Meet Dug McGuirk | Breakthrough Speaker and Consultant

We had the good fortune of connecting with Dug McGuirk and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Dug, as a parent, what have you done for you children that you feel has had the most significant impact?
As the father of a Nine year old girl and Husband I believe the most important thing I’ve done is show her integrity, critical thinking, risk taking, strong leadership and connection with God. This influence from not only myself but in strong alignment with my wife, we do our best to be exemplars of these qualities and more. Our daughter comes with us to our seminars that we run or are speaking at, we take her to our investment properties and show her our businesses to impress upon her what it looks like to be the best Servant Leaders we can be.
 

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I have been blessed to have a series of careers, and the wide variety and sectors create a powerful set of perspectives, experiences, and insights. My first career was in music and entertainment. Not only was I an artist (singer and musician) in my own band or bands I produced, I was an engineer, mixer, and producer as well. My experience was on both sides of the proverbial glass. In my time in that space, I participated in multiple Grammy-winning records and over-all sales in the hundreds of millions. I found such joy and fulfillment in creating space for people to have a new or powerful experience through the creation of or listening to my contribution. I started as an intern, working for free while essentially being a gopher and worked my way up to be one of the top producers for the organization. I made that happen by working my intern hours of 10-6, then I would just stay and continue to help out and learn until the session was over. If it was possible, I would then stay and practice what I was learning on the console and practice until 3 0r 4 am, sleep on the couch, take a shower there (thankfully they had a shower) and then I would do it all again. Because of the nature of the way the studio ran it was literally a 7 day a week gig. During the week, we made the big Grammy-winning records, and then on weekends, we rented the studio to local musicians. This gave me a unique perspective of how different-scale businesses worked. I worked directly with big-budget companies and artists (mid- to large-size companies) as well as the local artists paying out their own pockets (solo preneurs and entrepreneurs) and everything in between. This gave me such a unique look at the music and entertainment BUSINESS.
The peak of my music career is when Napster came out. If you are unaware of what Napster was, it radically impacted the music industry by essentially making music free to download. The very technology that made that possible was also blowing up in the studio space. Digital recording hardware and software changed how records were being made. We didn’t have the term “industry disruptor” yet. It was just WTF just happened, and studios and record companies started to close.
I then had to reinvent myself. Now at this point it is important to share that my success in the music industry was in large part due to the fact that I learned about Tony Robbins in my late teens, applied what Tony shared, and got the results! Also, I must add that when my music career fell apart, do did my marriage. So I had to start over in EVERY area of my life.
While my professional and personal life was spiraling down, I invested every waking moment working on myself by going to seminars and trainings, joining groups, and participating in programs to improve myself. I found myself deep in a group called the NY Powerteam. (I grew up in New York on Long Island.) Long story short, a friend in that group let me know that he had heard a position as a Peak Performance Strategist was available. After six months of a variety of challenges and opportunities for growth (we can chat about in depth another time, it is a great story) I got the gig as Peak Performance Strategist or National Speaker for Tony Robbins. In this role, I would move to a new city for 3 – 5 months at a time and infiltrate the ecosystem through networking, door knocking, and referal asking, run a training for an organization or company, and then invite them to see Tony Robbins at his UPW event. This was an amazing experience, and one in which I brought my now Wife on the road with me. So many lessons learned as this was essentially a JV with Tony as it was a 100% commissioned position. I mastered networking, building strong relationships, and definitely put in the hours speaking. I did that for almost 4 years until another pivot opportunity came.
As part of my strategy for building this business with Tony, I would hold my own events as networking opportunities and ultimately a training opportunity, as I would hold a pre-UPW event for all my clients to help them be even more prepared for the UPW with Tony. So a friend recommended a friend of his when we were “stationed” in South Florida. This friend had an auditorium that we could use, so did, and he came to the event we had and was blown away. He asked me what my plans were with Tony as he wanted my wife and I to bring what we do to his business. He wanted it for his staff and clients. This was at his Drug and Alcohol treatment center. My wife and I ended up adding so much value to the program in every area. We ran much of the clinical; we worked directly with clients, helping them create a life worth being sober for. We created and ran the Family Program and helped hundreds, if not thousands, of families heal and reconnect. I ran the marketing and leadership for the company as well, and we grew the company from 1 to 3 centers and went from a staff of 75 to almost 200. Every day was like a seminar as we ran several therapeutic groups and at one Family Program 3-day seminar every month, as well as speaking around the country at conferences on Addiction and Recovery. As a speaker or presenter, I have thousands of hours of speaking, training, and working with sometimes even ‘hostile” audiences. By hostile, I mean that when someone needs to go to treatment and we had all levels of care (detox, inpatient, and IOP or Intensive outpatient), the truth is they didn’t want to be in treatment away from family, etc., and they are usually at their lowest. As a speaker, I have learned and mastered connection and rapport, as well as utilizing my entertainment background to make events entertaining.
Now my primary focus is Breakthrough experiences, Keynotes, consulting, coaching, and training. In many ways, I went from helping people make amazing music, to helping people make amazing music of their lives, both personally and professionally.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I literally just found a tiny cigar shop that, in fact, is not a “shop” I stumbled upon it because it said cigars and had an open sign. I walked in and met the owner. He is the grower and manufacturer of cigars and this little shop is his passion project were he pretty much makes cigars to order. His main business is selling his tobacco to cigar companies from his 100’s of land. This little shop was pretty much hidden, invite only. On Friday eve’s he opens it up for a small group and now he has invited me, so I will def bring a cigar-smoking friend there. We would check out Delray Beach and dine somewhere nice on Atlantic Ave. I would also take them to the Breakers in Palm Beach for The Circle Brunch, one of the most decadent brunches ever! Would love to take them to the Keys as well as up to Orlando and hit some theme parks 🙂

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Tony Robbins

Website: www.BreakthruExperience.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dugsix/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drdug/

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