Every talk pairs decades of perception science with the same insight from 3,000+ interviews with top performers: the gap between who people are and who we assume them to be is where all the lost potential lives.
Check David's Availability ▸ Watch David SpeakEvery keynote is built on the same battle-tested spine — then shaped to your room. A leadership summit, a sales kickoff, and an association general session don't need different speakers. They need the same idea walked through the door that fits: leadership, resilience, teamwork, or performance. Pick the door. David builds the talk around your audience, your industry, and your theme.
The question that unlocks the best in you and everyone around you
Three words. That is all it takes to shift everything.
David learned those three words from his mother — who used them to survive loss, raise three kids alone, and build a life nobody thought was possible. He has spent 15 years and more than 200,000 people proving they work for everyone.
Most people share one invisible habit: wishing the people and situations around them would just be different. Wishing is exhausting. And it changes nothing. The problem is almost never the person or the situation. It is the lens we use to see them. And once that lens shifts — from "why won't they change?" to "how can I?" — everything changes: performance, culture, and whether the people around you give everything they have or just enough to get by.
In a world increasingly shaped by AI, the people who master human connection hold the only advantage technology cannot replicate.
The leadership shift that unlocks performance without changing anyone
Your team isn't the problem. The lens you're using to see them is.
In this high-energy, research-backed keynote, David takes on one of leadership's most exhausting habits — the relentless effort to fix, correct, and reshape people who were never broken to begin with. You can't turn a cat into a dog. The leaders who keep trying don't just fail. They burn out their teams and themselves in the process.
Drawing on thousands of real-world interviews and behavioral science, David shares the one shift that separates the leaders everyone wants to work for from the managers everyone merely tolerates. It's not a new management system. It's a new way of seeing people. And once someone sees it, they can't unsee it.
It starts with three words: How can I? And it ends with a team that shows up early, stays late, and does it because they want to.
The one skill AI can't replicate — that unlocks the best in your people, your team, and yourself
His mother said it to him while she was dying: "You get what you look for. So look for the good." He has spent 15 years and more than 200,000 people proving she was right.
What you focus on is what you find. Most leaders know this. Almost none of them live it.
Drawing on thousands of real-world interviews, Harvard-backed behavioral science, and stories from the Navy's highest-performing ship in history, David reveals what the best leaders actually do differently. They don't fix people. They see them differently. And that shift changes everything: performance, loyalty, culture, and whether people give everything they have or just enough to get by.
In a world increasingly shaped by AI, the leaders who master human connection hold the only advantage technology cannot replicate. A talk about how human beings see each other — and what becomes possible when they learn to look for the good.
Keynotes, workshops, half-day and full-day sessions — in person, virtual, or hybrid, tailored to your event. Every booking starts with a conversation about your audience, your theme, and what needs to be different the day after.
The core is proven. The examples, the industry language, and the emphasis — leadership, resilience, teamwork, or performance — are built for your room.
Not the polite applause silence. The thinking silence. Two minutes tells you everything.
"The room was fully engaged from start to finish. I watched the front row — nobody moved."From David's public reviews · All 5,148 ratings at talkadot.com/s/david
Tell David about your audience and your outcomes, and he'll tell you honestly which talk fits — and whether it's a match at all.
Check David's Availability