Meet The Realize Foundation President! | Dan Walkovitz

Deana Brown Mitchell: Hello there Realize Foundation family. I'm here today with Dan, who is our president of the board. And I just wanted everybody to get to meet him if you haven't before, because he has been my support since day one. He's been at every event we've done. He started at our very first summit in 2021. I think it was March of 2021. And so I just appreciate Dan so much and his support and his involvement in what we do here. And so I want him to have a few minutes to tell you about himself and and what he does when he's not working with us. So welcome, Dan.

Thank you, Deana. And thank you for the kind words. I had been a serial entrepreneur for over 40 years prior to that I was with corporate America for 10. So I have extensive business background. And for the last few years, I've been coaching entrepreneurs, I love entrepreneurship. I love admire and respect those who are willing to take the path to being an entrepreneur. And I've learned that the experiences I've had, from which I've learned, good ones and bad ones, are valuable to other people. So I started coaching entrepreneurs a few years ago. Initially, I began coaching on core values and corporate culture, and the value that brings to an organization and the problems an organization has without that I got into teaching introverts who don't believe they can sell to be outstanding salespeople by using traits that we share as introverts as their superpowers. We often think that as introverts, we need to try and sell like extroverts. It doesn't work. It's embarrassing, uncomfortable, and typically not successful. But introverts, according to Matthew Pollard can be more successful salespeople than extroverts. And it's true. So I teach introverts in micelle bootcamp, how to use those superpowers to become outstanding salespeople. Recently, I partnered with Eric Leary, who was my it's still as my social media coach, to do Done For You social media work. And I've been extensively involved with the use of AI to help businesses learn more about themselves, their market, and every kind of aspect of business. Because AI is an incredible resource that I use in everything I do now.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Thanks, Dan. That's awesome. I mean, people who know me know, I similarly have a coaching business. And I think that what Dan's doing is awesome, because all of us have a different spin on everything we do. And so even if we're all talking to entrepreneurs, there's a very unique value in what Dan does for introverts and selling, although he can teach all kinds of things. So I want to talk about how you get involved in the realized Foundation. And I know I said, You've been at all of our events for the beginning. But I would like you to tell from your perspective, how you got involved and and why.

Well, you and I met Deana, right about the time you were forming the realized Foundation, and didn't know that much about you. But as I became more knowledgeable on your background, and your story, your story about having woken up in the hospital, one time crying because your most recent attempted suicide had not worked. That just touched me at every molecule in my body. When I realized, subsequent to that 22 years later, you still hadn't spoken to anyone about it, and then lost a very dear friend who took his life. And you reflected back asking yourself, what would have happened, and I actually did open about it, might Hi have helped him make a different decision that touched me even more. And then you started the realized foundation. I am overcome with the number of suicides in this country, probably in the world, amazed at the young people who decide at taking their own life is the best alternative. It's astonishing to me and horrifying. And our daughter, one of our daughters has lost four friends to suicide. That was just 20 years ago, at which time she was 30. So the horror of that option and the proclivity of young people to think that that is the best option coupled with wood you'd gone through and what prompted you to start the realized foundation to provide conversations around the subject to come at this issue from a different perspective, by enabling people who might be in that state of mind, to read about or listen to stories of others, who have been on the brink and backed off, and have become incredible producers and incredible, beneficial people who are beneficial to society. Hopefully, that will touch people who are in that state. And in addition, the realized Foundation helps people who might be interacting with someone who they fear might having suicidal thoughts, to help them understand how to engage those people, so that perhaps they can prevent one of those tragedies from happening. Those are the things that compelled me to get involved with the realized foundation and continue to come build a

Deana Brown Mitchell: Well, thank you Dan. I think it's really important that people understand that we're not, we're not licensed therapists, or doctors or anything like that. But we have lived experience and we have just a passion for helping people know that. Number one, they're not alone. And number two, there's hope and whatever situation they're in. And that, that brings me to just mention the hope course that we have, it's for short videos on our website that tell people how to start the conversation about suicide. So h is like how do we how do we talk about it, and oh, is own your self care and learning how to take better care of yourself and what helps you with your anxiety or depression or addiction or whatever it is. And also, P is protect your mind. And that talks about, really, who are the people you're spending the most time with, because the five people you spend the most time with, have a major influence on your life in your situation. And then II is enjoy the little things. And that's where we talk about gratitude and how we can have grateful practices around things that we are thankful for, that can help us also help our brain process things in a different way. And so those are the those are really the main things that we talk about, at the realize foundation and how we can help people. And then we started, you know, in the beginning, we did these virtual summits where people would tell about their story live on a on an event. And then that's what turned into our scars to start books. And then this podcast. So it was kind of a revolutionary, you know, process to get where we are now. But I think it's just it's most important to me that people know, they're not alone in whatever they're going through. And when Dan said I was quiet for 23 years, about my own attempt, it's because I didn't think it was okay to talk about it. And I think that's the, the biggest message we can give is that it's crucial to talk about it. And our community is a place where anybody can come and talk about anything they want. Because I think that all the all the struggles we have in life, all of those collectively are what get us to suicidal ideation. And if we can, if we can help with the struggles by having a conversation with someone else who's been in one of those struggles similar to yours, and we can help you with at that point before you get to the suicidal ideation, that is really our mission. And I think, you know, it's, it's easy to say it's about suicide prevented, but there's so many different ways to approach that. And I think that ours is a little different and unique. And so I'm super excited about how we can help people. And it's not you don't have to pay for therapy, you don't have to go to a doctor to have a conversation that could change your life. And some of those conversations changed mine. So I know what happens. And I've seen it happen with other people. I've seen people just read a chapter in our book and tell me how much it changed their life. Just because they saw they read the details of something that someone else was going through that was similar to what they're experiencing. And it's just, it's, it's so impactful when we share our own struggles, and I know it's not fun sometimes to share our struggles. But it's it will help others and in the process it will also help you. And so Dan even wrote a chapter in our first book, and I didn't know you want to talk about that a little bit in buying a chapter.

I will ever before I do that, I want to make a point, your point about us not being licensed, but course we're not. But it's interesting, I've spoken to a couple of people who are seeing psychiatric professional help, and find that that's a structured process that they don't feel, helps them as much as they had hoped. Not denigrating it at all. Certainly not recommending against it. But just the ability to talk to someone who's more or less appear, someone who has had those experiences. Or as in my case, I've been blessed, I haven't. But I certainly spend time with you and others who appreciate the nature of the problem. Sometimes just having a friend, someone who is you say, we're not alone, someone you can just talk to and have a conversation with is a different approach, and often very satisfying, in its ability to get to the heart of what's on your mind, without the structured kind of process that you would go through with professional help. So just I just had to emphasize that point. I'm not in a way not embarrassed when I talk about my chapter in the book. But I think there were 20 authors 19 of them had gone through some horrible, horrible, horrible life issues, I mean, horrible, and got to the point in many cases where suicide was on the agenda. And they backed off of it, for whatever reason, and went on to do these amazing things, where they learned from their experiences, to become incredible human beings, and coaches, and support people, for others who are in need. My story wasn't about that. I've really been blessed. I met my wife in high school, we've been married 27 years, that didn't get married till after college. So I've known her 6364 years, and every day is a blessing. I've had issues in business, plenty of those as an entrepreneur, but I always had support. So I don't put myself in the same class as the other authors who wrote in that book, but you urge me to tell the story. And I think it's a very important story. Because that the title or the first sentence in a tale of two cities is it was the best of times it was the worst of times. Well, the title of my chapter is it was the worst of times, it was the best of times. I was in debt. This particular company had gone through a horrible period, where we built an incredible software product. In a year went from zero to 100%. Really a job, brilliant product, brilliant documentation. And Mark go to market strategy just was ahead of its time. And nobody wanted the product at that time. Years later, it became the foundation of data warehousing, which is now at the heart of every major databases. But we laid off 23 out of 28 people went horrible day, and I was miserable. For weeks worst entrepreneurial life experience I've ever had. We went for years trying to rebuild the company. My family had, we have three daughters or three daughters. My wife and I lived in an upper middle class neighborhood. But we didn't have any money. We had the car repossessed from the garage one day on Thanksgiving. Interesting day. I got it back. Because I've always been pretty clever about finding ways. Other things that are normal to so many people, like hand me down, clothes just weren't normal for us. But all the girls who were approaching teenage years or were teenagers did that. The school that middle school and the high school that our daughters went to was fed by other way more fluid neighborhoods. So the people in that parking lot were driving, believe me outies Mercedes was crazy. We had a car that was so bad, her younger daughter wouldn't even drive it. She said she'd rather walk to work, then the humble, non pretentious child she was at the time. Anyway, she's turned out to be amazing. But we've been years into that and my mom and dad's money my in laws money was all to the extent they could afford it in the company. We had all their support. And we were having brunch my mom, my wife and I are three daughters with my mom and dad. And my mom asked what I paraphrase to be the have you thought about getting a real job lately question. And she didn't say it that way. It was very kind and she was concerned about Me and the kids and Sherry. And I thought about that for some number of seconds, during which time all three of our daughters with that age were probably 13 to 17. All said, No, they didn't want me to do that. And that stunned me, stunned me, because I was traumatized by the impact my choices had had on them. And I went to each of them after the brunch and asked them what prompted them to say that, and they all said basically the same thing. But our youngest daughter, the one that was sort of pretentious in high school, wanted to be with the cool kids had the most unbelievable comment, when I asked her why she had said that, she said, Dad, when you started mainstay, you had a dream. And if you took a real job, you'd never have the chance to make that dream come true. And never get through this without crying. And I would never want that to happen to you. And I realized at that moment, that those five years that I thought were the worst I could ever impose upon my family had been the very best, because our kids had learned what it's like to care about somebody more than yourself. It also taught them that they could survive in difficult, difficult financial times, that many kids in that generation and in the younger generation can't or don't believe they can. And our kids wouldn't have had the opportunity had I not been forced into that situation, because I would probably given them to the extent we could. And those two lessons are life lessons that are phenomenon, and, frankly, relates to the realized Foundation. Because if people understood how important they are to other people, if teenage kids could cope with issues, more along the lines of what our daughters had gone through, if all of these things could be done, and the realized Foundation helps create conversations around that. I believe we would reduce suicide ideation and people taking their own lives to a great extent. So I guess the story relates to our mission or realized Foundation, despite the fact that I didn't have to go through the horrible traumas, other people who've written during the amount of volume one, or volume two or three have gone through.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Well, thank you, Dan, for sharing that. And I'm glad you were at the story. And I've told you this before. But I think that your story is just as important as the rest of them. Because a lot of people who get to that suicidal ideation phase has to do with financial stress. And that is what you wrote about. And maybe they have a different financial situation than you're describing. But financial stress causes lots of problems with marriages and relationships, and, you know, not feeling enough and not good enough and all that. So I think it's, it's very, it's a very good story to be in the book, because I've been through that myself, you know, as an entrepreneur, when you know, you're starting a business and everybody in your life is supporting you. And you may or may not hold up your end of the bargain. And so whether it's whether it's a business owner, or whether it's someone who has a job that's just not making ends meet, or whatever it is, it definitely is a valid topic for what we're dealing.

So thank you. I appreciate that. And you know, you're right, as I think about it, I remember waking up in the middle of the night in the midst of that. And Sherry would say, Dan, it's three in the morning. There's nobody to call, but I was in despair. I never reached the point. I mean, suicide pass through my mind, from one end to the other in a millisecond. But I never focused on it and never contemplated it very much. But I understand how that state of affairs could definitely lead someone to that position, a thought process.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Absolutely. Well, I think we should maybe talk a little bit about what's going to be new soon. And I think I want to, we haven't really announced this yet. But I think on March 30 of 2024 is our fourth anniversary. And we've been having meetings to talk about what how we're going to celebrate that. So for more news coming out, and then we're going to do one book this year. And it's going to come out in September for Suicide Prevention Month. And we're going to start that in July. So if anyone's watching this or listening to this and you want to think about writing your story, one of our books, or if you just want to talk to me about what that looks like, reach out and say hi, comment below. You know, comment on any video. We have a Facebook group That's private. It's called scars to stars live. And anybody can ask to join that if you're interested in joining our community. And so I would love to see around. This will be on the podcast in a few weeks. So there is a official podcast anywhere you listen to podcast called scars to stars. And there's also our books are on Amazon. So scars, two stars, Volume One, two, and three, all bestsellers on Amazon. And you can find those and grab one of those and read some stories and see what what you like what pertains to you what you relate to, and I've had a lot of people buy a book and read it and then share it, you know, share it with someone else, because we have a page in the front of the last book that says, you know, write your name or your note here for the next person who might read this book. You know, I'm the kind of I'm the kind of person who I get a book, I want to keep it forever. But some people want to read it and pass it on. And so we we set it up that way.

I have to jump in for a second. Deana, they had a conversation earlier with one of the authors who has written into the books. And he was telling the story about how he was in the hospital and had the book with him. And Gore had a couple of books and gave the book to a nurse. And he ended up back in the hospital a few months later. And the nurses came to him and said, I remember you are the person who gave us scars, the stars. And apparently the book had passed around the various nurses in the hospital. And they remembered that he was the one who gave them the Book and told him how it inspired them. So it has had some very interesting travels from its original owner in many cases, that been one that's on my mind because of what we spoke up today.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Yeah, it's true. I can't I can't even count how many stories like that I've heard over the years. But it's it's hard to document them all. Because sometimes it's like, oh, I gave a book to someone else. And they gave it to someone else. And then I heard this, I got this text back about how it helped. So it's hard to track let there are a lot of stories around how this has helped people, or how it's helped them heal from something else in their life, maybe divorce or abuse of some kind. And they've read a story about healing for something like that. And it wasn't even about suicide. So there's there's all kinds of adversity we all go through in life. And and that's what it's all about is like, how do we know we're not alone in this adversity or obstacle that we're facing? And how can we be a community of people who support each other when we are going through something like that? So Dan, do you have any last words?

Well, only to honor you, Deana, I just have to say you, you're an amazing woman, not only what you got through and how you enabled it to change your life for the good to help other people. But just the persistence and the dedication, and the tenacity you've had in making this message more broad. I admire and respect you and honor you for all that you've done. For those who read the books, listen to the podcasts, listen to the videos. It's a wonderful organization that you founded, and I'm just honored to be able to work with someone like you with the clouds and characteristics have made this all possible.

Deana Brown Mitchell: Thank you, Dan during the cry. But no, I appreciate it. And I feel I feel similar about you. Because you know, when I was starting all this, you are super supportive. Even though we were we weren't officially in this organization together. But we were in a in a virtual group together and you were very supportive of what I was doing. And I appreciate that. So for everyone listening, you can find our website at realizefoundation.org And you can find our books on Amazon if you search for scars to stars, and they have the purple starry background. And also you can find your podcast on Spotify, Apple or any other platform where you listen. So we hope to see you in our community. And again the Facebook group is Scars to SARS live. So just find it as to join and we hope to see you there.

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