Helping Ukraine's Most Vulnerable In Wartime with Mark Davis: An EOFire Classic from 2022

0:01Light that spark fire nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on fire. The only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be talking about helping Ukraine's most vulnerable in wartime. To drop these value bonds, I brought Mark Davis into EO Fire Studios. Mark is an American director at AbundanceInternational.org, a U.S. nonprofit bringing life-giving aid to orphanages in Ukraine for 10 years now, and especially now during wartime. And one of the value bonds we're talking about here today is you have to influence yourself.

0:34The most important job of any leader is to encourage yourself. When you're in a good place, you radiate that to others and owe so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Mark and our sponsors. Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Visit Franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to book a free consultation and start your franchising journey with expert guidance. Mark, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:15John, welcome. Hello, Fire Nation. Brothers and sisters around the globe, I love, love, love our spirit. I love people can't relate to who we are more than us. So it's a family. And John, thank you for bringing us all together, brother. Hey, I actually have a great answer to that question because I've been doing something and teaching something I haven't heard anywhere else. I know that's a big statement, especially, you know, for how many shows you've done that size your audience. But the basic belief I don't think anybody's going to disagree with is I think you've got to have lived your success before you become it.

1:47And, you know, sort of the mind is the playground to experience your future. And you have to say this is who I am before you walk into it. You know, the fake it till you make it thing doesn't work as much as you don't personally believe that's who you are. So here's the problem I found is that most of the time New Year's resolution syndrome kills your visualizations. You go, yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds great, but you never did it before. So here's the practice I do and I teach is something I call microvisualizations, which I got from just watching Olympics, right, just before they do a 30-second or three-minute routine.

2:17They're closed-the-eyes and mentally living it. And it dawned on me that that's the secret. It's not seeing myself at Wall Street ringing the bell when my company goes IPO. it's like, what am I doing today that I could get fired up about? And borrowed a little bit from Gary Vandercheck, who says, you just have to love the deal, love the work, love the game of business. So like I have three things today I visualize, I add it to my routine, like doing a gratitude practice as well as, you know, either reading or a motivational video. And so I just go through, what am I going to do today that I would love for it to come out?

2:50Absolutely cool. And I pre-live it. So I have good news for you. This is going to be one of the coolest shows we've ever had. You're going to get more comments about, guys, this is real world stuff that they just appreciate the value. And you and I are going to go out and have beers on Pacifico on some beach somewhere afterwards because we've become best friends at the end of the show. And I think this is really one of the secrets to success is being able to pre-live the little pieces that'll ultimately add up to the big one. And it makes the experience more fun anyway. So that's my pitch. Micro visualizations.

3:23On with the show. Love it, brother. What a way to kick it off. And as Fire Nation knows from the intro, we're talking about helping Ukraine's most vulnerable in wartime. And I know my audience does know that I personally have been in war. I spent 13 months as a tank commander in Iraq. And, you know, Mark and I had a little chat, you know, about some potential PTSD things that occurred during those scenarios for sure. So something that, you know, does need to be talked about. And the reality is, you know this. I mean, you're a veteran in a lot of different areas in life. You're not a spring chicken.

3:55You're not 20 years old. You're not 25 years old, not knowing anything really about the world. You've been there. You've done that. So can you share with us why you stayed in Ukraine in the weeks before the war started? I mean, you have plenty of opportunities to get out. You stayed. Talk to us about those reasons. This has become very personal and very emotional in a lot of ways because I knew November before the war started that this was going to happen. And I've been in Ukraine for probably 80 % of the last decade of just living there. I love it. I love the people. I get to have an entrepreneurial lifestyle kind of a thing.

4:32I get to be where I want to be in the world. And we'd seen Russia do these exercises. But I knew from other people who said this is different, that it was going to be coming. And I had a choice to make. I've got like a dozen employees there. This is the place I love. And I had this horrific thought that can I really see myself doing what everybody says, get out, get out, get out, sitting on some big fluffy couch with a big screen TV and watching knowing my people are living through that. And I just couldn't. I couldn't do it. The second reason that – and I made this announcement. I did a video like 10 days before the war happened.

5:10And I said, you have to understand why I'm staying because it was getting me more intense. Everybody was saying, get out, get out. Second thing is I thought about I wanted to go in the future and say, okay, a year from now, how would I look back at this? Would I be proud for what I did or would I say, God, you know, I got out. I wish I would have said I wish I would have. I wish I would have. And I just said, you know what, I'll suck up whatever today is and get over my fears because my bigger fear is being a year from now and going, I just should have. And I wanted to be able to say a year from now I'm proud of what I did.

5:42And so that motivated me. The third thing, though, that I have a belief in God, and I just believe there's a sense of destiny about it. And I think there's this piece that says, look, if I'm there, there's a reason. Maybe I've been prepped for this. And so if I pull myself out, there's some good that was supposed to have been done that didn't happen because I removed myself from the equation. So I just came up with an eyes open thing and just said, you know, there's a reason for this. What is it? I want to be aware, and I want to be present and look for it. Why am I here? Why am I here in such a time as this?

6:16So that made it a very easy decision. I was staying. And stay he did, Fire Nation. And one thing about staying, you know, kind of ties into leadership. And one thing that you believe about leadership is that leadership is influence. So tell us, in a crisis, who are we actually trying to influence? It's a great question, too. And I get that from John C. Maxwell. I always want to give credit where credit is due. That's his big quote, leadership is influence. And I'm going to start with this, and I don't normally hear it described like this, but you have to influence yourself. And I've heard this from many people.

6:51One of the great pastors I used to listen to at Granite Bay in the Sacramento area said this, the most important job of any leader is to encourage yourself. Because when you're in a good place, you radiate that energy to others. and so i think the first thing you have to do is guard your mind guard your attitude and put a red flag a check if you start getting yourself out of whack and it's very easy because we're going to go more into the dark side of the story when we're talking war when we're talking about some real ugliness we're talking about daily bombardment of things that continue to get more horrific day after day after day how where do you put your focus to to stay above it so first thing you have influence yourself.

7:33Second is then you work with your concentrical rings, which who's closest to you, who relies on you, and then who looks to you for an example. And there are three different things you have to convey to each of those groups. You obviously have intimate people who are right next to you, who you can be yourself. You can let down a little bit, but at the same time, you want to be an example to them. So there's a symbiotic relationship between, God, it sucks right now. I need you, bro. And then let's do this together. So you get that. And that level of influence goes both ways. It says, I'm going to be real with you.

8:10And I need you to be real with me. Let's do this together. But at the same time, I want to be the one to give you an example that you can lean on me as well. So there's a little bit of, I want to be the stronger between us, although you're my intimateness. The next group People that work with you. And they are – can't you do it like this? I know you relate to this example. You know you have kids, and the kid falls off the slide, skins his knee, and immediately the kid looks to the parents. And if he looks to the dad, the dad looks over and goes, what's up? Get up. Go down the slide again, right?

8:43Mom gets up. She goes, oh, my gosh. No, John. Oh, my gosh. And then so the kid responds based on what he gets from the parent, right? It's like – so if he looks at dad, he goes, okay, I'll get up and go down the slide again. If he looks at mom and then he starts crying, it's horrible. My leg's going to fall off. And so I think that you have to understand we are that influence to the people that work for us, that are closest to us, that rely on us for our perspective on the world. We are the parent. We are the one that go, how horrible is this based on how you are responding? And then the third one is I just say the generic social media world.

9:20It's everybody else who doesn't know you, but they want to see how you respond. And for them, it's more important that not only you show – because now you have to paint a story for them. And I wish this wasn't true, but you have to handpick what you're trying to deliver to make your message come across or they're going to come up with their own story. So you've got to show the photos of you in action. You've got to show your photos being at the front line. And you have to come up with your quotes, your statements about what's going on. So you create your own sound bites. And whereas that's sort of a PR piece, and I did actually have incredible success with a PR agent getting on all the major news media outlets, which is another part of the story.

9:59But you have to tell your story before somebody else tells it for you. And so I think those are the, I guess, four levels of influence you have to think about when you're in a crisis. Be calm in the storm. Be the voice of reason. Lead with a vision to the future. these are the three principles that you believe are leading in a crisis so can you kind of expound upon those three i appreciate that and actually um i know you got that from my book that's actually the subtitle of my book you know it's funny in 2022 right the um the covid thing hit and yeah i'm sure you agree with me any entrepreneurial leadership had to look at the way the world was panicking you know like like a bunch of crazy paranoid school kids and going like people get your head on.

10:46Okay. So it's a crisis. Let's figure it out. Right. So I wrote this book called how to lead in crisis. You can get it on Amazon. And the subtitle is that how to be the calm in the storm, the voice of reason and lead with a vision to the future. Now, the irony is two years later, you know, I'm sitting here like, okay, this is a little higher level crisis that I was anticipating when I was writing about the pandemic. But it helped me to write that book because I had to get my own thoughts out. Okay, what does it really mean to do this? And I'll get a little bit into crisis management. No, let me do it right now.

11:21Let me talk about being the calm of the storm in crisis management. Because the first thing that hits you is this, I guess, you know, you're kind of like a freak out. It's like, oh my God, what just happened? And it's the shock. You didn't see it coming. I mean, it could have been like back in the day when Tylenol had people lacing the bottles with something. You're like the freak out, the terror, the horror. Everybody's panicked. And in those moments, how do you keep your focus? How do you keep your head on straight so that you can be the calm in the storm? And it's a matter of your own focus and perspective.

11:53So when the stuff went down, when I woke up at 530 in the morning with the bombs going off in Michalai, where I lived for the past decade, and they blew up the airport so no supplies can come in and find out they did it to, I think, all eight of the international airports in Ukraine. You realize it's game on and people are going to look to me for leading, but you have to stay focused. And so this is even more important where you control what goes into your brain. I, to this day, and I've been on every major outlet, CNN, BBC, all the five different Fox shows, national plus I'm doing some local ones now because I wanted to get the word out about the orphans.

12:33And that's a subject we'll get into a second. But to be the calm in the storm, you have to have laser focus. And you don't have – you talked about it when you were in combat. You don't have the luxury of even allowing your own nervous system privilege for freakout. You'll deal with it later. You'll come back to it. In this moment, I have to be focused. And so you have to limit the noise going into your head. So I have not watched network television. I don't watch network television. What I do is I have some people I trust who send me the summations of the hot stories happening every day so I can read them in snippets, and I'm good.

13:10I know what's going on, but I can't let it emotionally affect me because I have to be good right now for what I'm doing. And there have been some pretty horrific situations I've had to work through. You have to keep your head together, and you have to guard yourself from freak out. So make it a personal red flag. If you start catching yourself with that nervous, oh, my God, energy, and you're starting to freak out, red flag, stop. back away from it. Be the, as Dr. Robert Glover would say, be the nonjudgmental observer of yourself. Rise above and go, oh, that's interesting. Look at me. I'm kind of freaking out.

13:39Hmm, that's interesting. I wonder what's really going on. What are my fears? And as much as you can be self-soothing, you have to, first of all, have the perspective. Okay, then answer this question. What can I control? Can't control everything. I can't control missiles. I can't control what politicians are doing. I can't control this. What have I uniquely been given to control? And then you can have that, you know, that laser focus. I think first of all is then to take to your influence circles that level of calm and influence to say, okay, guys, yeah, it's a freak out, but we're here. So let's be practical.

14:21Let's put on paper. What are we actually dealing with? Somebody write it down and start asking the questions. Because again, as you know, in leadership, the one who's asking the questions is leading the conversations. What do you know? What are we actually dealing with? Get it in paper. And then everybody gets a sense of like, okay, all right, this is what it is. It's real. And as Jaco Willink would say, good, you know, and embrace it and say, okay, we're here for this. Thank God he thought we would be strong enough to deal this we're here for it calm in the storm guys there will be a season of life when there's no war there'll be a season of life when there's peace this is our season let's be in the season let's own it and let's be proud of who we are after the fact so that's the calm in the storm the voice of reason is that voice that says okay guys guys guys yes yes yes it sucks it freaks we get it there will be a day when we'll be riding horses across the sandy beaches drinking margaritas in the evening and smoking cigars together that so just understand And everything will pass.

15:22And even good times come to pass. Okay, so it's like don't get too excited when things are good either. Everything has a season. And so the voice of reason says, keep perspective. This too shall pass. And we're here for a reason. Let's focus on it. And then cast some hope. Give a picture where this could go. When you say lead with a vision of the future, you can't just tell somebody don't worry. You know, that's like the old don't think of pink elephants, right? You have to give them something else to focus on and say, we will get through this. We'll be on the other side. And here's what it could look like if we do this right.

15:56What else do you guys see? What else could be great about this if we do it right, right now? And get a little pride. You go, you realize most everybody else out there is freaking out. We're the only ones with our stuff together. We are going to come out looking like freaking geniuses if we execute right now in this moment. So let's get into it. Let's do this and be proud of who we are and what we create in crisis. It's your moment, people. Nobody celebrates the couch potato. There's no monuments made for the guy who just sat and watched TV. In crisis, it's your moment. And so love it. Embrace it.

16:35And I think that's what really helps people. Wow. I mean, Fire Nation, when you hear somebody's passion and their voice like this, you know there's a reason why Mark Davis is on this call today talking about how he's helping Ukraine is the most vulnerable in wartime. And something that I'm really excited about, we're going to talk about next, our stories. But you're going to have to wait until we get back from thanking our sponsors. Starting your own business can feel intimidating. Where do you start? How do you grow? When will you start generating revenue? All valid questions. If you love the idea of creating wealth and freedom, but you're not sure if starting from scratch is the way to go, then I'm excited to tell you about Franocity.

17:12Franocity has helped hundreds of people leave unfulfilling jobs, invest in recession-resilient businesses, and create legacy income for their families through franchising. Their clients come from all walks of life, executive veterans, first-time buyers, and multi-unit investors, and their mission is simple, to remove the guesswork, reduce the risk, and help everyday people become business owners through franchising. Don't know anything about franchising? That's the beauty of it. Franocity provides personalized one-on-one coaching at no cost to you, and they have access to over 600 franchise brands.

17:41And Franocity doesn't just help you pick a franchise. They help you understand the business model, investment risk, scalability, and operational reality. Ready to explore business ownership through franchising? Visit Franocity.com. That's F-R-A-N-O-C-I-T-Y.com to book a free consultation and start your journey with expert guidance. Mark, we're back. And as I mentioned before the break, stories, they just bring words to life. They bring experiences to life. So talk to us about some stories of leadership from the war itself. No, you bet. And keep in mind, it escalates. So it starts off with things you can just see to do today.

18:19Get your hands around. They're not pretty. It's just stuff. But you asked the question, what can I do right now? So obviously the day, you know, I'm going to let you live my life for those first 42 days of the war that I was in theater. I've been here back in Vegas for four days. I go back next week because we're setting up a warehouse distribution center. But let's start from day one. I had really given it a 60 % likelihood it really wasn't going to happen. They'd come to peace, something else. So, I mean, although I kind of knew it was coming, on the other hand, I really hoped it wouldn't. So when the bombs got off, you know, the first thing I got to do is I got to tell everybody, right?

18:54So I go into the office. I do this now famous video to all of my people, you know, where I said, okay, it's on. They made the decision. It's happening. And here's what we have to do next. Now, keep in mind, as a lifestyle entrepreneur, my company was a travel business where I had 110 clients a year come, paid five grand each to come do a week-long thing. We had a great time, but I got to live in Ukraine. Not a huge business, but it was lifestyle. Dead instantly. No one's coming to Ukraine. There aren't even airports. So part of you is going like, okay, now what? Right? Well, now what? But I had been for the last 10 years prior as a way to give back to the community, always helping the orphanages.

19:36And this was such a joy. I made no money on it. We just did it as a charitable thing. I had a 501c3 nonprofit corporation. I created in 05 to do something I called the Self-Reliance Initiative. That didn't get funded, but we just saw the orphans are here. Let's use the nonprofit for this. And so, you know, you go in there and you pick up these little kids and they're in this safe environment of love and they're so warm and accepting to you. You fall in love with them. And we just kept asking, what else can we do for you guys? We ended up building ICU units, birthing centers, physical therapy, training centers for the Down syndrome kids.

20:10We brought them food. And then we adopted a second orphanage, you know, one of the neighboring city in Kyrgyzstan. And they needed, you know, everything, electrical, heating, roof, in addition to food and all the rest. And it just became this beautiful thing five, six times a year. We'd take some guys there, play with the kids. We'd have another project. What else can we do for you guys? We're collecting donations. And it was just – it fills you. You have a part of business, but as a part of you, you just feel the satisfaction that you're touching the world in a really cool way. Well, my business is now dead, day one when the war happens.

20:42And so all I can think of was I'm here. What can I do? So I'll go visit the kids. I mean what else can I do? Maybe they can use some help and I'll find out what they need and I'll put the word out to the community. And I was terrified to see what happened when I walked in. I came in and I'm thinking normally we deal with these guys and they've got several weeks worth of provisions or I was ahead of the game. They had, because the tensions had been building up, their supplier for their basic food ingredients came from Kyrson. And because the tensions and the restrictions, they hadn't had a delivery in 15 days.

21:19They had five days worth of food left. And now the war is on. And you have to understand when I say the war is on, the first reaction everybody does is they freak the crap out. And they run to the ATM machines to suck all the cash out of the bank they can. So you've got lines of 100 people waiting for every ATM machine until it's dry. You've got people lining up at the gas stations figuring there's going to be no gas tomorrow. So there are gas lines, people waiting eight hours to get gas to fill up their car because they don't know when it's coming again. Grocery stores, people are packing out because they don't know if the grocery stores are going to be empty.

21:53And a little humor trivia right here in the middle of this. I have to throw this in. So you remember when COVID started, what everybody stockpiled? You know, toilet paper, right? Do you know what the first thing they ran out of in the grocery store in Ukraine? Toothbrushes. So I jokingly say, look at the difference between hygiene between the two cultures. that's interesting. It's just like, did they not have toothbrushes before? I mean, they're just a very hygienic, clean people. So I just think it was funny. They ran for toothbrushes. But, um, so as I went into the orphanage and realized they were out and now we've got another problem.

22:29Um, the stores are going to be running out and there's lines everywhere. Yeah. And so it's just me with my SUV and a couple of people that work for me and we just go, let's, we have to help. I mean, these kids are like down to five days worth of food. And this war hat hasn't even started yet. Who knows what it's going to be in a couple of weeks. And so God bless it. In wartime, you end up having the best of people come out and the worst of people. And the fortunate news is so many blessings happen where I had a store owner says, look, look, look, get your stuff when you have it come to the front of the line.

23:00Somebody else, you know, when the gas stations were dry a week later, I mean, they were closed. We had one of the guys who owned a chain who says, you know, I have some reserves of this one. And so we went to the children's hospital. We lined up 11 ambulances plus the vehicle at the orphanages, and we got them gas when nobody else could get it. And we just had these little really cool little things happening. We're going, okay, now it's exciting. What else can we do? What else can we do? And on this third day, I got a call from a guy like I told him. He says, hey, what can I do for you, Mark? And I said, we're trying to do a lot.

23:32And I said, this is way more than we normally do. and I really would like to take my nonprofit down, raise some money. He goes, say no more. I have a great PR agent. Let me see what I can do. And God bless it. This woman in 12 hours got me on BBC, CNN, Fox, and we raised in with her efforts, and thanks to him, his name is Adam Lyons, you know that we raised a half a million dollars in two weeks. and now we're still doing the daily thing where if you were to see my life on a daily basis during the first five days of the war is i'm carrying you know crates of eggs we're carrying you know we're going store to store to find diapers or whatever and and the other cool stories we go to the hospital where we're trying to help them get you know get find the medicines these unique special needs kids have and the military guys are right there and they're like why are we going in front of the line.