David Mead: Leadership That Wins in Today’s Market

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What is giving business leaders the edge today? What has held some back while others rise to the top? We spoke with Simon Sinek’s co-author, David Mead to learn more about what they are seeing on the front lines with companies and dig into exactly what you need to know to win today.

Learn more about David and his work at > www.davidjmead.com

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Transcription of Interview

(Transcribed by Otter.ai, there may be errors)

Adam G. Force 00:03

Welcome to the Change Creator podcast where entrepreneurs come to learn how to live their truth, get rich and make a massive difference in the world. I’m your host, Adam Force co founder, Change Creator and co creator of the captivate method. Each week we talk to experts about leadership, digital marketing and sales strategies that you can implement in your business and life to go big, visit us at Change Creator.com forward slash go big to grab awesome resources that will help drive your business forward. What’s up, and welcome back to the Change Creator podcast show. This is your host, Adam force. So today we have a really interesting conversation. Now you might have heard of Simon Sinek. Simon Sinek is famous for breaking down the idea of having a why. And he did his TED Talk. And he had a couple of books. And one of those books was called finding your why. And he had a co author actually had two co authors with that book, and one of them is David Meade. Hopefully I’m pronouncing his last name, right. But David is a super sharp guy. And you know, he worked obviously with Simon. And as co author of that book, he’s now moved on, he does a lot of keynote talks at different companies and supports different businesses with the strategies that they unpack. And he has a new book coming out that we’re going to kind of tap into because there’s some really great insights that he brings to the table, and we’re going to work through them, he’s going to share some of those details that will help kind of like, guide you into taking the right steps for the future of your business and and what that might look like. So this is a great conversation on leadership. That is important in today’s marketing world. Now, if you missed the last episode of the podcast, we spoke with David Wood. So yeah, another David, David would was a really great conversation about mastering your mind and business for progress. He is a coach, he’s worked a lot of coaches, a lot of companies. He’s been highlighted in Forbes and all these crazy places, tons of experience. So if you missed that call, there’s a lot of good nuggets, he takes us through His nine steps that will help you get more clarity in your business and stay on the right direction. So we break all that down in that conversation. Alright guys, make sure you stop by Change Creator comm forward slash go big, get some goodies there and check out the latest content. And leave us a review on iTunes. That’s always really appreciated. If there’s any way you could ever kind of like return the favor. We share all this content, all the stuff we would love to hear have your support with an iTunes review. Obviously, this helps us with the rankings and all that kind of fun stuff. Just all part of the game here. So your review, and feedback is always really appreciated. Alright guys, we’re not going to hold this up anymore. Let’s dive into this conversation and talk with David on this topic. Okay, show me the heat. Hey, David, what’s up, man? Welcome to the Change Creator podcast show how you doing today?

David Mead 03:11

Hey, Adam, I’m good. Thanks for having me on.

Adam G. Force 03:13

You got it. excited to have you here, you got quite an interesting background full of cool experience, ranging from writing books and working with Simon Sinek. So you know, I want to tap into all this stuff and some of the things that you’ve been working on. But before we do, I always like to just get a little bit about, what are you working on? Like right now in your current, you know, day like what’s hot for you? What’s top of mind? And then I like to get a little background on like, What got you there?

David Mead 03:42

Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, what I’m working on, sort of first and foremost is as a book that’s coming out toward the end of this year, if all goes well.

Adam G. Force 03:51

Nice.

David Mead 03:52

And, you know, also putting some of those thoughts that I’m writing into the book into talks and workshops, and, you know, consulting with clients that I’m doing along the way to keep learning and hopefully making the book better as I write it.

Adam G. Force 04:03

Yeah, awesome. And so tell us a little just a bit about your background, so people know, like, where you’re coming from and what you do, but also why you’re good at what you do.

David Mead 04:15

Sure. So I started my career in corporate training. I was in sales training, I was doing sales forever, and just couldn’t seem to ever get out of it, which I really wanted to do, because I’m not into sales much in the traditional sense, you know, some people just are so good at it. And I was not so I got into training instead because those who can’t do teach as we’ve heard, and so I joined a Yellow Page company back when Yellow Pages was a thing. And I was doing sales training and I really enjoyed it. I loved seeing the light come on. I love giving people you know, the tips and the tools and the resources to be able to be great at what they did and what they wanted to do. The thing that was a bit unfulfilling for me is you know, as most people know, sales in sales turnover is pretty high. And so I would spend And all this time and energy and effort training these folks. And then you know, three to six months later, most of them were gone. And they were on to something else. And I thought, it’s like it doesn’t, I don’t know if anything that I did for them actually stuck. And so I left I actually started my own. In a completely different vein, I started my own kitchen and bath restoration company, right around 2007 2008, you can imagine how that went. And then, through a confluence of events, I ended up as a as a trainer, again, leading the sort of the training and development for this little startup in Salt Lake City where I live, and it was a door to door sales company. And through that, I met a guy by the name of Simon Sinek. Back in 2009, nobody really knew who he was at the time, many of your listeners may now know who he is. But yeah, he’s an author and a thought leader and ended up working with him for about 10 years and sharing his ideas, through speaking and workshops and a little bit of consulting and then left his team in December of 2019. Right before COVID, and 2020 was a journey, just like it has been for everybody else, just you know, sorting things out and pivoting and getting into more, you know, online digital stuff. Because, you know, all the in person stuff just vanished overnight.

Adam G. Force 06:22

No doubt about that. And so I guess, tell me a little bit about what are some things that you learned when working with Simon Sinek. And I always say Sinek, and you told you told me already? It’s

David Mead 06:37

I think I mean, I think the thing that struck me the most, and it’s again, it’s something that I already knew kind of going into it, but how important the the human element is to the work we do until leadership. And I think it’s, it’s something that we sort of naturally already know, as human beings, but when we get into a work environment, and we have, you know, all the pressures and the stresses that come along with that, whether it be you know, just figuring out what we’re doing, as we’re starting out our business, or hiring new people, or, you know, managing projects, all these things, especially if we’re new at what we’re doing. Yeah, let all these things get in the way of taking care of the people. And, you know, we focus more on, excuse me, we focus more on managing the business. And we sort of neglect the people. Whereas if we take care of the people, they’ll actually take care of the business for us. And I think that’s one of the biggest things that I learned.

Adam G. Force 07:29

Yeah, so you, so you have taken a departure from the customer’s always right formula?

David Mead 07:38

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, sometimes they are, and sometimes they’re not. But I think, what whatever the situation is, I think, and this is part of what what I talked about in the book, and maybe we’ll dive into it a little bit more, is whenever we make a decision, how do we keep the human being that’s involved, or the human beings that are involved? Top of Mind in that decision? Customer, maybe right customer may be wrong, we may do something that’s good for the company, or good for the customer, and depending on the situation, but how do we do our best to take care of the human and help them to know, and to feel that we’re actually taking care of them so that we can, you know, continue that relationship?

Adam G. Force 08:15

Yeah, I love that. And I see more of this mentality, surfacing as time goes on, you know, we’re seeing more of this social entrepreneurship trend, which means the way we think about business and the way we approach it is changing, right? We’re putting more intention behind it. And I think that we’re kind of getting back to this idea of re humanizing our marketing and the way we manage teams, right. I know on our team, it has helped like, everyone talks about sales funnels. And the way we talk about that is by saying digital conversations, because really, it’s like, you talked about door to door sales, you sit down for an hour, you have this conversation, and you’re doing the same conversation you do online, so we call it the digital conversation. So we can remember, we’re talking to people, not clicks, you know, not targets. It makes a difference in your perception.

David Mead 09:06

It really doesn’t I think that the word you just said the perception is such a big thing. And I my my dear friend, Peter Docker has a distinction that we use all the time, which is the difference between doing and being. When you’re doing something, you can be really good at what you’re doing. But depending on who you’re being, when you’re doing that thing, it comes with what you’re doing comes across completely differently. So you can talk to a click where you can talk to a human, you can say the exact same words, but what’s your perception? What’s the perspective that you have in your mind of who you’re talking to? Are you talking to a revenue dollar? Or are you talking to a human who has a need, right? You’re gonna say the exact same words, but the way you show up in the environment that you create and how you occurred to that person, they can feel it. Yeah, even if you’re saying the exact same thing.

Adam G. Force 09:51

Very, very, very good point. I’m glad you said that. I mean, you think about when you’re young and you’re just do that you’re in high school and you’re trying to you know, Data girl, right? You can go there and reek of desperation. Or you can be very confident and it comes off. You could say the same things, but one way is gonna work well on the other ways not. Right.

David Mead 10:12

Right. And we’ve never done that, by the way, I’m happy.

Adam G. Force 10:15

Yeah. Hey, I’m Adam gotta go. Man. Yeah, it you know, and I love seeing it go in this direction, this is something that I feel with the internet boom has been kind of it’s, it’s been derailed, right. But since that has happened, it’s all about quick bait, who can get the most clicks and all these things, and it just had this quick shift. But that is, I think, caused a lot of red flags in people’s minds as buyers and consumers and things like that. So now we have to navigate those things, you know, pop up blockers, right?

David Mead 10:58

Yeah, um, you know, I think of, uh, you know, I mean, like, like you said, the, the online thing has sort of derailed everything, I think, one company that just popped into my mind that has been doing this so well, for so long is Zappos. And they were doing, you know, this long before a lot of us were. And I think in granted, like, you know, they’re, they’re, they, the traditional way they used to do is their customer service was over the phone. And now we’re doing a lot of stuff, you know, online and through chat and that kind of thing. But I think, you know, even with the the online commerce platform that they were using, they were so good at making sure that they were taking care of the person and I think you can, it’s more difficult through chat, because you missed the nuance and you missed the tone and you missed the you know, those things that voice and those nonverbals give you but we can still do it, we can still show that there’s a human on the other side, we can still show that we’re not just, you know, using, uh, you know, we’re not using just macros, or we’re not using just the things that we send out to everybody. And I think we can really personalize that and it takes more time, it takes more effort, it’s harder. But those are the companies I think that really stand out, those are the people that that will attract that loyalty that that is so hard to get.

Adam G. Force 12:05

I agree 100%. And if you come of that mind, you’re not going to send somebody to this maze of automated phone crap that nobody wants to go through. Like, as soon as you hear that, you just want to roll your eyes and be like, EFF this.

David Mead 12:22

I don’t want to ask the community, I just want to talk to a person, you know what I mean?

Adam G. Force 12:26

Press one for this, press two for that circle as you go and Circle Circle Circle. Same thing with the chat bots, like you know, when you have some stupid chat bot or somebody that really just knows nothing about the company, or they’re just kind of facilitating a script. You’re already saying that you don’t care enough about the customer to do it the right way, because you’re more worried about automation and cost. Right. So right. It makes a major difference.

David Mead 12:53

I’m not saying that that automation is not a good thing. I’m not saying that, you know, watching your cost is not a good thing. I’m not saying that you got to sacrifice the financial part of your business for the culture part of your business. So what I’m saying, I think what so many people think is that we have to sacrifice one for the other? Well, if I if I really work on my culture, and my people, then I’m going to sacrifice the money. Or if I, you know, sacrifice the money, if I’m going after the money, then I’m going to sacrifice my people. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can have both. And there’s so many examples of companies that are doing it right.

Adam G. Force 13:20

Yeah, yeah. No, and I’m glad you made that point. Because you’re right, it can be misunderstood. There’s always an end, if you are thinking in this way, but this perspective, you know, and you are taking care of the people, like you’re saying is so important. You just make different decisions, it doesn’t mean you’re less profitable, right? So it could end up that you’re more profitable because of those decisions. Right?

David Mead 13:45

Yeah. And I think the the, the trap that we fall into is, I don’t want to call it a trap, necessarily. But I think, again, going back to that idea of the perception that we have is, if I make a decision that doesn’t benefit me right now, it’s not the right decision. And I know especially for you know, new companies, companies that are that are that have a lot of a lot of desire for growth, and they want to, you know, grow and sell or whatever. It’s about, what can I do right now to maximize profits? What can I do in the short term to make things better, especially if we’re strapped for cash, especially if we need that revenue coming in? Of course, we’re gonna make those decisions. And that’s okay. But keeping that in balance with what’s the long term? What am I really here for? What am I trying to do over the long term? And how is it How is this decision going to maybe benefit me down the road rather than right now being able to have the wisdom to make those sacrifices when it makes sense?

Adam G. Force 14:35

Yeah, I think that’s a great way to to, to phrase that up. So I’m curious, you know, obviously, the whole why conversation with Simon Sinek is very popular. Just getting to that root of why we’re doing what we’re doing, remembering this intention. Anything and I want to talk about your book. I think he said the, you know, placeholder title behind the curtain, I’m wondering if there’s anything you took away from the process of Simon synnex book that is gonna help you with this book, anything you learn there?

David Mead 15:14

Yeah, of course, I mean, you know, the obviously the reason that I joined his team was because I feel very strong, I still do have the importance of having that sense of purpose in the work that we do. And you know, look at it transcends beyond work. Also, this is not a work concept. You know, that the interesting thing was that the reason that we as a as a team, when I was working with Simon, the reason we went after businesses, was because that’s where we were going to reach the most people. This is not a business concept. This is a human concept, right? And so I think what what I’ve taken from that is, what is it about, just in general, what it is, what is it about humans, that makes us work well together? What is it that that builds that trust, whether it’s at work, or whether it’s at home between our spouses and our kids, or our, you know, roommates or friends, or whatever it is, it’s really what I took from it is what’s the humanity that that we’re missing? And so, you know, as I as I dive into this new book that I’m writing, it’s sort of at a 40,000 foot view, as I as I sort of take stock of my career, my working life, even, you know, from one of my first jobs when I was 17, in the bagel shop, right all the way to what I’m doing now, I look back, and I see one thing in leadership that I think is more damaging, more potentially damaging than anything else. And I have seen and experienced and observed because I’ve worked with hundreds of companies over the last decade or so. But one of the things that I’ve seen and experienced myself over that, you know, these 2030 years is that 30 years note, not quite that long, let’s still stick with 20 I’m gonna stick with 2020 years or so is that the thing that’s one of the things that’s most damaging is when a leader says something, they say they stamp or something, say they believe something or enforce something that they don’t do themselves. Right, they say one thing, and then they turn around and do something else. Whether that be you know, enforcing a policy, making sure that all the employees do this thing, but then they don’t do it themselves, or talking about how important the company values are. But then you see them doing something that’s not that. And that what that does, is it it, it breaks trust, it increases cynicism. You know, it does all these damaging things, self preservation, right, we watch out for ourselves, we can’t trust each other, we don’t collaborate. So if you’re trying to build a business, if you’re trying to grow, innovate, collaborate all these things and build trust, and you’re doing those kinds of things. It doesn’t work, the two do not mix. And we noticed this, you know, we see in big companies, right, there was a VW scandal, there was a Wells Fargo scandal, you see it in CEOs, you see it in, you know, entertainers, you see all these people that were putting on this act. And then all of a sudden, they get exposed for doing something that they were kind of hiding, right? And all of a sudden trust is lost. And we in you know, we don’t trust them anymore. So it’s easy to point the finger at those examples and say, Oh, well, man, that was stupid, I would never do that. But we are all susceptible to it. We all do it. Right. And think about how prevalent it is, we think of the the terms that we use are the things that we use to describe when people do these things. Right. We talked about keeping up appearances. We talk about, oh, they’re pulling the wool over people’s eyes, right? They’re putting on a show they’re being two faced, all of these things are exactly what I’m talking about is that we’re doing things that are not in line with what we actually stand for what we actually say that we believe. And so the this idea that, you know, we’re above it, we’re not. And we somehow think that we can put up this curtain, and that we can hide who we truly are, and then put on this performance that is going to keep everybody at bay, right? The issue is, the problem is that curtain is an illusion. It’s not actually there, right? So if we’re doing things that are not really in line with who we truly are, or what we truly believe, it’s gonna get found out at some point or other. And the scary part is we’re not the ones that pull back, pull back that curtain. It’s somebody else that does it for us, right? So if you’re out there saying something and not being real, and not being in integrity with who you are, and what you stand for, people are gonna find out. It’s just a matter of time, right? So the book gets into this idea of, you know, what’s behind the curtain is our character. And we can either choose to intentionally build a strong character, or we can just act as a character and hope that that day that the curtain gets pulled back never comes. And that the whole idea is because that that curtain is an illusion is something we create not actually there. The thing I lost my train of thought, do you ever do that?

Adam G. Force 19:58

I do it all the time. I’ve been on interviews where somebody asked me a question, I start answering it. I’m like, wait, what was the question again?

David Mead 20:04

Yeah, I never did that. But this idea that, you know, we if we build a strong character, yeah, it removes the need for the curtain. We don’t need to lie fake and hide it.

Adam G. Force 20:15

We’re not hiding anything, right? You kind of get you kind of, like hit what you said before, which is, you know whether it is blatantly said and you’re found out, like you mentioned VW and Wells Fargo, right? It may be that blatant. But it also may be just the feeling and the red flag that someone gets, and they don’t buy from you, right? Because they feel off. It’s like going to, if I say that we are, we can help you master your brand, we have a thing called brand mastery, right? And we help with your design, we help with the user experience, convert more sales, your brand story, but then you go to my website, and it’s like the ugliest thing ever. Like, you know, it’s like, wait, it’s not right here.

David Mead 20:56

Yeah, I mean, the extreme examples are the easiest ones to see. Right. And I think the reason that we think, oh, I don’t do that, I would never do that. Maybe not. But we’re doing it in the more subtle ways, right? We’re doing it by, you know, bending the truth a little bit, or we’re doing it by, you know, just looking over our shoulder before we do something to make sure nobody’s watching like that. And the thing is, even if nobody’s ever watching, when we build and maintain a strong character ourselves, it bothers us, like, we can’t let ourselves do it. Because we know that it’s not not right, we know that we’re acting out of integrity with who we are.

Adam G. Force 21:29

Well, and this could be a limiting factor for your growth and success in some levels, because you’re gonna have an internal conflict with things that hold you back. Right? So you’re like, Yeah, why am I not making more money? Why am I not, you know, growing the team as fast as I thought, and it’s, you can have internal conflicts around these things that hold you back, if you don’t know for sure. It’s unconscious, right?

David Mead 21:51

And look, I’m not I’m not advocating for perfection, right? We’re not the goal is not to never do anything wrong. And I think what really defines a person’s character is what do they do when they get caught doing something that they’re not supposed to do? Because we all do, you know, people who have, who have not built a strong character, they’re the ones that will deny it, justify it, you know, explain it away. The ones that do have a strong character, have the humility and are able to see that as a learning opportunity. Like, shoot, I messed up. Yeah, to learn on this stuff myself. I’ll try to do better next time. Sorry, you know, absolutely. That’s what defines character to me.

Adam G. Force 22:29

Yeah, and it makes a huge difference to the people you serve. Because, you know, you come out and be like, I thought I was doing the right thing. You know, like, and I got, I was intimidated by this. So I said, You know, I did it this way, even though I kind of knew I shouldn’t like you just kind of own up, right. But if you’re not accountable, and you’re like, you know, some political figures that, you know, just push off and blame every little thing. You’re just kind of like, yeah, okay, buddy.

David Mead 22:55

Yeah, I wasn’t gonna bring that up. But we see that all the time. Right? We see it and politicians a lot. We see it in people in the media all the time, you know, all the business leaders all the time, all the time. And the good ones. I mean, I have seen examples of the good ones that come out and say, you know, what, we made a mistake. But most of the time, because of fear, because of insecurity, because of you know, whatever, we just explained it away. It’s not my fault. It was something something else, something external.

Adam G. Force 23:25

And I listen, I agree with you, 100%. And one of my favorite books I have over on my bookshelf is by t harv. eker. The, it’s something like the millionaire mindset or something like that. And he says, there’s three things you never do you never complain, blame or justify, right? So if you can kind of lean in, those are been my three roles. And when I learned them, I had them on a sticky note on my mirror and remind myself every day Don’t blame, don’t complain, and don’t justify just me accountable. And like one of the things I’ve been really into now just kind of leaning into where you’re going with, like character integrity, and I love that you brought that up as part of not just business, but just being a good human right? is we have to first and foremost, be honest with ourselves, like, Can you look in the mirror and be honest with yourself? Right, right. And most people are not doing that.

David Mead 24:22

Yeah. And you know, on that note, the this idea of like, great, how do we then as leaders or people and I don’t care if you have a leadership position or not, right? The idea is if you have influence if you’re a parent, if you’re an aunt and uncle, whatever, it doesn’t matter if you have an official leadership position. Yeah. But you know, what are the things that that help us to build that strong character so that we don’t need that curtain anymore? And I’ve really again, as I thought about the great leaders that I’ve had, and the things that they all have in common, they have a lot of traits in common, but I boiled it down to three main traits which are honest, humble and human. So this first idea is the honest one Can I be honest If myself, can I look at myself in the mirror and say and admit my, you know, when I’m doing something wrong? Yeah. And the big thing with me for honesty is am I doing the things I say? Am I performing the the, the behaviors and the communication that I actually believe in? Right? That’s the crux of what honest is humble is is just that it’s the ability to drop the ego. Yeah. Which is so hard to do, right? Like, I’m not perfect at this stuff. I never will be right. This is a journey. This is a pursuit, daily pursuit that we have to go after. But can I admit my own fallibility? can I learn from my mistakes? My humble enough to in the moment, when I screw something up to apologize, I can go back and do it three days later, right? When the emotions are down, but can I do it in the moment, so people really know that I’m sincere about it and want to make a change. And then the third thing is human. And this is something that I alluded to before, which is when we make a decision, especially in an early business, when there’s so many decisions to be made, and we you know, we’re facing things we’ve never done before. How do we make sure that the human beings who are affected by that decision are at the forefront of our minds, it doesn’t mean we’re not gonna lay somebody off, it doesn’t mean we’re gonna make a tough decision, but we have at least thought about the implication to the human being, that that decision will affect. And then along with with that human element, also is how do we pour everything that we have into that person so that they feel valued and valuable? Yeah. When you build honest, humble and human, when you have that kind of character, as a leader, you will build trust, you will build collaboration, you will make progress. You bring people together that want to be there, they’ll feel like they’re doing something that matters.

Adam G. Force 26:43

Yeah. And I think like that kind of stuff. And if you have the patience, and you are willing to be consistent with those things, you’ll see that progress, right? Do you have just from writing your book? Are there any examples of companies that have, I’m curious if there’s companies that have had a big turnaround because of leadership came in and they had these types of practices? Like I just found, like, I have an example this guy art barter came in, and he’s like, there was a company that was like a $10 million a year company. And he did this thing, kind of like we’re saying, This is servant leadership is what he called it right? Or being more honest, like humble, and like all these, like beautiful things that you want to see in somebody. And within like, just a few years, I guess, four years or five years, he turned it into a $200 million a year company. Yeah, I know, as I got to talk to this guy. I interviewed him. And that was one example it jives with what you’re saying it’s like, take this approach, give it time, like shifting a culture is very, very difficult. But if you’re consistent, and you have you lead by, like what you do, right, like lead by actions, and not just like telling people things, like you said, you gotta be a leader by action, that makes a big difference.

David Mead 28:06

It does. And, you know, the, for the last, you know, 10 years or so, as I’ve been traveling around, most of my interactions with companies have been very sort of short term I was I came in for a keynote or a couple day workshop. And so I know that examples are out there. And you know, most of the examples that that I lean to, or those that people have heard of, but I mean, I there have got to be 1000s of organizations out there that we’ve never heard of before, that are doing this exact same thing. A lot of the younger companies that I worked with, and this is I think, what the great opportunity, especially for people that are in the beginning stages of an organization is this is when you can do it. Right. This is when you have a chance to do it. Right. And and then you know, do it from the ground up, rather than having to unlearn all the bad stuff, you know, 1015 years down the road and turn it around. What a great opportunity to just do it right from the start. Right. And a lot of the a lot of the companies that were drawn to the work that I was doing, were did have that their hearts were in the right place. They weren’t perfect. They were still making mistakes, but they didn’t have to turn things around because they were already sort of on that path.

Adam G. Force 29:12

Yeah, we do see that that’s a great point. We see that with social entrepreneurs who are starting their businesses, you know, I know, a couple who I’ve interviewed multiple times, and we met out at conferences, and, you know, he runs a seven figure e commerce company now. And they have that they have started those companies with such good intentions as a business to begin with. But that’s also then just the kind of person that they are that they start managing the team and building the culture that way. And it’s just like this mindset of the social entrepreneur says, I want to do something meaningful, right? I want to make people’s lives better. That’s why I’m starting this business. It brings about a certain type of person to which tends to be honest and humble and all these things we’re talking about.

David Mead 30:00

Yeah, you know, as you’re talking about that, I an example just came to mind, a good friend of mine who’s a real estate agent. I’ve known him for 20 years, we used to sell cell phones together, at&t, you know, way back in the day, that was where I met him, right. And then we went our separate ways. And he went into real estate. And he, we actually ended up living in the same neighborhood for a couple years. And I remember, you know, back that time, in those early days, he was like, just so driven to build his business, his like, friends can wait, family can wait, they won’t be there when I get done. And I was like, ooh. And he built his business. And he sold it. And you know, hadn’t had a good exit from it. And a couple years ago, specifically, last year, in COVID, I noticed, I met up for him, I met up with him for lunch. And I sensed this real change in him. And we’ve since been working on a project together for the last couple months. And you know, we’ve had a chance to talk about this, but his mindset has completely shifted. So we’re for the first several years of his business, it was about, you know, everything else can wait. It’s all about my career. It’s all about my business. It’s all about the money, which he got, he got it, but he sacrificed everything else, lost his marriage. I’m sure a lot of his friends left. I’m lucky enough to still be a friend. But he has done a complete turnaround, where now he realizes, you know what success means so much more than money to me, yes, money is a component of it. Absolutely. But it’s the relationship that I have with my kids. It’s the ability that I have now to spend time with them. And the freedom that this this job can create, so that I can do things with the people that matter to me. So to answer your question, that’s one simple example of one guy who’s now building a business that he’s got, you know, in a completely different way. And we’re actually working on a project together to be able to share these ideas with young entrepreneurs, that are just starting out so that they can, again, have this shift in perspective, as they’re starting out as to what success really means. Yes, absolutely. Money can be a component of it, but it can be so much more than that. And that other part is so fulfilling.

Adam G. Force 32:03

Yeah, I like that. I mean, and it’s, sometimes people have to go through that pain in order to learn the lesson that you learn, right? So yeah, let me know we go through struggle, all our lives. And I, that’s something I was reading this day, I don’t know if you heard of David Goggins, the guy that wrote, the book can’t hurt me. He was a navy seal. Oh, my gosh, talk about mental toughness and disciplines, guys, I’m an animal. But he really kind of got me really kind of opening my perspective around how struggle is part of the human process for growth, right, we always say don’t get better, you got to get out your comfort zone, blah, blah, blah, very cliche stuff. But when you talk about struggle, like that’s when you start learning who you are, it’s like when you’re really in the mix, and you’re thinking to yourself, like, he goes through crazy stuff. And I was just talking to my wife, yesterday, and I was like, we did a five day backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon. And I was like, it was our first time backpacking, the difficulty was four out of five with high solitude. I was like, I don’t know what we’re thinking, we’re doing our doing our thing. We trained hard. Before we went, we wanted the experience, right? And I was like, do you remember we went out there? And I’m like, did you ever have moments out there when you had massive blisters cuts off your feet? And you know, we had several more days walking eight miles a day in hot sun with a 45 pound bag on your back? I’m like, did you ever sit there and lay in the tent at night going, what the hell am I doing out here. And this is, this is when you start thinking I could be home, I could be doing this. And that whole game becomes a choice for you to say, I’m going to keep going, or I’m going to check out right. And that’s where this callus in the mind and mental toughness. And we go through this stuff in different forms as entrepreneurs, tough decisions, losing money, losing partners, like all these things, and it’s really up to us to make these decisions and choices that keep going forward.

David Mead 33:59

So I love what you said, because I think it again, it reminds me that we’re gonna get to the other side of this, but the only way you can get to the other side is the thrashing part, right, you got to thrash to get to the other side. And, you know, I’ve never done a hardcore backpacking trip and Grand Canyon. However, I will tell you one, like really, really, really, really baby version of that, that I do every day, that maybe some of your listeners will, will, will get out of it. So it gets something out of it. So I sound silly, but every morning for the first few seconds of my shower, it’s cold, as cold as the water will get. And it’s again for this, this thing of like this will pass. I’ll get through this. It’s gonna get warm, right? It’s hard right now it sucks right now, but it’s gonna get warm. Yeah, and that’s a daily reminder of when something comes up that I have no control over when something comes up that is a slog, or that sucks or that, you know, a surprise that, you know, an unexpected thing that I got to deal with. I’m going to get to the other side. It’s warm on either side. So it’s that’s just a daily simple daily reminder that helps me to deal with those kind of things

Adam G. Force 35:02

I like it. It’s a little extra mini like, exercise size that anybody can really implement. And now it’s good to shock the nervous system with some of that cold water. Does it if Tony, then it must be good. Okay. He just has this custom cold pool that goes down. Yeah, I’m not there. Yeah, guy, we all use the shower. That’s a good example, though. And we all have to do different things to remind ourselves. But you’re right. Like in the last example, I’ll give on this topic. It’s like, I was like, it’s so true. And you can look at whenever I question something about myself or business, I look at life in general and see if it’s consistent in all like areas of life. And so for an example of this would be the butterfly. Like if a butterfly is a caterpillar cocoon, and you see the cocoon moving and it can’t get out. If you open that cocoon for it and take it out, it will die and never become a butterfly. It’s only because of the struggle that it builds up the strength and the and what it needs to become the butterfly. Interesting. How cool is that? I mean, you just see these things in life replicated in very various forms, you know?

David Mead 36:16

Totally, yeah.

Adam G. Force 36:17

Pretty awesome.Alright, so listen, if people want to learn more, they want to see like, I don’t know your book. When’s that supposed to come out?

David Mead 36:25

End of the year, October or January, we’re still…up in the air.

Adam G. Force 36:27

Alright, so towards the end of year, we got a little time. And we’ll make a note of it in the show notes so people know and stuff like that. And right now, temporary working title is behind the curtain for anybody. Where do they learn more about what you’re working on and connect and stuff like that? Is there some place they can go?

David Mead 36:45

Yeah, my website is Davidjmead.com. You can find me on the socials at dmpropls. And then yeah, I guess those are probably the best best way to find me.

Adam G. Force 37:02

Awesome. Well, David, really appreciate you taking the time to chat today. Share all your experiences working with Simon and outside of all that and everything else you’re doing. The book sounds great. I think it’s such an important conversation that you’re bringing to the table so it was fun to dig into that today.

David Mead 37:16

Thanks Adam. Nice talking to you too.

Adam G. Force 37:23

Thanks for tuning into the Change Creator podcast visit us at Change Creator comm forward slash go big to get access to free downloads and other great resources that will drive your business forward.

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