Business Coach Scales Global Network and Secures International Nonprofit Connections

That's amazing to be able to be a part of a community that is yes first, and at the same time has access to a large variety and a large network of resources, if you will. My name is Damian Reid. I'm located in Toronto, Canada, and I am a business coach and consultant. I had, uh, a business partner that I, uh, started to work with and had never met in person. We had collaborated online for two years, and I was going to be in Las Vegas for a convention, and she lived in Las Vegas. So she said, "Are you coming to Las Vegas? I've got this Speakeasy mastermind that I belong to. We're having our event that month. You know, would you like to go to the, the mastermind? We're having kind of an open house." I'm playing at a whole different level in my business. There's, uh... I'm trying to think about who it is that said that you are the product of the seven people that you spend the most amount of time with. It has me now playing with entrepreneurs that are at my level, and even better, above my level. So it forces me to step up my game and notice the gap, um, of where I w- where I am and where I wanna be. And so my business future looks a lot brighter. I took on a business partner in, in one particular business for that I wanted to expand. Um, I never saw that coming. Uh, the revenue forecast for 2027, you know, next year is, is looking a lot bigger than I had ever anticipated. Uh, I'm tapping into the, the resources that are available to me through the Speakeasy members, both in my city, but then also around the world. Uh, and I'm not the same person that I was before I started. My exposure to the community at large was going down to the annual event in San Diego earlier this year. We did, uh, this exercise that was a little bit like speed networking. So, you know, we were in groups of 10 to 12, and we broke out, and you had about a minute to share your business and what you were looking for. And one of the businesses that I'm involved with works in the vulnerable youth sector or the underserved youth sector, and I was looking for an introduction at the time to a large international organization. And I said, "Hey, you know, I'm looking for the connection to this nonprofit. Does anybody have a connection?" So out of, like, 12 people, four people raised their hand. And so I started... To answer the question how my life has changed, my perspective on access shifted in that moment. And Eric had shared during the, the event the core values for Speakeasy, and one of the core values was that members say yes first. Members are yes first, and it's completely true. So yeah, life is not the same. Life is popping in all sorts of ways, not just in my business because of that network. If they're on the fence because they're not sure whether or not they're gonna get value, that's a no-brainer. They should meet members. They should talk to members. They should take a look at the global community and understand what the community's about and what's available to them. This is a group of people that I wanna grow with, that I wanna contribute to, that I wanna be able to receive from, and I'm willing to put myself into a place and be vulnerable so that I can receive the benefits of the mastermind. And if the answer to those questions when they looked at themselves would be yes, then I would say get off the fence and jump in, and the rest is magic. So yeah.