Connect
To Top

Meet Dave Cooke of 100Pedals in Scottsdale

Avatar photo

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dave Cooke.

Dave Cooke, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Nine years ago, I received a phone call that my youngest child, my younger son, who was living in Detroit (our hometown) had been arrested. Turns out he was homeless, addicted to heroin, and was arrested for theft relating to his addiction.

With this news, I immediately got on the plane, flew to Detroit, to help my son. After several months navigating the legal system in Detroit, I was able to move my son to Phoenix where I believe, family and a change of venue would help him get out from under his addiction,

After eighteen months of experiences with deception, relapse, theft, arrest, and jail, I came to realize there wasn’t enough love in his world to make my son change his life. It seemed the more I tried, the worse it got. The worse it got, the more I intensified my efforts.

Eventually, I got to a point in my own brokenness where I realized nothing would change until I did. So, I got on my bicycle, and I rode. I challenged myself to ride my bike for an hour a day for one hundred consecutive days, trusting in the meditational experiences of my rides would help me navigate a new path through this chaos. It worked.

After one hundred days, I facilitated a healthy separation from my son’s addiction. It created a path where I could walk alongside him in loving support and encouragement for him in his journey, with appropriate space where I was not managing his journey. As I became more aware of the impact of this change, I have grown and learned more about substance abuse, love, and parenting.

My life has changed in many powerful, positive ways and my relationship with my son, even in periods of his active addiction, has become stronger and healthier. Today, I share the lessons of these experiences with parents who are struggling to navigate the chaos of their children’s substance use disorder or other challenges.

We focus on Healing through Listening, creating a safe place for their children to share their struggles, without condemnation, criticism, or judgment, and allowing their children to experience the unconditional love of their parent(s).

I have found and research supports this, children are more likely to change their adverse behaviors when they make a connection with someone they trust. It is from a place of love and trust that I help parents navigate their child’s adversities.

Has it been a smooth road?
It has not been an easy or smooth road. The biggest challenge has been to learn to rethink my role as a parent. For the longest time, I focused on trying to be the parent I thought I needed to be. I did what I thought I needed to do to be seen as a good dad. I did what I believed was in the best interest of good parenting.

Unfortunately, and unintentionally, those behaviors are driven and defined by my needs as a parent – to look like and be a good parent. If I did something wrong, or something didn’t go the way it should, I felt like I failed as a parent or would be judged as not being a good parent. In the end, it was all about me. Shifting from being the parent I thought I needed to be, to be the parent my son needed me to be was huge.

Now, my decisions require me to engage my son in his life’s journey in a way where it is all about him – what he needs, what he sees, what he experiences, and how all this impacts his perspective and his decisions. Once I learned to understand his world and what he is struggling with.

I am more informed and prepared to support and encourage him when he asks me for guidance. My relationship with him today removes judgment, criticism, and condemnation from our interactions. I don’t share my expectations and desires for him unless he inquires. What I focus on is creating a safe place for him to experience my love and commitment to him in his journey and offering what he needs from me, if he desires or requests it.

The key to this activity is releasing my fears and focusing on trusting my love. I also engaged in a very lengthy introspective activity to define my healthy boundaries in my interactions with my son because I knew some components of our relationship still needed to be clearly defined.

As a result, instead of reacting to situations I was prepared to respond to them. Instead of laying down rules, I had defined my behaviors as a parent which I could comfortably engage in without being confrontational or demanding. And, these behaviors can be and are utilized in all my healthy relationships at work, with my other children, my friends, and my spouse.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Most of this has already been covered… I am most excited and passionate about how we are able to redefine healthy relationships in how we listen and communicate. Selfless Listening, or Healing through Listening, completely redefines how we engage others.

Instead of focusing on what we want, need, desire, or expect from others, we encourage the building of trusted, healthy relationships by focusing on clearly understanding, selflessly understanding, the worldview of others.

My life commitment has always been to help others find what they are looking for. I can only accomplish this when someone trusts me with their entire journey, including the struggles, failures, and frustrations.

Engaging in a selflessly focused, learning conversation, creates a safe place, free of judgment, criticism, and condemnation to share their story. It is where trust is built, relationships are established, and change occurs.

This is the mission and the value in the 100Pedals program.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Navigating Phoenix has been an interesting experience. Because so many people have migrated into Phoenix, it is easy to get c0nnected and meet others. Building deep, trusting relationships here has not been as simple or easy as my experiences in other cities I have lived in. I am still working on understanding the Phoenix culture. That said, we are living a time where we are disconnected and divided.

Most people really don’t recognize the extent to which they are experiencing this because they are effective at finding an isolated group which gives them the perception of belonging and safety. Except, if everyone was so successful at membership and security, why are they so hunkered down in fear of (fill in the blank). There is a tremendous opportunity in Phoenix to build connection through small business groups, collaborative faith-based organizations, and networking.

The challenge is for people to recognize the source of their fears and frustrations and have the willingness to move beyond them to discover the opportunity to truly connect with others and release them through collaboration and change.

Pricing:

  • Selfless Listening Workshops and Seminars for Teams, Sales, or Leaders (half-day): $2,000
  • Keynote Presentations on Selfless Listening: $4,000
  • Executive Coaching and Personal Development Programs: $125 hour

Contact Info:

Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

Related Items

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More in