I am really torn here – to post or not to post, to let a troubling shocking ‘revelation’ pass by undisturbed in the busyness of another day of making a living on internet – torn about meddling into the affairs of others, wondering how I would react in the same situation? Such are the gray areas we live in.
To post when I uncertain as the details on the proverbial ‘other side of the story’.
Then realizing the passage of time since this plea started and at how few comments from ‘business associates’ or customers of Dave’s have posted…I’m sure some of the reason above are for that.
Yet…
Here I go – and pray that is God doing most of the compelling and not myself. I will sit on this before hitting ‘send’, praying it will be Him that guide movement or pull back and delete it. I will say this, if I hit ‘send’, I will sign my full name – and stand behind what I will type, for better or worse. Speaking only for me, too many anonymous postings commend not enough authority…
Okay. Take it for what you will – this letter is to Dave and his family and close friends.
Anthony: The criticism you have encountered for this tactic, I can only begin to imagine. You Christmas Eve video had me in tears and, before it was finished, in focused prayer I have not felt in months. On a personal note, I guess I should thank you for that encounter but am saddened by its trigger(we love to talk about ‘triggers’ in the realms of business and marketing). You stepped out into dangerous territory – very precarious territory – but your courage to do so (clearly) knowing full well its implications and doing it despite, is…a powerful display of a love that endures and is connected to our Creator.
A brother…a *big*, big brother. I wish I had one like you but that’s another story. I understand why others have a problem with this blog and how you’ve gone about things. I don’t. I greatly respect and admire the strength of your love. Wow.
Dave’s got a soul and we fight those, yes? And it’s just not pretty, so many times.
Alison: What does a stranger like me say to woman in your circumstance that others have not already presented after so much time has passed since this started? I’ll try – and be short. God is still in all this and will make it His own – in ways and weaves in the fabric of life we, mostly, will never understand. It’s just the way it always has been. Bad things happen to good people since the beginning of time and much worse happen to others – every hour of every day inside the blessings of our lives.
You know this, of course. It does not change that you are wife who has been abandoned by your husband and that you are mother to three boys, who desperately need their father because *all* children need their father.
The challenge for you, if I may be so unsolicitously bold, is for you to grow into an area of strength you never thought would have to – or wanted to. You have to – it’s been hard, it will continue to be but you have, it appears, an incredible resource of support and family standing right beside you – and an extended church family, from the sound of it. WOW. You have what so few other women who are, tragically, in the same place all over the world – use it and continue to be thankful for it.
God’s working some crazy-ass, confusing and difficult transcendent, cosmic plan in all this – there’s a bit of inchoate solace in that, grab for a few seconds every day, it will help.
Here’s what I feel I need to tell you – Dave will come home.
Until then, I hope, though, you finding ways to laugh and smile – your sons are taking notes there. Let them see you living more and more each day.
DAVE: I am a customer of yours. If you keep your database clean, you’ll see me in there for numerous purchases over the last few years.
You do very, very good work -and there’s a lot of area of further growth, improvement and excellence inside that work. You know it – you sense it – you feel it. That potential for ‘great work’ is latent inside you, not quite reached, waiting to stir up and transform others who will encounter it – and, as it goes in business, transform yourself.
You want to, sure, make you more money, become more well known, respected and lifted up by your peers.
It’s that ‘sin’ of doing your own thing that drives so many of entrepreneurs and small business people – to make an impact on others – and ourselves. It’s, also, something many good entrepreneurs quite fully reconcile which is why we never get clear there.
These ‘things of the earth’ who so greatly covet so quietly many times are, also, one of many Achilles Heels we need to recognize. It appears you tripped up here. It happens – but it’s never too late.
I’ve running my own business since 1994, on the net since ’96 – I’ve had great success and sold my share of millions in that time – but I’ve gotten know great failures and the loss of of too much money, too. Pain. My fair share of it.
Stay with me here, Dave.
I mention this because I’m in the process of building a new life as a business owner again – starting with almost nothing, as I did so many years ago.
Cool. (kinda) Not.
But it’s back to the source. The ashes of my past life are still floating to the ground as I build it back up in 2011. Some have felt sorry for me, customers, friends, family. “You had it all, you lost it – what happened?”. Answer: “Well, a lot of things but what’s clear is I have a lot of work to do on….’me’”.
I’m past the shame now. You are going to understand this someday soon – You just live inside it for a bit, push past it — and get back to work because it’s *who we are*.
There’s always a new you around the bend because we are redeemed in the gift of life itself. When you really understand that, there’s….freedom. Again.
Talk about ‘rock your day’.
Well, I’d love to talk to you about that, Dave. Anytime.
For me, like you, I had the support of my wife and children, at all times – in everything. In all things. My wife’s been there for 28 years living with…me. In all my less than awesomeness stuff. Without that, I would have failed ultimately on all levels. My wife empowered me to following a dream in 1994 – and dream it was. Launching a record label and music distribution company from mountains of Colorado – how crazy is that?
Crazy enough to work, full time in 9 months flat from a low-interest credit card(uh, not recommended in 2011, though!). But all things change – One of the many big lessons of the last five years.
Not like you, though, my family is still clearly in focus. My kids need their dad still – they’re so young still(we waited quite awhile to have kids, Dave). Speaking to my selfish needs, I need them and my wife. I don’t work well without them. The world would pull me in and I’d lose myself.
Dave, I get the temptations you took on and, it appears, came up short against.
That you have lost your family and are going through this without them made me weep this morning. Literally.
I’m a bit confused as to why but, hey, there you go.
It’s been ‘hell’, as a business owner, these last five years but I stuck it out(okay, let’s be honest, I had no choice), despite losing so much and now I’m coming back out on the other side, ‘moving on up’, to quote the great 70s show “The Jeffersons”. Lots of work to do. Stuff ‘n products to create.
Again.
I live inside this re-booting phase, by leveraging my experiences, my talents(which really took awhile to get clear on), using knowledge inputs from a few incredibly smart online business gurus and, in the mix of all it, some of your products.
So why all this talk about me? Well, you are connected to much of this.
You have been part of this process(and this year is quite successful , one of the best in many years) and it is why, I was so blown away to find out what has been going on in your life and it answered why there has been absolutely nothing of merit in 2011 from ‘your corner’.
So let me say a few things, feel free to haze and hate me for them. I’ll take them because I’m out of bounds with what society says is the way to proceed in these matters, I recognize that.
But I say these things as someone who respects your talents and does not want to see them wither(and you know, they will – get clarity on that because they already have…we are judged by outputs in our world, Dave and yours are next to nothing in 2011)….I’d like your work to still be part of what I’m building as few folks in the IM world(I’m in the music business, btw – not in the IM world) impress or move me to a centering place of implementation.
And, in my own selfish way, hope ‘n pray they may bring some levity, clarity and place of healthy action coming from a different business perspective you may have encountered so far.
These things are:
1. Thank You. Thank you for the strength following your dreams and…create…stuff. Good stuff. Really good stuff.
2. Notice I did not say ‘great’ stuff – because that occurs inside the process of growth as a small business owner when you’ve lost a lot, pushed through too much pain – and fought back. That…THAT…awaits you still, Dave. Listen to the guts of what I’m saying here – it’s something only crazy, freakin’ insane people that do the stuff that we do, can get.
You are up for it. Still. Kick that devil off your shoulder right now – you are up for it.
3. Yes, I don’t *know* you but I’ve been spent many, *many* hours listening to your voice in audios and reading through and implementing the fruits of your work, so I, actually, do have a bit of understanding of how your mind works to some small, modest level – but I have to say – and I’m not sure Anthony will allow this – but, Anthony, if so, please lighten up and roll with with it here……Dave, you’re being an douchebag. A huge one.
You know it, too. It’s time to just….stop.
Please.
Now, Dave – I’m a Christian. Like you. But I’m different there than most, too – Like You I sense.
I swear, drink tequila(and you find beer – my home town is a huge mecca for beer makers), get drunk a few times a year and am passionate about rock ‘n roll and Iggy Pop beyond words. I work in the world of rock ‘n roll, after all.
I come up short before my expectations for myself as a person, as a father, as a husband. Drives me bat-shit crazy, too. So, I’m no holy roller, threatening damnation for your sins, by any stretch. I’m believer in g-r-a-c-e and redemption. The kind that comes from yourself – and from outside of ourselves.
Like you, I struggle, though, with the balance of my faith and connection to God’s purpose for my life and…the world.
A sidebar comment and some question: These fellow A-level bloggers you party down with in Vegas and SXSW(Dude, I get SXSW, I’ve been to it 13 times since I since my company)? I know who they are – I’m in the Third Tribe, too since the beginning.
Where on earth are *they* right now in all of this? The so-called friends who you’ve been in the trenches the last few years? they ones you’ve done JVs with, making money with, running ideas by with? I did not sense a single even anonymous post here from any of them.
That’s just not right, man. It’s just not.
Sorry, gotta swear again – *Where the *fuck* are they for you, Dave?”
Are they telling you this is all this all right? To follow your gut and your passions to achieve more ‘n greater things that you could have without the shackles of responsibility? To build your own kingdom and not seek His?
Do they tell you it’s okay, it’s fine to just walk out and sever your marriage and connection to your children and sycophantically believe whatever you feed them?
Take a moment. Who’s…*standing*…by…*you*? Today? Who wants to, right now, spend hours and hours with you wanting to salve all your inner pain, confusion and troubles? Are they willing to do that, at a moment’s notice?
if not, you gotta really bad team you’ve outsourced your life to.
If you could only see into their souls and pain of empty-ness there….
You with me? If you are, guess what? You’re showing some spine, brother. Right On.
Stay with me for just a bit longer.
So, I experience, the last 3 hours of hearing ‘your story’ and I feel a bit more compassion and empathy and understanding than others in your Christian probably do.
I can hear them, too. “Dave’s going to hell if he does not change his wicked ways”.
You know. They don’t matter where you are at today. It’s just you – and your Creator. (it’s easier this way, anyway…)
But please hear what I say to you: God’s not done with you.
Not even close, Dave.
When you lose so much, you have even more than you could imagine to share with others. That is what is waiting for you.
Dude, it’s a helluva product, a ultra-cool weekend seminar and….well, if I have ideas, you do, too! ;-P
Come back – begin again.
One step is all it takes. Call. You know that number already you’ve thought about in the dark days of this lost, shitty year.
Of course you have your family and close friends ready to embrace you but – let me speak for a voice not seen here. A different one. One connected to people who have been your customers these past years:
WE are ready to have you return, too.
I offer my support and experiences of being a solopreneur for almost 2 decades to work it through. I’m easily found, if you want to find me.
I’m not hiding because I truly believe God’s plan is in motion, bringing you back with a new, powerful, massively impactful message for you new, higher calling.
Which brings me to….the last of my 4 comments.
4. I launch a new site on September 1st. It’s been one of the largest under-takings of my career and I’m 49. I’ve had a few quarter million dollar launches, too. This one is free, though! Free. I’m crazy with this obsession, Dave. Consumed. And it’s nowhere, where it needs to be still – but out into the world it will go. A shell of my dream – but it will begin its first evolutionary step.
Why mention this and talk about myself?
To have you identify that I understand some of where you are coming from. Two reasons:
1. I’ve spent three hours to write this when I should be working on this launch because my back IS against the wall. You get launches, you get creating new products, you get deadlines that fall apart despite your best efforts. We got to be driven. Driven and committed.
I *know* I’ve not wasted these hours going through this site and typing this, though – because….and, again, I’m not freakin’ holy roller, hear me loud, very loud – God is working.
It’s time to listen again.
2. I have a sense you are like me in many ways. Funny, from a guy who just called you an douchebag, right?
How? Well, I think you have a tendency to ‘do it all yourself’ and not better leverage the talents and strengths of others to make the process of creation easier. It’s not smart business but, man, is it hard to change. Very, very hard. (plus, there’s an lingering insecurity that we *can’t* do it, but that’s another subject for another time..)
I’m getting better, though – the hard way. I’ll help others, too – get better.
So will you.
It’s how we are wired, at the core, Dave – as entrepreneurs. To make people’s lives better and it’s why we are so driven and singular.
There’s a nasty downside that can come along with that and, sometimes our families suffer.
You need to own up for the price it’s had on your family. Today. In this moment, if yr up to it. Because, without them, you never would have gotten this far. You see *that*, don’t you?
DON’T YOU?!
Dave, you’ll be welcomed home with open arms. There’s a good story in the Bible about that, too. ;-P
Sometimes, our lives becomes embedded in the Truth, eh?
It’s okay, though, to fuck up. Huge. It just is.
Why?
Because, it’s part of our life’s calling from Him, Dave. We come up short. He’ll make it make sense, even though it does not now.
Let’s finish.
Here: Come on, man. *I* am a rocker. I make my living and support my family rocking, literally. You have a site, ‘rockyourday.com’.
You’re *not* rocking it, right now. Not at all in 2011. Cold water in the face fact. Brutal one to admit. BUT, BUT you have the strength to just say ‘yes’ and look it and begin again.
I am a fan. I can believe in you because I believe in Him, like you do. Your view of your work that I have used in my business is unchanged by your actions.
How cool is THAT, Dave?
Think about it.
Start clawing back up – today.
We can still screw up, massively – but when we do good work as we move towards doing great work, the good stuff can stand on the power of who were, have been…and are going to become.
You are ready. So, when your raise your hand to God to say “Here I am, forgive me.”….speaking for me, well I’m ready to rock right alongside you because…brothers do that.
I have a pretty amazing collection of music – and strange, interesting life inside of it, too. So let’s rock sometime.
Bruce, a fan and supporter waiting
Do you remember the night we were on your driveway… Can you remember? The night Laura and I and your wife were crying with you… crying for you… I told you that you are in danger. And sadly, you are blind to it… and today you are now a byword… a warning to others… and you apparently are blind to your own blindness.
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