A personal update, Secret Leaders reborn - a case study in the problems with 'success' & what you can learn from my mistakes.

Read time: 5 minutes

A few weeks ago I discussed the ideas behind knowing when to stick, and show resilience or 'grit', and when to quit. You can read about the science of Grit or Quit here.​

Secretly, I'd been exploring these concepts myself because I was trying to figure out what to do with one of my businesses; Kindling Media.

TL;DR - I've sold off all the titles that aren't Secret Leaders, and am going all in on that - and have brought in a new business partner to make it a knock out Youtube focussed business.

Introducing my new Co-Founder at our new business Leaders Media, Chris Donnelly and my first ever Co-Host of the podcast I started in 2017...

In today's issue I'm gonna explain:

• The background summary of Secret Leaders
• How it turned into a business I fell out of love with
• How I hope to turn that around
• What I've learned so you can avoid these mistakes

What is Secret Leaders?

My podcast, Secret Leaders started in 2017, whilst I was riding high off the (business) fame I was getting from my last business, Grabble. I was able to get meetings with pretty much anyone I wanted, won an award at Buckingham Palace, met the Queen, etc - so I had an idea that was very early for its time - to record conversations with awesome founders I was learning from, and publish them as a podcast.

If you ever wanted to learn everything about how to make, launch, distribute and get to #1 in business - I wrote this mammoth how to article here.​

How it started:

Thing was, I only wanted to do the interviewing and sales - so I got my friend Rich Martell to partner and be the producer.

Our first interviews included Nick Jenkins, founder of Moonpig, Steven Bartlett (his first podcast ever - we helped create that very talented monster), Michael Acton Smith from Calm, Alain De Boton, Jo Malone and many more.

Fast forward a couple of seasons and we'd cemented our place in podcast fame - overtaking Tim Ferris to take #1 spot in business in the UK.

Then I took a risk, and everything changed.

At this point Rich and I had created a decent show on a shoestring budget and raked in lots of sponsorship, taken no salaries and built up a decent bank account with a few hundred thousand pounds sitting in it waiting to do something with.

Rich had his other businesses, as did I, and it was 2020 and I was about to launch Heights. We decided to hire a 'head of podcast' and after a rigorous hiring process hired a lovely chap called Will who did a decent job - the problem was, he lost interest in entrepreneurship and business category pretty fast.

His suggestion was to build a multi podcast media company - and multiple titles - and whilst this was a great idea in theory - in practice, it costs a LOT of money to try various concepts to see what works, and fast forward 4 years - Secret Leaders had slipped out of the top 10, though we had another show called 'Making Money' that was smashing it.

The problem was - misalignment. Over time, it was clear Rich had lost interest overall, I was deeply passionate about Secret Leaders, not the other shows, and Will was only interested in the other shows - so we had a bit of a frankenstein set up and no clear alignment from the leadership.

However, I decided over the last year to see how things might change if I drop my ego over it - perhaps Will was right, and I should let him continue to make the decisions.

The problem with 'success'.

'Success' can be such a distraction. The company was doing well, I was required to do very little work generally, things were running pretty smooth - and yet... I wasn't satisfied.

I saw people around me who I noticed made much better strategic calls, ones that I had said we should do but got outvoted - and they were miles ahead. Peers of mine like Chris Williamson and Ali Abdaal, instead of creating multi media companies had focused instead on building strong youtube followings and depth of audience like I had proposed but been in the wrong setup for, and as a result I was stuck as the Co-Founder of a business I no longer wanted to be part of with a vision I didn't agree with. It was time for change.

Communication is the path to success

I expressed my intentions to Will (who was now a major shareholder in the business) and Rich that I wanted to leave and either; take Secret Leaders with me/buy them out, or just stop and take a long break as I was exhausted but the lack of love and focus from the team to make my show work was taking its toll on my motivation.

We had a long, decent chat - and in the end came to an unusual conclusion. Will would go off and start his own business with the host of Making Money - and we would sell the show to them - which they could use for their own distribution purposes.

I would work out a deal with Rich for Secret Leaders and we would look to continue to sell off our other titles in Kindling Media in the meantime.

None of this was easy - these conversations have happened over the space of 9 months and accelerated in the last 3 but only by confronting the truth can you make progress on your goals.

How Being Vulnerable Leads To Opportunities

In business, when someone asks you how it's going, there's a tendency to say "Yeah great, killing it, etc". This urge increases with the more externally validated ideals of success you emit - and even more so when you are around people who inspire you. Resist it. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Tell the truth. Only the truth can open new doors you didn't consider opening. Like this one...

I interviewed Chris on Secret Leaders for an outstanding how to on personal brand - people went wild for it, it was truly fantastic.

After, we went to the pub and like two English men do - he said "how's it going then mate" and I said "Yeah. Fine." Sipped my Guinness. Thought for a moment. "Well, actually... I'm thinking of quitting. Things are going great with Heights, I'm feeling quite burnt out and out of love with the show, the process, and doing so much of it on my own". Chris' face lit up, we had a good old chat that started off quite cohesive and by the 4th beer felt less so, but either way - we were suddenly excited about the prospect of sort of 'starting from scratch' and learning how to build a Youtube Media Channel together.

One takeaway

Moments like this present themselves in our lives all the time. Every time we keep up our guard or barrier and don't share the truth with someone who's authentically asked you - the moment of opportunity passes.

The moment I realised Chris would be up for building from scratch with me - I found new energy, suddenly the time commitment wasn't tiring, it was energising, and I found the courage and strength I needed to have all the difficult conversations to make a deal go through.

We just started recording together (here's a snap from our first interview with business legend and one of my first ever guests, Daniel Priestley) and we are both over the moon about how much better the dynamic feels.

The Conclusion:

Sometimes you should show grit - and just stick with something. I've done 7 years - and in that time, I've built 2 other companies that are in a really great place - that's time well spend because I didn't give up - but I certainly never gave this all I could.

Sometimes you should quit - like I did in my last business, when things aren't working and you've lost love for it and don't see a way through.

Sometimes however, you should twist (or 'pivot') - and see if there's another opportunity knocking.

The only way you'll ever find out what opportunities lie behind those doors - is if you open them.

Vulnerability is the door to connection - and so what I'm hoping is this new chapter connects better for me, for our listeners, and with my ambitions now that I've fully come to terms with what I want, and how to achieve it.

With love and support to you and vulnerability, obvs,

Dan

Linkedin of the week with almost 10K likes... Don't get triggered.​

Podcast of the week: Chris Donnelly on personal brand & going viral​

Tweet of the week: 2.4M views & counting: 43 actions for growth​

HIRING UPDATE

​
We are hiring 4 core roles at our new company Leaders Media.

You can learn all about these here on our Linkedin page.

The roles are:

1. ​Youtube and Podcast Lead (run the company, be our boss)
2. ​Social Viral Video Architect (aka be an epic editor)
3. ​Youtube Audience Alchemist & Distribution Dynamo - (aka be fucking good at marketing with some pretty decent experience)
4. ​Marketing Executive for my Personal Brand (aka help me turn all my channels into a really engaging, valuable personal brand where we showcase my passion for health, mental health, and business - and help turn me into a growing sensation, like Chris!)

We have been pretty overwhelmed on these roles - but if you are reading my newsletter you are likely far down the funnel of thinking that what I have to say, and how I say it is somewhat decent - but I'm sure you agree, like me, it can be improved - a LOT.

Well - that's what I'm hiring a personal brand manager for - it's a full time role inside the Leaders Media team and you will have a LOT of responsibility to help me craft stories, content, tone of voice, business opportunities and more - and if we're successful the career opportunities are endless....

How to apply for that role and a reminder of what it is... all here.​

OK - with love and peace,

Dan

1-1 Coaching with Dan

In my goal to help more entrepreneurs/people who are looking to level up their careers, I've just started taking 1-1 consulting calls (only 1 a week)

Why book a call? Some of my expertise/success:

I've built 5 startups. 1 win, 1 fail, and 3 still going.

E Commerce: Heights — with revenue over $10M a year.

Community: Foundrs, one of the UK's top founder communities

Podcasting: Kindling Media - bootstrapped media company that makes the UK's top business podcasts, like Making Money and Secret Leaders, with over 50M downloads.

Health/Mental Health: Managed to overcome burnout, insomnia, depression & anxiety in pursuit of success as I talk about in my interview with Steven Bartlett on Diary of a CEO​

Angel Investing: I've invested in over 85 startups

Coached & Mentored: Certified coach & done lots of mentoring

Personal Brand: Have grown to 100k on LinkedIn and X (Twitter) in the past 12 months

So if you're interested in booking a session with me to talk all things business or building a personal brand, book for 30-minutes or 45-minutes. (limited spots).

Science of Success Vault

I'm building a vault of valuable tools, resources, and one sheets that I hope help you succeed.

These will be stored in the ever-growing 'Science of Success' vault — you can always access that here

Want to take your success (even more) seriously? 👇​
🧠 Fuel your brain and feed your gut, try Heights here (use code 'SOSDMS' for 15% off your first month of any subscription

🎧 Check out my podcast Secret Leaders here​

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