Instagram story viewer> @davidstarbucksmith> Posts

David Starbuck Smith

@davidstarbucksmith

1K

followers

1092

following

25 years coaching leaders on stage & in the body
Keynote speaker | Executive coach | Exercise therapist | Author of 3 books

POSTS STORIES REELS

‘This book gives seniors realistic, actionable tools to regain function and reduce pain — without fear, gimmicks, or false promises.’
— Dr. Ramin Raiszadeh, MD, Spine and Brain Institute of San Diego

That means a lot coming from one of the top spine specialists in the country. And it’s exactly what I set out to write.

Back Pain Solutions for Seniors draws on 25 years of clinical experience and the same cutting-edge exercises trusted by elite athletes — now tailored specifically for you.

Whether you’re dealing with stenosis, arthritis, osteoporosis, scoliosis, or pain that just won’t quit — this book was written for you.

You don’t have to accept pain as the price of getting older. There is another way.

Grab your copy on Amazon or wherever books are sold — link in bio. 📖

#backpain #spinehealth #seniorhealth #backpainrelief #longevity by @davidstarbucksmith

My new book is on Amazon and ready to pre-order!.

I made a decision long ago to help as many people as I could with the knowledge I have.

You can help further my cause by pre-ordering to make this an instant best seller AND much more importantly, help me to get this in the hands of the people who need it!

There are 52 million Americans alone (maybe even you or someone close to you) who wake up every day with chronic pain. That’s a staggering number.

I’d love to help you or those you love and put a dent in that number with the scientifically-proven exercises, meditations, and techniques inside the pages of this book.

It’s been a labor of love that’s taken me 2 years to write.

Look for Align, Feel, Heal on Amazon.com and pre-order today.

I also have a free gift for you if you do, so let me know…

Maybe the best gift you give yourself or someone you know is the gift of living pain-free in 2025…

Cheers!
#koehlerbooks #chronicpain #painrelief #bestsellingbook #nomorepain #alignfeelheal #davidstarbucksmith by @davidstarbucksmith

If your body is being slowed down due to nagging injuries or pain, my book Ageless, Painless Tennis could help! Find it on Amazon — the link is in my bio.

#tennis #agelesstennis #movefeelheal #selecthealing #tenniselbow #plantarfasciitis #tendonitis #pain #injury #injuryprevention #athleticpotential by @davidstarbucksmith

In 2012 my exercise therapy clinic in San Francisco was nine years old, and every review we had was five stars. Then one morning an email told me there was a new one, and I opened it expecting another fan.

One star.

She wrote that she’d paid thousands of dollars, wasted her time, and never got a refund. I went digging through our system and found her: two visits, a little over a thousand dollars for an eight-visit package, no refund ever requested, and all of it *five* years earlier.

I was fuming. Within minutes I’d made her a villain and myself the victim. (If you’ve ever built a case against someone in your head in under five minutes, you know exactly how this felt.) I was shaking enough that I walked across the street to a bookstore, found an empty corner in the back, and sat down on the floor. I breathed, and I let the anger come all the way up until it ran out of steam.

When I opened my eyes, a book was sticking out from the shelf right in front of me. The Four Agreements. I opened it to the second agreement: Don’t take anything personally.

I laughed. I had written an entire story about her motives without knowing a thing about her life in those five years. So I wrote her a check for a full refund and a short note, and later that week she took down the one star and replaced it with five.

Everyone you meet is looking through a lens built from history you know almost nothing about. The next time something lands hard, try asking: is this really about me?

The full story is in Inside the Gap, my weekly newsletter. Link in bio to join! by @davidstarbucksmith

When I first got into speaking, I recorded myself giving a talk.

While I was doing it, I remember thinking, oh gosh, this is going to sound so good. Then I pressed play and thought, oh gosh, that's the most boring thing I've ever heard in my life.

We're all our own worst critics, sure, but that was the lesson I needed. I've recorded and listened back ever since, and I exaggerate on purpose while I do it. More emotion, more pause on the points that matter, hanging on a note a beat longer than feels comfortable.

I'm listening for my pace, my tone, and whether I'd want to sit through me.

If you ever present, try it once. (Fair warning, it's humbling!)

From my conversation with @robjolles on The Presentation Whisperer. by @davidstarbucksmith

I think about growth with one rule: you're either expanding or you're contracting. There's no parking spot in the middle.

Expanding means taking in something new. It might be a book you'd never normally pick up, a skill you're bad at, or a long conversation with someone who sees it completely differently than you do. If nothing like that is in your week, nothing is growing, and if nothing is growing, you're contracting.

That's what makes a comfortable routine so sneaky. It feels exactly like standing still, and standing still turns out to be contracting. You can go a whole year feeling fine and find out you've been shrinking the entire time.

Try a small audit this week. Ask yourself what you learned since last Monday. Also, ask yourself what emotion you haven’t been willing to feel. If you can't name something, that's your starting point.

I send one idea a week to help you keep expanding. Link in bio to join Inside the Gap! by @davidstarbucksmith

Try this tonight. Go back through your week and look for the last thing that felt new. A different running route, a conversation you didn't see coming, an emotion you haven’t felt for a long time. If you have to dig for it, that tells you something.

Routines do a lot for us, and I'm a fan of a good one. They give your day a spine and save you from deciding everything from scratch. They also get comfortable enough to turn into stuck, and then the routine itself becomes the place we sit. Most of us never decided to stay there. It happened one comfortable week at a time.

If you found something new, keep going. If you had to dig, that's useful to know, and it's the right place to start. by @davidstarbucksmith

Let me tell you about the worst exit of my speaking life.

Years ago I gave a presentation at a local hospital. I walked into the room and right away noticed people giving me funny looks. I had no idea why, and I started to feel more uncomfortable by the minute.

When I finished, I stepped into the elevator, looked down, and found my fly all the way down. Great. Then I got into the car and found the hugest booger hanging out of my nose. GREAT. Double whammy. The funny looks finally made sense.

So now, right before I walk on, I find a mirror and do a full inspection. Fly, nose, teeth. It takes ten seconds, and it might be the most useful prep I do.
A whole room could see what I couldn't, and the only fix was a quick look at myself before I walked in.

I think about that whenever I'm stuck on something bigger than a zipper, because the thing everyone else can see is usually the thing I haven't looked at yet. by @davidstarbucksmith

Every speaker has done this one. You're up there, you wander into a great story, you're having a wonderful time, and somewhere in the middle you realize you've lost the one sentence you came to land.

There's a technique for that, and it involves a house. Each point you want to hit lives in its own room. You walk in the front door, and that's your intro. Turn right into the living room for the next point. Then on into the kitchen for the one after that. When you're up there you walk through the house in your head, room by room, and every point is sitting right where you left it.

It sounds a little silly, and it's super helpful for remembering what to hit and when. You still get to wander into the story. You just know which room you're coming back to.

From my conversation with @robjolles on The Presentation Whisperer! by @davidstarbucksmith

Picture a couple on a Wednesday night. Same dinner, same show, same couch. Nothing is broken, which is what makes it so easy to coast.

I worked with a woman who was furious at her husband for going golfing for the weekend. Furious, even though she'd agreed to it ahead of time. When we got into it, she admitted she had never told him how she felt. She'd performed being fine, then stewed the second he left. That's what autopilot does to a relationship. The routine never asks anyone to say the real thing, so nobody does.

So the question I like is: what can we do to keep growing the depth of our relationship?

Date night counts. So does something new and different, like a yoga class neither of you has ever taken, where you both wobble and nobody gets to be the expert.

Either way it takes awareness, to see the routine you've settled into, and willingness, to step out of it together. by @davidstarbucksmith

You know the picture frame that's been crooked in your hallway for a year? You walk past it twice a day and your eyes stopped registering it months ago. Then a friend comes over, tilts her head, and says, did you know that's crooked? Now you can't stop seeing it.

That's awareness. Something points, and the gap shows up. It's a good moment, and plenty of people stop right there. They tilt their own head every time they walk by and say, I should fix that.

Willingness is getting up off the couch with a level in your hand. It takes more courage than the noticing did, because now you've seen it and you're on the hook. Growth needs both, in that order.

I write about closing the gap every week in my newsletter: Inside the Gap. Link in bio to join for free! by @davidstarbucksmith

Last week in Iowa I opened a talk with a joke. I'm a big fan of trying new things to see what sticks, and this one… did not stick. Crickets. The full, hello, is this mic on?!, kind of crickets.

So here's what I do, and what I'd tell anyone who speaks: act like it didn't happen. Play it off like it was meant to go that way. The only real danger is the flinch. If you get nervous and let it into your head, it rides along with you through the rest of the talk until you find your rhythm again. If you don't make a big deal of it, they won't either.

One sentence or one joke doesn't make or break a talk.

From my conversation with @robjolles on The Presentation Whisperer! by @davidstarbucksmith