David Brier: Brand Strategist on Brand Voice, Beating Goliaths, AI vs Human Creativity & Decisiveness in 2026 | Be Yourself Podcast
Be Yourself Podcast

DavidBrier

Award-Winning Brand Strategist, Author of Brand Intervention & Rich Brand Poor Brand, Creator of $9B in Brand Value — on Why Brands Lose Their Voice, How Underdogs Beat Goliaths, and Why Decisiveness Is the Defining Skill of 2026

52 minutes
Brand Strategy · Personal Brand · AI · Decisiveness · Entrepreneurship
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About This Episode

What Does It Take to Build a Brand People Fight For — and a Business That Knows Exactly What It Stands Against?

David Brier has spent over 40 years helping brands find, lose, and reclaim their identity. With more than $9 billion in created brand value for his clients, two bestselling books — Brand Intervention and Rich Brand Poor Brand — and keynotes delivered around the world, he is one of the most experienced brand strategists alive. When he sat down with Sergey for the Be Yourself Podcast, the conversation cut straight to the core question every brand eventually has to answer: what do you actually stand for, and what are you willing to oppose?

Together they unpack why so many brands lose their voice — not all at once, but gradually, through internal misalignment, reactive thinking, and the growing temptation to outsource strategy to AI. David breaks down the three phases of branding that every company navigates, explains why post-sale branding is the phase almost no one executes, and uses Liquid Death as a master class in how a bold story wrapped around a commodity — water in a can — built a multi-billion dollar company.

The conversation also covers David's origin story as a designer, why being hated by some is far better than being ignored by many, what the "land of maybe" costs a business, and why decisiveness — not talent, not timing — is the defining skill of 2026. If you are building a brand, a business, or a personal identity and want to stop being neutral, this episode is essential.

01
Why brands lose their voice — three failure points that kill brand clarity from the inside out
Brand identity collapses when it is not owned from the top down, when AI replaces real thinking, and when companies run on autopilot — reacting to TED talks and Instagram posts instead of observing the market directly.
02
Goliaths vs. underdogs — how Liquid Death became a billion-dollar brand selling water in a can
Goliaths are the dinosaurs of every industry: bigger pockets, longer history, top-of-mind by default. But their size makes them bureaucratic and slow. The bold, funny, courageous story Liquid Death wrapped around a commodity broke through everything the Goliaths owned.
03
The three phases of branding — and why post-sale branding is the one nobody does
Pre-sale branding: everyone does it. During-sale branding: most try. Post-sale branding: almost no one invests in it. Yet it is the phase that surprises and delights clients, earns loyalty, and shows up on the spreadsheet as growth — without appearing as a line item.
04
Naming the villain — why Apple's playbook still beats every strategy deck written in the last 30 years
Apple was crystal clear about who the hero was and who the villain was. If you are afraid to name the villain, that fear will halt your growth. Being hated by some people is infinitely better than being a source of mild indifference to everyone.
05
AI vs. human creativity — why the equivalent of every hour you spend on AI must be spent with real people
AI is a tool. It does not replace someone with a heartbeat, someone who has fallen in love, someone who has sat in a restaurant and said "this is the most amazing meal I have ever had." For every hour you spend on AI each week, make a contract with yourself to spend the equivalent face to face with actual people.
06
Decisiveness as the skill of 2026 — fail fast, make moves, and get out of the land of maybe
You can be decisive and wrong. That is still better than being indecisive. By the time someone indecisive makes one decision, a decisive person has made ten — seven that failed and three that worked. Those three put you miles ahead. The land of maybe is hell.

About the Guest

David Brier — Brand Strategist, Bestselling Author & Keynote Speaker

David Brier is an award-winning brand strategist with over 40 years of experience and more than $9 billion in created brand value across his career. He has worked with brands of every size — from startups to global corporations — and consistently finds the same blind spots regardless of the budget or the industry. He is the author of Brand Intervention, a book that tackles over 30 of those blind spots head-on, with a foreword by Daymond John of Shark Tank, and Rich Brand Poor Brand, which ends every chapter with a direct comparison: what the rich brand does versus what the poor brand does.

Born in Brooklyn and trained in Manhattan, David built his eye for design by walking the streets of New York and studying the work of the International Typeface Corporation — one of the early foundries for type — whose publication changed his understanding of what words and design could do together. That obsession with clarity, craft, and the relationship between what a brand says and what it stands against has driven everything he has built since.

He is direct, opinionated, and deeply committed to telling clients the truth — even when the truth is uncomfortable and potentially expensive. He does not speak in hope. He speaks in certainties.

What He Does
Brand strategist, keynote speaker, and bestselling author. Over 40 years of experience creating more than $9 billion in brand value. Author of Brand Intervention and Rich Brand Poor Brand. Founder of Rising Above the Noise.
Core Belief
Every brand must own unapologetically what it stands for and what it opposes. If you are afraid to name the villain, that fear will halt your growth. Being hated by some is far better than being ignored by all.
His Books
Brand Intervention tackles 30+ blind spots every brand faces, regardless of size — with a foreword by Daymond John. Rich Brand Poor Brand ends every chapter with a direct comparison: rich brand does this, poor brand does that.
On 2026
Very optimistic overall. Decisiveness is the defining skill of 2026. A players work with A players not because they're exclusive but because they understand each other and demand the same level of excellence from themselves.

Key Quotes

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It is so much greater to have some people who hate you than to have a lot of people who are indifferent to you.

David Brier
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Telepathy is a really really poor form of marketing.

David Brier
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The land of maybe is hell.

David Brier

Episode Chapters

0:00 Intro 0:41 Who is David Brier & His Background 1:08 Why Brands Lose Their Voice 3:36 What "Goliaths" Are and How Underdogs Can Win 8:27 How to Differentiate in a Crowded Market 15:59 Standing for Something and Naming the Villain 18:03 How David Found His Voice 21:42 Why People Hold Themselves Back 23:55 Can Crisis Be an Advantage? 29:24 Does AI Make Human Connection More Valuable? 30:58 If You Don't Define Your Story, the Market Will 33:47 Being Great at Many Things vs One Thing 37:01 Breaking Free from Labels 39:02 Can We Create Our Own Luck? 40:46 David's Outlook on 2026 48:06 Decisiveness vs Indecision 49:01 Final Thoughts

Full Transcript

BTW: This episode of the Be Yourself Podcast is produced by Beverly Media. Also on the show:
Mark Pollard — Brand Strategist on Authenticity, Living with Urgency & Leading a Life That Turns You On →
0:00 Intro
Sergey David Brier, who's an award-winning brand strategist with over 40 years of experience. He's a keynote speaker and author of two best-selling books.
David Be bold. You will always have some people who hate you. Great. Celebrate that. It is so much greater to have some people who hate you than to have a lot of people who are indifferent to you.
Sergey You said something interesting. You said something that you stand for, something that you oppose. Can this be a starting point for someone who tries to identify their brand identity?
David People confuse with being open-minded. They are not the same thing.
Sergey Hey everyone, welcome to the Be Yourself podcast, the podcast on expressing our true selves.
0:41 Who is David Brier & His Background
Sergey Today, my guest is David Brier, who's an award-winning brand strategist with over 40 years of experience and more than 9 billion made in brand value for his customers. He is a keynote speaker and author of two best-selling books. David, welcome to the show.
David Thank you so much for having me, man. Appreciate it.
Sergey So, I'm super excited to talk to you.
1:08 Why Brands Lose Their Voice
Sergey And the first thing I want to ask you about is not about branding but about rebranding because you said uh in my little surveys that I sent you that actually love liberating people in companies helping them to gain and regain their voice, their power and their vitality. How often brands lose their voice and why so?
David Well, it's a very good question and I have a number of things that I've seen happen in terms of where they lose their way. I mean, so sometimes I mean there's probably about three or four common places where they lose it. Sometimes it's not really owned from the top down and it's just owned at a certain echelon in the company. It might be owned by the marketing department, but it's not really reflective of the culture. So, as a result, you're always having to kind of — someone says something and you're like, that's totally off-brand. What are you saying? And then if it's happening sort of even in with the internal teams, you know for a fact that the farther it gets out into the front lines, whether it's brick and mortar or whether it's or not even brick, it doesn't have to be brick and mortar. It could be completely direct to consumer brand, but if it's that fractured, it's going to invariably kind of just continue to be that way. That's one problem.
David Another place right now, we're in an interesting era where a lot of people are going, "Ooh, AI can do all this stuff for me." AI is a tool. AI does not replace thinking. AI does not replace someone with a heartbeat and someone with a soul and someone that actually has fallen in love and someone who's gone out to a restaurant and went, "This is the most amazing meal I've ever had in my life." So, the thing is is that there's a mistake. It's the same reason that I would not take an intern and say, "Okay, hey, you're an intern — design or develop or create a brand strategy or this or that." It's like they can assist and complement. But they're not a replacement for — I mean those are a couple of the obvious ones. Let's talk about the book a little bit.
3:36 What "Goliaths" Are and How Underdogs Can Win
Sergey The complete name of the book — Rich Brand Poor Brand — how to unleash your debit in a world of Goliaths. Who are those metaphorical Goliaths? And maybe you can reveal a few secrets of how we can unleash our debit in this saturated times with so many things going on.
David Well, the best thing is to essentially own unapologetically what you stand for and own unapologetically what you're opposed against. The bigger corps — not all of them, but a lot, the majority of the bigger corps, the bigger Goliaths — they have a lane that they've kind of done this, that they're in, and a lot of that stuff oftentimes is being done on autopilot. It's not dynamic. It's not real. It doesn't have that responsiveness that an individual would have.
David You know, it's kind of like — the more a brand kind of reflects a thinking, aware, observant nucleus of values, the more — which is more like a person than something that's very bureaucratic with lots of layers and mission statements that are put on the wall which people read once and never ever read again because it wasn't even good the first time they read it and it doesn't even mean anything. So there are a lot of things with the bigger companies within anyone's industry that are — they're doing the stuff that we're supposed to do. They're doing the stuff that they read in a book. They're doing the stuff that they heard in a TED talk. They're doing the stuff that they saw on Instagram that morning. Oh, that inspired them. I mean, it's very reactionary, meaning that they heard something and they're assuming that that author or that speaker or that teacher or that school has better insight than their own ability to observe directly.
David The greatest entrepreneurs, the greatest ones who disrupt an industry, they are willing to dare and ask why not? How come someone isn't addressing this frustration that we all hate and talk about silently to one another, but yet no one is saying, "Wait a second." And that kind of fire is contagious. It's infectious. And the wonderful thing about it, once you light that, there's really no cure for it. It's awesome. Once you light that spark, people don't go, "Okay, I'm just going to hibernate. I'm going to go back to my state of hibernation." So that's the stuff.
David Goliaths are the larger — they're like the dinosaurs in an industry. They've been around for a while. They're bigger. They often have bigger pockets. And for every industry, it's different. But if someone just understood that a Goliath is — they may be the go-to, they may be what many think of as the gold standard. Or it may be the company that has top-of-mind presence because they've been around so long. You say X, they think of you. That would be a Goliath.
David And one example that we all have seen quite a bit — you take a brand like Liquid Death, you're going water in a can. How can they go up against all the other water? First of all, that's kind of like a commodity. Like it's water in a can. And but it's the story that they wrapped around it. It's the bold, funny, brave, and courageous branding that they built around it — that made them break through and become the multi-billion dollar company that they are, you know, and there were a lot of other companies in water that owned water. So there's an example.
8:27 How to Differentiate in a Crowded Market
Sergey Let's take my example. I have this uh growing video production agency and I don't want to be a commodity. I don't want people to think, hey, these guys do videos like hundred millions of other people who can do the video, you know. And um I think maybe in my storytelling I do something provocative or I watch and I observe what the market is about and just do something completely different just to create this trigger so that people would think hey this guy's making — so how do we actually separate ourselves and create something when there's so many things that already been created in the world.
David Good question. The answer is this. You need to take an honest look and you go, okay, what are the frustrations that people have to put up with when people are looking for what I'm providing? What are the speed bumps? Like I'll give you an example — 11 Madison Park, one of the top restaurants in the world. They had a new owner who took it over and what he did was he started to shift. He didn't go "how do we make better food" because they were already making very good food. Wasn't the product. It was how do we convert a dining experience into an emotional experience? How do we shift the context of what they're actually coming to get?
Sergey Is this the restaurant owned by Will Guidara at some point? Is this story about him?
David Yeah, that's right. Amazingly brilliantly non-conforming. When you're going into a space, there needs to be a wonderful balance between arrogance and humility. Arrogance like — maybe we can do something amazing. Some might think that that's arrogance. I think that that's oxygen. That's my opinion. And then the other side of it — the humility — being humble enough to look, if we're not — I am not an advocate of the kind of humility saying "ah no, no — that's silly Hollywood stuff, that's stupid." Now, when I say humility, I mean this: Am I willing to put aside the idea that I know all about it so that I actually can be curious, be interested, be surprised, and probably break some rules?
David That is what I consider humility. Smart humility. Because not all humility is smart. The kind of humility — "Oh, I know. Where'd you get that sweater? Oh, no, no, no" — that's silly. You see that on the housewives of Orange County shows. So, this really has to do with: okay, am I humble enough to go — maybe there's something here that I don't know. Maybe there's something here that's going to surprise me and delight me. Maybe I can take that and make that our unfair advantage. That's the kind of stuff that opens up the door to — and people go, "Why the hell are you doing that? That makes no sense." And I have this conversation with clients regularly.
David They're like, "Why are we doing that?" I said — because, like in my prior book — Brand Intervention — I wrote that because there were over 30 routine questions or blind spots that always came up. Always. It didn't matter if I was dealing with a global brand that was managing billions or I was dealing with a startup. It didn't matter. They all had the same blind spots. And one of those blind spots was the fact — I covered that there's three phases to branding. There's pre-sales branding, which every company does — pre-sales, promotion, advertising, whatever. Then there's during the sale branding. That's during the experience — like you go to a place to get your haircut, or a spa or something like that. Both of those exist. But the interesting thing is that there's actually a third phase of branding. That's post-sales branding — after the sale. Clients don't expect it. It surprises them and it delights them and you went above and beyond.
David And sometimes if I'm dealing with a client that is accustomed to only looking at spreadsheets going — okay, how much did we spend? How much did we charge? What was our profit? — I said there's at least five items that you will not see on the spreadsheet that will actually impact whether your spreadsheet shows positive growth or negative growth. And so one of those is post-sales branding. And I had one client I had to basically convince. He said, "But David, that's going to cost us a buck and a half." And I said, "Over the course of the lifetime, for each sale, what's your lifetime value of your customer? And you're telling me that does not make sense for you to invest to surprise and delight?" Because no client and no customer is ever going to stay loyal to you or me or any brand simply because we delivered what we said we were going to deliver. That's a starting line, not a finishing line.
15:59 Standing for Something and Naming the Villain
Sergey You said something interesting. You said something that you stand for, something that you oppose. Can this be a starting point for someone who tries to identify their brand identity — like especially something you oppose, and maybe if you are not afraid to talk about it openly, this will draw some attention.
David Well, look, a very simple example that everyone is familiar with. Apple opposed the status quo. Apple opposed computers that made people have to think like computers and instead made computers that thought like people. They were clearly opposed to the businessy stuff. They was like — well, what if it could actually be creative? What if it could inspire? What if it could liberate the user? They were clear, very clear about who the hero was in this particular situation and who the villain was.
David And I think the more if someone is afraid to name the villain, they need to get over that fear immediately. That will halt your growth. That will limit your growth and it will be a big problem that you don't need to add to. Be bold. You will always have some people who hate you. Great. Celebrate that. It is so much greater to have some people who hate you than to have a lot of people who are indifferent to you. You don't have a lot of people who love you. You don't have a lot of people who hate you, but nobody's making a big fuss. I — that to me is hell. That's the definition of hell is to be wonderfully neutral so everyone accepts me.
18:03 How David Found His Voice
Sergey So obviously you've been in this space forever in the branding marketing sphere, but how did it start for you? I know that you draw paintings, you're an artist. How did you transition or how did you find your unique voice and becoming a branding expert?
David Good. So the thing is that happens is that in my last semester of college I was planning on being an illustrator. But then I started to look and I saw — you were finishing art school, right? — and what ended up happening was I realized that this — I started to understand a little bit better how things came into existence. Meaning that, well, if you're going to be an illustrator that means you're going to give it to an art director. Now you're reliant upon — will that art director make good choices so that it all works brilliantly? And there's a small amount of good art directors and an even smaller amount of great art directors and there's a lot of "eh." So the thing is — wow, I looked at that and I was like, that's almost like playing the lottery. You're hoping that you get the winning numbers, you know. And so what ended up happening was I made the choice — I wanted to go into design because I saw a publication.
David It's no longer in existence. It was an amazing publication for the industry — from International Typeface Corporation. They were one of the early foundries for type before — right now pretty much type is everywhere because of computers — but then they were that bright burning flame of possibility. And so I saw this publication and my mind was blown. I'd never seen that level of craft. I'd never seen the attention to detail, the care for what words meant and making words and design do a dance that I had never seen before. I was shocked. So what ended up happening was I started following the work of the design director who was actually doing this — cuz this was this was a part of his soul. You could tell. It wasn't just showing up to do his daily gig and leave at 5. This was soul in action.
David And so at that point I made the conscious decision and that started to evolve into — let me start to understand more about the pieces that make design work, that make a message work — basically, if I can walk by a poster in New York City — I'm for those who don't know, born in Brooklyn, started my career in Manhattan. I saw New York was really a place where I absorbed like a sponge. Okay, if I can walk down and see posters on a wall and it literally just like grabbed me by my lapel and said "look at me" — in such a way that I wanted to look at it — that was amazing. We have to be really really bold.
21:42 Why People Hold Themselves Back
Sergey You know, the problem with so many people is that they don't think that their life is anything special. I think we a lot of us think that we're not that extraordinary to share something. Is that a common mistake?
David Yeah. I would say that that's not uncommon. And I would further say that there's two sides to this. One is that sometimes people have compromised and gone — I dreamt too big. They may have had a loss or two or a failure or two and they go — that was probably too big. And instead of learning from it, they backed away. That's not good. But the other side is — fight back. Go bolder. Get bigger. Don't shrink. There's a great line from, I think it's from Peter Drucker, where he basically said, "You can't shrink your way to greatness." And that's really what it's about. You can't shrink your way to greatness.
David It's going to take being a little bit bigger. It's going to be a little bit bolder. And by the way, when I say bold, I think it's very important for everyone to understand there's a gazillion flavors of bold. Like Chris Do has had me on his podcast a couple times and we chatted. Chris is bold in certain areas that I would look at and I'd say, "Wow, that's bold." There are other areas, the way he approaches things, that I would go bolder. I have my flavor of bold. He has his flavor of bold. You've got Alex Hormozi who has his flavor of bold. You have Brian Collins. You have Milton Glazer who had his flavor of bold — to do I Love New York. So, bold comes in a lot of different flavors. And so there's no one style of bold. Bold does not only mean louder, and it doesn't only mean more forceful.
23:55 Can Crisis Be an Advantage?
Sergey Well, Chris taught me that. I asked him a question. Does a crisis make a great brand? And he says, well, a crisis makes for a great character. And if you have a great character, you just need then to pretty much tell your stories and thus this could be a great beginning for a strong robust personal brand, you know. So I've always shied away from my roots when I started my first business. We were cold calling to the United States from Ukraine and we were using made-up names, right? So I didn't say that I was Sergey because I thought — now I understand that I have to actually own my identity because that's what makes me unique. My accent makes me unique. My story, the war in my country — I have a lot of life experience that I can share. So maybe this could be a part of my personal brand and later a part of my business brand as well.
David Every business and every professional faces a crisis or multiple crises — there is no one listening to this who should ever have the idea "oh they have it so easy" — whomever you could pick, whomever that person or that agency, it's all relative. There are people who would look at what I face on a daily basis or what you face on a daily basis and say you have it so lucky. And there are others that it would not even be interesting because it's not confrontational enough. It's like they want to get in a big ring with big fights. So, it's what we what we tolerate, but the greatest of us is able to bounce back. The greatest of us — we don't get thrown off because something happened.
David And I just want to interject this because I think this is vitally important especially for those who are let's say newer to the business who have only grown up on computers, who have only grown up on social platforms, on social media, and now only grown up on AI. I would challenge anyone listening to this — as much time as you spend on AI, make a contract with yourself right now that you spend absolutely the equivalent amount of time with people face to face. That forces you to interact. That forces you to actually be able to think on your feet. I spoke with a client yesterday and if I only knew AI and could only put in some prompts to come out with a good answer and wasn't able to actually think and understand and interact in real time — those of us that can think on our feet are the leaders. Whether it's a comedian, whether it's an actor, whether it's an entrepreneur, whether it's an innovator.
David What would you think of someone that did a presentation and all their presentation equipment died? Like everything — their keynote presentation didn't work, the microphone didn't work. And you have two people experiencing the same thing. One can turn that into "this is amazing, wow, let me tell you what we're going to do" and actually now make that the most memorable life-changing event — or the other one where it's like "uh um uh" and they're lost. Which one is the true leader? So I would absolutely challenge — for every hour you spend on AI every week, you must have the equivalent. If you spend 15 hours a week on AI, spend 15 hours a week in front of actual people having actual conversations — not just silly stuff — I'm talking actual conversations, things that allow you to exercise your muscle of who you are so that you can think, you can riff.
29:24 Does AI Make Human Connection More Valuable?
Sergey What's eye-opening and shocking is that AI actually makes people and human-to-human connection more valuable than ever, right? So and it seems like it has the potential to. Well, you know, I would give everything to be somewhere where I can meet people face to face, but I can't obviously — I can't leave my country as a man during the war. But this is what I do. I try to create connections using my podcast. And yeah, I think that with this crowded internet and social media where you don't know where's the real and where's the artificial — it's becoming so worrying to even engage because you don't know what's real or what's not. So maybe the antidote to it is actually yeah, you know, getting more on real calls or doing some videos that are not perfect — because I'll tell you what, David, I actually appreciate mistakes in LinkedIn posts because I know that a real human being wrote it, not a machine.
David Yep. Yep.
30:58 If You Don't Define Your Story, the Market Will
Sergey So um this is an interesting quote I read on your website. "If you don't give the market the story to talk about they'll define the brand story for you."
David Yes.
Sergey Okay. Can you unpack this one for for me?
David Yeah. Well, the basic thing is — I have seen brands have the idea that we are the best at what we do and no one's really better even though we have inferior companies that are actually penetrating the market way more and selling way more. And I'm like, well, who's going to own that problem? And that's usually when I look at my client and I say — by the way, telepathy is a really really poor form of marketing.
David So, the thing is is that we must define for the market who and what we are. Like recently I was exploring — well, how do I communicate this in an interesting and compelling way? So I basically explored this and here's what I came up with: I'm David Brier the guy that CEOs call when they've burned so much cash on marketing their spouses think they have a drug habit. I'm like rehab. I'm like rehab for your brand, except instead of getting you clean, I get you profitable. And you can think of me as the Betty Ford Clinic of branding, but with better ROI and no group hugs. Because if I don't define it clearly, then the industry is going to say, "Oh well, he's the branding guy, he's the author that wrote blah, he's the guy from New York, he's the this, he's the that." People are going to make stuff up about any one of us at any given time, and it will not be anywhere near as good as what you or I could actually come up with. So we need to be smart. We need to be intentional and own our story and our distinction.
33:47 Being Great at Many Things vs One Thing
Sergey I think Tony Robbins said that we can be so many things and people want to label us and paint us in one thing. Although right now I think especially with the rise of AI we cannot be a sole expert in one thing. What do you think about that? Like do you believe — because we have this saying that the jack of all trades is the master of none. I'm not sure. I think a person could be pretty damn good in a lot of things otherwise they will not survive.
David I agree with you and I'll tell you where that can be implemented intelligently and where it can be implemented poorly. So for example — you know the chef Gordon Ramsay. Okay, good. Gordon cooks in so many different styles. He has so many different restaurants, but what's Gordon known for? He's known for being bold, extravagant. Being extravagant and mentoring. He does really care. But he is fiery. He is opinionated. And you know him because of his exacting ferocious adherence to brilliance.
David What is he known for? A trait. A set of values. Look — Apple's known for a set of values. And underneath that set of values we have the iPhone, we have the iPad, we've got the MacBook, we've got the AirPod Max, we've got all the various things. So to me, the flaw in the "be known for only one thing" is shortsighted. The root complete concept is being known for a set of values — like anybody that knows me, they're like, Brier's going to bring the truth. Brier's gonna bring the fire. He's going to bring the truth. Now underneath that banner of values I do branding, I build brands, I do rebrands, I write books, I do keynotes, I do all these various things — but all those don't dilute who and what I am. They are sharing the same DNA. So the thing that we need to be known for is that set of values and that DNA — that's the place where it's magical.
David Are we the rebellious — like Simon Sinek, he's written a whole bunch of books but everyone knows him as "start with why." Or you go Seth Godin — "purple cow." But he's written, I think, 15 or 17 bestselling books. He's known to be good, smart, observant. But there tends to be a thing that corresponds with a set of values.
37:01 Breaking Free from Labels
Sergey And to set ourselves free from the image that's been created isn't easy, especially in Hollywood. You know, Matthew McConaughey — he's a really wise, amazingly wise, knowledgeable individual. His book Green Lights is so groundbreaking, so philosophical, yet people were thinking of him as a romcom actor for the majority of his career. And it took balls for him to decline. I think he was unemployed for like two years or something. He was just passing on all the comedies offers to finally get something more profound and deep. So it takes guts man.
Sergey But you know, in the beginning, we got to have our break. Right now I think I'm having my break with this podcast because it's aligned with my values. It's all about authenticity. I'm this authentic guy and I'm not afraid to apologize or be wrong or ask dumb questions, you know. So, I think I got something here. But it's just like a wall of death when you just go and no one notices you. And I'm so super thankful to Chris that he noticed me, you know, and now I understand why — because he's got something, he's been an underdog himself, and it seemed like he gives a chance to people who are also underdogs in a way. So, just my little story. What's your take on luck? How do you think — is luck in our lives?
39:02 Can We Create Our Own Luck?
Sergey Can we control luck? Can we create luck?
David The harder you work the more luck you will have. And that doesn't mean oh it's got to be hard work — when I say hard work that doesn't mean pain and suffering — but it just means hey, show up, give it, be 100% in, be 150% in. Don't stop at the scope of work that I was asked to do. I always give more than what my clients — my clients don't even know what to do with all the stuff that I give them. Because I lean in and — if they are doing something stupid, I'm going to say what you just said was really stupid and is actually going to cost you $500,000 in the next six months.
David I mean, that's how I talk to clients. I'm like — that's going to lose you money by doing that. That is stupid. If that's the move you want to make, I cannot prevent you. But you do not have my approval. This is your choice. This is your company. But I will tell you what I think. And they respect that because I'm not saying it to earn points. I'm not saying it to try and convince anybody, but I'm saying it because I care and I can't sit on the side and go, "This is going to be a disaster" and not have said something. That to me would be a betrayal on my part to be all-in.
40:46 David's Outlook on 2026
Sergey As we wrap up, David, I want to ask you about the future and you also brought up Peter Drucker and I have this quote I wrote down before this conversation. He said that the best way to predict the future is to create it. I don't know what is your prediction for 2026 or what is something that you're keeping paying attention to this year?
David I'm paying attention — well, first of all I'm very optimistic about 2026 overall. Very very optimistic. Political state of things and everything. Yeah — well, you know, it's like I have experienced in my own life that even when you're trying to bring about something good, sometimes there's going to be — definitely sometimes, maybe 50% even — there's going to be an upheaval of the stuff that was there. Let's use this as an example. Everyone has experienced having either a room that was a messy room, a horrible room where all the junk went in, or maybe an attic where all the junk went in, and then you go, "I'm going to clean this up." That's hell because you have to go through all the crap that you really didn't ever really look at. You got to go through all the papers and the boxes and the dust. And someone might walk in midway and say, "This place looks horrible. This looks like a disaster." And you're like, "Well, yeah, I'm halfway done. Talk to me when I'm done." So right now I feel that yeah, there's a lot of wild things going on in the world, but I feel very optimistic that things are going to end up well and end up with bigger wins for everybody. I honestly feel that.
David And as far as prediction, you know, I'm very excited. I have a lot of wonderful and exciting things happening with a number of clients and companies that I work with. There's an event that has been being scheduled for a while and not everything is happening as it's supposed to happen to promote it properly. So I basically took the reins with one other person and we basically said, "Okay, we're going to sell this out." Just started promoting it — to have a live webinar where people actually get a taste of what they can experience. And we've already got, just started promoting it last night, we've already got 35 people locked in. We'll probably end up with 75 to 100 locked in. That's an example of how I feel about the future. I feel that 2026 is going to be a great year and I feel it's not going to be a great year of me sitting on the sidelines. No, I'm going to be in there. I'm going to be getting my fingers dirty.
David I even spent time this past weekend out of town with one of my top clients who I have helped build a number of companies and sell those companies. And we talked about the importance of — A players need to be with A players because they understand one another. Not because they need to be exclusive — what I said was A players need to be with one another because they understand one another. And one A player is going to demand this much of themselves and they're going to also demand this much of those that they work with. B players are going to expect so much of themselves and expect so down the line. So it's a level of expectation. It's a level of demand. And people confuse being indecisive with being open-minded. They are not the same thing. Being open-minded refers back to that humility point — is there something here for me to learn? The biggest barrier to any of us learning anything is us assuming that we know all about it. That's arrogance.
48:06 Decisiveness vs Indecision
Sergey Decisiveness is the word of 2026 then.
David Absolutely. Make — and here's the thing. Here's the great news. You can be decisive and be wrong, but if you're decisive and wrong, you'll find out the wrong ways to do something faster. By the time that someone who's slower, who's indecisive has made one decision, you'll already have made 10 decisions. And out of those 10 things, you'll say, "Those seven things didn't work, but these three did." You will be so much more informed and so much ahead because you're not scared to make a move. Make a move. Fail fast. Do it fast. And fast doesn't mean sloppy. Fast means just — quick move. Okay. Make your point. Do it. Do it. Do it.
David So open-mindedness is not to be confused with indecision. Indecision is — I can't make up my mind. To which, if I'm dealing with anybody that's like that, I'm like: what more do you need? What additional facts do you need to know for you to make up your mind? Obviously you don't have certainty on a bunch of these different moving pieces. And so you need to have certainty on the building blocks. Because you can't build something on a hope. The bricks that make up the foundation of whatever we're building are not bricks of hope. And they're not bricks of maybe. They're bricks of "I know what this is." They're bricks of "I know what this is, and this is a defiant no to something. This is a defiant yes to something" — and you can build on those certainties. That's where the magic comes in.
49:01 Final Thoughts
Sergey Great. Great point. To finish the conversation — thank you so much, David. Maybe tell people where they can connect with you, follow you, whatever.
David Absolutely. Well, certainly you can visit my site risingabovethenoise.com — that's r-i-s-i-n-g-a-b-o-v-e-t-h-e-n-o-i-s-e.com — you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter, you can buy my books — Brand Intervention and Rich Brand Poor Brand. And for those that are watching and not just listening — I mean, so this is the book right, I'm just going to show you just so you understand — this is the size of the type. It's big. That's the size. It's very visual. I believe you should be able to show up and have a quick — actually get what I'm saying rapidly. And I don't dilute it, but I do it like with a lot of impact and I get to the point fast because not all facts and not all insights and not all things are created equal in terms of value.
David I mean, it cracks me up — I'll jump on my iPhone and I'll maybe spend 15 or 20 minutes looking on Instagram and I'll go, "Oh, that's that person using my concepts that I told 15, 20 years ago" and I know that they're just basically AIing it, doing these things that are basically — they don't have the experience. They don't have the insight. They wouldn't know how to navigate, how to deal with a problem or a challenge or a speed bump, but it all sounds great. I can see that it's very obvious. Chris is the same way. Chris and I, we're about 10 years apart in age, but we've both been in the business long enough to see — we know from experience the real stuff versus the unreal shallow stuff.
Sergey This is an amazing differentiator for a book. I haven't seen a book with such a big font size. So that's already implementing your own advice.
David It is so fun. I mean this is the first one, right? And Daymond John from Shark Tank wrote the foreword. And then this is the followup — Rich Brand Poor Brand. And even with that one, every chapter ends — I'll show you — there's the artwork for the opener and there's the actual chapter, right? "Reciprocation, the super glue that bonds." And then every chapter ends with: the rich brand does this, the poor brand does that. So you actually have total clarity on how to actually implement and do that. It's just the most user-friendly for anyone that just loves to actually have something they can implement right now.
Sergey Splendid. Thank you so much, David. I hope we'll do this again one time. Have a great day. Bye.
David Thank you so much.