Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Danielle Cobo: Kick it off. Hey, Brian. Thank you so much for joining our, uh, podcast today. Tell us a little bit about your background. I know you started in education, but you have become an expert on mindset. So tell us a little bit about where you started and where you're at today.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Well, thanks Danielle for having me on.
Dr. Brian Davidson: So, yeah, really I'm an educator at, at Art still to this day. So I started off my career as a high school teacher up in the Twin Cities and, and back then I was just so intrigued on what made my kids successful. So I had a background in psychology from my undergrad years and then, uh, as I was looking at my very best students trying to figure out, you know, what made them succeed and do, do well, I started to realize, you know, a lot of these kids were very intrinsically motivated and they had a high degree of self-discipline.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And so I said, I wanna figure out how those qualities develop in people. Came down to the University of Kansas, started to study these factors like hope and grit and resilience, growth mindset, all these positive psychological factors. And then started wondering, you know, could we teach and cultivate these skills?
Dr. Brian Davidson: So I was working at a university counseling center doing therapy with students. And I started to realize, you know, the whole process of doing therapy was so reactive that we waited until a lot of those students in the counseling center were struggling so much before we worked to equip them with some skills.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And so I thought to myself, you know, here I had this background in education. You know, could we potentially cultivate and grow things like grit and. And perseverance and resilience and hope as a very proactive way to prevent a lot of those issues that it's facing there in the counseling center. So really from there, the rest is kind of history.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Uh, after I finished up all my graduate work, I, uh, launched the company, have a very supportive wife who said, let's go after this dream and. Uh, from there, it started off in the education industry and, uh, really started to grow. It started to transform more into the corporate space, and, uh, now it's involved with military and higher education, sports, uh, really you name it.
Dr. Brian Davidson: These skills pretty much applied to every single one of us
Danielle Cobo: you talked about. The reactiveness when it comes to when people are not performing and you are, you're talking about students, when students weren't performing, that's all of a sudden when we jump in and we start to counsel them, and I see that same apply when we're working in corporate.
Danielle Cobo: If somebody's not meeting the expectations, and I think about my background in sales when. Employees were not performing and they were not achieving your quote, their quota. Then all of a sudden we look at, okay, well what do we need to do to put them on a performance improvement plan? Instead of taking a step back and looking at.
Danielle Cobo: Well, why are they not performing and how can we more or less take a proactive approach in understanding what motivates these individuals so that they can be exceeding their goals versus coming from a reactive? What do you notice when you're working with organizations and you see that some of their employees may not be performing?
Danielle Cobo: What are the first indicators that you look.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Well, so, you know, number one, I think a first step is to measure right? And see what's going on. So, so we often find that there is a reason, right? There's, there's a why behind what, what you're seeing with regards to behavior or the lack of performance in the individuals.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And so it's really important to, to assess and get a gauge of where somebody's mindset is at. And then once you can see how somebody's thinking and feeling, now you can do something about it. And so what we've. You know, sometimes we'll even see it with, with high performing individuals, people that the organization says, oh my goodness, like this is an incredibly accomplished employee.
Dr. Brian Davidson: They're doing great. But then in some cases, Danielle will assess their levels of grit, their resilience, their growth mindset, hope, and all these other indicators of performance and success, and we'll see that they score low. And we'll have a conversation with them and we'll come to find out that they've got a lot of stuff going on in their life.
Dr. Brian Davidson: You know, a lot of adversity, a lot of hardship, whether it's, you know, uh, challenges with their, their children at home to changing situations or work situations with a spouse to, uh, healthcare, uh, scare or diagnosis, something along those lines. Divorce, we see that one pop up time and time again. So we often find that there's a story behind the score, you know, in our, in our work, that there's a reason why we're seeing those.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Really as a caring, supportive leader, I think a lot of our work, you know, comes down to, to helping those people. You know, I, I think back to, to my own experience, back when I was a, a high school teacher going through graduate school, uh, so I was being trained to become a, a superintendent or school principal.
Dr. Brian Davidson: In this ed leadership program, and I was working with my, my principal at that point in time. And you know, in the back of my head I knew I wanted to create this, this company of, of mind view, but I didn't know how to do it back then. I didn't know the path in order to, to make that leap. And so I started thinking, you know, can I be open with this principal about what I really want to do?
Dr. Brian Davidson: And I finally got the guts to, to. This. And so we met one time, and, and you know, I was scared outta my mind Daniel to, to tell him this here. I thought, you know, he was gonna like, fire me and, and you know, tell me like, why, why are you wasting my time, you know, doing all this? But, so I told him, I said, you know, Tim as his name, Tim Brady, wonderful leader and uh, I said, uh, Tim, like, I really don't wanna be a school principal.
Dr. Brian Davidson: I don't wanna be a superintendent at all. I, I don't wanna be a teacher at all. I, I want to develop a company that would revolve around developing things like grit and resilience and motivation. All these factors that I'm really passionate about. And I'll never forget his response again, I was thinking he was gonna respond in a very negative way.
Dr. Brian Davidson: But Danielle, he looked at me and said, Brian, what can I do to help you get. And that was a life-changing event for me because here, you know, I had a caring, supportive leader who listened to what I'm passionate about, who listened to what my dreams and ambitions were. And asked what he could do to assist.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And so I think that's our goals as, as leaders, is we need to do that with all of our employees. Cuz every single one of us, you, me, everybody out there, we all have our own goals and ambitions, what we are striving to do. And the question is, you know, how do we get from where we're at right now to where we want to be?
Dr. Brian Davidson: And those leaders can play such an important role. And I'll tell you what, Danielle, I, I had Tim share that with me. I was willing to walk through walls for that guy, you know, for the next several years. I continued to, to be in the school. And, um, you know, I would just do whatever it, it was needed to help Tim, you know, do do great work because he showed so much compassion support towards me that, uh, you know, it's just a game changer.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And so, you know, as, as leaders, I think this is something that we definitely need to strive to do. .
Danielle Cobo: Yeah. As leaders, it's a matter of looking at the pers, the whole person. Yeah. I think about some of the top performers that were on my team, and sometimes they had difficult quarters, and when I. Peeled back the laters and started to understand what was going on in their life outside of just some of the challenges that they were having in their business, but taking a step back and saying, how are you really, what is what's, tell me a little bit about kind of some of your challenges, but digging deep into the heart of the person.
Danielle Cobo: There were times where people, their family members, Battling cancer or they were having health scare, or I had one, uh, member on my team where their son. Had just been caught doing drugs and they were sending them to rehab. Mm-hmm. . And sometimes we get so focused on our team in ensuring that they're meeting the metrics that if they fall short, oh, well they're not, they're not a good fit for the organization.
Danielle Cobo: But a reality is there might be some external factors that are contributing to that low performance that when we take the time and understand what it is and provide them with the resources to help them. Then they will become loyal oftentimes because they see that the organization cares about them as a person and not just the performance.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And I think about so much of the messaging behind these concepts like grit and resilience is that this person just has it. Like Danielle just has grit and resilience and she's so motivated, she just has it all. Right? And that's a message that we often hear and some, sometimes we often share this ourselves.
Dr. Brian Davidson: But what we're finding, Danielle, and all of our data and all of our analysis of these individuals, organizations, and teams that we're assessing is, you know, grit is not just something that you have or don't have. Okay? We have to think of these factors like muscles in our body. Every single one of us has muscle.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Right. The question is to what degree are those muscles in kind of good shape, right? Are, are we strong in these areas? So every one of us has the ability to be grit. , we all have the ability to be resilient. Uh, before, you know, we hopped on here, we were initially talking about your own experience of, of how, when you were younger and facing those challenges in school, and then all of a sudden, you know, things start to shift in your life and boom, you just start to flourish.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Well, the same thing happens with all these, these mindset skills, grit, resilience, motivation. Okay? It's not just about having these factors, but you know, also, do we have the conditions that are right to allow these factors to grow within a person, you know? Um, These things don't exist in a vacuum by any means.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Everything that is going on in a person's life can influence how they're thinking, how they're feeling, how what are they experiencing in their own mind. And the complexity of this is just absolutely incredible. But if we can create those conditions right, where grit and resilience can flourish, then that's when people are really gonna take off.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And really, you, you can't just like force somebody to be gritty, right? You can't just throw it down their their throat and say like, you've. Demonstrate grit and be more gritty and persevere and all that, and be more resilient. You have to cultivate it within somebody. Okay. It's gotta come from within as opposed to just forcing them to, to act and behave a certain way.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And, uh, as we continue to, to figure out the best ways to do this, we'll continue to share that moving forward.
Danielle Cobo: Well, I know firsthand when I. As you had mentioned, there's been a time in my life where all of a sudden things started to work and I started to flourish in in understanding what I was actually capable of.
Danielle Cobo: But I've also been a time period where I had spent 10 plus years of exceeding my goals and achieving milestones both professionally and personally, and then all of a sudden I had. And I suffered from postpartum depression. And here's taking somebody who's historically been a, a high achiever, and all of a sudden I had just lost everything I didn't know.
Danielle Cobo: What to do, how to be a mom. I was exhausted and I know the steps that I took and I share that in a couple episodes that earlier in the year about how I was able to rebuild and, and get that grit back so that I could fill like myself again and get back to being a high achiever. But I wanna hear from you for somebody who, um, may be struggling with having.
Danielle Cobo: Growth mindset who may be struggling. Maybe they, they've been, they've had grit and resilience before, but maybe they're in that just kind of negative space right now. What are some steps that somebody can take to get back on track?
Dr. Brian Davidson: I think a big part of this are people that, that we have in our lives and, you know, unfortunately the Covid pandemic, a lot of us isolated and withdrew from our social support systems.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And, and that's not good for, for anybody. But I, I would just recommend to people to, to stay open to whoever could be, you know, that's willing to, to support and help you get through some of the difficult times. I, I think back to, to my own journey, Daniel. . Um, back when I was working to, to do the validation process for this assessment, it really, it took us three years to get it done.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And there were times when I was thinking like, there, there's no way we're gonna be able to pull this off. And, and there was one evening that, um, I was sitting there, you know, kind of sulking on a couch. And, and before this, however, let me go back and give you some background to this story. So, so my, my son, okay, he's now nine years old, but back when he.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Three. Okay. He had these little toys called, we called 'em stretchy legs. It was like a Gumby thing. Okay. Where uh, he would play with these thingss and stretch 'em out and they'd come back together while he was playing with stretchy legs. He up on my ceiling.
Danielle Cobo: Is that right? Yeah. He's always been up on my ceiling.
Danielle Cobo: Those little sticky things. I know what you're talking about. . So
Dr. Brian Davidson: he is playing with one of these outside, with one of the, the neighbors. And evidently he launched it and he couldn't. Well, the neighbor girl and him were trying to go around and search for it and they couldn't find it. And pretty soon Henry is losing his mind, you know that he's lost stretchy legs and the neighbors saying, well, I think it went down the drain.
Dr. Brian Davidson: It definitely went down the drain. It's gone, gone forever. And, and little Henry here is going bonkers. It's a little three-year-old. And so I'm thinking, I said, okay, what can I do to, to keep him calm here? So I kind of get down to him at a eye level. I say, You are a Davidson, and one thing that we Davidsons don't do is we don't give up.
Dr. Brian Davidson: All right? We're gonna keep searching for stretchy legs and we're gonna find it. We're gonna keep searching and we're gonna get there. We're gonna find stretchy legs, and so he, you know, wipes away the, the tears and, and all that. And we can go around and, you know, five minutes later. So here we find stretchy legs is out in the grass, some someplace.
Dr. Brian Davidson: We'll fast forward about six to eight months later, okay? Henry's about four at this point in. I'm trying to validate this assessment, and it is just absolutely brutal. Danielle, I'm, I'm struggling. I'm thinking there's no way we're gonna be able to pull this off. I'm sitting here sulking in my misery on the couch with a glass of wine, you know, and Henry comes up to me and says, dad, dad, dad, I, I can't find Woody's hat Woody from Toy Story.
Dr. Brian Davidson: I can't find Woody's hat. And so I was like, Henry. Not now, man. I'm, I'm tired, I'm worn out. You know, uh, just, just let me rest here. And he said, dad, dad, no. We, we need to find what he's hap we need to find what he's had. I said, Henry, no, no, not right now. You know, we'll, we'll figure it out later. We'll find it later.
Dr. Brian Davidson: He looked at me, he said, dad, Remember dad, we are davidson's and we don't give up. We keep searching. Dad, remember we keep searching. And Danielle, I'll never forget that. So, you know, I heard my four-year-old son at that point in time share with me a message of hope, right? Of perseverance and, and that.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Definitely got my butt up off that couch, , you know, to, to go search for, for Whitney's hat, which we ultimately did find about an hour later. But more importantly, um, it helped to reignite that sense of perseverance in me, right? That okay, yes, I can find a way. Yes, we can persevere, we can get this done. We can accomplish this goal of getting this assessment created.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And so my advice to all the listeners here is you. Be open to, to people in your life, okay. That can share that message of hope, that can, to be that individual, to provide that encouragement of support, of, of guidance. You never know, it could be your leader within the organization, or it could be your own four year old child, right?
Dr. Brian Davidson: That, that you just don't know of, of who's gonna provide that inspiration to you. Just to, to keep.
Danielle Cobo: I love that story because I think that sometimes I learn more from my kids than they learn from me. They become a reflection of what we speak to and talk to, and sometimes they put us in check as to, okay, no, no, you know, we're not giving up here.
Danielle Cobo: Or, you know, you're a Davidson, you're gonna do this. I, I just absolutely love that story and I'm glad that you mentioned about the people around us, because I think about, I recently had a client to. Was it been offered a new job? And it was a substantial, a substantial step up in their career, uh, going from an individual contributor role to a high level executive within an organization.
Danielle Cobo: And I remember talking to this person. and they said, and I was like, I just noticed something was off. And I, I asked them, I said, what's going on? Something seems to be off. And they said, well, I had shared with some people at the company I was working with that I got this new position. And people started to ask like, wow, that's a really big job.
Danielle Cobo: Are you sure that you can do this? Are you sure that you're ready for that particular step? And I. You know, I know that you're capable of taking on this role. You know you're capable of doing it. The person who's probably telling. You're to, that's questioning you is probably too scared to take that risk themselves.
Danielle Cobo: So don't let their insecurity project onto you to the point where you start believing it. Yep. And the same goes for entrepreneurs. I have friends that are entrepreneurs and. Sometimes as entrepreneurs, we know that our business has peaks and valleys, and you never know what that future's going to bring and where your business is gonna come from.
Danielle Cobo: And it's, it's easy to sometimes surround ourselves with people who aren't willing to take the risk into entrepreneurship. And so when we don't, when we're feeling a little insecure, we're doubting ourselves that knee-jerk reaction and say, oh, well go back to corporate, but. That's what I say is, as an entrepreneur, surround yourself with o other entrepreneurs, get into a mastermind group, get, you know, meet up with your business coach, meet up with people that understand what it's like to be an entrepreneur, that you can share some of your successes and challenges with, and brainstorm as to what steps you can take to move forward.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah, and that's what I'm hearing from you is surrounding yourself with people that are going to cheerlead you on and, and be there as a support.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And I think ha, having that growth mindset too. So growth mindsets is pioneering idea from Carol DW at, at Stanford, this belief that, hey, I can constantly, fundamentally grow, change, and improve as opposed to, you know, I just have this talent, or I have this certain level of intelligence and I, I might always have this or some cases, you know, am I get in situations and recognize that I don't have it.
Dr. Brian Davidson: You know, when those people have more of that fixed mentality and then they start to doubt, that's when they can really spiral. But if we can have that growth. And realize, hey, like, I just haven't figured it out yet. Right. And, and then to lean on people around you for that support and guidance, that helps us get through some of the tougher times.
Dr. Brian Davidson: But I wanted to ask you, Danielle, h how, in your own journey, h how have you gotten through those periods of doubt yourself? So like when, when you're launching the company, you know, in, in your sales role, even in your earlier years when you said, you know, you had some difficulties in your middle school teenage years when you had that doubt, what, what?
Dr. Brian Davidson: To not take over for you as opposed to being able to, to find a way.
Danielle Cobo: I think it's a hundred percent adopting a growth mindset. I think about the times where I was going through postpartum and the first thing that I did was I, I looked at what are some areas that I can get support and that I enrolled myself in cognitive behavioral therapy so that I can learn the tools to reframe that mindset that I have going from a negative to positive, I think about the times.
Danielle Cobo: Starting my business or, or actually when I was in sales and I said, gosh, I'm not hitting my number. What's going on? And I would always evaluate my business and say, what's working? What's not working? And what are some new skills, uh, that I can learn and develop to get me to where I want to go? And what I've found is when I've adopted a growth mindset and I've taken the steps to learn new skills, I've built confide.
Danielle Cobo: Through that process as well. So I am now at a point where I know that the value of a growth mindset, that every quarter I am looking at, what investment I am I going to make within myself and my business to get me to that next level? Yeah,
Dr. Brian Davidson: yeah, yeah. I, I think about one of the great strategies or techniques you asked me before, you know, some ideas of, of how to help cultivate some of the, these factors.
Dr. Brian Davidson: You know, one, one great activity that we've cultivated is this idea where you, you basically come up with a sheet of paper you can do this for, for workshops and do this with your, your colleagues. And, uh, take a sheet of paper and put the, the following as the title, my list of what's gone. Okay, so my list of what's gone wrong and then have people write down everything over the past three to five years or so that has gone wrong in their life, you know, and people will, some people will just start jotting things down cuz they've dealt with tremendous adversity over these past several years.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And then you have 'em. Look at that list, okay? And look at all those things that have gone wrong in their life. then you ask them to say, okay, next thing I want you to do is look at that title, my list of what's gone wrong. What I want you to do next is to cross that out. Daniel, cross out my list of what's gone wrong, and I want you to write in place my list of what I've.
Dr. Brian Davidson: My list of what I've overcome. And so now you're using kind of that cognitive behavioral technique is you're flipping, you're, reframing your previous adversity into moments of triumph. Okay. To understand that, that we are not just victims of our circumstances, but instead we are. Highly resilient people that we've dealt with a lot of adversity and we've overcome a lot of adversity.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And guess what? There's gonna be more coming ahead, right? We'll always have adversity in our life, but we have the capability to get through that if we develop that belief that yes, I can be resilient in the face of hardship and adversity.
Danielle Cobo: Sometimes our biggest challenges shape us into the person that we are tomorrow.
Danielle Cobo: And I think about my stepdad gave me this great advice and he said, when you're a kid, You know the first time, the first time you ha, you have a goldfish and your goldfish passes away, it's preparing you for when you have a bike and maybe your bike gets stolen, and then when you lose your bike and you recover from that, it's preparing you for your first breakup.
Danielle Cobo: And then when you go through your first breakup, it's preparing you for possibly your first job loss. But everything in life is. Is develop, is strengthening us and developing us, and growing us as a person to the person we are tomorrow. And sometimes our biggest challenges become our greatest strength.
Danielle Cobo: And you think about the challenges that people have overcome, because I went through postpartum, I'm able to teach others how to do it because I've gone through. You know, a, a husband that's been deployed with two year old kids and leading a team for a Fortune 500 company all within a year. That's how I've been able to teach others how to prevent burnout.
Danielle Cobo: Yeah. Um, and I'm so glad that you talk about just that, that mindset shift from, you know, what has gone wrong to what have I overcome? It's such a powerful exercise. Yeah. Are,
Dr. Brian Davidson: are you familiar with that whole concept of post-traumatic growth at. Share this with me, I wanna hear more. Oh, it's some fascinating research out of University of, uh, North Carolina, I think in, in Asheville maybe, uh, but some school in, in North Carolina where they started to look at these people that have had faced significant life adversities.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And, you know, the, the idea is, oh, once you face adversity, you're ruined. Right? But, but what they're finding is some people, Almost the opposite effect, where they'll go through a really difficult, challenging circumstance, and then you almost use that as fuel to motivate them to, to transcend or transform into something new.
Dr. Brian Davidson: And so this idea is, is this post-traumatic growth where, you know, you've, you've got your level of functioning and boom, you face some adversity, and then you go down, right? You're knocked down, you're feeling horrible, and it's okay, right? To be there. I think we need to reassure people like, it's all right when you face some difficult times like.
Dr. Brian Davidson: It's all right to feel bad, right? But from that, we don't have to stay there, right? That we can use that experience as a transformative moment in our life to propel us to, to new heights that, you know, you think of, um, the Mothers Against Drunk Driving Organization, okay? That all happened because a parent lost, lost a child, right?
Dr. Brian Davidson: To a drunk driver, and then created this organization that's now gone on to educate people on, on the harms of, of drinking and driving. You know, so it's, it's using that real adverse moment in. And then using it for some good so we can take that adversity that we face, right, and to, to use that as, as fuel to help motivate us, to help transform us in, into something that was better than what we were previously.
Danielle Cobo: Sometimes our pain becomes our purpose and the impact that we get to make on other people's lives.
Dr. Brian Davidson: For sure, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And we, we all have it. Right? And I think it's, it's important that we acknowledge right, that, that it's okay to not be okay. That kind of slogan. But I'd like to add a little bit more to that.
Dr. Brian Davidson: It's, it's okay to not be okay, but it's not okay to stay, not okay, right? Ooh. Oh, yes. If we, we don't wanna continue. Like that. We, we wanna try to get ourselves to a, to a better spot and to encourage people and support people in that process and to help make sure that they know that there is anno another way, right?
Dr. Brian Davidson: We don't have to stay in that miserable state throughout our entire lives. We wanna get people to a better spot.
Well,
Danielle Cobo: I could talk to you forever, but that is such a good note to end on where you're, where you're saying that it's okay to not be okay, but we don't wanna stay in that forever. We don't wanna play into being the victim, but really using some of our challenges that we've endured and.
Danielle Cobo: Transitioning into how we've overcome them. So thank you so much for joining today's episode. I appreciate it. I'm gonna include a link to your website where people can learn more about your resources, taking the assessment on grit, resilience, and hope. And, uh, for those listeners out there, definitely in, uh, check out that link to learn more about, uh, Brian's uh, mind view program.
Dr. Brian Davidson: Well, thanks so much, Danielle, for having me. It's great. Thank you. All right. Take care.