172 – Tips From Breck

Hey there! It’s Dr. Dave and welcome back to The David Madow Lifestyle Show. It’s the show where I help you live stronger, longer, thinner, healthier, and happier!

If I sound like I’m a little out of breath, I’m really not. This is our first episode this season from Breckenridge, Colorado. Beautiful Breckenridge! Where there are mountains and snow and skiers and snowboarders and people and outdoors activities and fun. For the town itself, the elevation is 9600 feet. So even in the town just sleeping, you’re at almost 2 miles of elevation. And then once you get up on the mountain to ski, all bets are off. They have a chair lift here that brings you to just a tad under 13,000 feet in elevation. So do the math on that. The oxygen is very thin. The air is very thin here.

So I am walking outside. You might be able to hear the snow crunching under my feet. I love it here. I am here with my wife, Yoko. We come every season. We come in the winter and we come in the summer. We would like to live here and we will eventually.

What we love about it is that we don’t have to drive anywhere. Once we’re here, we pretty much walk wherever we want to go. What happens is you start to feel better. It’s almost like a forced exercise. A forced healthy lifestyle. We ski during the day. I do work and my writing. I have my laptop here and get on conference calls. I do all these things. But a lot of times during the day we are out skiing on the mountain or walking through town.

So anyway, we’re here for a while and I’ll probably be doing the next few episodes from beautiful Breckenridge, Colorado. If you’re in the area, send me an email or a message and come through and visit. I would love to have you and hang out with you. I would love to get a cup of coffee or tea with you so let me know if you’re around.

The first thing I want to share with you is actually pretty interesting. The first day I went out on the mountain. It had not snowed for a while so there was not a whole bunch of powder. So you are kinda skiing on “groomed” packed snow if that makes any sense to you. As I was skiing down the mountain, I remembered that in that kind of snow my skis didn’t really perform that well. I was kind of slipping and sliding all over the place, whereas other people seemed to be doing fine. I just felt like I was sliding too much. My skis do really well through powder and at the top of the mountain and things like that. But for a normal type of skiing, I just felt that they could do better.

So I went to a local ski shop here and I demoed a pair of skis. I wanted skis that would allow me to pretty much ski all over the mountain. So I started doing a lot of reading. It said that I should try much shorter skis. Much shorter than most of the people in the stores would recommend.

So I went into a ski shop and the first lady said, “oh no you shouldn’t do that. That’s not going to be good.” And I pretty much thought to myself that my gut was telling me that I wanted some shorter skis.

So I went into another place and I worked with a guy for about 45 minutes and he showed me skis. He was a really nice guy named Matt. And he totally got it! He totally understood that you can do pretty well on short skis. Let’s give it a shot!

So I took these out on the mountain the next day. And let me tell you something. It was like night and day between what I had been skiing on and these new skis that I was demoing. It was like night and day. I felt like I could ski on anything. In the past I was slipping and sliding, but now I felt so comfortable. It was like starting a new skiing career over. I am thinking to myself these things are awesome. I demoed them for another day and I ended up buying them.

Yes, I know I am a minimalist. I don’t get a lot of stuff. This is just one thing. I ski so much and just wanted to have the right equipment. And I wanted to have something that was right for me.

So I started thinking. What else is in our lives that we kind of are putting up with but might not be the best for us? We know in our heart that it’s not right, but we’re too reluctant to change. It could be anything. Think along with me. What could it be? Maybe you’ve been sleeping on a mattress and the mattress is old and is causing lower back pain. And it’s not helping your back. It’s not helping your sleep and you’re getting a horrible night’s sleep. Maybe if you did a little research and bought a new mattress, you will say “I cannot believe I have been sleeping on that other mattress for 5 years!” Because that’s basically what I had been saying about these skis. Because the newer ones are so much better.

Think about anything you might have that for some reason you feel is not working out for you very well and if you only changed it there would be a big difference in the way that product or item works. Maybe it could change your life depending on what it is. Just think about it.

For 3 years I thought that slipping and sliding was the way it was supposed to be but I knew it was not. Because as I saw everybody else around me they didn’t seem to be slipping and sliding like I was.

So I bought these skis. But I want to share something with you about when I bought these skis. I recently went to a seminar. There was a guy on the stage and he was explaining to the audience how to really connect with people. And how to pretty much get something that you want. Not by taking advantage of anyone of doing any harm but how to have an advantage if you’re in a business negotiation or something like that. What he explained was something called C.I.A. “C” stands for compliment, the “I” stands for introduce, and the “A” stands for ask. So this guy said that whenever you are in a situation such as a business situation or you’re meeting someone new or people you don’t know and you don’t know how to really start a conversation, the first thing you do is to go up to a person or a group of people and throw a compliment out there.

So for example, you are at the ski lodge and you’re by yourself. You don’t know anyone around but maybe you want to meet some people. You see a group of people sitting there having lunch. So you look at them and the first thing you say to them is “Hey, you guys look like a fun group here.” Now that sounds a little forced. But imagine going up to a group of people and saying “Hey it looks like you guys are having fun.” Nobody would ever question that. People love to hear that said about themselves or a group.

The next thing you do is to introduce yourself. And then quickly ask a question. “Hey do you guys know where’s the best place on the mountain to ski some powder?” And all of a sudden you are accepted into this group and 30 seconds ago you didn’t even know them. Remember C.I.A.

So say you are a single guy looking for a single woman and you walk into a bar. You could do the same thing. It’s a good way to meet people and it doesn’t look like it’s forced or look phony. Nobody minds being complimented.

The reason I am bringing this up is that I wanted to share an example with you. I used this technique when I bought my pair of skis. You see I just saw this guy on stage a little while ago and I’m also reading one of his books. And I said I’m gonna try this out. What I wanted to do was to see if I could get the best possible deal on the skis. Again nothing unethical or illegal but I wanted to get the best possible deal.

So when I went into the store after I demoed the skis there was another guy, not the guy I dealt with already. So I thought I am going to try it out on this guy. He asked if he could help me and I said “No, I’m waiting for Matt. Matt’s been helping me.” So after a little while and a little small talk, I figured I was going to try it. So I said “It looks like you love working here. This looks like so much fun! Am I right?” And he looked at me and said, “Yeah I’m having too much fun! This is great, right?!”  And then I took my hand out and shook his hand and said, “Hi, my name is Dave.”

I was going to take it to the next level and ask him for help with my skis to really swing a deal but this guy didn’t look like the right kind of guy to be honest. To be honest with you the guy looked stoned. He looked a little out of it and I didn’t want to start up a financial conversation about my skis. It’s legal to buy weed and smoke weed in Colorado so this guy wasn’t doing anything illegal. But it’s probably not the coolest thing to be stoned at work. I don’t think the boss would have liked that too much. I just didn’t think this was the guy. But I was all ready to try that – C.I.A. Compliment, introduce, and ask a question. My question would have been “I’m interested in the skis. I am a regular here and refer lots of customers. What’s the best price you can get me?” But I didn’t ask the stoned guy.

Here’s what I did. When my guy Matt was ready (he was working with another customer), we started talking. He already knew me so I didn’t have to introduce. I think I did throw him a compliment. I thanked him very much and told him that he had been so helpful and that I appreciated him taking the time to work with me. And then I went right into my little spiel. I said, “Hey, let’s price this out. I want to let you know that I am a local who is here all winter and I have referred a lot of people and bought a lot of stuff here. So what’s the best price you can do?” He looked at me and thought for a second and said “Hmmm, don’t tell anybody this because I really shouldn’t be doing this but I am going to give you 20% off.” I look at him and said “20% off of everything? The skis, the bindings, everything?” And he said “Yeah, I’ll give you 20% off everything.” So I look at him and said “I think that’s really fair. Thank you very much!”

So there are a few lessons here. C.I.A. You can meet somebody new, you can negotiate. In business transactions I am very fair, but I also think it’s fair to ask for the best price. Don’t necessarily pay retail. I’ve found that at almost every place that you buy something you can make a deal with them. People think that you can only deal with car dealers and no one else negotiates. You can negotiate almost everywhere. You don’t have to be obnoxious. You don’t have to be a jerk about it. You can just say something kind of like I said in the ski shop. Nothing I said was untrue. I don’t want you to think you should lie or deceive somebody when trying to strike a deal. But there’s nothing wrong with letting somebody know how many people you’ve referred. And that you kind of expect a little deal in return. There’s nothing wrong with that. You’d be surprised how many people come back and say “we just had a sale two weeks ago, let me give you that price.”

Here’s another example. Yoko and I went into a running store called Vertical Runner which, by the way, is North America’s highest running store at an elevation of 9600 feet. Yoko was going to buy 2 pairs of running shoes. So we went in there and Yoko was trying on some trail shoes. And the trail shoes were on sale at a great price. And when something is on sale for a great price, you don’t have to necessarily have to try to get it lower and lower. But the running shoes were fairly expensive. and I even said “Wow that’s a lot of money.” And so immediately the woman who worked there, her name was Molly, she said “let me tell you something, we just had women’s night and I think we gave everyone 20% off so I am going to give you 20% off.” That was just by asking. There’s nothing wrong with it. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be ashamed. The best business people negotiate and get the absolute best prices.

So I think that’s kind of it. I am excited to be here. I am excited to take some of the pounds off that I gained on the East coast because my leg is hurting a little bit. No it’s not the same leg, it’s a different leg. I was playing catch with my son in law about a month ago and took a fall. My leg has been hurting since so I am trying to nurse that a little bit. So when I was back in Maryland, I wasn’t able to do my running and walking as much as I should have and I put on a few pounds. I am not proud of that at all.

But here I am eating healthier. I always eat vegan. I never make exceptions. But there was some processed junk I started throwing in the mix back in Maryland. I shouldn’t have but I did. But here, I’m healthier, I’m moving my body a lot more, skiing on the mountain, walking pretty much every day. On the second full day here, I already noticed. I got on the scale and I’ve already noticed the pounds coming off. Because it is a healthy lifestyle here! You can live a healthy lifestyle wherever you are. Sometimes when you get an injury, it’s tough. My spirits are high. My attitude is great! And I’m going to do the best I can. You know why? Because I’m Dr. Dave and I’ll see you next week!

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