So you decided after hearing her say that you were like, the [00:15:00] example I’m setting for my daughter and my kids. Is not the picture of what real love is and should be. Mm-hmm. And I need to do the right thing for them because we already know this thing’s over. And so you did it. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: Do you, was there a part of you that didn’t want to, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I wanted to for a long time.

Charles Eide: So you guys were ready? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: You just needed to take action 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: beyond ready. And I was never one to say, oh, when my kids are 18, I, we’ll, we’ll get, let ’em go through school. But I just didn’t know, like I knew how to load the gun. I just didn’t know how to pull the trigger. Mm-hmm. You know? And basically my daughter was like, all right, you know, Polish that up.

Let’s go. It’s time to pull the trigger. You know what I mean? And she, it, it just hit me. Yeah. You know, like it’s time. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. So how did that translate into the rest of you? Because then you went on to build another business. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: And you said that [00:16:00] one 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: sold. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Sold. And then. You had a big life event a few years ago.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, during, 

Heart Episode & Life-Changing Moment [16:08]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: as I was building this last company, uh, that I had the company, you know, I was doing up $30 million in revenue. Um, I was not working too much in the company. 20 hours a week, maybe, you know, a couple hours a day checking in, not going to the office. And then, um, four years ago, um, I had a major heart episode.

Um, 

Charles Eide: what happened? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So I was actually with my daughter. Um, her mom had picked her up. Uh, I was at my office this day. Her mom had picked her up, uh, from my office. We were just running around doing stuff and uh, it was super hot. It had to be 90 something degrees in humid. I didn’t take my blood pressure medicine for like three days.

My daughter’s like, oh, can we stop and get a soda and get a sandwich? Like stuff that I don’t eat. So now I got all this salt, sugar, all the stuff that I don’t have, I haven’t taken my blood pressure medicine. The heat. [00:17:00] I probably haven’t drank enough water that day. And as soon as she picks her up, no less than five minutes later, wrist to wrist, my whole body goes numb.

And my entire, like from my chest to my stomach was on fire. I didn’t know what was going on. So ambulance comes, um, get in the ambulance head to the hospital. And if you’ve ever watched a show where like people are dying in the show, I don’t really watch much tv, but I’m just taking it back. If you do see stuff like throughout childhood and now it’s all the same, like people have these visions and the ambulance, that’s exactly what happened to me.

I blacked out, dude. I didn’t know what was going on. I remember texting my kids. My one son wasn’t talking to me for a couple years up to this point. Um. And, uh, I remember texting my kids like, I love you, I’m sorry, blah, blah, blah. Like, this is it. 

Charles Eide: So you thought you were 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: done? I’m dead, dude. Dead. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You know, like I, I was delusional.

I had no [00:18:00] idea what was going on. 

Charles Eide: But you thought this was it, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: this was it. I was, I, and I wasn’t panicking, uh, because it was happening. I was panicking because I wasn’t ready. You know what I mean? Like, I wasn’t ready to You had so 

Charles Eide: much more to do. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So after I get to the hospital, they’re asking me all these questions.

They’re like, you know, what kind of drugs were you doing? And this? I’m like, what are you talking about? I have no idea what they’re even talking about. And, uh, I’m like, call my doctor. I got something going on with my heart. He’s been regulating it. Like, dude, I’m not the smartest guy when it comes to that stuff.

Like, they take charts. You wanna know what’s going on. Call my doctor, like the, the doctor’s. I’m gonna explain this to you. I don’t really care. Just tell me what I need to do. Like I, less information is better for me. So my doctor’s not in the network. So for three days I’m in a hospital, they’re not calling the doctor.

I literally walked outta the hospital. 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So what ended up happening is my aortic valve was split. It split open. I was bleeding internally. And, um, I could have almost, I was like almost in a point of having a stroke ’cause my blood pressure was so high. [00:19:00] And, um, the cardiac state where I was in, if I didn’t eat the couple aspirin that I did before I went to the hospital and drink the water, um, I probably would’ve had a stroke or something would’ve happened.

Charles Eide: So what, since that event, what has changed in the way you look at things? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So that first day laying in the hospital and now, because 

Charles Eide: you thought you were gonna be dead? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah, yeah. So once I came the realization, like, and you still, like, when you’re in the hospital, you’re sitting there and they’re hooking you up and they’re checking you every 30 minutes.

Like you don’t even know what’s going on. Like, you, you know, people are coming there, you’re, you’re just not there. So by the time I like, kind of came back to the world and, you know, I was there. I know probably that night, ’cause this happened like in the afternoon, so probably that night or the next morning, um, I literally sat there.

Legacy Over Material Success [19:46]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I’m like, all right, well, I’m good. I feel okay. You know what I mean? And I said, if I would’ve just died last night or yesterday, 15 years from today, nobody would talk about anything I’ve done in my [00:20:00] life because I impacted nobody. I said, so how do I take a change? Because I made a lot of money. I lost a lot of money, built a lot of stuff, had a lot of stuff.

Who cares? There’s no legacy there. I’ve got three kids that need to live by understanding that it’s more than you. It’s more than what you do, more than what you provide. So I said, God, as soon as I walk outta this place, I’m gonna change lives. For the last two businesses of mine, I’ve been the CEO. 90 plus percent of people I know in business are operators.

They don’t have a life. They’re strapped to their business. They’re a underpaid employee. They work, they can’t not answer a phone call. They can’t not put out an email, cannot be there for a fire. That’s no life to live. I’m gonna help every single person I know that’s in business, change their life and become in charge of their life and become the CEO of their life and their business so they can actually live a good life, not a draining one.

Charles Eide: So this was an inflection point where you said, I wanna [00:21:00] leave a bigger impact on the world than just what, you know, just building a business. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yep. 

Charles Eide: You want to, you wanna coach people and help them. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yep. 

Charles Eide: So how did you decide what you wanted to, like how did you decide what you wanted to do? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Well, I just knew like where I was and all the help that I had getting to where I was.

And if it wasn’t for that help that I paid for, I would’ve never been at a point that I was, that I understood that. I had to go out there and find the people who were in the places that I wanted to be and allow myself to be okay with paying them for the shortcut 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And the cheat code. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You know, and most people, they wanna learn themselves.

You know, it’s a difficult path. Bodybuilders don’t learn themselves. We just copy what other people have done. You know, anyone who’s done anything significant in this world has done it based off of plagiarism. If somebody else did it, they did it the same and not better. You know? And that’s just the way it is In school.

We get scolded and yelled at and suspended and wrote up if we plagiarize something. [00:22:00] But in a world of business, if you plagiarize, you’re a genius. Nobody gets that. 

Charles Eide: So, yeah, the, the, the, the science of business has been figured out. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: And I, I love that the idea around going after something with. Help, mentorship.

The Power of Coaching & Mentorship [22:21]

Charles Eide: I have a few mentors in my life. I’m also a part of a peer group called Soar, where it’s a round table of people that are kind of my level or above. And I learned so many things from those people. But having, I think having coaches and mentors, it’s crazy. You know, you think about like the best people in the world, like Mariah Carey.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah, 

Charles Eide: yeah. You know? Yeah. At the peak of her career, her coach doesn’t sing better than she does, but she certainly has multiple coaches helping her become the best version of herself. And it’s so funny, we look at celebrities and athletes and we’re like, well, of course they have coaches. And then we go into business and we’re like, I don’t need a coach.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. Yeah. 

Charles Eide: And it, [00:23:00] it, I mean, it’s hilarious to me because I don’t think I would be sitting in front of you with the business I have if I did not have coaches. It’s wild. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Same. 

Charles Eide: So when you think about, I, I, I think there’s a, I. There’s a lot of buzzwords in business, especially for the young folks listening to this that, you know, they hear things like discipline, respect, confidence, you know, what’s the difference between being cocky and confident?

Discipline Is More Reliable Than Confidence [23:26]

Charles Eide: And, but I wanna understand, you talk about discipline being reliable over confidence. What, what does that mean to that? Discipline is more reliable than confidence. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Hmm. So, discipline is how you show up. Confidence is how you believe you should be. If you’re not disciplined in doing things and having tasks and having the arrangement in your daily activities, you’re not gonna [00:24:00] get the result that you’re confident enough to know that you could achieve.

So, if you’re confident enough to know that you deserve it, you can earn it, you’re not just gonna get it. How do you get it? Do you instill discipline? Do you instill your daily activities, your motions, and your plan of attack to go after? So what I mean is when you prepare yourself, right? Preparation, when preparation meets opportunity, that’s where success lives.

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And if you’re disciplined enough to be prepared for your day every day and your mission every single day, inevitably you’re gonna win. 

Charles Eide: Okay? So we, I mean, I like to believe we all do the best we can, right? We’re all doing this. That’s 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: not good enough. 

Charles Eide: Right? So that’s where I want to ask you, when you say you institute discipline, how, how do I figure out if I’m not instituting enough discipline and how, where, where do I go with that information?[00:25:00] 

Dan’s Daily Routine [25:01]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So what? What’s that old saying? How you do anything is how you do everything right? So business, life, family, kids, whatever it is. So I’ll just gonna kind of run you through my day every single day. 5:00 AM up. I don’t care if I’m away. If I’m on vacation, I don’t care if it’s Saturday, I don’t care if it’s Sunday, 5:00 AM I’m up.

I’m in my book reading, I’m in my journal journaling. I’m in my Bible every day. I’m five to 6 15, 6 20. By about quarter to seven, I’m in the gym. I’m in the gym for hour and a half, two hours a day, hour workout, half an hour cardio, 20 minutes in as sauna every day. Now, what time is it? 

Charles Eide: So every day, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Saturday, Sunday, 

Charles Eide: doesn’t matter.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So I don’t work out physically every day in the weights. But I’m doing cardio and I’m hitting a sauna every day. I’m working out five [00:26:00] days a week, 

Charles Eide: so I should do more cardio. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You don’t have to. You’re skinny. 

Charles Eide: I’d call 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: skinny, not skinny, but I’m saying you’re thinner. You have a thinner frame. I have a wider frame.

I to keep, keep, 

Charles Eide: that was an all time high for me. Skin. Oh man. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Skinnier. Skinnier. Oh, I’ll take it. You’re, you’re thinner. You’re thinner. You have a different, you have a different build. You know, I’m, I’m short and wide, dude. 

Charles Eide: I want to get, I want to be big and wide. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You don’t want to be, bro, you don’t fit in cars.

I got a a seven series BMW outside that I rented to come here and I’m like, cam, sit in a car. They’re like, you want a Range Rover? I’m like, no, I can’t fit in those things either. 

Charles Eide: What do you, you just need a big truck 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: with a big, I need a big escalator or something. You know what I mean? They didn’t have any available, but you know, that’s a good problem to have.

We’re gonna be good friends 

Charles Eide: after that compliment. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: It’s also a bad problem to have. 

Phone Discipline & Notifications [26:46]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So discipline is the root of everything that you do. Here’s another discipline. I don’t touch my phone for the first two hours of the day. 

Charles Eide: Get outta here 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: every day. 

Charles Eide: Every day. You don’t touch it. Where do you keep it when you sleep?[00:27:00] 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: It’s next to me. ’cause my alarm goes off just in case I don’t get up. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Because sometimes I’m in such a deep sleep, dude, if my alarm don’t go off, I’ll sleep. ’cause my body’s like, yo, you need rest, but I’ll, I’ll do that. So I’m usually in bed by nine o’clock. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Every night. And I’m up, up at five.

Charles Eide: What’s your, what’s your evening routine? I always wondered that with guys that are super regimented like this, what are you doing at night? When do you eat dinner? When do you go to bed? You go to bed at nine. What do you do at night? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So 

Charles Eide: like here at Minnesota it gets dark at freaking five o’clock in the winter time.

And you’re 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: like, yeah. J Jersey in Florida too. Um, so like eat around six 30. 

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Done by seven. Wind down. Um. Usually just kind of looking at a couple things like my GSD, my get shit done list for tomorrow. Like what, what do I need to do? Uh, make sure my daughter’s good. My son’s probably just coming home around that time.

Charles Eide: You ever watch tv? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Very rarely do. 

Charles Eide: Or YouTube? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Nope. 

Charles Eide: Nope, nope. See, like, I love at night sitting down and watching like a podcast or YouTube. I don’t know [00:28:00] why, but, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: so I’ll listen to my podcast and stuff while I’m working out. 

Charles Eide: Yep. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Doing cardio in the sauna. That’s when I’ll listen. 

Charles Eide: So after dinner, before you’re going to bed, you know, between seven and nine, are 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: you, I usually like read a little bit more.

Charles Eide: Are you prepping for the next day? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: No, my weeks are already planned out. My entire schedule’s planned out. I know what I’m doing. I’m, I’m like, I’m weeks ahead of my game. 

Charles Eide: So when do you plan out your weeks? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: My assistant really does it. 

Charles Eide: Okay. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And then I just kind of put in there what I gotta put in. But she knows like nothing starts till 10:00 AM and nothing happens after five.

Charles Eide: Nothing starts till 10. ’cause you’re doing your gym, you’re doing your personal development, and then nothing happens after five. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yep. 

Charles Eide: It’s dinner time, wind down, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: well just, you know, get, get, get everything wound down. If I’m, 

Charles Eide: I’m just always fascinated by guys that are highly regimented in their routine.

’cause everybody does it a little different, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: you know? And I’m not on my phone for the last hour of my day. 

Charles Eide: So you put it upstairs, plug it in. Well 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: just don’t even look at it. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: yeah. Don’t even look at it. I put it like, I just turn the whole like, vibrate everything off. [00:29:00] Everything’s off, do not disturb.

Charles Eide: That is such a hard thing to do. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: It’s easy. 

Charles Eide: I’m trying to get over, I don’t know what I, I don’t know what this is, but I, for some reason, when I get a text message, I can’t stand that little red bubble. And I’m not, I’m not a type A person. I, I’m not like that. But if I see that little red bubble with a number in it of how many messages, I’m like, I gotta, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: so my screen on my phone, dude, we’ve been sitting here, I have no notifications on my.

All my notifications are off everything. 

Charles Eide: Even the little bubble, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: everything. 

Charles Eide: So you just check that. Actually, that’s an interesting idea. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Try it. 

Charles Eide: So you shut the notifications off All together. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: All together. 

Charles Eide: What if somebody’s trying to get ahold of you? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: My phone will ring. Okay. Call me. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Hey, I text you.

Okay. Well if you really need me, call me. 

Charles Eide: I, for some reason feel obligated to answer every text message within minutes of it coming in. And I don’t know how to stop doing that. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: It’s a [00:30:00] problem. 

Charles Eide: How the heck do I stop doing that? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Stop doing it. 

Charles Eide: Oh, okay. I’m gonna shut the notifications off. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: That’ll help shut all your notifications off.

I mean, your social media, you, everything, so that you have to actually open the app to see what’s going on. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Yeah. That little red 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: hobble. And then, and then box your time. If you’re gonna be on social media, say in the morning from eight o’clock to eight 30, I’m gonna hit my messages. I’m gonna do what I gotta do, whatever.

All my posts are scheduled, dude, for the next three weeks. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I don’t They’re already done. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. I don’t know why. And you know, the other thing is, since starting this channel, I have, I’m so obsessed with the growth of this channel. I, I can’t help it. I wanna know what the, I mean, poor Sarah, the producer of the show, I’m texting her, being like, we got this many more subscribers.

And she’s like, dude, it’s nine o’clock at night. Why are you texting me this? You know, God bless her for putting up with me. But 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: imagine you look [00:31:00] only looked every couple weeks. Oh man. How much different to feel? 

Charles Eide: I’m like getting anxiety thinking about it. I think I, I don’t know. I’m like, I love to know, like, progress on things.

Consistency Over Obsession [31:11]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Progress feels better when you wait because you’re gonna start thinking there’s a problem. Your Instagram is gonna grow. Your, your, your YouTube’s gonna grow and it’s gonna exponentially grow maybe because of one episode. Then it’s not gonna grow. You be like, what is wrong? What are we doing wrong? That’s what you’re gonna do.

Charles Eide: I, Sarah Sarah’s laughing right now ’cause she’s like, thank God you’re saying this right now. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Everything happens in exponential periods and if we continue to watch it, we make ourselves crazy. 

Charles Eide: Maybe that’s my problem. I feel crazy sometimes. I’m like, what the heck? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You got cows, bro. Imagine you just went out there every day and you were like, alright, well you guys need to be like 20 pounds heavier.

I’m just gonna stand here and watch you for the next three weeks until you get 20 pounds heavier. Well, 

Charles Eide: I do check ’em on every day. [00:32:00] They don’t grow that fast. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Right? But imagine like you see a baby cow and you don’t see the cow for a little while. What’s gonna happen? Wow. Oh my God, he got so big. 

Charles Eide: Yeah.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Think about all the things in your life that you don’t get to see all the time. Then you see the change. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Like when you run into a friend and they, they have kids and the kids are bigger, you’re like, ah, I feel like I just saw you. And their, their kids are like a foot taller. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: That’s why when I’m working out, I wear a hoodie, I wear a long sleeve shirt, you know, and if I’m like in a different training routine, like I don’t wanna see nothing and then I wanna see it 90 days from now.

Charles Eide: Yeah. That’s crazy. Maybe that would be, maybe that would 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: make you’re compulsive, dude. 

Charles Eide: Maybe that, maybe I am compulsive. I need to control that better. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: That’s, it’s like you’re counting the pieces of rice you’re putting in our mouth. Oh, it’s too many calories cut back. Like, just chill. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, dude, you’re [00:33:00] so right.

That’s, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: it’s like this, right? So I tell ’em, all my clients, they’re like, I’m like, what do you do first thing in the morning? Check my emails. I go, that’s cool. I go, you’re pathetic. They go, what? I go, okay. So all of your clients are more important than you. All of your clients are more important than your family.

So as soon as you wake up, you grab your phone and you’re checking in on everybody else, but yourself and your family. That’s cool. But you tell me here in the coaching session that you do everything for your family. That’s a lie. 

Charles Eide: Uh, maybe it’s just that early hustle. ’cause I built my businesses, my business from, from nothing.

And I think that early hustle that that uh, that inner drive to see progress and like adjust when things aren’t going right. Right. But as you get to a certain point, like you said, those changes take longer time. They’re more exponential, but they take a longer time. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Maybe that’s, I think it’s just that early hustle I developed.

’cause I started hustling when I was like a teenager, early [00:34:00] teenager. So I’m always like, what’s going on? Same. What do we need to fix? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Same. But you gotta learn where to release, learn, let go of control. Allow other people to do things. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: bro. Like your social media. Schedule everything and schedule your days.

I’m gonna look at my social media. I’m gonna schedule every two days for a couple days out and I’m only gonna look at the numbers. I’m on a phone with my friend in the airport today. He’s like, bro, like I have a great idea. Like, um, you know, we’re in this podcast group that did I put the 

Charles Eide: east west group?

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I put you in there, right? Yeah. So I started Thank 

Charles Eide: you. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah, 

Charles Eide: thank you. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: He’s like, we’re in this podcast group and, um. You know, what we’re doing is, uh, you know, we’re, we’re helping each other out, but imagine we just go back to one of our posts that went viral. He goes, you know, you’re one post that go viral.

I go, what post? Like, I don’t even know what post went viral. I’m not even looking. I don’t, he didn’t even know what he’s talking about. I’m like, dude, here’s what you do. If a post is taking off, you wait at least a week or two weeks. Then you pin the post. And if you pin that post, every single person who checks out your profile, they look at your first three posts and that post will just keep going and going and [00:35:00] going and going.

That’s how your goes viral. You can’t just take a post that was viral six months ago and just throw it in and throw a couple comments in there. It’s irrelevant. It’s not gonna go anywhere. So, like, I was trying to tell him, like, bro, just forget about viral. Allow it to do the work itself. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Numbers don’t matter.

Yeah. Impact does. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Right. Who, how many dms are you getting? How many people are, you know, chasing you versus you chasing them? 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You know, dude, my inbox blows up. I literally have to grow my inbox. I literally have to pay her like a hundred dollars a day just to take care of my inbox. 

Charles Eide: Just to take care of your inbox, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: and then she filters them and then says, hit this person up.

Hit this person up 

Charles Eide: so you’re not, yeah, I guess you’re not, you’re not chasing those little dopamine wins. Like Renee talk, Renee Rodriguez talks about 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: Those little, like, I, I, I open the YouTube studio app all the time and I’m like, what’s it at Refresh? And I’m like, so yeah, maybe I’m gonna delete that app for now.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Like my Instagram, I’m 

Charles Eide: gonna let Sarah run that app. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: There you go. My Instagram hit [00:36:00] 6 million views in 30 days. Today. 

Charles Eide: What? 6 million views? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. Like my profile got 6 million views in 30 days. 

Charles Eide: And you didn’t, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I just saw it today. 

Charles Eide: You’re just putting, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: last time I saw it, it was like 5.1 million.

I just said, Hey, consistency, put it in an arrow. That’s all you gotta do. Just be consistent. And that’s what I learned early on is like consistency wins every time. If we let go of control, we let go of patterns and we just allow consistent behavior and discipline, play a major role in what we’re trying to accomplish.

The job’s already done. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. How do you know when to reevaluate if your consistency is being effective then? I mean, if you’re not taking an hour by hour pulse on something, how do you make sure your consistency is actually gaining traction? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So it’s like going on a scale every day, you know? Right. So if you’re trying to lose weight or do stuff like you get fluctuation.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: There’s people who are so sick that they go on a scale three times a [00:37:00] day and they freak out because like they gain a pound or two pounds, but it’s water. It’s this, it’s that. 

Charles Eide: You just ate a Chipotle burrito, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: right? Yeah. So if you’re gonna do something, do it the same way. I’m gonna measure in every Sunday at 5:00 AM empty stomach, whatever, or whatever that looks like.

Do it the same time every single time, and you’ll start yielding different results. 

Charles Eide: You’re saying lower the frequency and be more patient, is what you’re saying? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yep. And consistent. 

Charles Eide: So when you were bodybuilding, is that kind of how you went about it? You were like, I’m just gonna follow the plan we made.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: And I’m gonna check in on my progress less frequently. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. So I had like really calves back in the day, and my trainer’s like, Hey, listen, like if you train calves twice a week and you just wear sweatpants and don’t look at ’em, they’re gonna grow. You mean they’re gonna grow? He goes, just don’t look at ’em.

Here’s the problem. You’re standing in the mirror and you’re doing calf raises, and you’re looking at your calves. You’re not focusing on a development, you’re focusing on the result. If we don’t focus on a development, we’re not [00:38:00] gonna get the result. He goes, you’re not focusing on going to exhaustion.

You’re focusing on, oh look, I can see a little vein. Or, Hey, look, I can see a little cut in the muscle. He goes, hide it, disturb it, grow it, then check it. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, yeah. Focus on the the action and not the result. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I, and you’ll know 30 days from now if something’s going backwards, then you just fix it. You can’t fix something if you’re like literally fine tuning things every single day.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Trying to micromanage everything going on in your world. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. It’s like a watched pot never boils. Yeah. That’s crazy. I mean, it’s so true. It’s something I honestly, I really struggle with. I need 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: a lot of people do and that’s why a lot of times when I get on stages and stuff, they tell me to talk about discipline.

They tell me to talk about branding, they tell me to talk about all those things that matter that take long term. Like people aren’t gonna brand myself. Dude, that takes a long [00:39:00] time. But if you do it right, it’s gonna be more impactful than anything else in your life, you know? And, and that’s just people don’t understand, just ’cause a video went viral don’t mean you’re brain yourself.

Charles Eide: Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, you’ve, I’ve seen people that have insane numbers of views on one video and they don’t have many followers and I’m like. I, I guess just one viral hit doesn’t really matter. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: If you look at my entire Instagram, bro, you’re not gonna see some video of some sort that doesn’t have a D in it or a black shirt.

It’s either a black shirt and a DHA or, uh, it could be a white shirt, but there’s a D hat or a big dha, big D this big D that D this, there’s always a brand of a D somewhere. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And that’s my brand, right. So I’ve created this brand. I’m not wearing, in the beginning, before I branded myself, I would wear different hats.

I probably have over a hundred fitted caps, different stuff, just because I would always match my sneaker to my hat or whatever. Now I just wear, I have all those hats just sitting in the closet. Yeah. I just brand myself 

Charles Eide: [00:40:00] just wearing the same thing all the time. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah, 

Charles Eide: yeah, yeah. I mean, even get the sweet mug.

That’s awesome. Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I have a couple colors. 

Charles Eide: Keep, keep the variety going. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I have this black T-shirt times 30. 

Charles Eide: Do you wear the same thing every day? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: A lot of times, yeah. Yep. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, that’s uh, that’s one of those things you hear these high performers. It all kind of started with Steve Jobs being like, I wear the same thing ’cause I don’t have to think about it.

Mm-hmm. And then I watched Steven Bartlett do the same thing and a number of guys, Dan Martel does that. Where damn was 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: our blue, blue, blue, 

Charles Eide: blue. He was that blue shirt over and over and over again. So what I wanna understand is Oscar 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: mozy. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: same. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, same. When you look at achievement for high performers, especially with the clients you coach, why doesn’t achievement alone fix the insecurities we have?

Achievement vs. Fulfillment [40:51]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So achievement is a milestone in our life just to prove to ourselves we can do something, but it doesn’t make us a better person. It doesn’t make us a [00:41:00] better role model. It doesn’t make us a better leader. Achievement has to be greater than something that we’re doing to hit a certain milestone, it has to be, milestones will continue, right?

So people have a goal and once they hit that goal, now they feel empty because there’s no fulfillment anymore. People don’t think outside that box once they hit something. So look at the average person today that’s. I don’t know, 30 to 50 years old. Their life, bro, is on cruise control. They do the same every day, show up the same place every day, eat the same food every week, have pizza every Friday, same all the time.

And their life doesn’t change because they hit a point where they’re at comfort. And the same thing happens for goals. So once you’ve hit that goal and you’ve achieved that goal, now you’re disappointed in yourself because you thought it was gonna feel so much better. 

Charles Eide: That is so true. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Your goal has to be so big.

And then you have to have this goal to get to that goal, that goal, to get to that goal. And you gotta start just climbing and climbing and climbing. And every time you climb, you make that goal bigger. [00:42:00] 

Charles Eide: I feel like the, when I, when I, the achievements to me are less. They give me less excitement than seeing other people around me achieve for some reason.

As you know, as we’ve grown, I have found more satisfaction seeing my team have achievement, right? We do an awards dinner every year and just to see the joy that their achievement brings them makes me happier than any freaking achievement I could have had. You know, published in a magazine or what, featured on something.

It’s like, that’s not as cool as watching one. ‘

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: cause you took your success away from you and that’s good. I did the same thing and my whole bit again on my life. My sex was, my success was about me. It was about what I could do, how I can do. Once you remove yourself from the equation and you make it about other someone else, bro, it just feels so much better.

Charles Eide: Why do you think early on we have this desire to. To have achievement, you know, [00:43:00] especially when you’re young. I mean, I, you probably had the same feelings. I, I’m gonna be young and wealthy and I’m gonna have all this stuff. I mean, you did it, you did it far better than I did at that age. Why do you think we chased that stuff instead of like, deep satisfaction?

Is it? ’cause we don’t understand at that time. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So I think it’s different for everybody and what they’re going after. For me, uh, you know, it was something I, I was told I couldn’t do. Sure. And if you tell me I can’t do something, just gimme a little bit. I’ll figure it out. You know, that’s the way I am. I’ll figure it out.

If someone’s done it, I’ll do it. And if someone hasn’t done it and came closer to doing it, I’ll do it a little bit closer. You know? That’s just the way I feel. But my dad told me, um, we passed Bon Jovi’s house when I was a kid and I was like 14 or 15 years old and I never saw houses that big. I didn’t understand.

’cause we lived in a small house and he said, those are rich people. We’ll never be rich. Bro, you just turned the switch on, dude. What is rich? Right? Then here comes FTV [00:44:00] cribs. This is rich. Rich is material, right? The big house. So, all right. So I just chased it and I went after it. So just like my coaching now today, like I’m, I’m trying to be the best at what I do.

Bring the best people around to what I do and create myself a circle with some of the best people, you know? Hence, I’m gonna be with someone that we both know in the next couple days. You know, it was just, you know, through communication we met at a speaking event and that’s just kind of how it happened.

And, um, you gotta surround yourself with greater people who give you a greater purpose, but at the same time, when you start seeing other people winning, that fulfillment for me now today is so much greater than anything I’ve ever done in my life. 

Charles Eide: Oh yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: When I get a text message or a message like, bro, thank you.

Like, dude, I got a message right over here. I can’t thank you enough, man. Everything you’ve done, every way you showed up for me, everything that you’re showing me and everything that’s gonna happen, I’ll never forget what you’ve been [00:45:00] doing for me and what you’re gonna continue to do for me. And I’m here to make my family proud, but at the same time, I know that I’m making you proud.

Like that dude. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. It’s kind of priceless. That’s better than an Escalade. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Way better. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You know, and that’s why people don’t understand. Like, people are like, oh, you’re a coach. People pay you. Yeah. You know, of course. I, I, I, I, I did the work, you know what I mean? I, I literally, you, you pay to go to college.

You went to college, you paid to go to college. You learn from someone who doesn’t even know they taught you out of a book, but they never used the shovel. Shame on you. I said, but I used the shovel. Sold the shovel, you know, bought another shovel. Sold that shovel too. So at the end of the day, I could teach you how to use the shovel.

You went to a professor that never professed, but I professed. So let’s just. Reengage that answer. And then think about this again. 

Charles Eide: I had that conversation with my daughter this morning. ’cause you know, she’s a sophomore and we were talking about, you know, all of her friends at her school are going off to college.

[00:46:00] And I was like, you know, college is just one type of education. There’s a hundred types of education. And she’s starting to open her mind up to the fact that, I mean, as a sophomore in all these AP courses, she’s far smarter than I ever was. Book smart. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: Uh, throughout my whole high school career. You know, I don’t think college is what it used to be like.

Are you telling your kids to go to college? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: None of my kids went to college. And my daughters already out. She’s not, she’s two years away. She’s already out. I told my kids here, you’re gonna go to college. You’re gonna be one of four things. You’re gonna be a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, or someone who makes six to seven figures off of your degree right away.

If you’re not any of those four, you’re wasting your time. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You cannot learn from people who teach out of a book. We went to school from first grade to 12th grade for 12,000 hours of our life and got taught by average people how to do average things and look at where the world is today. The only people who actually [00:47:00] succeeded were the ones who didn’t listen to that average work and went out there and done above average things.

And that’s a very small part of society. 

Charles Eide: So why, why do you think parents are still pushing? Is it just ’cause they went to college and they’re 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: the same reason why parents push religion and push this and pushed that? It’s cultural. It’s what it’s, it’s what their family has taught ’em. It’s what they do. Oh, we gotta go to church on Christmas.

Oh, we gotta go to church on Easter. I mean, yeah. Do you think God’s like, Hey, thanks for coming today. You know what I mean? Like, no. He wants you there every day. You know, at the end of the day, people just do things that they’re taught. They don’t really know anything behind it. Same reason why people hate people in history because somebody taught ’em to hate ’em, but they have no real reason to hate ’em.

People follow trends versus following true intuition, and that’s a problem. 

Charles Eide: So speaking of trends, you know, in the workplace today, what is your sense on creating a highly disciplined culture, a high performance team? You know, do you think, do you think society’s gotten [00:48:00] soft and weak and the work ethics broken?

Because I just keep thinking about the types of requests and comments that we hear from time to time about wanting, you know, more time off or more, you know, more flexible this or that, or working from home and being in the events business. We’re in the business of gathering people together. Mm-hmm. So if we don’t gather ourselves, how can we expect a company to pay us millions of dollars to help them gather too?

You know, and I’m not saying it’s the end all, be all. I, we have remote people because, you know, great talents all over the country. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah, yeah. 

Charles Eide: But like, what do you think about the workplace today and, and how can business owners, real CEOs, shift a culture to be much more high performing through discipline?

Building Culture & Core Values [48:48]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I think number one, culture and core values are two things that have been missing in most companies for history. Once you instill core values, number one, you’re gonna hire based on core values. Once you do [00:49:00] that, it’ll create a culture, because everyone’s on a winning team. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Most companies hire for position placement and job role fulfillment.

That’s it. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: They don’t ever, I would rather hire somebody who’s willing to be the best player on the team. Learn, execute, then somebody who knows it all. ’cause for me to untrain that person who knows it all and is gonna try and challenge me on how I do things, I’m not for it. But people go, oh, that guy’s highly qualified.

I wanna hire him. That’s a problem if that guy’s not willing to be part. So everyone that I coach, like a lot of people, I, I make them hire and fire. I had a coaching client yesterday. I’m like, you gotta fire her. He goes, I go, how many times are you gonna tell her that she’s doing it wrong? That she can’t do this?

The more you allow it, the least growth you’re ever gonna come get from it. I said, here’s your problem. You have no core values and you have feelings. Your [00:50:00] feelings, her feelings. This is your business, dude, and she’s affecting your business. She’s affecting everybody else in your business because she’s doing what she wants to do.

Everybody sees that. Everyone wants to play for the winning team. How many times do you think the NFL draft is up there? And some guy gets drafted on a an NFL, he’s like, trade me. Someone would take me, someone would take me, right? But at the end of the day, listen, I’m a Buffalo Bills fan. We don’t win Super Bowls, dude, apparently.

Charles Eide: Hey, I, I’m a Vikings 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: fan. Apparently we don’t go to ’em anymore either. So, but the culture of the Buffalo Bills is incredible. When someone becomes a bill and they’re part of Bills mafia, bro, it’s incredible. And they are so honored. But then you used to be, oh, you’re gonna go to the Bears. Really? The Bears?

That’s, that’s where I’m going. You’re going to Tampa Bay, right? Well, Brady’s not there anymore. So I guess, I mean, maybe I have a shot, but a lot of these teams don’t have culture. Right? So you take culture and then you take core values. [00:51:00] Why was Tom Brady so good? 

Charles Eide: Because he, ’cause he led 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: people. No. ’cause Bill Belichick instilled culture.

Core values of the team, and he took the most influential person on the team and allowed him to do his best, which allowed everybody else to play their role. So when we look at a team sport, let’s look at a business and compare it to a team sport. I do this with my clients. You’re the CEO, you’re the head coach.

Okay? The head coach has the idea and a plan, but the head coach never plays the game, 

Charles Eide: right? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: The head coach scouts talent, and when he scouts talent, he says, okay, this is what we’re looking for. This is what we need. What, what was it? Dion Sanders kids who was like supposed to get drafted in the beginning and he didn’t because he, he’s a, he’s got ego.

He’s an nobody wanted him and his dad had nothing to say because he was raised in a standard [00:52:00] that. My dad’s the best. I’m gonna get something because of my dad, bro, that kicked him so hard in his face and nobody wants him. He wasn’t gonna be part of a culture. He was gonna be part of a standard of a team.

He was gonna be his own player. And that’s exactly what happened to him this year. So people wanna be part of something where they feel a major part of it. So I always encourage people, don’t call your people employees. They wanna be part of a team. And when everyone feels like they have a role and they’re participating and they’re engaging and they’re actually doing something to create a w, then it’s the best feeling in the world.

But when people feel like they just work for you and they’re an employee for you, no. So this whole cultural shift in business today and for some of the most successful businesses throughout history, team members, team members, team members, team members, most people never become leaders because they wanna be the boss.

Boss vs. Leader [52:54]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You can’t be a boss and a leader at the same time. It just doesn’t work. 

Charles Eide: How would you define for people who are trying to figure [00:53:00] out, well, what’s the difference between a boss and a leader? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: A boss dictates a leader. Delegates a boss is like, you listen to me, this is how I do it, blah, blah, blah. Like, whatever.

Like comes in all hard. And this is, it’s my company, this you listen to me. No. A leader’s gonna be like, Hey guys, you know, here’s where we’re at. We have our team huddle, we have our team meeting. You know, what are your thoughts on this? What are your thoughts on this? A leader opens up to how everyone feels about something and how everyone could participate.

A boss is like, you do this, you, you didn’t do this, you did this, you know, and, and is pointing a finger all the time. And once you get outta that role and you go from the boss to the leader, your entire business will shift. 

Charles Eide: So this is an interesting thought. Steven Bartlett on Diary of a CEO, he was talking about how.

When you’ve, when you’ve hired a lot of the wrong people and you realize your culture needs to change, it’s like turning a bus around in an alleyway, you know? So when you think company culture, [00:54:00] 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: abandon that bus and get a new one, you can’t change people’s behaviors, especially if you have a allowed it for so long.

Charles Eide: So it’s time to move on, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: get rid of people. It’s like cancer, dude. You gotta cut it out. 

Charles Eide: I completely 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: agree. And a lot of times the, the business owner is the cause of the cancer because they allow people to just do what they wanna do just because the seats being filled. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, I mean, core values has been a major shift for us, making sure that we hire fire reward on our four core values.

We have ’em on the wall right out in the lobby, you know, positive, creative, effective team player, and we teach on ’em every single week. I think it’s made a huge difference for us. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Super impactful. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. How do you, if you’ve got a culture that’s maybe in question, how you [00:55:00] can’t, obviously you’re not gonna fire everybody and turn it all around in one swoop, obviously, probably start by fixing who you hire, right?

But let’s say you start 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: your new hires. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. You gotta, no, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Nope. 

Charles Eide: Because 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: they’ll, ’cause your old hires are gonna cancel your new hires. You gotta hire somebody to replace you. So if you’re a CEO, you gotta get a CFO or someone else in there. Hey, I’ve hired so and so and they’re coming in here and they’re gonna make some changes.

And you take yourself outta the authority role. You put somebody else in the authority role and you allow them to instill the disciplines and you see who’s gonna check the box and who’s not. You start at the top, dude, you don’t ever start at the bottom. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. Start at the top, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: fire yourself, rehire it for the person that you want.

Replace yourself. Put somebody else there. Allow yourself to be now the idea of the company, the owner of the company, but not the operator anymore. Get somebody in that seat to take care of operations and allow them to instill the new habits that you want to [00:56:00] create in your business. 

Charles Eide: So what do you say to guys, I have a a few friends, I know that they keep hitting the ceiling, you know, oh, I can’t get past the $3 million mark, or whatever that is, and it’s very obvious they’re operating.

What do you say to guys that are like, I can’t afford to hire a $200,000 leader to run this business. I am that person. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. 

Charles Eide: What do you tell those guys? Like, ’cause I know what I say to ’em. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Most of my clients are those people who, this ceiling, 2 million, 3 million, 4 million, 5 million, and I go. And they all say, I can’t afford it.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I go, you wanna know why you can’t afford it? Because you’re doing all the work. You’re burning yourself out and you’re still wearing multiple hats. Here’s the problem. In business ownership, you don’t own a lane, therefore your people don’t own a lane. Whatever your business operates on, if there’s five things, six things, [00:57:00] seven things, whatever, that you need to just take your operations every single day, there’s a job and a role facilitator for that.

You need to put somebody in that lane and don’t allow them to crossover. So my one coaching client, he’s got a person and B person, and they cross, cross-pollinate, and they’re always looking for something to do. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: They’re always asking each other why they don’t have direction lanes. Right? So here’s how I explain it.

Stay in Your Lane [57:26]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I draw it on a board and I draw, let’s say they have four lanes. I go, here’s your one lane, you’re the CEO, here is your operations lane, here is your management lane, and here is your sales lien. Why is your sales person taking care of jobs in operation? 

Charles Eide: Mm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Why is your, why are you the CEO taking care of sales?

Every time you cross a lane, everybody’s gotta hit their brakes. Every time you cross your lane, say everyone’s gonna hit their brake singularity of focus. You do what you’re good at. If that person needs help, replace them. They’re no good. [00:58:00] If you can’t do your job, replace you, you’re no good. If we have to keep bailing people out, we lose momentum.

So I say, just imagine we’re going a thousand miles. We all put our cars, we’re all in four lanes. We’ll all put our cars in cruise control at 50 miles per hour. Then we all put our cars on a hundred miles per hour. But for the next thousand miles, we gotta keep crossing lanes. Who’s gonna get there quicker?

50 miles per hour. ’cause you gotta keep, hit the brakes, bring your speed back up, hit the brakes, bring your speed boat up. You keep losing momentum. The minute you can fill the lane and keep everybody with their blinders on. This is your job, your accomplishment, everything I need you to participate in.

That’s it, bro. You just watch. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: What happens. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. We, we actually hired a guy to just be the coach of the new sales team. So the, the sales team that Hunts just knew, and it’s amazing to have a person that’s dedicated [00:59:00] to coaching and growing them and keeping them in their lanes. The amount of productivity we’ve seen just in the last three, four months is numbers we wouldn’t see in an entire year because they’re focused on that one lane.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So here, check this out. You just answered your question from earlier. How do you stop looking at all of your YouTube and everything? You got a girl who does it, take it off your phone and stop. That’s her lane. Stop crossing her lane. You’re getting in her lane. You’re getting in her confused. You’re not allowing her to do her job.

And you’re questioning what’s going on without her creating what needs to happen. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it’s because this podcast is, is kind of like a startup in a way, but you’re right, I should implement my big business model here. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: If you treat it like a billion dollar business, it will pay you like a billion dollar business.

If you treat it like a hobby, it’s gonna cost you. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. No, you’re, dude, this is 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: so, at the end of the day, if you go out there and [01:00:00] buy a Chick-fil-A franchise, you’re the owner. How many CEOs of a Chick-fil-A or owners of a c chick are in the kitchen? Zero. How many ever in the building? Zero. 

Charles Eide: It don’t need to be, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Hey guys, uh, you know, there’s only like six chicken sandwiches on the line.

Like, what are we doing? S out and comes back fast enough. Relax. 

Charles Eide: I just love that man. That’s speaking to me because there’s a lot, I don’t know, maybe it comes from uncertainty too. You know, when you’re new to something like this 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: is, stop saying you’re new to something, bro. You built a business already and you sold it.

Every business is the same. 

Charles Eide: Yeah, no, you’re right. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You’re a control freak. 

Charles Eide: You are so right. This whole room is like they, they under, they agree. You’re right. I am a teacher. You’re 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: neurotic. 

Charles Eide: Okay. Yeah, you’re probably right. I probably am. Coul compulsive, compulsive, compulsive. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: When you feel [01:01:00] like you have to check in, go do something else.

Charles Eide: I gotta find a new hobby. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Go do something else, 

Charles Eide: something, man. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Just go do something else. Go sit down with your kids and read ’em a book or something. Do something else. 

Charles Eide: Oh, well, I’m gonna start by getting those apps off my phone. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I’m telling you your 

life 

Charles Eide: and I’m gonna shut those 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: notifications off. 

Don’t 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: your life in the first hour of your day.

Don’t go on your phone. Don’t do two hours yet. Do one hour. 

Charles Eide: Okay? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Every watch how you watch how, because here’s what happens now. Charles wakes up. I could have my cup of coffee in peace. I could wake my kids up in peace. My house is quiet. My head’s not facilitating noise. I’ve got myself ready. I’m drinking my water.

I’m hydrated. I’m ready to go. Whether you’re gonna go work out or whether you’re gonna journal, whatever you’re feeling now, it’s out. Alright. I’ve released myself. Now I’m ready for the world. You’ve allowed the world to dictate the rest of your day, the minute you wake up, if you go on your phone, here’s how I associate that.

You ever kick your foot and end the bed Stu your toe. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. Sucks, right? 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: How many times a day did you tell people about that? You know what I did today? [01:02:00] My toe what? Who cares? 

Charles Eide: Nobody. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Leave it at home. Your toe hurts. No one cares. No one needs to know you kicked your toe, but you’re allowing that to become the identity of your day.

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: And now you have a victim mentality instead of a victim mentality. 

Charles Eide: Ain’t that the truth? Yeah. I’ve never really told somebody about stuff in my toe unless I’m cursing in the minute. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: But you probably told your wife or you told your kids or whatever, like, can you believe I kicked my, yeah. Alright. We all do it.

Overcoming Fear of Change [1:02:30]

Charles Eide: Okay. So how do you tell guys when you’re coaching them, when they’ve got fears of making these big changes, like letting that person go that you know is toxic? You know, we’ve talked about, at this table, I’ve had a lot of conversations about that is letting go of toxic people, but there are a lot of feelings associated with that, right?

There’s fears, and I know the, you know, forget your feelings type of stuff, but how do you legitimately help leaders. Let go of [01:03:00] things that are scaring them. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: You let ’em answer their own questions like, I’m letting you do. Nothing changes in the next six months, and you keep allowing this to happen. What’s gonna change?

Nothing. Okay, if we just changed this over the next six months and this was implemented, what’s gonna happen? The world of difference. Okay, you just answered your question. So now it’s up to you to make the decision. If you’re willing to suffer for the next six months and the next 12 months, the next 18 months, or if you’re willing to make a decision, your fear of change is allowing you to stay stuck and not be at your greatest potential.

So you’re gonna allow a feeling to hold you back from a win. Up to you. 

Charles Eide: Why do you think we do that? Do you think that’s un uncertainty? Like, we’re like, I don’t know if that change is actually gonna do something, so I’m gonna weigh myself three times a day. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Bro, you, we all know that the change is gonna do something.

We tell ourselves, I need the change. This, I need to get rid of this. I need to get rid of that person. The minute you make that decision, you do it. 

Charles Eide: [01:04:00] Mm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: The minute you feel uncertain about somebody in your business, get rid of them, because you will have that feeling for the rest of their employment. 

Charles Eide: Mm-hmm.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Every single time you look at ’em, you’re always gonna question yourself. And then when you finally get rid of them, why didn’t I do this a long time ago? 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Every single time, the minute you feel something, I was literally talking to my friend on the phone today. He’s like, bro, you have like a, he sent me a message.

He lives in Mexico. He’s like, you got some like crazy execution thing in your life. You say you’re gonna do something, you don’t even think about it and you just do it. I go, it’s conviction, bro. If you tell yourself you’re gonna do something, there’s no better way to show up than to do it. A lot of people talk, a lot of people talk a lot of shit, but very few people show up.

Charles Eide: Yeah. I have a, a motto in my life. ’cause people tell me they’re gonna do a lot of things, just probably like they do. You. And I always say, well, we’ll see. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: Because a lot of people say a lot of things, but it doesn’t mean they’re gonna do ’em [01:05:00] 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: as we do. 

Charles Eide: We all, we all a hundred percent. I, I mean that applies to everybody.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I always bring it back to kids. If you have kids, all these things you’re allowing to happen in your life. If your kids did that, how would you feel about it? If your kids came to you with that problem, how would you address it If your kids looked at you and said, Hey dad, you said you were gonna do this but you didn’t and here’s what you did.

How’s that gonna make you feel? ’cause we always do it for our kids. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. It’s 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: if you’re doing it for your kids, do it for your kids. If you’re not doing it for your kids. Shut up and just do it. You know what I mean? Like everyone wants to use their kids as an example, but you’re, you’re, you’re priming your kids up with the, in your head and you’re showing them all the fear.

You’re showing ’em all the things. My kids are fearless, dude. They can give two shit. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. It’s like we lie to ourselves and we treat ourselves worse. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm. 

Charles Eide: Than we would other people. Isn’t that weird? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Mm-hmm.

Closing & Contact Info [1:05:58]

Charles Eide: Wow. Dude, I [01:06:00] could talk to you for days. This is insane. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Pre-show. I told you this was not gonna go the way you thought it was gonna 

Charles Eide: No, no. Look, at the end of the day, I think discipline is one of those things. That’s a journey, right? It doesn’t happen overnight, and there’s a lot of things you’ve made me aware of that I’m gonna use.

That’s powerful stuff. Sarah’s gonna be so much happier with you. Now that I’m gonna stop bothering her about the YouTube follows. 

Remove “I Can’t” and “I’ll Try” [1:06:26]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: There’s two things. If you wanna start instilling discipline in your life, you have to remove, well, four things. Two words. I can’t, and I’ll try. Can’t is not a word, doesn’t exist.

And trying something allows us to be, Hey, we did it, we participated, it didn’t work. I can go back to my other thing. You don’t try to do it. If you try to lose weight, you’re gonna be fat forever. But if you’re dedicated to losing weight and you’re disciplined, you’re going to lose weight. Success stories happen because of discipline, not because people try things.[01:07:00] 

Hey, try this. Tell me what you think. When you’re eating food, automatically your sensor’s like this is gonna taste like shit. I don’t even want to eat it. And you eat it. You’re like, yeah, I sorry. 

Charles Eide: Right or wrong. Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: But this ’cause, this is the way our brain operates. If we try something, all we have to do is participate.

And as long as we participated, we showed up. 

Charles Eide: Hmm. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Right. And then the other two things are excuses and blame. Now let’s bring ourselves back and this could be the end, whatever. When you’re a child, your children, you, me. When you’re a child and you want something, how resilient are you? How much grit do you have?

Charles Eide: Oh yeah, un yeah. Like 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: believable 

Charles Eide: enough. Unstoppable. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Unstoppable. If your kids want ice cream at four years old, do they get ice cream? Absolutely. Why stop. If I buy you ice cream, will you stop? Why? Because they don’t stop. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: As we get older, [01:08:00] something happens. Now, all of a sudden, somewhere in our life, someone in our family, someone in our association, hands us these two garbage bags and they go, okay, kid, listen, you’re in real life now.

This bag over here, you can fill it up with excuses and this one, you can fill it up with blame and it’ll be okay as long as you carry ’em around. Hey, it’s okay. That’s what everyone else does it. Then as we grow through life. We just go in our excuse bag, in our blame bag and every single thing that happens in our life, we wanna blame it.

We wanna make an excuse for it. Why this and why that? When in between those two bags, one on each shoulder, the main problem is you, once you release those bags, you’ve got all the weight lifted off your life and you now have no more excuses. You. Everything going in your life is a direct correlation to you.

If it’s good, if it’s bad, you participated. And once you take personal responsibility for your life game over. 

Charles Eide: Do you think the reason we do that we have [01:09:00] excuses and blame is because we think it’s going to make us feel better? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: No, it’s ’cause other people somewhere down the road have made it okay. Our parents, you know, like these kids today that get participation trophies.

Raising Resilient Kids [1:09:11]

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So I coached my kids when they were younger and like we used to get the boxes of medals. You know, if they came in second or third and the parents would be like, yo, I didn’t get the medals go. We lost. They go, well, my kid wants the medal. I go, well, your kid’s not getting a. There’s no substitution for number one.

There’s no substitution for winning and I’m not teaching the kids. I coach that second, third, fourth, fifth place is okay, and go hang this on your wall ’cause you showed up. No, you want a medal, you want a trophy next year you do better for parents. Hated me dude. 

Charles Eide: I bet they hated you, but my kid, Timmy wants his medal.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Well that’s good. You’ll buy Timmy an ice cream cone. That’s what he really wants. But some of the best players that played in some of these sports, like this one kid’s, a [01:10:00] D one wrestler. You know, my son was an amazing football player. My other son was a baseball player. Some of the parents hated me. I didn’t care.

I’m not here to make your kid feel good. If you want ’em to feel good, bring ’em back to daycare. This is a sport. It’s competitive every, you know, and that whole competition in this world is gone somewhere. When you go to high school, you wanna raise a, he ain’t gonna play football. He’ll be a cheerleader.

You know what I mean? And I’m not raising cheerleaders here. Sorry. Yeah. And people hated it. And I didn’t care. And the reason why I didn’t care was because I knew that I would do no good to those kids, coddling them. I’ve coddled nobody in my world. 

Charles Eide: Yeah. And they’re probably better for it, even if it didn’t feel good in the moment.

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah. My daughter would fall, cry, get up. 

Charles Eide: What do you say to people who are like, have some have a heart. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Oh, have some emotion. You know, feel bad. [01:11:00] Listen, you fell. It’s not like you broke your leg. It’s not like you’re, you broke your back, you fell and got a little scratch. Big deal. Everyone gets a scratch.

Charles Eide: What do you think the benefit to your daughter is in having been raised that way? The kids that actually were on your team and didn’t get a medal. What’s the benefit to them? Discipline. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Discipline and knowing that there’s no substitution for hard work. That’s number one. You wanted something else? I, my kids never had video games ever to this day.

People told me I’m rotten. I go, I’m rotten. Why? Because you want your kids to stay busy in their bedroom while my kids are outside in their quads and their dirt bikes having fun falling. Scratching their leg. Breaking their leg. Who cares? They’re learning something. They’re taking their competitive advantage or doing something.

What’s a video game gonna [01:12:00] do? It’s gonna distract them to stay away from you. So they’re not in your hair. Sorry. That’s not a way to live. 

Charles Eide: That’s so good. That’s so good. ’cause I’m thinking about last night my kids were, you know, it was a cold, dark night out and. I look on the app, tells me what internet is being used, and my kids are downstairs on their video games and I shut it off and I kid you not, within two minutes they’re yelling up from downstairs, Hey dad, turn the internet on.

And I was like, no, it’s a school night. And now after this conversation, I’m taking those devices and I’m putting them in my gun room and I’m gonna leave them there. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: If you’re gonna allow your kids to do something like that, just like you do to the gym, hour a day, half hour a day, that’s it. ’cause what we do is we disconnect our children from society because that’s what everybody else does.

Mm-hmm. How [01:13:00] annoying is it when you go out to dinner and all these kids are on our iPads? Oh. 

Charles Eide: So it’s 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: like I’m the worst. I’m like, you parents are terrible. I would rather my kids be throwing food at the neighbor’s table knowing that they’re engaging. 

Charles Eide: Oh, I know they’re turning into zombies. Oh yeah. No, my kids won’t.

I don’t do that. But, but dude, it’s, it’s, it is a battle. As a parent, those screens are like crack Yeah. To those kids. It’s tough. I, it makes me wonder what that’s gonna do to our society when 98% of people are doing that. Those are kids that are being raised to go out in the workforce and complain that they have to work on a Friday.

You know, 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: bro, most employees are on their social media all day long because of that. If, 

Charles Eide: yeah, and if you wanna stand out, just don’t be like that. That’s [01:14:00] crazy. Think how much more a company could do if that wasn’t the case. Ugh. It’s wild. Dude, Dan, this has, this has been great. This has been amazing. Thank you for flying out here and being with me coming to f Well, you, you’re from Jersey, so it’s not like it’s that bad, but coming from Florida, wherever, I’m sure you’d rather be there.

It 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: was just in Mexico on Monday. Yeah. So 

Charles Eide: it 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: was a lot warmer 

Charles Eide: there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so thank you for coming to Frigid Minnesota in, well it’s February while we’re filming, but thank you for coming up here. It’s really great. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: I appreciate the invite. 

Charles Eide: I look forward to getting to know you better. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Yeah, likewise.

Charles Eide: Yeah. How do people reach out to you? 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: So, my biggest platform’s gonna be, uh, big Dan official Instagram. Um, that’s where, if they’re gonna DM me anything or follow me, that’s, that’s my biggest platform or YouTube. But, um, I have a website, dance zukowski.com. I own every single Big D domain out there. Big D coaching, big Day Mastermind, big D speaking.

I own ’em all. Um, but dance [01:15:00] zukowski.com will funnel you everywhere to me, all my social handles on there, or just find me on Instagram. 

Charles Eide: Thanks for coming. 

Dan “Big D” Sachkowsky: Appreciate. 

Charles Eide: If you like this episode of Cleared for Takeoff, make sure you leave a comment, subscribe, turn on notifications. Of course, share it with somebody that you think would love it, and of course, check out my company EideCom.

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