TRP 241: The Real A.I. with Dave Sanderson

[00:00:10] You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, hosted by high stakes headhunter, author, and professional speaker, Scott Love. You're listening to The Rainmaking Podcast, and my name is Scott Love. Thanks for joining me on the show. Our special guest today is Dave Sanderson, and our topic is The Real A.I.

[00:00:35] Now, Dave was one of the last passengers off the plane that crashed on the Hudson River, known as the Miracle on the Hudson. Now, he wrote a book about that. He speaks professionally using that story, talking about lessons that he's learned and how they apply to building resilient teams, stronger cultures, building better leadership within your organization. I think you're going to get some really insightful ideas from my conversation with Dave here today.

[00:01:02] Make sure you connect with him on LinkedIn. We put his link to LinkedIn and also the link for his website on the show notes. And as always, this show is sponsored by Leopard Solutions, legal intelligence suite of products, Firmscape, and Leopard BI. Push ahead of the pack with the power of Leopard. Now, thanks for listening, everybody, and I hope you get some great ideas from my interview with my friend Dave Sanderson. Thanks so much for being a part of this show. Hey, this is Scott Love with The Rainmaking Podcast.

[00:01:31] Our special guest today is Dave Sanderson, and our topic is the real AI. Dave, thank you for joining me on the show. Scott, thank you for having me today. You bet. And I'd like to get right into it, but I think you've got a story that brings a certain amount of context to your areas of expertise. And tell us about that story. I know you're the author of the book, Moments Matter, which I'd highly recommend how one defining moment can create a lifetime of purpose.

[00:02:01] And I know you were a sales manager when this happened to you. So tell us about that situation, Dave. Yeah, thank you very much, Scott. Yeah, it's I was in sales and sales management at that point. I was on the end of a three day business trip at a client's office in Brooklyn, New York. And we got done early that day because we were working at a distribution center. So I tried to get home early to Charlotte where I live, Charlotte, North Carolina. And so I called a travel agent and worked with her. She put me on USAways flight 1549 or better known now as the Miracle of the Hudson.

[00:02:31] So I wasn't supposed to be on that flight. Nothing extraordinary about today. It was 11 degrees and snowing, but that's New York in the middle of winter. No big deal. And nothing really exciting when you got on the plane. But about a minute after we got up, you know, it started going out of LaGuardia about a minute up. So we heard an explosion. That's what got my attention because I'm gonna be very candid. I was not paying attention. Right. Like most people who fly a lot. I thought I knew everything until all of a sudden something happens and you figure out, you know, nothing. What's going on.

[00:03:00] But, you know, we heard the explosion. So at that point in time, you know, I tell people, I think that was, you know, that's where God's grace entered, Scott, because we only heard one explosion, but we had a double birth strike as we know now. Right. Both of us got knocked out at the same exact second. And my thought process was, we would have bang, bang, and you're over in New York City. You probably got a different perspective. Right. But we heard one bank. So I think everybody is like, okay, we're going back to the airport.

[00:03:25] But as we know now, as he started banking, he said his famous words, this is your captain brace for impact. Quickly found out that we're not going back to the airport. And as we saw later in the movie, which I was so, a very small part, very, very grateful to be a part of that experience. You know, that was a, probably a defining decision that was made, not to go back to the airport, even though they tried to pin it on him. Right. Right. Did he sure have gone? He had four options and he chose the end of this. I mean, I tell people, one of the things about decision making is key.

[00:03:55] I mean, you got to be able to make a decision quickly when all this stuff's breaking loose in your life. He made it, he had four options and he picked the right option of all we found out later. At first, it didn't not look like the right option, but it turned out that going into the Hudson River was the best option to be able to survive. Right. And so fortunately, as we know, he got it down perfectly. And not many other captains have even put it in the same way, even got come close to getting that thing down perfectly. But he hit it perfectly.

[00:04:24] But now you got another problem. Now you're sinking in 36 degree water in a river. And it's one of the roughest rivers in the country, very fast currents. So all of a sudden now, now other things are breaking loose. You got to get out of a sinking plane. And, you know, my game plan, Scott, because I play sports, I'm in business, right? I got to have, yeah, we got a game plan before you go into a meeting was aisle up out. I kept saying my head, aisle up out. If I survive, I got to have a game plan. It was aisle up out. So it was my time to get to the aisle.

[00:04:54] I was going to go up and out. That was my game plan until I got up and got to the aisle. And all of a sudden something happened. I heard my mother start talking to me and my mother passed away in 1997. But what she told me in my head, which I heard when I was a kid was if you do the right thing, God will take care of you. And so instead of going out, I went back to the back of the plane, climbed over the seats, got to the back where it was my chest deep of water. People are moving pretty quick. Nothing, I mean, nothing out of the order, but people are moving quick. I got behind the last person. And so it was dark.

[00:05:24] Water's up to your chest. You got luggage just floating in the water. You're trying to get out. You see a light on the right side of the plane, which was me at 10F. I'm out. And then you get to the door and look out and there's no room on the wing of that boat. It was already filled. So that's why I was the last passenger out of the plane. I was in a waist deep of 36 degree water for over seven minutes until I felt the plane shift. And when I felt the plane shift, the first thing that I thought Scott was Titanic. I mean, all I can envision is that boat tipping up and sucking everything down in it.

[00:05:53] And it's like, don't be sucked down in a plane because you have to have a shock. That's when I thank my mom and dad for making sure they gave me swimming lessons because I had to swim for my life. Right. I tell people, I was the longest 15-yard swim of my life. Because not only was I fully clothed and the water was 36 degrees, but there was jet fuel on the water. That's why you see me wearing glasses today. Because I got jet fuel in my eyes. And I was having a hard time seeing it later on. They found black spots all through my eyes. They think that jet fuel got in my eyes.

[00:06:24] But I got there. I got to the ferry. And now they're young climb. And I ended up can't. And I heard my mom again because the word my mom ate most of my life was the word can't. We would never say that in our house. So I got one arm up and the other arm up. And to this day, I do not know who these two gentlemen are, but they pulled me on the ferry. And that's how I got out of the water. And that's when everything started changing in my life. Well, Dave, I really appreciate you sharing that. And like I said, I love the descriptive story that you tell.

[00:06:53] Even some of the detail, like I didn't know Sully had experience in gliding. Yeah. Which I think helped. And, you know, just even how the tugboats, they came to the rescue. The ferries, I guess it was. Came to the rescue. Yeah, the water went out. I mean, they were just lining up. If you've ever been in New York City, you know, they start making their runs during rush hour, which is about three o'clock-ish, right? In New York. And this happened at 3.27 PM. So the ferries were already queued up.

[00:07:22] So all they needed was the order from the top guy to go. And the top guy, his name was Arthur Imperator. Unfortunately, Arthur's no longer with us, but he made the call to go. And, you know, I got the opportunity to be with Arthur many times. And Arthur gave up a lot of revenue that day. Yeah. Revenue for goodwill, right? And there is a value to goodwill, right? There's a value to goodwill. So I give a lot of credit to Arthur Imperator and his crew, likewise. Well, it's amazing.

[00:07:52] That's great that you give that credit, Dave. And just the decisions you made helped people that day. And you're right. One defining moment can create a lifetime of purpose. And I like the fact that you have the expertise. You were director of security for Tony Robbins. You did sales, B2B sales. So tell us, when we talk about AI, what does that mean exactly?

[00:08:18] And then how can we as people in the business of getting business understand and implement some of these ideas? Tell us a little bit about that, Dave. Yeah, thank you. Because, you know, I mean, right now, all we hear about is AI. Every day is we hear about AI. And I was in technology sales, you know, with a company of my new Oracle. And it's all about the latest, greatest, right? About AI. And, Stanley, I, you know, I tried to learn about AI. And I think it's important to understand artificial intelligence.

[00:08:42] But when I was really, the way I made my connections, the way I built my business was not around AI. It was about when I talked about the real AI. And people were like, what's that? And I call that what's called the real, you know, authentic interactions. It still comes back to a belly-to-belly interaction with somebody, whether it's on the phone, Zoom, in person. So I think you got to understand where AI is going. And I think that's important.

[00:09:06] But I think what's more important in sales and connections and building a clientele is being able to have that authentic interaction. Now, how do you do that? There's a strategy that I came up with back in the 90s. I didn't even know what it was back in the 90s. But I did it. And back right after probably 2013, 2014, in that timeframe, I started documenting. Okay, what did I do, right? How did I do this? And I came up with what I call AI, access to influence. Access to influence.

[00:09:36] Okay, great. And so I broke it down. How did I do this, right? So I'm going to share with you in the audience how I became a top producer by using the overarching authentic interactions by a strategy called AI, you know, access to influence. So what I did is, and I did this because I'll pre-frame this. Every sales position I ever took, whether it was with Oracle, PeopleSoft, KPMG, whatever it was, I always got in that new territory where I didn't have any clients.

[00:10:06] I had to start from scratch. In fact, that started in 1989 with ADP. They gave me South Carolina, they had zero. Oh, wow. So I had to start a whole state without having anything, right? So I actually started doing this in 89, but I didn't know what I was doing. I just actually did it. But what I did is, number one, the first step is have access. You got to figure out how to get access, right, to people. And back then, I'll start back in the 80s and 90s, you didn't have the internet, right? You actually had to pick up a phone and call.

[00:10:34] Or what I did is I actually used third-party influence with bankers, CPAs, whoever's connected to the finance and the HR departments. That's how I used to give my access. But first step, you get access. That's great. Let me ask you this, Dave. So when you talk about access to people, are you talking about access to our prospective clients or potential referral partners like you're talking about? Was that something that you segmented in your mind with that? Most definitely. Most definitely.

[00:11:04] Because the first thing I had to do is figure out who has influence within my potential clients. Right. My potential clients was any company in the state of North or South Carolina at that point. So who has connections with those companies? Banks. They own them money. CPAs. They do their books. So I'm like, I've got to start getting relationships with those people. Get their trust, which I did. And they started referring me to get access to their clients. Step one. Right. That's great. So let me ask you this.

[00:11:34] How did you get to that step one? How did you get access? Did you just reach out? How did, what was your process? Well, back then it was phone calls. Yeah. I mean, I'll put it in perspective. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina. I had the state of South Carolina. I was driving a minimum of 180 miles a day. Yeah. Right. And these were the days when you actually got out of a car, walked up into a bank and sat down with a bank manager or somebody like that. Right. You actually did the work. And you look at my calendar from back then, I blocked out four appointments a day. Right.

[00:12:04] Every day of the week, I have four appointments with banks and CPAs. That's great. Yeah. And that was a lot of work. Now you can do the internet. You can do email. Right. You can do a lot of different things. Back then, you had to get on the phone and drive. And isn't it interesting that now face-to-face is the premium contact with people? Yeah. Where when you're in person, you move the ball so much further. You can move at nine yards with the Zoom meeting. You can move at 30 with an in-person meeting. What do you think about that?

[00:12:31] I was actually on a call last week with my mastermind. We had this exact discussion because people get so comfortable with the emails and texts and things like that. Right. And I did too. I'm being very clear. I did too. But what you figure out is that interaction, they hear your voice. Right. Or you visit them. And you're exactly right. Amplify. So that's how I did it. So I got access. So now I'm having client calls. Right. But that's the call.

[00:12:59] And the one that taught me the most, Scott, I'm going to tell you that they called it really brought it home for me how to do this. I got by way of the bank called South Carolina National Bank. I got a walk in lead with them to the state of South Carolina, the state comptroller. All right. The top dude. Right. With money. All right. So here I am a novice, pretty well novice, a new kid on the block. And here I am sitting with the state comptroller, South Carolina. We're having a discussion, right?

[00:13:28] And down South, a little bit different. You got Bill Rapport. You got to talk about football and barbecue and things like that. Right. So after you get through all those niceties, what you have to do down South is you just don't jump in. We are, you know, I started asking about his finances, HR and how he does it. Right. And he looked at me, Scott. I mean, he looked at me, this guy's probably 65 years old, maybe 60, 65. He said, Dave, I'm fixing to get ready to start thinking about doing something like that. And I said, fixing to get ready to start thinking about doing something.

[00:13:57] I said, we're 10 years away. All right. He goes, we're not even, you're not even close, son. And that taught me. I had access, but I didn't have connection, which is step number two. Well, tell me about connection. What it was, I had to build that connection. I had to build that rapport where I could continue that conversation. Right. I didn't earn that right at that call. This happened, what, in 1990, I think, 1989, 1990. So I learned from that call that, you know, I could get access, but unless I start building

[00:14:24] rapport and building connection with people, that's where it's going to stop. Right. Let me ask you, what would be a working definition for connection? How would you define that? Building rapport and trust. Building rapport and trust. Yeah. That's good. And I built rapport and trust. That's why I started doing that. So, you know, when he told me that, he looked me in the eye and told me that, like, did he call me son? You know, there's something wrong, right? Yeah. You know, business, you're your son. All right. I get it. I get it. You know, learning lesson for Dave, right? Learning lesson for Dave.

[00:14:53] But it taught me a great lesson because I had access. I could get access to a lot of people. But until I start building rapport and understanding what's, you know, what's important to them, right? That's when I started building connections with people. Yeah. Right. So I started building connections with people and that's, that was, that's a great next step. But that, you know, that I don't get you so far. That does not get you the sale. The next step is building a relationship. And that, what I mean by that is you've got a connection. Yeah.

[00:15:21] And you can have a conversation, but be able to go out to lunch or go out to dinner or go out to the golf course, start building a relationship, talking about your kids, talking about college. That's the relationship, right? So the step three is, well, now you're making progress. Now you're in the game. That still doesn't get you the sale, right? The step four, number four is want to get you the sale. The step number four is influence the eye. Yeah. Now you have influence somebody. And that's what we call the different sales technology classes.

[00:15:50] It's called building the coach, finding a coach and or a sponsor who will be there to advocate for you when you're not there. Yeah. That's when it started building to me was started going exponentially. It's when I had that influence where I could be in Charlotte and they're down in Charleston and they're bidding for me. What's an example? What's an example that you've seen where influence is in action? Oh, my last sale at Oracle. It was, I spent a year doing all this.

[00:16:20] I just spent a year doing all this. And I was with the finance director and the VP of supply chain, but they had influence, but they couldn't make the decision. It was the CFO making it. Cause we're talking $60 million, right? Yeah. Directors aren't gonna sign off on $60 million. So I had to build the influence with many different people around the CFO, not only externally, but internally with my team to be able to talk at that level. So I was sitting back here, right?

[00:16:49] I built the relationship. So they did the bidding internally. I had my executives at Oracle doing the bidding externally. Cause I was just, I was like the orchestrator. I was just orchestrating. Right. And that's when you know that you can have influence. That's when you know that, okay, you still may not get the sale. You still may not. Right. But when you have somebody bidding for you internally, you know, you know, you're on the instant app. Then all of a sudden you find out what's really driving them. And what you find out, what I found out that sales, Scott was the board of directors asked

[00:17:18] the CFO to get something done and they couldn't get it done with their current system. And I could help deal with that. One thing. There's always, there was always a reason, right? One thing. All these months we were talking all around all this stuff. And all of a sudden when you get influence, then you're told, this is what the board of directors is really looking for. It will sign off on. Yeah. Then is when you have the next step, which is one more step. You get the sale, right? But now once you do that, you build what's called the A, the affinity. Affinity.

[00:17:46] Now you have affinity relationships where you don't have to be there. They're going to call you and tell you, hey, listen, we're looking for a new supply chain system. We're looking for a new HR system. Dave, can you come and talk to us about that? Right? Now you've built, you've done your, you've done all this work. You've got the sale, but now you're looking to follow on opportunities and referral opportunities and more importantly, testimonials. Wow. Don't pick up a phone and call somebody else for you. Say, by the way, I've been working with Dave for a year now on this. He did everything, right? They said they would.

[00:18:17] Dave will show up at two o'clock in the morning. We need them. You need to really consider this. And all of a sudden that's when you have an affinity relationship. That's the step after influence. So it's A to I plus really A. That's great. So the access to people, the connection, relationship, influence, affinity. Yeah. That's what the authentic interaction is. The real AI is. This right here. Yeah. Right. Right. And what's interesting that what you're, you've described, I've seen this play out even recently

[00:18:45] with some really good clients where I can see, yes, yes, I have the access, connection, relationship, influence. Oh, here's the motivation that drove that decision. Now I understand. Or in the affinity. And I've noticed like indications of client trust. When do they ask you for input on things that you have nothing to do with? Like, you know, we're looking to do this. Do you have anybody that can help us do this? You know, it's nothing I'm comped for, for that referral. But yeah, you know what? I know someone. I'll refer.

[00:19:15] And so I think this is a brilliant model that distills what we all want as rainmakers. Let me ask you this. Are there any pitfalls that you think those in a rainmaking capacity that they might need to watch out for as they go through this model? What do you think? Well, you always have somebody who's an anti-sponsor. You always have somebody in there fighting. Tell me about that. An anti-sponsor. I didn't even know it had a name. Well, they would talk. It is. It would talk a big game, right? They'll talk and talk and talk, but they're actually working on for their own personal agenda.

[00:19:44] And you've got to be able to dig that out. And the way you dig that out is within your internal coaches. See, and that's, you always have somebody who's fighting you, right? I mean, very rarely we have a clean pathway. You'll have somebody in there who's got their own personal agenda. One of the things that I found out, I mean, in the sale right before my last sale, the previous sale, was, you know, we weren't making progress. We weren't moving forward. We just kept stalling, right? And we found out there was a guy there for 30 years who was never, never in any meetings.

[00:20:13] And he was the one who basically had influence, but not the decision-making. But he didn't want to disrupt his organization. He was ready to retire. Don't put something else on me right now. And all of a sudden, we found that out. So we had to neutralize that, right? We had to have somebody else, you know, say, by the way, we don't need you to do this. Whatever it was, we got the sale. But I'll tell you what, for months, Scott, we sat there and figured, why is this not even moving, right? Why?

[00:20:39] It's because somebody was in there fighting against it, which we did not know, right? And we had to have our coach finally dig it out for us so we could help them build the strategy. So did you discuss this internally, like have strategy meetings on this account? Oh, yeah, most definitely. Most definitely. Most definitely. And to the point where who internally, where I was working, had influence somebody else, right? Could figure this thing out likewise. That's where, you know, that's when you become really, I think, professional.

[00:21:06] It's when, you know, I was always pretty good externally, but it's making sure you can bring the internal sale, which sometimes your company is the biggest hindrance, right? Sometimes they put things in front of you that makes it more difficult for you to sell. You know, the anti-sales. I call them the anti-sales roles, you know? They don't do anything they can to stop the sale because it's going to make them work harder, right? Yeah, that's right. Or they have to pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of commission and they don't want to do that. Yeah. They'd rather lose the business, right?

[00:21:37] Tell me a time that you've seen somebody really apply these principles and see massive success. Tell me about that, Dave. I've taught this a couple of different places. And it's interesting. My company never asked me how I did this. It's kind of one of the things that amazed me for years, for 30 some years. I figured this thing out. I finally documented like a 2013, 2014 from my mind, right? So I documented this. And none of the people who I ever worked for say, how are you getting to the C-suite? How are you doing this? Right?

[00:22:06] And I was, cause I had to fight, as I just mentioned before, one of the biggest challenges I had was I would go against the company sometimes, right? I wanted to show my client that I was in it with Phil. And, you know, I, you know, I had to fight my company to be able to sign off on this. And they're like, you know, Dave, you worked for Oracle. You don't work for them. I said, I understand, but, and I'm building trust, right? I've got to be on their side and really fight for them internally.

[00:22:34] And then I tell you the clothes that I used a number of times. And it was, there was a question I learned out of the election back. It was 2000. I think it was 2004. I think it was with Bush. I think it was, I forget which one. We said, you know, who are you going to call at two o'clock in the morning? Shut up. You can call me at any time, two o'clock. I will fix your problem. Yeah. We'll have to go to 15 different people and just call me.

[00:23:01] And then you build the, that's when you build the infinity, right? It's like, okay. So, cause I had one account on the fact of the account that I was on that day on the Hudson River working that account, they would call me two or three o'clock in the morning. Cause they were up trying to get this thing in. Right? Yeah. Dave, you need your help. Dave, you need your help. And I was making phone calls to India in the middle of the night. Right. And all of a sudden he and I are now best friends. That's great, Dave. Yep. Well, I like this model a lot. I've learned a lot from you in our short time.

[00:23:29] And I have earlier by reading your book also. And if we could kind of summarize three action steps for people to really take these concepts and apply them, what would those three action steps be Dave? Yeah. Thank you. And I talk about this a lot in my speeches, my presentation. Number one, process saves lives. What does that mean? You got to have a process for everything you do in your life. Not only business and having a, this is a process right here. Strategy right here for business. But you have to have a process for how you manage your health and your finances and your relationships.

[00:23:59] So number one, remember process saves lives. Yep. Anything in your world, have a process. Second, you know, one of the things, how Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and all that, Dave DeForest, the mindset of limitation and Mary unlimited capacity. So remember, you know, there's no limitations. There's only limitation you have is within your mind. So if you really want to grow and be a top producer, top creator of connections and networking, remember, you know, now you can go on the internet.

[00:24:29] You can connect with anybody. I mean, I've been connecting with people that I see out there and all of a sudden they're responding to me now. That's great. All right. That's number two. Number three. And this is the one that really is, I think the most important in all of it. Grace is fueled by gratitude. What's gratitude? Giving thanks to something bigger than yourself. So I just always leave and say, tell people, listen, you just give thanks to something bigger than yourself. The more gratitude you give, the more grace that you get, the more grace that you get, the more opportunity you have to serve people. And that's when you have real influence is when you can.

[00:24:59] That's great. Well, Dave, I appreciate you being here today. Before we go, tell us about your offerings. What do you have? What do you do that you'd like our listeners to know about? And for anybody listening, just go to the show notes where you hear the podcast and you'll be able to connect directly with Dave. Well, thank you, Scott. The thing we're really excited about going into 2025 and we're kicked off this year is I'm doing a webinar series. And really, I want to start. This came from my first mentor and how he helped me grow over a 13 year period until he passed away.

[00:25:26] And I'm doing a webinar, teaching the best of what I got. Yeah. And I give everybody and there's, I'll leave you with it. There's four freedoms that everybody's looking for right now. You, me, everybody. Freedom of time, freedom from money, freedom of relationship and freedom of, of mission or purpose. Okay. Everybody wants those freedoms. All right. So what I'm offering is, okay, if you're, if you see enough value in this, I'll give you

[00:25:54] 30 minutes of my time, but you know, as you know, as a business person, that's a lot. Yeah. Well, I'm offering that. So I encourage go out and check it out, check out my webinar. Cause I do this on a, you know, right now on a biweekly basis. Um, but yeah, we're, um, the next book, uh, it's going to be coming out in 2026, but you know, we've got a lot of things working right now. Uh, it's, uh, I'm just honored to have the opportunity to be able to serve in a webinar books on the online course that we're doing right now. That's great, David.

[00:26:22] Well, we will put those links on the show notes. Uh, thank you for being a guest here today and for sharing your wisdom. I learned a lot from you. I know our listeners have also, and I'd love to have you back on the show later on, sharing more of your wisdom with us. Thank you, Dave. Thank you, Scott. Thank you for listening to the rain making podcast. For more information about our recruiting services for international law firms, visit

[00:26:47] our website at attorney search group.com to inquire about having Scott speak at your next convention conference sales meeting or executive retreat. Visit the rain making podcast.com. Thank you.