About Damon D’Amore:

Damon D’Amore specializes working with two distinct types of leaders: C-Suite executives and founding teams. His work with corporate C-Suite executives focuses on legacy and helping leaders accomplish current tactical goals that ultimately facilitate their personal or organizational legacy at retirement. Mr. D’Amore works with founding teams of companies positioned for hyper-growth focusing on implementing personal performance systems and positioning these companies to scale into industry or category-leading organizations. He works directly with these leaders or via their institutional and venture investors.

He has more than fifteen years’ experience working one-on-one with hundreds of top CEOs, founders and executives at Fortune 100 to 1000 firms such as Walmart, PepsiCo, DirecTV, NASCAR, Subway and Yahoo!.

Mr. D’Amore is a serial entrepreneur, founder, board member, investor and adviser to multiple international companies.

He founded multiple startups after long careers deep in the media and entertainment sectors producing programs such as Undercover Boss and The Apprentice.

Mr. D’Amore began his career in global finance building international businesses for the market leading firm Cantor Fitzgerald. He serves as mentor and lecturer to Top 25 MBA programs such as USC, NYU and Columbia, and acted as spokesperson and host for an American Express and Discovery Channel show promoting entrepreneurship.

Mr. D’Amore speaks internationally on the topics of legacy, personal development, and applying lessons of entrepreneurship and innovation to corporate environments.

Show Notes:

Damon’s outgoing love language is acts of service - if you give more than expected, over time you’ll build abundance - the Go giver book
How to maintain a giving ‘energy’ - learn how to say no, or saying yes to the right things
Damon’s license plate says Stay Zero, a Zero Fox Trot, zero fucks given mantra - we’re not guaranteed a tomorrow live in the present. His license plate holder says ‘no one is coming’ – meaning we’ve got to be our own first responders
One of the biggest philosophies Damon lives by is Essentialism - if you don’t prioritize your life someone else will - if you surrender that control you’re not living a free life - it’s gets you down to your core purpose
Damon shares his purpose - empowering people to achieve their goals and make a meaningful and measurable impact on society - especially people from underserved backgrounds and false expectations
How did Damon get to where he’s at? He started in Wall Street at Cantor Fitzgerald, after getting burned out he moved to the film insustry working full time as an unpaid intern to learn EVERYTHING, then moved to la to produce The Apprentice and Undercover Boss, then built his own tech startups, and started mentoring CEOS – they loved his resilient life & mindset - they craved an edge
Damon thought coaching was bullshit, but he has a specific niche... he’s gone through the darkness and can help others navigate through or stay out of it. The leaders always say they feel more confidence after working with Damon
He reinvented himself many times and learned everything from the ground up, putting in the work, connecting with people, researching, reading, speaking, and learning to tell stories
Damon’s wheelhouse is bringing the confidence and emotional foundation to leaders to build resilience - owning mindset, loving resilient life, and sharing your story
Damon is really helping leaders overcome their fears
What does it take for people to overcome fears? Damon says be brutally honest, be non biased about themselves, and truly be resilient – which means waking up every day knowing things will go wrong but go forward knowing you have the tools to survive and thrive (realistic optimism) - horrible shit is gunna happen but you’ll be okay
One of Damon’s favorite quotes goes something like: For every 100 guys on a battle field, 80 are targets, 10 shouldn’t even be there, 9 are decent fighters to make the battle, and 1 is a warrior whose job is to bring everybody home
He actually believes a lot of the ‘woo woo Dave Asprey shit’ works too
Legacy and loss - no matter who you are you cannot define your legacy until you’ve experienced some loss... you don’t know what there is to learn till you’ve lost it - but you run around being the imposter until you actually do the work and bend time and space and become commander of your realm like Keanu in the Matrix
Nick Koumalatsos – 7 stages of transition (PTSD & Military)
Now what keeps him going is his values and purpose, it used to be just running from shit. But now he’s all in on empowerment and doing things for ideas bigger than yourself – it’s not just about money. He’s used the ‘lifeline’ tool to help map out his life and motivations
He learned he was doing things for the wrong reasons - making money, getting married, having kids, it wasn’t about being fulfilled
Therapists can help – we know things are bad for us, but then hear therapists in our head, and stop to think through before making decisions
But still things seem black and white and it’s the wanting to prove people wrong that has driven him - but he’s transmuted this into his higher purpose and is now writing a book called ‘What are you running from?
He had a reiki session recently - but he wants to be able to hold onto his darkened and rage, it’s like loving your monster
He embraces the monster gets real deep then reaches out to loved ones for support, every day is a miracle and opportunity to keep moving forward
Each year he spends a weekend alone in Joshua Tree, wraps his arms around the monster to dive into reasons that lead him down and what he needs to keep growing – he builds a personal development plan, personal and professional mantras – and leaves with a full planner, mind map, goals, mantras and affirmations - it’s all about, like Rocky, living up to his standards to validate himself, even if you don’t win the external battle
For Damon, being alone is hard... but you got to go walk the walk... he has a do-not-disappoint list of people in his life to keep him committed
Damon says you’ve got to keep working on yourself, and fall in love with the journey, not the outcomes of things – just do the work Stephen Pressfield
How to build community and get mentors? Damon qutoes James Carville – “After love, the most valuable thing you can give a human being is your labor.” So if you want to connect with someone, give them your time and effort and then ask them for help. Damon did this with Marcia Stigum – he read the book, did the equations, then asked for help
Way to create legacy - do the work, be vulnerable and honest with yourself - this is step #1 to creating an authentic brand – not posting picture perfect pictures of yourself online
Also nothing really matters.... but we’ve still got to live up to our own potential and make other lives better
If you love simple and train hard and love an honest life, then you are free - the freedom exists you’re just not looking at it through the right perspective/prism
In an ideal world, Damon wants people to walk away a better X after working with him (whatever that is) – he’s just helping change people’s mindset to get things done and have better self actualized existences