Now, please give a warm welcome to the Daily Grand Podcast, a special guest today, Mr. David Mead. David, what's happening today? Hey, everybody, good to be here.
Absolutely. Now, everything David does is designed to propel people towards a better version of themselves, so they can more meaningfully touch the lives of others. Specializing in organizational culture and leadership, David shifts perceptions about the reasons why organizations really exist, what leadership is, and how human biology plays into it all. David began his career in corporate training.
In 2009, he became frustrated and discouraged by his personal experiences before leadership in the workplace. That same year, David met Simon Sinek and the opportunity to join Simon's team presented itself. He started by developing content to help Simon share his powerful ideas in 2012, and in 2012, he began speaking and facilitating workshops to help shift people's perception about leadership and culture. David is globally recognized as the how guy to Simon's why.
David, again, super excited you here. Share with us a little bit more about who you are and talk to us about what you're excited about currently. Absolutely. So I am, man, who am I?
That's a loaded question. I am a guy who, essentially, I'll give you the big picture, right? Who wakes up every day inspired to build a world that is different than the one in which we live today? And that is a world in which the vast majority of people wake up inspired to go to work, feel safe while they're there, and come home at the end of the day fulfilled by the work that they do.
And this ties directly into my work with Simon, which we'll get into later. But that's really what gets me up and drives me every day, is just seeing people who go to work every day and the title of the podcast, daily grind, right? I mean, people are just grinding it out every day and just don't enjoy what they do. And that sucks.
And we deserve more than that. And so I've dedicated my life and my career to helping that happen more so that people can actually love their jobs. Absolutely. And that's such a great message that you're sharing there.
And speak to everyone a little bit about how you were able to do that. Sure. So, you know, it all started with a very simple idea that I was introduced to in 2009 when I first met Simon, which is this idea of start with why in the Golden Circle and how most individuals, most organizations think I can communicate starting with what they do. Product services, that kind of thing.
And then, you know, we'll switch to talking about how we think we're different or special or better than somebody else. And that's how most organizations run. And that's what most organizations focus on. But the sort of the shift that Simon brought is starting with why, which is what's the higher cause, the purpose, the belief that drives what you do.
Because when we can understand the reason that we do what we do, we can become much more passionate about what we do. And so when we think act and communicate, starting with why rather than starting with what ends up happening is that we inspire other people who want to build the world that we believe in or who believe the things that we believe. And that's where trust and cooperation and loyalty and relationship and friendship and love are built is when we clearly understand people's purpose. And the only way that people know what we believe is if we can tell them.
And so we've dedicated our work to helping individuals and organizations. First of all, articulate and clearly talk about that why, which is a difficult thing to put into words because it's a feeling that we get. And then helping them figure out how do I implement that into my daily life or into my organization. Absolutely.
And I think that's such an important message. And, you know, even speaking personally to that, you know, when I started kickstarting what I'm doing now, it was all about when I figured out why I wanted to do it. And being able to share that with your audience and communicate that really is powerful. It's a powerful message to a lot of people out there and organizations to get people in.
And one thing that you do talk about a lot, you and Simon talk about a lot is leadership and culture. What are some of the things that you do to help organizations and people create a healthy culture and make people become a great leader? Yeah, it's interesting because leadership is not a skill that some people are born with and some people are not. This is a learned skill.
And some people perhaps are more naturally attuned to it than others. And it's something that everybody can learn. So one of the, I think to answer the question most simply, I think what we do really well with our organization is we inject a level of humanity back into business, right? Where it's not about, it's not that structure and, you know, strategy and procedure and all those things don't have their place to absolutely do.
Oftentimes those things are just unbalanced and we forget to bring in the human element, which means, you know, we're, as human beings, we are so good outside of work at taking care of each other, at surrounding ourselves with the people that we love and that we trust and that we want to be around. And for some reason, we don't do that at work. And so there is infighting, there's politicking, there's all this kind of stuff that makes us feel unsafe at work. It makes us feel like we have to watch our own backs.
Somebody trying to take my job or somebody can take credit for my work or all of this stuff that makes us operate sub optimally as human beings. And so I think the biggest thing, if I had to sort of put it into one big bucket, is to reintroduce humanity at work and environments where we simply take care of each other, where we watch out for each other. Where we recognize that together is better. And when we can put the interest of someone else before our own trust and loyalty and relationship naturally occur and cooperation is a natural result.
And really, it's the work of leadership to create an environment where people are able to do that, where we can provide, you know, as senior leaders within an organization, no matter how small or how large, it's really that leader's responsibility or those leaders' responsibility to provide the ground cover to make sure that people understand that somebody's got their back. Now, that doesn't mean there aren't going to be challenging days. It doesn't mean that things are not going to go wrong. It's not all rainbows and marshmallows all the time.
However, to know that when something goes sideways, we've got a leadership team or a leader who will make sure that we are taken care of as best as they can. That's really what we help leaders and organizations to focus on, is not to sacrifice the people for the numbers, but to sacrifice the numbers for the people. Because in crisis, when there are challenges, when things go bad, the numbers will never come to your rescue. The people will.
And if you take good care of them, if you treat them like human beings and give them meaning and purpose to their work, they will come to your rescue and to your aid like never before. For sure, and having people within your company who will do that for you is so, so very important. Now, Simon, I'm interested to know how you were introduced to Simon Sinek, because everyone here who is listening today, they all know Simon. They all love Simon.
I love Simon. So, share us the story of how you were introduced to Mr. Simon Sinek. I had just been hired at a new job.
It was a small startup here in Salt Lake City, Utah, where I'm based, and it was a little marketing company. And the reason that I was so interested in it was certainly not because of what we sold. It was totally boring. It was a satellite TV company, right?
Who cares? I didn't even watch TV. But the thing that really inspired me about this organization is that they seem to have a really clear purpose. They had a cause bigger than just selling stuff.
And so I got really interested in that. And so I ended up hiring on as the director of training for that little company. And about a week into it, we were going to have this little evening event, and there was going to be a guest speaker. And so that guest speaker happened to be Simon Sinek.
And this was before the TED talks or the books or anything. Nobody knew who this guy was. And so that's how I was first introduced in the reaction that I had when I heard him give his 45 minute talk on the Golden Circle. For me, it wasn't anything brand new.
It was something that I felt like I already knew. I just had sort of forgotten. But it felt right. And all of a sudden, things started to fall into place as far as I finally realized why it was that I loved certain jobs, even though the pay wasn't great and it wasn't a glamorous job.
And why I hated other jobs where the pay was great. And by all other accounts, it should have been a quote unquote great job. And I just didn't like it. And so it was this idea of when there was that meaning, that purpose, that human centered culture, that's what brought me fulfillment and meaning in the work that I did.
And so that was my first exposure to Simon and to this message. It's such an amazing story. Now afterwards, when you went through that, did you reach out to him shortly after? Yeah.
So the way that it sort of panned out is I stole the idea unashamedly. And I basically wrote it down and put it into the training manual that I was writing as the director of training for the sales company. And I still have a copy of it. And I look back at it and I think, man, that was not that good.
But I gave Simon a copy next time he came out to visit us at the company and didn't expect him to read it. I just wanted him to see what he had inspired. And a couple months later, Kim, who is now our CEO, who was working with Simon at the time and she came on just shortly before I did. She called me and she was like, we're kind of impressed by the fact that you could hear Simon speak one time and turn it into something.
So do you want to come help us work on a couple of projects that we have going on to take some of these ideas and turn them into usable content? And I was like, sure, I'd love to. So I started to work with Simon and Kim in the mornings before I went to work from like 5 AM to 7 AM and just sort of doing that part time for a couple of years. And then it turns out that the little company I was working for a full time didn't really end up getting it.
They didn't get it. Let's play that way. And so I was learning all this great stuff from Simon and Kim. When I was working with him in the mornings, I would go and try to beat the drum and let them know what was possible if we just started with why they just didn't want any of it.
And so they ended up laying me off. And so I called Kim and I said, hey, guess what? I got some free time. And so we made it work and we figured out some other things for me to do.
And sort of as a three person team to start out with, we tried to figure out how do we spread this message that we know is so powerful to as many people as possible. And that's kind of where the journey began. Well, you know, that's such an interesting story. And at that time, you know, you had been laid off from your job.
Now you're going full time with Simon Sinek. What were some of the behaviors that you had at that time, which took you from, say, the skill over you were at as a corporate sales trainer to kind of where you are now? Wow. I think the thing that really sticks out of my mind is I had been so, I grew up with a lot of discipline and I naturally was sort of a self-starter.
And I worked hard and so I had all those things already sort of embedded. But there was something actually that happened a few years ago that really, I think, crystallized that for me. And sort of, in a way, hardened my resolve or my ability to carry through on some really hard stuff. So I'll make the long story short.
But basically in 2008, financial crisis, everything happened. And my wife and I lost everything, save for $800 that we still had in the bank. And so, you know, that was kind of a big turning point in my life. And for a couple of three months, I just started MBA school.
She was pregnant with her first kid. I was living in my parents basement. You never want that to happen. And so for the first two, three months, I was kind of playing into the victim mindset of that.
Oh, whoa, it was me. Look at all this bad stuff that's happened to me. And I woke up in the morning and I thought, this is not serving me. What I need to do is to take one as small as it is, rather than wallowing in my self-pity, take one step forward.
Who cares what it is? Just do one thing that's going to help get us out of this mess instead of sitting in it. And so that is one thing that I've carried with me. And in the first few years of this, we really were just sort of scrapping along.
As soon as the time of this first book came out, all of a sudden, we were getting all kinds of inquiries and people writing in. And all these questions and all these stuff and people saying, hey, can you come help us do this? And we just didn't know how to respond. And so, very different situation, obviously.
But this mindset of how do we just take one step forward? How do we give them something instead of nothing? That has always really stuck with me. And I think that's a mindset that even as we're growing and we're more established, we have a better sense of what we're doing now with 22 people on the team.
There's still a lot of stuff that we don't know. A lot of stuff that we're learning. And so it's a constant learning, constant ability to take that leap of faith and be okay, not knowing what comes next. And that was a really, really tough transition for me to make.
Absolutely. And that's such an amazing story. And it's somewhat personal to me because there was a time in my life which a lot of people know where something happened to me. And for years, I always had that mindset of feeling sore for myself.
How did this happen to me? And for me, it was a switch in my mindset where someone went to me and said, why not you? And sort of that message right there made such a prolific impact in my life because I was able to say, why not me? I'm able to handle this.
Now it's time to move forward. Obviously, that's happened to me as a part of my life, but it's fine who I'm going to become. And it sounds like you had a similar situation there with what happened in 2008. Yeah, exactly.
And this is something that I still, there's just slight little lingering of it. But to your point, this idea of, oh, I don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if I can do that. And Kim, who I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, has been such an incredible force for good of saying, dude, you know you can't do this, right?
Why not you, in a sense? And so she's been a huge support in that sense for me as well. Absolutely. And it sounds like mentors are people close to it.
It's been a big part of your life. What would a message be to say a young entrepreneur, someone looking to start a business? How important self-education and working on yourself on a daily basis is to your success? Certainly huge, I would say.
There's this idea of working on self, which is absolutely important. And again, the dimension that we sort of bring into this sets us apart from the self-help industry or the self-education industry is, we put such a heavy focus on helping others. So when you figure something out, give it to somebody else, teach somebody else, help somebody else with that thing, right? Because what helps us to feel most fulfilled is when we can do something for other people.
The other thing, too, that just sort of popped to mind when you asked the question is, and this is one thing that I've really learned to accept and to become comfortable with, and actually it's pretty empowering or freeing, is rather than having a five-year plan, where in five years I'm going to be here, I know why I wake up every day, and I know this vision of the world that our team has, and I have no clue how we're going to get there, and so what I do every day is allow, and it's not that I just sit back and wait for things to happen, it's not that. It's the fact that we are open to allowing that path to sort of emerge before us, and keeping our eyes open for other possibilities. Obviously, we have ideas and we have thoughts of how we might move forward, and at the same time, something might pop out, but we might meet somebody or another organization or something that kind of takes us in a different direction, but because we're so clear on where we're going, we can be open to those sort of emerging ideas or avenues that might get us there just in a different way. Absolutely.
It makes so much sense, because you see a lot of people and they're sort of almost close-minded to that. They have a vision in place, and they're not open to maybe changing a little bit, and you see that's why a lot of businesses 9 out of 10 are unfortunately shutting down after the first year or two, because maybe they aren't open to seeing a new path or even though they have their eye on the prize, it may take a different route to get there. But being open to that and allowing people to help you or just open your mind will make such a difference in your business and life. Yeah, there's an interesting kind of on that point.
There's an analogy that Simon uses a lot which I love, which is if you ask somebody where you're going on vacation, and they say, well, we're taking I-15. We're on I-15, we're going on I-15. Great, but where are you going? Whereas if you say, hey, we're headed to Vancouver, well, there's a few different ways you can get there.
If there's a roadblock, if there's construction, if there's something else that gets in the way that detours you, you don't know where you're headed, and you can just figure a different path to get there. Absolutely. It makes so much sense, and that's a message we send to a lot of people when we do a business plan. It acts as a road map where you're going to be, but like you said, there's toll routes, there's construction, but having where you want to be in place will make it a lot easier to get back on track.
Absolutely. David, I'm interested to know what motivates you to keep grinding. What get you out of bed and drives you to do what you do? I mentioned the vision of the organization, and there's something very personal that also drives me that absolutely feeds into that, which is my own personal law or my own personal purpose, which as you stated at the beginning, but the way that I put it in short form is to propel people forward so they can make a mark on the world.
I am at my best, whether it's at home with my kids and my wife or at work or at the grocery store interacting with somebody. What drives me and what helps me to feel best about myself and continue to be inspired to do the work that I do is when I have the opportunity to help somebody be just a little bit better than they were the day before. That is the thing that keeps me going every day, wake up out of bed. What can I do today to help propel somebody forward?
Even the smallest way, it doesn't have to be life-changing, it doesn't have to be anything, maybe it's just a smile, maybe it's something that can help them just be a little bit better version of themselves than they were the day before. So that's really what drives me and keeps me going. And some days I'm really successful and great at that, other days I completely suck at that, but that's the goal every day. Well, I can tell you I'm sure I know that you're helping a ton of people every single day, whether you know it or not.
Thanks. I hope the days like this where I reach a few people make up for all the days that I'm a crappy propeller. Fair enough. It sure does.
It sure does. Now David, I know you've been through a lot. You've had a lot of successes. Obviously with that comes some failures, but if you could look back at your young self, say go back in time and offer a young David one piece of advice.
I'm interested to know what that would be and why. If I had to pick just one, that's pretty tough. One or two. Yeah.
So, all right. I'll go with a couple. I would say just thinking about what motivated me back when I was younger, it was, you know, I wanted a good job with stability and good pay and good benefits and good vacation. I mean, like all the boring stuff that, you know, a lot of, maybe not your audience because you know, serious entrepreneurs maybe think a little bit differently than that, but that's kind of what I wanted.
And even though in my initial conscious thoughts, I thought that, I think there was still somewhere in there a little spark of, yeah, but I want to also do something that I love because if you think about it, like when we're kids, you know, you don't say stuff like, oh, I want to go up and be an astronaut and I hope I hate it. We don't talk that way. Whether we knew what we wanted to be or not, we imagine doing something that we enjoy that we love that we want to get up and do every day. And so I think one of the things I would go back to tell myself is, you know, align yourself with people and with organizations that allow you to be who you are at your best and to fulfill that purpose or that meaning in life that we all seek as human beings.
And related to that, I think the other thing would be, I think a lot of people spend a lot of time pretending to be who they're not, especially in a work environment. And that is one of the things I've, and I'm still working on it, but that I've really learned to embrace is to be proud, not in a prideful way, but be proud of what I believe and proud of who I am and proud of what I'm good at and acknowledge the things that I'm not good at and ask for help. But again, it goes back to this idea of humanity, of rather than showing up to work and, you know, pretending like I have it all figured out or like I have all the answers or I'm a guy that can do anything, admit to what we're good at and what we're not great at, ask for help, be, I hate using the word vulnerable because it's such a catchphrase, but just be human. And allow people to understand the greatness that we have within us and recognize that and help us amplify that and help us to improve where we can improve.
I think that's such a wonderful message and piece of advice for a lot of people out there. And now David, easiest question, what is the best way that our audience can connect with you? Sure, so the probably where you're going to get the most information, not only on me, but on this movement and those others that are involved in it is if you go to startwithy.com, that's why I spelled W-H-Y startwithy.com. You can, I'm not super active on Twitter, but I'm a DJ meet on Twitter or DM underscore S-W-W for startwithy on Instagram, that's where I'm most active, but those are probably the main sources there.
Fantastic, I will share all those links and everyone get involved with that movement. What Simon, David, and their team is doing is phenomenal. I'm a huge fan and I'm really happy that you were able to come on the show and share your message with all of us today, David. Thanks, Colin.
Hey, just one last plug, if I can. Absolutely. About actually a month ago today, we just released a new book called Find Your Why, which is a follow-on to Simon's first book, Start With Why. So what that first book, Start With Why does is really get into a lot of detail and examples about this concept of cause, purpose, belief, and Find Your Why is designed as a companion volume to that.
It's kind of the how to, specifically designed for entrepreneurs, and small businesses, and small teams. This is a guide to help you actually take the workshops that we do to help individuals and organizations find and articulate their why, and basically shows you how to do it. So it's a great resource if you're interested in doing this for yourself. Definitely check that out.
It's in a soft paperback form, also on Kindle, and there's also an audio book version. Fantastic, and I'll make sure I get all those links so everyone can take advantage and make sure they get that book. And as you can see, everyone, again today, success is driven by passion and hunger, and today starting with why, everyone has to overcome obstacles, everyone has a story, start building yours today. We have the chance to talk to Mr.
David Mead, David again. Thank you so much for coming on the show. You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
The pleasure was all mine. Everyone, if you liked today's episode, be sure to hit that subscribe and like button. Until next time, everyone, call on Morgan signing off and always remember to keep on grinding.