Overcoming Adversity: The Power of Personal Mission with David Anderson

In this episode of the Franklin Planner Podcast, co-host George Wright III and John Harding sit down with David Anderson to discuss the essence of personal mission and its transformative power. David, a globally successful entrepreneur and speaker, shares his inspiring journey from a challenging upbringing in Chicago to becoming a prominent figure in various spheres. The conversation explores the impact of creating a personal mission statement, grounding one’s life in intentional goals, and the importance of education and mentorship. David recounts overcoming significant obstacles, such as family mental health issues and career challenges, and emphasizes the value of daily personal commitments. The episode concludes with a challenge for listeners to create an audacious goal to stretch their potential and drive positive change.

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Episode Timeline

00:44 Introducing David Anderson

02:28 David’s Inspirational Background

05:45 The Power of a Personal Mission

07:56 Creating a Personal Pledge

10:22 Overcoming Adversity with Mission

18:07 Global Examples of Mission-Driven Success

20:05 Implementing Personal Pledges in Daily Life

20:43 A Personal Story of Overcoming Educational Challenges

21:34 The Importance of Personal Commitment and Support

22:03 Mental Health Struggles and Triumphs

22:50 Creating a Personal Constitution

23:07 The Power of a Mission Statement

24:56 Thriving vs. Surviving

27:24 The Journey to Goldman Sachs

34:23 The Importance of Anchoring Yourself

38:54 Challenge to the Audience

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Episode Transcript

George Wright III: Alright, welcome back to the Franklin Planner Podcast. My name is George Wright III, your cohost. I’m here joined with John Harding—board member, owner, Franklin Planner—and David Anderson, how you doin’, brother?

David Anderson: I’m fantastic.

George: John, how are you?

John Harding: I’m doing great.

Introducing David Anderson

George: Well, you know, you flew out here, so we’re here in the studio, because David flew out here for this episode. We’re really super excited about it. So let me give everybody a little bit of a cue up on what we’re gonna be talking about. Last time we had an episode on mission, vision, values, but—what really drives greatness? That’s what we’re gonna talk about. You know, is it talent, passion, destiny, you know. David challenges that idea; [00:01:00] obviously with some of the stuff he does, he delivers one of the most powerful, speeches that I’ve seen on a TED Talk in a while. And so, what— I want to kind of get into that a little bit. So John, you came across David, you brought him to my attention. How did you … how did you meet? Like, what was the connection? And then we can kind of cue it over to him to give some background. Like what— how’d it come together?

John: Well, I’m glad we’re here. We were prepping last time, our last episode on mission, vision, values … kind of that pyramid base.

George: Yep.

John: And I was doing a search, David, for great stories, for great … you know, struggles, and then also mission stories. I came upon this … you know, this TED Talk popped up. 2016 Austria, right?

David: Yeah.

John: And I— You know, I clicked this, and within the first few seconds I’m like, wow.

George: You were hooked.

John: Yeah. And then as the story went on, I’m like, this guy is pretty [00:02:00] incredible. So, my intro or response to you is, you know, as I heard his story, I thought, we have gotta at least reference this.

George: Yeah.

John: And then you and I talked after and said we’ve gotta reach out to David, and David was super generous in a very busy schedule. Uh, we just spent two hours driving here, and he’s fitting it between daddy-daughter dates and other things, but—that’s it. I’m so glad we can be here.

George: Yeah, so let’s get your background, like, why don’t you kind of give us the— Get, for those that don’t know you, give us a little bit of your background and your story so they know where you come from, and then we can kind of get into some of these cool topics.

David: Yeah. Well, I— First off, I am elated to be here. I think the work of, not just the planner, but I think helping people define mission and helping them live the best lives they can, the best life that they can, is a worthwhile goal in life.

George: Yeah.

Mentors and influences

David: You know. And so— Look, I— They can go to the [00:03:00] TED Talk and, you know, check it out, you know—who am I, you know, David Anderson, TED Talk, who am I, living your life mission—but, you know, essentially … I wanna say first, if I can start off here, like, I really do stand on the shoulders of those who came before me, whether I read through books or mentors that were in person that I sought out and were able to, like, glean wisdom from. And so I want—when I tell this story, I want people to also know in their life that those—you know, I just wanna stop and just thank those people who were amazing. Um, Pastor Al Toledo, Mark Arnell, Darell Nessui, Ms. Gruca, teachers, Duff, Mr. Wong. I had a lot of people who, for some reason, just—maybe my curiosity, maybe it was my energy—they just gave me nuggets, right? Gave me different things along the way, and I’ll be remiss if I didn’t mention [00:04:00] and thank them—C. Cole, Dylan, just a lot of people who did a lot of great things, but—

Family background

So, story starts, really, in Mississippi. My dad’s from Mississippi. Mom’s from Louisiana. My grandfather, World War II hero: he was underage, enlisted early, sixteen, seventeen. We’re talking in 1940s, right? Leaves, comes back to Mississippi. You know, black man in Mississippi.

George: Wow.

David: 1940s, ‘50s.

George: Yeah. Right.

David: Not a lot there, right? [Laughter] And so he effectively, uh, leaves Mississippi, goes to Michigan, passes away, right? And then the family goes back to Mississippi. So my father wanted to leave Mississippi and get north more opportunity, okay? Comes to Chicago, marries my mother. Mother was beautiful—fine as wine, they call her—and, uh, they got married. [00:05:00] Upon her having birthed my brother, she developed schizophrenia.

John: Oh, wow.

David: Okay? Um, this is 1980s, right? Where we didn’t have the mental health awareness we have today, John, you know what I mean?

John: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

“A very broken situation”

David: We didn’t have that—and anyone listening that has dealt with mental health, you understand this—and so basically, it just ravished my family. You know, the divorce happened, everything got confusing, all kind of stuff happened. And so here I am in the, you know, south Chicagoland area, trying to navigate life in a very broken situation—not anyone’s fault, just a broken situation—and trying to figure things out, right? You know, neither of my parents had a college education, all that kind of stuff.

And so I was in this situation where I had to come back home, went to college … you know, all the— I won’t even get into all the streets, the gangs, everything that comes along with metropolitan Chicago life. Especially if you’re that— [00:06:00] you don’t have wealth, you don’t have income, right? It’s just what it— I tell people all the time, like, people don’t join gangs most of the time, 80 percent, because they’re bad people. It’s community. It’s survival, right? It’s “How do I survive in this environment? I need people that have my back, family and things like that.” So, you know, that’s why they join these things. Around the world, not just America. You go around the world, you see the same thing. Young men with no mission, no vision, no direction, right, are attracted to these institutions.

So here I am, come back. The gangs are petitioning my brother, he’s five years younger than me, and my sister is basically in seventh grade, she’s reading on a fourth-grade level, and I’m like, stuck with, in this moment, this crossroad, like, okay: I kinda made it out? Not really made it out? But I’m not gonna let my brother and sister kind of suffer and figure it out. So, there was this moment, right … that— uh, I was telling John the story. I had come home [00:07:00] carrying groceries a mile with night-in-January weather—’cause if we didn’t have a car—and I came in, my mother has a schizophrenic episode on me. Okay? And I love my mother. I love my— If she ever hears— Mom, I love you to death, right? But she has an episode, and I break down in the bathroom and I’m crying. And I’m just like, she yells at me ’cause I got turkey bacon instead of pork bacon. That’s the type of—

George: Oh, wow.

David’s Pledge

David: Like, I’m talkin’ about a big, a big episode. And so it’s this revelation that happens where I realize that, in order to survive this, I have to have something more that’s just more than making money, right? I gotta have something more than just wanting to make it, more than just— I need something core to my soul that’s an—like an operating system; I need something to propel me. And I heard about creating a mission statement. I heard about having a mission. And in that moment—it was birthed out of that—I literally sat down in the living room and I said, [00:08:00] “I pledge allegiance to my success. I pledge allegiance to do my very best. I do believe I will succeed. Nothing will stop me. Nothing will drop me. I have a purpose to fulfill. I have a future that’s very real. No matter what happens or goes on around me, I will not sink. It will not drown me. I pledge allegiance to my success. I pledge allegiance to do my very best.”

Something to commit to

And it was in that moment that all of a sudden I had something that was beyond, ‘cause I could believe that I can commit to myself, commit to, “Okay, I’m doing this for these things, for these reasons,” and then my life took off from there. I really think that when you really, from a core of who you are—everyone’s story’s different, everyone has a different human experience—when you really dive into who you are called to be and what you’re supposed to do, [00:09:00] and you’re able to plan that out—and even during that process, I learned about the Franklin Planner, and I got a page of it, right? I got that page, I worked that page, then I created like another scribbled thing, and I used it through the, hey, how do I spend time with my brother? Spend time with my sister? How do I, you know— my mom, I gotta take over her, some of her, you know, situation, ‘cause she, you know— how do I manage these episodes? How do I manage this?

“When you commit, something happens”

And look, I don’t want to brag, but I think when you commit, something happens. I think God does something. I think—whatever you wanna call it, the universe, spirits—something happens when you decide to become. Right? When you make a decision that, I’m going to become—not arrive—but I’m going to set the goals, and I’m going to become? I don’t know what it is. I talk to people around the world. You hear stories from all over the world, where people decide. Viktor Frankl’s a great story. You know, the one Search for Meaning, right? He’s in the middle of a [00:10:00] concentration camp for goodness’ sake.

George: Yeah.

David: And he decides, “You know what? I’m going to take this situation, and I’m going to become joyous, happy. I’m gonna believe every day that I’m coming outta this concentration camp.”

George: Yeah, yeah.

David: Right? Like, how much more could I come outta my situation and, you know, and succeed?

Let Your Mission Guide Your Life

George: It’s actually interesting you say that because—and John, when we talked about this on the last podcast, we talked about mission, right, and having a mission—but you made a really interesting point that I love, and that is, there’s a lot of people dealing with a lot of stuff right now, and maybe they don’t know what a mission is, maybe they have one, maybe whatever—but it was the decision that you said you made that triggered it, right? You didn’t know what the answer would be, you didn’t know where you were gonna do it, how you’re gonna do it, but you made a decision, and that led you to kind of your mission—which I know we want to dig into—but I think that’s interesting, John, because a lot of times we talk about mission as this ambiguous thing. And the first step, it’s really the decision [00:11:00] to have your life be guided by something, right? And then that’s what pulled you out of where you were, it sounds like.

Missions are personal

David: That’s right. That’s right. And I think it’s a difference here, for those that have a traditional faith practice, right? You have to like, interweave it, but you have to separate the fact that your faith practice is a guiding light on how you’re going to live. Right? But your mission practice is what you are going to do every day in your living. Right? It’s a— ‘Cause everybody’s personality, who they are, is different, and so, what I would call my “big rocks” are different than your big rocks, or small rocks, or short-term goals, and so you need that—you need that missional guiding practice to help you go along and accomplish these things.

But, you know, look, we’ve learned about masterminds for years. People have learned about, you know, well, one or two are gathered together, you know—[00:12:00] something amiss. One plus one equals three—synergy. Right? We know for a fact, you bring people together, right? It’s like that mission almost becomes another person.

George: Yeah, I actually think that mission is the point that, I think, a lot of people are missing.

The Inspiration Behind David’s Pledge

John: George, I’d like to go back to something—it’s what you said, David. Uh, this pledge of allegiance, your mission: it’s incredible to me. I think this is what caught our interest.

George: Yeah.

John: That in the midst of everything that was going on for you, your world caving in, you had the good sense to do that. Tell us about that. Tell us about this pledge of allegiance that you just shared with us and what— just how that evolved.

George: Like, you said it a hundred times, right?

John: Yeah. [Laughter]

George: A million times, maybe?

David: I don’t know, every day, probably thousands. You know, I had a—again, I said I do stand on the shoulders of others—I had a, um, a spiritual leader, you know, Albert Toledo, who had talked about, from his stage and his pulpit, about creating a mission in life. [00:13:00] You know, having something that, you know, physically you can get to, and I had heard it, but it was in that moment when you’re going through that type of trauma, it resonated. So I literally sat down and I— all I started with was “I pledge allegiance.” I had grown up with the Pledge, you know, to United— I pledged to the United States of America, you know. I was like, “Well, what if I pledge to myself first?” Right?

George: An internal commitment.

David: Internal commitment, which—that’s why I talk about, like, sometimes it’s those external things which can come across, you know—the company, your faith space, your, you know, different things. But internally, how are you committing to yourself, and so—

You Can Only Control Yourself

George: When you said Viktor Frankl, right, like all you had control— he had control of was his inner game, right?

David: That was it.

George: ‘Kay. Yeah.

David: That’s all, that’s all you can control.

George: Yeah, yeah. Keep going.

David: I’m not gonna change my mother’s mental health. I’m not gonna change the neighborhood that—I can’t get out of it right now, right? All I can change is what’s inside of myself, that’s all I can do, and so I do that [00:14:00] in order to— And people are in situations, I’m sure, where like—you know, you’re dealing with your company, or your family, whatever—you can change you, you can control that part of you. There’s not a lot of things sometimes you can control.

So, I just started there: I pledge allegiance to my success. I pledge allegiance to do my very best. I start right there, right? And then it was other things I just thought about throughout that day, that week, you know: I do believe I will succeed, right? Yeah, I do. I believe that I can actually succeed beyond whatever it is. Nothing will stop me and nothing will drop me. Period. I’m not going to give up. You know?

Breaking stereotypes

And we talk about, you know, “I got a plan to fulfill, I have a purpose that’s very real.” These are things that are like— it’s more of, at least in my mission statement that I would create at the time, it was more self-affirmation. ‘Cause I had to get things and belief, so, you know, people may be in situations where, you know, like … [00:15:00] you know, whatever characteristic life has given you, right, and I’ve realized this—hold on—around the world, right, there are characteristics, stereotypes, and things—this is how we frame life and the world.

George: Yeah. Yeah.

David: So someone says, “Okay, you’re a …” Example, “You are a white man from this state, from this city; you must be like this.”

George: Yeah.

David: “You’re a black kid, from this part of the city, to this thing; you must be like this.” “You’re a … immigrant from this part of the world. You must”—yeah, like—

George: Yeah. Programmed.

David: The programming.

George: Yeah. Yeah.

David: Right? The propaganda, the thing—and so you have to sometimes undo your own programming, and the only way you can do that is by speaking to yourself and the subconscious there, and writing things down, right? But unprogrammed yourself of what those beliefs are. Right? Because they, they’ve been coming, they’re gonna hit you. And some of them in society are there to protect us, right? Some of them in society are there, [00:16:00] and they harm us, right? Especially when it comes to what we’re supposed to do, right?

Be who you want to be

George: But you used your mission as a way to take control of your scenario.

David: That’s right. That’s right. Take control of your scenario, and you can do that by being intentional about who you want to become. Who you want to actually— what you have to actually do. And it’s not perfect. You’re gonna fall in depth, but if you keep doing it, you make these incremental steps. And I love what’s—you know, in 7 Habits Stephen Covey talks about, is like—it’s the personal victories you start to have inside that matters. Nobody else knows, but you know, “You know what? Three months ago I probably would’ve complained, I would’ve gave up, I would’ve did whatever—and now, I didn’t do that. I had a solution. I decided to do something else.” So anyway, I hope that—

George: No, it is, and it’s actually interesting ‘cause, John, I was gonna ask you to mention this—we talked about it off camera—um, it’s the story you tell yourself too, and you programmed the story you wanted to program. You mentioned it was so ironic that your quote [00:17:00] today in the Franklin Planner kind of went to that. I don’t know if you want to kind of read that for the listeners, it’s—

John: Let me do it, and I would just lead into this by saying it seems like, David, you are— you’re a great example of leading your life; now, you guys haven’t said that yet, but taking that responsibility to lead your life. So this is the quote in this week’s Franklin Planner: “Who wants to read about success? It is the early struggle which makes a good story.” Katherine Anne Porter.

The Power of a Written Constitution

Your early struggle, you reached down there, you took responsibility, and somehow, without knowing Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits, you looked out there and you really did plan with the end in mind. And then you even jumped ahead, and that personal victory, like you were saying, and you—within your personal constitution, you have some specific things that are your priorities.

David: [00:18:00] Yeah, funny you said—you said “personal constitution.” Now, here’s the thing I’ve learned, talking about mission, right? What I started to read—‘cause at that point, as you know the story, over the next four years I read—so the audience knows—I read about … roughly about six hundred books by myself independently—like, no, literally.

John: Wow. That’s unbelievable.

Case Study: China

David: I had guys giving me books. Mark Arnell was giving me books, mentor Ernest Fenton was giving me books— I mean, I was just reading, reading, reading. And what I started to realize, the trend I saw, when you talk about nation-building, right—what really makes America great? Right? How do countries like Singapore go from, like, nothing that’s— You start to realize that you look at the constitution of the country, right, and what they set out to do. Right? What becomes their mantra. Many people don’t know—when I lived in China for a while, I saw in China, like they had this thing, like, “Oh, we’re gonna do this, that, and we’re gonna create Chinese characteristics, we’re gonna”—if you read [00:19:00] their, kind of their manifestos—”Chinese characteristics, we’re gonna create the Chinese dream, we’re gonna do whatever it is.” They set out to things, right?

Case Study: Rwanda

If you look at Rwanda, Rwanda came outta genocide, right? It’s one of the most developed countries in Africa right now. Okay? Like, it’s amazing. Within genocide, millions killed everything else, president comes up, Kagame—it’s a book called Rwanda, Inc., if you ever heard of it—and creates, literally, a constitution and a mission for the country. Right? “We’re gonna take responsibility for our country. We know what happened, we know there were external people that came and instigated this. We know what, forget that. But today—today—we are gonna take personal responsibility and create a constitution for the country.” And Rwanda has boomed, right? And it had nothing but young people to, like, create— and so, a lot of examples where you see this, and I said, “Why can’t we do that, just in our own interpersonal lives?”

David’s Impact on Others

George: It’s so funny you say that, ‘cause that is so true, and it’s back to leading your life, [00:20:00] right—John, you mentioned that a minute ago—and I had made a note that I was gonna ask you about, because I wanna tie this down for our listeners too, right? How do you lead your life? And you talk about this personal message—and I wrote a note here to myself I wanted to ask you—now, life becomes really powerful with a personal pledge, and you had mentioned you taught your sister this. So I wanna tie it—you know, ‘cause some people might be like, “Oh, this is David Anderson, like, he’s amazing, like, he’s a rock star, he probably just did it all right”—we know that’s not the case ‘cause of your background, but—you had a sister who was struggling in school, and you kind of taught her, so I want you to speak to this idea that you just capped off with: personal pledge and how it changes life.

David: So it’s funny. Talking with my sister—and I love her, I hope she hears this—so my sister … I never forget: seventh grade, I go to the school that day, uh, for a conference on behalf of my sister. Sit down with the teacher, and she’s like, “Hey, David, look,” you know—and this was the time when we had the policy of the land, which is why I tell people, policy [00:21:00] is great, policy impacts, but policy can’t do what you can do for yourself. It just can’t, right? And so, No Child Left Behind was very, you know, part of the policy back then, and I saw how it was good-intended, but also how it hurt, because you started to pass along kids that were not ready for the next grade. So my sister was technically one of those. Fourth-grade-level reading, she was in the seventh grade. And I’m sitting here going, “Holy cow, how’d I miss this?” First off, what the heck’s going on?

Success despite adversity

So, I’m like, “Okay, hey, guess what, sis? We’re going to catch you up.” Right? “You’re going to graduate high school,” right, “and you’re gonna pledge allegiance to your success, and you’re gonna be able to do your very best.” Like I said, “Look, your brother—I don’t care about you getting As. I care about, you got an A because you know you gave it everything you had. And if you can give me everything you have,” right, “I’m going to be here for you, [00:22:00] I’m gonna support you, I’m— we’re gonna make this happen.” And—luckily, thank God she’d already graduated from high school—even in the midst of my sister, her senior year in college, she ended up having—you know, the mental health thing sometimes can hit the kids and genetics—she ended up having a schizophrenic breakdown. Right? You ready for this? It took us years, we got her back, and she still went back and finished college.

George: Wow.

David: Right? Because inside of her— And she came to me—I was like, I was just happy she was alive, she was great—she said, “Brother, I gotta finish. I gotta get my degree. I gotta finish school.” I said, “Hey, I don’t wanna put any stress on you. Whatever the case is, I’m happy. You’re good and alive.” She said, “Nope. I pledge allegiance to my success.” You know, “I wanna do my very best. I can finish this.” And thank God, a couple years ago she actually walked across the stage. The point I’m making in this is that, like, there is a truth to that personal constitution that people have to make, and part of that is every day [00:23:00] making those steps.

John’s Experience with Mission Statements

George: No, and it starts with the decision, you said, right, and then it turns into this personal constitution. But, you know, John, I was gonna ask you—‘cause we talked about this in our mission, you know—a lot of times people see these mission and these mission statements as things that are out there as like a compass, a north star. I really like this conversation ‘cause it’s talking about using something you can control, and create a narrative in yourself to lead you in your life.

Mission statements come in many shapes and sizes

And so a mission statement in general, a pledge, I mean, does it always have to be, you know, this perfectly eloquent type of deal? Like you [David], you’re pretty eloquent with yours, but you know, [John,] you’ve developed thousands and thousands—I mean, it’s probably tens of thousands of mission statements with people over the years, you know, with Franklin Planner, but—do you think sometimes people feel that it’s just this ambiguous, big thing, and that just having that personal pledge is just as important?

Tap into your greatness

John: Well, I do, I think— And that’s why it’s so great to have David here. And I want to ask you this, and, George, just touch on that. It seems like, somehow, you had the good sense [00:24:00] to do it, then you wrote down some words that are like this allegiance, and it tapped into you, because a fundamental premise, George, is that—we all agree, I think, here, but many people don’t—there is just greatness in everyone. Right?

David: Yes. A hundred percent.

George: Great point.

Missions Are an Anchor

John: And there’s a leader in everyone, and if there is a leader, then certainly you can lead your own life. And George, I think, you know, you think about a mission, it’s your purpose, it’s an anchor, but [David,] how did it help you? And maybe this will add more to it. You had it—all of the adversity didn’t quit coming with you—so how did it help you bust through the storm, go, kind of keep some direction, even though you’re pushed and pressured?

George: It’s a great question.

John: How did that help you from— Give us some examples.

Survival mode: Get bitter or get better

David: Well, you know, in that moment, you realize that things happen to you in life. Like, [00:25:00] you can choose to get bitter, right? Or you can choose to get better. And I made a choice: I’m not gonna get bitter, I’m going to get better, and I want to thrive and not just survive. Right? ‘Cause sometimes when pressures of life are happening, you can get into survival mode, and that’s the worst place to be. Like, it’s almost like you are literally just, you put yourself in the passenger seat, in the backseat of your own car, right, when you go into survival mode. Right?

George: Yeah. Yeah.

David: And so to thrive, it means that you put yourself in the driver’s seat, and you start to say, “Okay, what can’t I do in this situation? What can I control? What can I”—and you can control yourself and the inner workings of yourself. And so it— so I’ll give an example, like, even after I got through, um— one was that I started to educate myself, right? Reading books and—[00:26:00] I kid you not, like, I have the books at home—I really started to just read ten, fifteen books a month while I was working three jobs. Okay?

I literally would get up in the morning, go to Starbucks at like five-thirty a.m., four a.m.; I believe that I was teaching character education in school—I got a job from Melody La Luz, who gave me, like, to go around different, um, places around the city to go in and talk to students about just character education stuff, right? And then I would essentially leave there, I would do construction, like as a labor worker or some other, other job, go help out at my church and do things—whatever it was, odd jobs—come back home around … between six and eight. Then have my sister pull out her homework, okay, and literally, like, go through her homework for the night. And it was like that until, like, eleven, twelve o’clock. Get back up at four-thirty, go to Starbucks part-time, then go do the character education work, then— It was, like, just a grind. The grind.

George: Yeah.

David: And I would get on the bus, I would read while I was on the bus, right? [00:27:00] Read my books, [Laughter] right, get back to it. But I knew I was going somewhere. Right? I knew that I was creating—so I was on a mission for myself and what I had taken responsibility for and what I was going to do.

Against All Odds: David’s Rise to Success

So I think, you know, to the audience, it’s like, there are those things that happen—but I wanna give the story, so, um … so at the time, I enrolled in Chicago State University. Okay? Um, I want to study finance and economics. At that time, the beacon of that was to go to Goldman Sachs. M’kay? I go to the career development office, and they say to me, the guy’s like, “David, you know, I worked at Duke, I worked at Rochester,” he worked at, you know, some prestigious schools. He’s like, “We got one person into Goldman.” He’s like, “David,” like, “you can’t go to Goldman from this school.” And I’m just like, “Yes, I can.” Who created these rules, like— [Laughter] [00:28:00] Right?

George: Yeah.

David: That’s a true story, right?

George: “You haven’t read my pledge of allegiance yet,” right? [Laughter]

John: [Laughter]

David: [Laughter] Hold on, this is a true story. So—this is an honest-to-God true story—so I end up finding out there was a— This is when— You know now, all the schools have these like, micro–joint programs? You can go to, you can go to BYU, Wharton, whatever the case is. So, Harvard was piloting this thing, and they were piloting some programs where they were taking, particularly, state people in state schools, and bringing ‘em into Harvard, and kind of doing like a joint— You could study there, do joint programs, at the end of it you would get a certificate, or you would get paper from Harvard.

Landing a job at Goldman Sachs

So I was doing that, and then I finally got, like, an interview with Goldman. Okay? Went to the interview. They liked me, it was interesting; I didn’t hear from ‘em for weeks. I gave them an email, right? Send an email, whatever the case is. They end up responding; it was like, “Oh, we’re sorry, we forgot about you. Can you fly to New York tomorrow?” I go to New York—Goldman puts you through the gauntlet, [00:29:00] like, eleven interviews in New York, whatever—at the end of the interview, I’ll never forget, the guy said, “Why should we choose you, man?” I said, “Look.” I was going up against kids that— way more money, way more privilege, way more everything. I said, “Look, lemme tell you this. You know my story. The fact that I’m here is— I’m happy, but if you give me this shot, I guarantee you there’s nobody you will interview or have interviewed that will want this more than I do. There’s nobody.” He looked at me, he said, “Man, I believe you.” And they gave me the job. I was the first person from my university—

John: Wow.

Breaking expectations

David: —to ever get into Goldman. The freaking— the HR lady came to me, calling me up, she was like, “Hey—what school are you from again? It’s this school?”

George: [Laughter] She couldn’t believe it.

David: She couldn’t believe it, right? Literally, they had to add me to the system, add the school to the system; I ended up getting about three other, uh, kids after that, and took Goldman for that. Hold on, wait—and it was during the financial crisis.

George: Oh, wow.

David: Right? [00:30:00] When everybody’s laying off, everybody’s going through craziness, right? I enter finance literally during the height of the Great Recession, right? The point I’m making here is that there are those obstacles, but what the great thing about that was, when I went into that career development office and I handed that guy my offer letter? [Laughter] I said, in so many words—

George: “That was me.” Yeah.

A first for everything

David: I was saying to him like, “You can’t—” And so there are people that will always doubt you in life. You know? They’re always doubting what can be possible, but the reality is, look, like, all things are possible. You can create— Who thought we would be putting people in space? Average people going to space, right? Who thought— There was a time when a bridge didn’t exist, you know. They created bridges, cars didn’t exist. All these things we have in our modern life, somebody had to believe it, think it, create it. Right? The first black president didn’t exist. Okay, now we have a— the first woman this, the first man to do this or accomplish this feat, the Wright brothers, and putting, you know, planes—Like, [00:31:00] there’s so many things that, if you commit to yourself and commit to what you believe your God-given gifts are, what you’re created here to do? Man, you can go and do almost anything.

George: Yeah. It’s, uh, such an inspiring story because I think what I’ve learned over time—and I know you’ve seen this, John—is people have all kinds of different scenarios and situations, and the people that create, not only the greatest, successes are not the people that want less obstacles. They’re the ones that want to be bigger than their obstacles—

David: Yes.

George: —and grow bigger than their obstacles. And I love how you tied it back to being, you know, having these personal commitments, personal pledge … That is so true. That is so true.

Mission and Legacy

Alright, great, so, let’s do this, guys, ‘cause I mean, we could go on for days, I think. And we may, you know, but not on this episode. Um, but you know, David, you’ve had a great story, you’ve come from challenges, you’ve overcome ‘em; I mean, at the end of the day, bestselling author, global entrepreneur, [00:32:00] Harvard speaker, White House contributor. Like, you’ve done so much by being grounded in this mission, but it always kind of comes back—and you guys both talked about this before—about, what do you wanna be remembered by? And how do you wanna be remembered? What do you want your life to be about? And so, where does that put you now? Like what— talk to me about that.

A deathbed study: The three things people regret

David: So … you know, when you read a lot of books, right, and you travel the world, you do this stuff, you start to see similarities. I read something a long time ago. It was about a deathbed study. It was like, what people say on their deathbeds, right? And it tied into three things that people wanted to be remembered by. And it tied into three areas. It was, they wanted to— they wished they would have risked more. Right? Took risks, done things that they always wanted to do but never did because they were afraid. Right, so don’t live by fear. They wish they would’ve reflected more, right? ‘Cause reflection [00:33:00] gives you insight. Right? They need that insight that— which is what, even, part of the planner does. Right? Let’s be honest, it gives you those moments of reflection, or be able to write down and look back over, like, “Wow, I did all that in one year?” “Oh, I did all that last week?” Right? Okay? But also, the third thing was doing more things that lived on, that lived—

George: Legacy.

An influence for good

David: Legacy that lived beyond them. And so, you know, my first thing is that, you know, my kids—Alita, you know, David III, Trey, and Zenith—that my kids will look at their father’s life and say, “Wow. That’s something that we can mimic, copy, and we appreciate who our father was.” That’s the first thing. Right?

George: Love it.

David: Second from that is that I want to be able to—as now, we’re impacting kids, um—a friend of mine from high school, Jason Clark, put together the pledge, right, the mission pledge, and now a school district of, like, ten thousand kids are using that pledge. They’re using it for programming. They’re helping kids stay off [00:34:00] the streets. They’re helping kids go to college.

George: Wow.

Anchor Yourself in a Busy World

David: Because when you say “I pledge allegiance to my success and to do my very best,” there’s a place—anchored mission, right? That’s why I say every mission is different, but I think a big piece here that I don’t wanna be remiss of, George, before we kind of end this, is that … we live in a world today, right—for the listening audience, you live in a world today—that is constantly grabbing your attention like never before. You got Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, uh, WhatsApp. You got text messages, phone calls, you know, whatever apps you have on your system, whatever— I mean, you have seven email, you have nine, ten things to check a day. Right? You have to respond to ‘em all, ‘cause if you don’t respond, people think you’re ghosting them. [Laughter] Right?

George: Right.

David: [00:35:00] You have all these things in the midst of all this busyness and all this craziness, right? They— We forget about having an anchor for ourselves. Right? You forget about anchoring yourself, and you can never forget about anchoring yourself because if your core operating system is not intact, you can’t respond to all these things. Right? And so, like, one of the reasons why I was honored, right, to be able to come here and do that, because—you know, what the system, the planner system, gave me was an anchor, right? No matter what’s happening: okay, here are my goals for the week. [Laughter] Okay, okay, guess what? I don’t have enough money. Well, I’m not gonna have enough money anyway; lemme go make some more money. Right? [Laughter] Okay, this is what they responded, that teenagers acting crazy, or this is happening—whatever’s happening in your life, right? Okay, I got aging parents, I got this going on. Like, you have an anchor, a [00:36:00] personal operating system. Right? That anchors your activities, what you do, how you do it, and it anchors you. Right? It anchors you in a busy world that’s constantly, brothers, grabbing your attention.

George: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don’t be pulled by the tide

David: Grabbing your attention constantly, like, ahhhh! You know, sometimes people are like, they’re like, “Ah, I’ll just throw the phone,” like, “I don’t wanna,” you know, but— Anchoring yourself, right, is the—I just thought about, like, I just thought about this example—it’s like, what happens with a boat when you just allowed it to sit on water?

George: It just goes wherever the—

David: It goes wherever the tide—

George: Yeah, the water and the wind, yeah.

David: Wherever the tide takes ‘em, right? What happens to that boat? It goes wherever the tide takes ‘em. What happens when that boat drops that anchor, that’s—hold on—that’s heavy enough, weighted, strong, and has a structure? It can let that boat, that waves can come and go, and that boat will stay, generally, in that same area. And that’s how you want to be. [00:37:00] You wanna be so anchored in your life that generally, you have that response, right? Generally, you’re gonna make that decision. Generally, you’re gonna have that type of ethic. Generally, you’re gonna make sure that you’re mindful of this. Generally, like— You know, I was, um, you know, I made a, for instance, a goal, a mission I wanted to make sure I created for my children, right? This is my— I have a daughter. I want to create, like, a daddy-daughter date system, right, with her. And I put it part of the plan, and so generally, right, she has that feeling that, “Okay, hey, dad cares about me,” even when I’m busy, right? I’m gonna have my date, I’m gonna have my time, right?

Anchored by what truly matters most

These are important things that anchor you in life. Because look, all the money, all the success, all the accolades, all the— I just talked to a lady today at the airport. You know, she just became the chief commercial officer, like CEO, of this big company, everything else, and she made the comment like, what she’s really proud of is that, you know, she’s had her, [00:38:00] you know, her marriage for thirty-five years, right? What she’s really proud of is that she’s, you know, accomplished all these intangible things. And that’s, to me, what—when you have a planner, when you have an anchor—that’s what that does. It grounds the essence, the soul. So you are not just moving on the waves wherever the wind blows. That make sense?

George: Yeah, I love it. I love it. And that’s a great, that’s a great point to really end on because at the end of the day, no matter what you’re dealing with, no matter what life is throwin’ your way, no matter your background, no matter your circumstances, you take personal responsibility, you create this internal operating system, this mission, and it ties you, right? So listen, we appreciate you being here. This has been amazing, and, you know, we generally end our podcast with a bit of a challenge, and so I’ll kind of throw that over to John to kind of leave our listeners with a challenge before we take off here.

John: I’m gonna, I’m gonna take it and go right to David as our guest. Uh, please, [00:39:00] issue a challenge.

David’s Challenge: Make an Audacious Goal

David: All right, um … You know what the challenge today should be? The challenge today, for those who are listening, right, is right now, right, ask yourself the question, what— First off, do you have an operating system? Right? I would suggest, I would say, just, you know—a shameless plug here, I don’t get paid for this, okay—is that I think that the planning system is a great operating system to operate by and give you structure to do goals, planning, for the week and for the day. Right? I’ll let you guys talk about—that’s you all’s world, right? But more so, for those that have it—even if you don’t have it, right—make an audacious goal that’s beyond yourself, ‘cause sometimes, even with the planning—

John: Oh, yeah.

David: Right, let’s talk about this, right, John? Even with the planning, sometimes you kind of—it’s good to be steady, disciplined—but it can get mundane, [00:40:00] ‘cause you’re just doing the same thing, right? Which is good. Make an audacious goal. So I’m gonna do one, right? I’m gonna do one right now.

John: I love it. I love it.

David: Like, an audacious goal, right? I’m—in my mission and what I’m doing, I’m going to make an audacious goal. Although I got my own kids, all this type of stuff, I’m going to, in the next two weeks, intentionally work on setting time to mentor somebody, right, in the world that’s been reaching out to me and wanting my time—and I’ve been keeping my time sacred, ‘cause I wanna make sure my family’s first—but I wanna make an audacious goal to say, okay, I want to commit time and let that person know, “Hey, you know what? I’m gonna give you, like, an hour a month for us to go through and mentor,” you know what I’m saying, “and talk through.”

John: Yeah, yeah.

David: So I wanna make that goal. That’s for myself; I wanna make a goal. So I’m gonna ask the audience.

John: I love it.

David: Create an audacious goal for yourself, something you haven’t done before. Something you haven’t committed to that you can commit to, ‘cause sometimes you need to stretch ourselves—we need to [00:41:00] stretch ourselves—to do something different, to create new life, new energy, right? And new missions.

George: I love it. I think that’s a great, uh, an audacious goal, I think that’s a great challenge, and listen, we appreciate you. We want you to know that we’re here. The reason we started this podcast, the reason David came out, is—and he said this right beforehand—was to give back, you know, and to help you find ways to be able to lead your life. So if you haven’t already, really spend some time, get grounded, create a personal pledge, find ways that you can truly create something in your life. If life is worth living, it’s worth really focusing on it. And so that’s our message for today. I hope you have a great day. Follow us and make sure you hit that subscribe button and share the show. Share the show, so everybody can get this great message that David flew in and did for us. Thanks guys, have a great day. ​

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About David Anderson:

About David Anderson:

David Anderson is the Vice President of Global Development at AAR CORP. AAR Corp is a $2 Billion Aviation services firm with 20 locations worldwide listed as a Fortune 1,000. 

David works with Prime Ministers, global executives, and wealthy individuals to develop the aviation sector in the Americas, Africa and emerging markets. David was the International President of Kelikaien (Keep Global) a Chinese “Green” environmental products manufacturing and services firm with 6,000 employees and 16 locations worldwide. He was selected as a Global Shaper by The World Economic Forum and is a Senior Advisor to the Honorary Consul to the country of Moldova. David worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs in New York and investment management at JP Morgan in Chicago of a $5.6 Billion portfolio. Previously, he was a successful tech founder at School Loan 411 and he was also an aide in the Executive Office of the President at the White House. 

He was the keynote speaker for TEDx Talks “Disruption” conference in Austria, along with an Amazon Category Top 100 & Bestselling Author of “The Delusion of Passion – Why Millennials Struggle to Find Success”. His non-profit activities include the World Future Society, iGlow Mentoring and the James R Jordan Foundation (formally the Michael Jordan Foundation). 

He is a proud graduate of Chicago State University with Honors and a participant in Harvard University’s Explorations Program. His proudest accomplishment is taking his grandfather (Korean War Veteran) to the White House West Wing and making him proud.

Connect with David…

1. Official Website: https://www.officialdavidanderson.com
2. David’s TedX Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaECsnWJAWA&t=8s