Seeking Wisdom with David Cancel

One of the youngest self-made billionaires and an entrepreneur/author/ultra marathoner get married and have four kids, yet they still manage their own businesses and try new adventures daily. How do they manage it all? 

In this from-the-vault episode of Seeking Wisdom, DC sits down with founder of Spanx, Sara Blakely, and author, entrepreneur and keynote speaker, Jesse Itzler, to talk prioritization, marriage and extreme sports. DC and Jesse bond over big calendars, and DC learns how Sara and Jesse’s whirlwind love story still works today.

For more learnings from DC, check out his weekly newsletter, The One Thing. You can subscribe here: https://www.drift.com/insider/learn/newsletters/dc/

What do you do after you accomplish your biggest professional goal at age 33? That’s the question DC asked professional climber Alex Honnold in this exclusive HYPERGROWTH episode of Seeking Wisdom.

Alex was the first, and remains the only, climber to free solo El Cap, a 3,000ft granite face in Yosemite National Park, in 2018. Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t as easy as he made it look. In this episode, DC and Alex talk about what it was like to train for the climb with an entire film crew by his side, what life’s been like since the release of the Free Solo movie, and what’s next for Alex.

For more learnings from DC, check out his weekly newsletter, The One Thing. You can subscribe here: https://www.drift.com/insider/learn/newsletters/dc/

Ever blame your unproductive day on too many emails, Slacks, and phone calls? Us too. But on this never-before-released episode of Seeking Wisdom, author, investor and lecturer, Nir Eyal, debunks the myth of technology’s influence on distraction. Because it’s not the technology’s fault you’re distracted – it’s you wanting to be distracted.

DC and Nir talk about Nir's background in advertising and gaming, what he's learned from writing two books (Indistractible and Hooked), and why anything that you do that you don't PLAN to do is a distraction.

For more learnings from DC, check out his weekly newsletter, The One Thing. You can subscribe here: https://www.drift.com/insider/learn/newsletters/dc/

What do skiing, rock climbing, and photography have in common? They can all become part of one story – if you seek the parallels.

For this episode we went back into the crates to bring you an exclusive episode with the one and only Jimmy Chin. Jimmy, who is a professional climber, photographer, and Academy-Award winning film director, talks with DC about what it was like to grow up as the “other.” He shares how his early understanding for different worlds helps him to draw parallels between seemingly strikingly different things today. But Jimmy would not be the success story he is without the help of his mentors, so in this episode DC and Jimmy geek out on storytelling and mentorship.

For more learnings from DC, check out his weekly newsletter, The One Thing. You can subscribe here: https://www.drift.com/insider/learn/newsletters/dc/

Leo Tenenblat (Drift's Chief Product Officer) is back to talk with DC about iteration. Leo shares what iteration is like at Drift and how it compares to other companies he's worked at – from the big ones (like Salesforce where he drove the Einstein platform) to the small ones (like the startup he founded called AppMesh). DC discusses the difficulty of tying together marketing and product releases too tightly. They also touch on the importance of feedback loops and why product teams need to get as close to the customer as possible. Is this really just a veiled 1-on-1 meeting for DC and Leo? You can be the judge.

Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with DC on Twitter @dcancel @DriftPodcasts or text him to share your feedback at +1-212-380-1036.

For more learnings from DC, check out his weekly newsletter, The One Thing. You can subscribe here: https://www.drift.com/insider/learn/newsletters/dc/

DC's goal in life? To replace himself. On this episode, he's joined by Leo Tenenblat (Drift's Chief Product Officer) to talk through what this means in the context of a scaling company. Together, DC and Leo talk about their approaches to hiring and team building, projecting yourself into the future, and the one thing Leo thinks DC should stop doing. Digressions include some Portuguese lessons (for DC) and comparing astrological signs.

Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with DC on Twitter @dcancel @DriftPodcasts or text him to share your feedback at +1-212-380-1036.

For more learnings from DC, check out his weekly newsletter, The One Thing. You can subscribe here: https://www.drift.com/insider/learn/newsletters/dc/

The world of marketing is constantly evolving, but understanding people? That will always be fundamental. Today, marketing expert Rebecca Messina joins David to share her biggest learnings from the 22 years she spent at Coca-Cola, what it was like to be Uber's first-ever CMO, and how she's applying both of those experiences to her work as a senior advisor at McKinsey. DC and Rebecca go deep on the importance of brand building and brand love, the psychology of marketing, and what it means to be a brand vs. an icon.

There's a saying at Amazon: "Good intentions don't work. Mechanisms do." For well over a decade, Colin Bryar and Bill Carr worked in tandem with Jeff Bezos, building out the mechanisms and leadership principles that shaped the company into what it is today. How'd they do it? They started with a relentless focus on the customer – and worked backwards from there.

Colin and Bill were in the trenches for the creation of some of Amazon's most innovative products and services including Kindle, Amazon Prime, Amazon Studios, and Amazon Web Services. And on today's episode of Seeking Wisdom, they sit down with DC and talk about what Amazon was really like in the early days, the development of critical processes like the PR FAQ, single-threaded teams, and their best practices for hiring the right talent.

Buy a copy of Working Backwards here: https://www.amazon.com/Working-Backwards-Insights-Stories-Secrets/dp/1250267595

You have to pick an edge, pick a side. You can't be in the middle. Because the middle is where there's consensus. This week on Seeking Wisdom, DC and Adam talk about why consensus is dangerous for companies – and why you need to avoid it at all costs.

To kick off the first episode of Drift's newest podcast, DC sits down for a special episode with Elias Torres – Drift co-founder, CTO, and now the host of The American Dream. In an unfiltered chat with Dena Upton (Drift's Chief People Officer) Elias and DC open up about their backgrounds and upbringing (Elias in Nicaragua and DC in Queens, NY), what it means to be Latin American in tech, how Drift is addressing systemic racism in the industry, and more.

The American Dream is available wherever you get your podcasts. Subscribe:

• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-american-dream/id1561784909
• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bIW15aPVT1JFNyhCLLdab?si=q0vYqyvjSBe_PzyHkN9ZLg&nd=1

In the meantime, be sure to leave a ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with DC, Elias, and Dena on Twitter @dcancel @eliast @heydenaupton@DriftPodcasts.

For more learnings from Elias, check out his quarterly newsletter, The American Dream. You can subscribe at https://www.drift.com/insider/learn/newsletters/american-dream/