This transcript has been edited for clarity and checked against the available source transcript and recording. Filler, false starts, and obvious transcription errors have been corrected without changing the speaker’s meaning.
Intro#
Dave: Think about Martin Luther King Jr. He inspired a million people to march on Washington because he said, “I have a dream.” He didn’t say, “I have a plan.” Plans bore people.
From Social Anxiety to Coaching#
James: You work as a coach and speaker in team-building and high performance after spending time in the corporate world. How did that transition begin? Was there a moment when you committed completely to this direction?
Dave: I’ll give you the Twenty20 rather than the Test-match version. As a young man, I was extremely shy and panicked whenever I met somebody.
I avoided all social contact outside my family. This went far beyond shyness and interfered with my life. After starting my career at ANZ, I skipped work whenever we had training because being around people was so debilitating.
I knew I had to act. Executive coaching may have existed, but I didn’t know about it, so I found a psychologist near ANZ in Melbourne. I showed her my payslip—about $12,000 or $13,000 a year—and said I’d committed 10% of my income to personal development. I asked how many sessions it would buy.
After hearing my symptoms, she diagnosed social anxiety disorder, or social phobia. Even shaking somebody’s hand produced a visceral response.
When I met somebody, my tongue felt three times its normal size and I choked. I carried water everywhere and drank quickly to make the sensation recede. This was before drink bottles were common, so I looked like a teenager carrying a primary-school bottle. The phobia was destroying me, and people with it become embarrassed about everything.
Until I married, even my parents didn’t know I was seeing a psychologist. I hid it from every friend. One day after an appointment, I was walking along Collins Street towards my office and passed an Angus & Robertson bookshop with a dollar bin of unwanted books.
I bought Getting the Best Out of Yourself and Others for one dollar. I hadn’t read a book since high school, but devoured it within a day and a half. It transformed how I carried myself and what I aspired to do.
I committed to practising everything I read, using work as a living laboratory. The more I practised, the more people attracted rather than frightened me. At 19, I committed to reading 30 psychology books every year to understand human behaviour. I’ve maintained that minimum—not to impress you, but to emphasise what worked for me—and became fascinated by people.
Whatever role I held at ANZ, sales and completed projects were satisfying, but helping people grow, overcome fear or transform something holding them back truly excited me. I turned that passion into a career after receiving invitations to present at internal team-building events.
Although I was a project manager and team leader, I loved that element more than my formal role. I became obsessed with reading and helping people.
Word spread at ANZ, and strangers called saying they’d heard I was “the job whisperer”. I loved helping people secure jobs. Before charging a dollar, I documented more than 1,000 hours of free coaching on interview nerves, conversations with bosses and personal motivation. During my final five years there, ANZ let me make coaching, team-building and personal-transformation events my career.
James: People sometimes say, “Make your mess your message.” When you overcome something you found extraordinarily difficult, you gain a perspective others may lack and can teach it with greater depth. Your struggle clearly shaped your work.
Dave: Absolutely. Rock bottom teaches what mountaintops cannot. Anybody who has experienced social anxiety or phobia understands that it harms every area of life. Climbing that mountain was a brilliant teacher, and I wouldn’t take it back for a moment.
10% of your income on skill development#
James: You transformed something deeply inhibiting into almost a superpower. You also mentioned spending 10% of your income on developing skills. Do you still do that?
Dave: I’ve done it since I was 19 and still do. I divide needs into three categories: important now, important next and important longer-term. I identify something I or my clients need, find the best person in that field, then travel to them, buy their program or receive coaching.
People instantly find money to replace a phone or repair a car, but hesitate over a $40 book and seek it for five or ten dollars. Our approach to careers is often the opposite of professional sport, and I want people to reverse it.
At work, we spend 90% of our time performing and perhaps 10% training, which we resist because we think we already know it. Athletes spend 90% on coaching, reflection, fine-tuning and cleaning messy corners, then perform for 10%, continually improving. The corporate world is backwards. I’ve maintained my obsession with learning, although that’s easier because I enjoy it.
These principles apply whether you’re beginning, emerging, experienced or established. Solid principles work in any weather and at every stage. Many people treat careers as hobbies, while professionals go to the nth degree to become their best. That inspires and informs my behaviour.
James: That 10% may otherwise become savings or a stock-market investment earning five or ten per cent. Investing it in yourself—particularly as a business owner—could produce a multiple by teaching you one valuable thing.
Dave: For me, the return is orders of magnitude and can be instantaneous. As a professional coach, speaker and facilitator, I receive both a commercial return and the reward of seeing clients improve.
When Zoom moved everything online, I spent the 10% on equipment so remote calls felt like being together. I received technical coaching on lighting and audio. I couldn’t visit clients, so the camera experience needed to feel alive. Client needs dictate these investments.
They prompt spending I would never have considered—such as $25,000 on equipment, where I may have been overcharged because I bought whatever experts recommended. It keeps me on the edge. As clients’ challenges become more complex, I learn, invest or find an expert coach. I wish more people did that for their careers.
James: When you began at 19, were you primarily seeking books and psychological support? Which skills did you want to improve?
Dave: I was seeking what my clients still seek: confidence. My clients span diverse industries, roles and ages, from Year 11 and 12 students preparing for corporate life to CEOs, business owners, gym and hairdressing operators, bankers and lawyers. If I lined up 100, everyone’s root issue would be confidence—the same thing I sought when facing social anxiety.
I recommend three outcomes. First, understand and tap into your innate strengths—your superpowers—and ask, “How do I show up as genuine standout talent?”
People who feel stuck often try to escape through harder work rather than unleashing confidence. Regardless of career stage, confidence remains the primary focus, as it was for me over many years.
Second is inspiring boldness, which goes beyond leadership. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired a million people to march on Washington by declaring a dream, not a plan that sounded like work. I dislike “team-building”; placing five people in a room technically creates a team. A leader should instead ask how to unleash fearless contributors driven by purpose, without constant cheerleading.
Such teams escape survival mode and reveal their character. Third—and hardest at a larger level—is change: be an intentional change-maker. I hate “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” We wouldn’t have Uber or Airbnb under that principle. Whatever your role, ask how to create transformational impact—a caterpillar becoming a butterfly rather than an incremental change. Use that as your scorecard. Transformational people become more visible, valuable and connected.
Move from effort to impact and expand your influence, because busyness differs greatly from achievement. Those three outcomes—innate strengths, inspiring boldness and intentional change-making—guide what my clients and I develop.
Improving your confidence#
James: How can somebody improve their confidence? Perhaps courage comes first: you can’t confidently tie your shoes before learning, but courage lets you try and eventually become confident.
Dave: You’re right. The three parts are courage, conscious choice and consistency. Take public speaking, often described as the world’s greatest fear. If your absent boss asks you to run a team meeting, you may panic internally. Courage begins with honestly acknowledging that you need to improve. You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge.
Many know they should change, but action requires guts. Next, consciously choose to show up rather than waiting for ten hours’ sleep, 22-degree weather, a slight breeze and a good mood.
Third is consistency—the most important. One speech at your brother’s wedding won’t master public speaking, just as a quarterly gym visit won’t make you fit. Long-term consistency always beats short-term intensity.
Short-term intensity is becoming fired up by Michael Jordan’s The Last Dance or The Biggest Loser. When that television show aired, everybody bought treadmills that research suggests they used only three to seven times. They’re excellent expensive clothes racks.
Dave: Intensity is cramming for a school presentation or wedding speech. Consistency means doing small things when you don’t feel like it. I visit the gym every morning. Summer is easy, but winter is difficult. With two children, 4:30 a.m. is the only time exercise fits.
Don’t wait until November and attempt to become fit in the 30 days before Christmas. Consistency is confidence’s primary building block. In fitness, courage means admitting you need change; conscious choice means joining a gym and obtaining a program; consistency means actually attending. Many listeners own unused memberships.
They experienced intensity without consistency. Courage, conscious choice and consistency build confidence, but with people, one size fits none. Standard principles exist, but everybody needs a different blend. If I chose one, it would be consistency: begin something small and continue, whether fitness, healthy eating or meditation.
James: The gym analogy applies broadly: avoid unhelpful comparisons, remain consistent, track progress and allocate structured time. Those principles produce success elsewhere.
Dave: Since one size fits none, I’ll note that I always compare myself to others because it inspires rather than demoralises me. Believing I’m the worst person at the gym motivates me. I also track my entire life through apps. Find the combination of strategies that works for you.
Implementing Advice#
James: As you did with that book, you need to turn your life into an experiment: consume advice, apply it and observe what happens. Don’t merely read, understand and move on. Ask how it applies to you and whether it works. Something may help most of 1,000 people, but you still need to test it personally.
Dave: Reading is easy; implementation is hard. There are three groups: knowers who believe Instagram taught them everything, learners addicted to acquiring insights, and implementers who act.
Imagine reading about a bicycle without ever seeing one. A book could explain the thin tyres, balanced weight distribution and necessary pedal cadence. You could study for days and still fail to ride. A knower claims mastery after reading; a learner seeks another book and podcast; an implementer mounts the bike, falls, grazes their knees and progresses further in an hour than a researcher does in weeks.
Implementation is critical. “Well done is better than well said” has always stayed with me.
Unblock your performance#
James: I’ll borrow that. Across career stages, are there common blockages people can remove to elevate workplace performance beyond confidence?
Dave: Begin with four powerful assumptions: you choose how you think, choose how you communicate, have the capacity to change, and can always improve. You aren’t pre-programmed and are responsible for your words.
As I mentioned, I fell into coaching by reading books and enthusiastically forcing their lessons upon friends.
I was so excited that people began seeking advice, and coaching emerged almost accidentally through sharing with friends. In an organisation, everybody should ask how to become more visible, valuable and connected.
Focus first on personal development. As during a cabin-pressure loss, secure your own oxygen mask before helping others: get yourself right. I call that “great me”. Next comes “great we”: leadership. Despite thousands of leadership books published yearly, a simple test is, “If everybody did what I do, would the team improve?”
Third, expand your focus to changing or transforming the organisation. As a sports fanatic, I love players who transform football or cricket. I’d offer Hawthorn examples, but that may alienate people because I’m a mad Hawthorn supporter. Who do you barrack for?
James: Adelaide Crows, unfortunately at the moment.
Dave: In 1991, when the Crows entered the league, their first match at Football Park was against Hawthorn. I think we lost by 85 points, although Hawthorn won the premiership that year.
The three levels are great me through personal development, great we through the team, and great us through outward impact. Your outward impact might shift an industry or transform a process. Focus on personal development, leadership and organisational change, always beginning with yourself and tidying the messy corners of your behaviour.
For personal development, Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence is among my five favourites of more than 700 books. Other favourites include Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Carol Dweck’s Mindset, and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning.
Frankl’s account of imprisonment in Auschwitz transformed me. I never again felt like a victim or sorry for myself; what he endured and his return from adversity are mind-bending. I believe a famous Hollywood figure recently bought the film rights, although I generally dislike watching adaptations after reading a book.
James: Especially for a story like that. It would be difficult to adapt. Reading provides knowledge beyond learning alone or asking friends, particularly from people outside your immediate circle.
Dave: I also watch many TED Talks and particularly enjoy learning outside my own or a client’s industry. When working with BHP, mining or finance, I seek stories and inspiration elsewhere. Banks traditionally opened nine to four, Monday to Friday, assuming customers were available, until service-oriented outsiders noted that shift workers could buy a burger at 10 p.m. and expected similar accessibility elsewhere.
Before your time, liking one song required buying an entire CD. The playlist economy lets you select only the tracks you want. Examples from other industries can be translated into your career, business or team.
James: Much innovation comes from applying an idea from one field to another rather than inventing something without precedent. Iterating on something elsewhere and using it in a new context creates novelty.
Dave Advice for Graduates#
James: Graduate Theory is for university students and early-career professionals. Looking back, what advice would you give the young Dave Lourdes or somebody starting today?
Dave: Do you have time for another podcast? My life and career have been a series of mistakes. Don’t avoid speaking or participating because you’re young, uncertain or outside your expertise.
I wish I’d shown more gratitude and empathy earlier. You can never say thank you enough or care too much about people. I began overly goal-oriented and ego-driven, seeking major projects to feel good about myself.
I worked ridiculous hours—hard rather than smart. I needed empathy, recognition that everybody differs, gratitude and a healthier ego. I avoided questions for fear of appearing stupid, but if everybody did that, nobody would ask anything.
Ask questions and attend work events. Skipping them is a career-limiting move because you’re part of the team. You may be tired or unenthusiastic, but make time. I now obsess over building genuine relationships and wish I’d begun sooner.
If you don’t schedule something, it won’t happen. “I’ll read more” or “I’ll exercise” needs a time. I exercise at 4:30 a.m. Monday to Friday, sleep in until 6:30 on Saturday, and rest Sunday.
One of the most powerful things you can say is, “I don’t know.” I wish I’d said it sooner rather than pretending and secretly researching later.
Expect to become stuck; it happens to everybody. Ask for help sooner. Don’t globalise a local issue. Being stuck is temporary—a stain, not a tattoo.
A personal trainer taught me another lesson. When you think you’re dead, they demand five more repetitions. You hate them, swear under your breath, pay them and return next week. My first trainer, Michael, constantly said, “Just one more.” Now whenever I reach my apparent limit, I do one more.
If I could choose one lesson, it would be that self-awareness is king. Emotional intelligence includes several markers, but self-awareness is the beast. Master it and you master your life: know what excites and deflates you, what derails and restores you, and how you respond to confrontation or lost confidence. I also wish I’d hired a coach earlier. You’d better stop me before I add more wishes.
James: We’re at the end. Thank you for sharing your wisdom; the conversation has been fascinating and given me many takeaways. Where can listeners learn more about you?
Dave: It’s entirely my pleasure.
Dave: My website, davelourdes.com, is currently being rebuilt. People can connect with me on LinkedIn. I also run a private Facebook group called The Leaders Lab, where I regularly share free information about personal growth, leadership and change. I accept all requests.
James: Fantastic. Thanks so much, mate.
Dave: I love what you’re doing to help people. It’s excellent.
Outro#
James: Thanks for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. To receive my takeaways and everything I learnt, go to GraduateTheory.com/subscribe. You’ll get my takeaways and information about each episode straight in your inbox.
Thanks again for listening. I look forward to seeing you next week.