Daniel Wilsher: Turning Experience Into Impact Part 2

In Part 2, Daniel Wilsher discusses the mission that now drives his life, helping to create a more connected, resilient, and hopeful generation.

From becoming the UK’s youngest full-time public speaker to working with organisations including Meta Platforms, BT Group, and Jaguar Land Rover, Daniel explains how his lived experience became the foundation for meaningful impact.

We discuss mental health in schools and workplaces, the importance of human connection, and the vision behind LifeX, a movement aiming to support one million parents and students with the tools to navigate modern life.

A powerful conversation about purpose, growth, leadership, and using your story to change lives.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Daniel, we're back to find out exactly what is going on now. We're both building something positive. Uh we've got some exciting stuff. Um so what are we what are we gonna be doing? Let's um let's open it up. I um I'm excited to be partnering up with you. I'm excited for um you to be coming on board because for me I am all about providing choice, providing choice no matter who you are or what you do. Every single one of us in this world needs choice, and we all need a bit of guidance, a bit of help, or a bit of inspiration along the way. So or all three, or all three, hey, or it could be five, it could be five, and there could be other bits, and it could be events, it could be connection, it could be community. Um, so yeah, I mean, look, tell me what is what is the future looking like? What are you creating and what you're doing? Because how long you got well listen, listen, mate. You know, I know firsthand you're an amazing pianist, you're an amazing singer, yeah, yeah. You know, you're an amazing public speaker. I appreciate you. It's like, but what what is what is what is your next thing and what are you doing and why?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yep. So well, the next thing, the next chapter. So we're about to launch LifeX, which is the rebrand of the business. So we've gone from Livdex to LifeX. Livdex about the past, Lifex about the future.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

I love it, I love it. And it coincides with basically your own journey, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Exactly that, yeah. So as I talked to you about that internal transformation, naturally it seeped into the business. So all the services have changed, all the talks have changed, everything about what we're doing, the model has changed, the vision for the future has changed, um, and it's now more aligned. We talk about the power of alignment, and because it's more aligned, now it just feels like things are flowing really easy.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah, with feels authentic. Yeah, it does, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Without it's like the fourth time I've pointed out. Um here I picked a good word, didn't I? You did me, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um the uh also it's happening without this pressure, and and the they used to and it and it feels like if I'm honest, some of the things that I wanted in the past maybe stems from fear. Do you know what I mean? Whereas this feels like okay, it's from like love, feels a little bit different, um, which is amazing. So we're launching LifeX with a goal to impact a million students and parents. My dream has always has, you know, the the message hasn't changed. I want to provide hope for people. Um, it's just how we're going about it now, and the language we use and the mechanism for that has shifted. My goal in the future, big ver big version in the future, big goal in the future is to um build a community, build uh, build an app, uh uh a piece of tech. It's less around the tech, but it's it's more the tech is a vehicle for what's underneath the surface, which is to to give young people the life skills they need to be able to thrive in the world. So let me take it back.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Let me take it back. Okay, so you've given yourself a goal of to inspire or to connect million and students, yeah. Parents and students, and tell me how are you doing it? How are you doing it? You know, let's let's take it back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's let's ask you a bit of like, you know, what's involved, what are you doing, how are you connecting people? Because I I can honestly say I would guess, and I am guessing here, but I'm having an educated guess, that there is a disparity between parents and children and the connection and you know, getting them to understand feelings and bringing them together. And I'm guessing that that is a common theme.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

So it is, it's huge, you know. Over the past five years, and the reason why I've reached this point, um, over the past five years when I was delivering talks, whether it was Meta, Facebook, you know, Clifford Chance, Structure Tone, these big organizations, I would often get parents that would come to me afterwards. And I'm thinking we're gonna talk one-to-one about maybe something that's going on in work or whatever. And they go, Dan, my team's flying. I'm a director, my team's flying, I'm doing so well, you know, I'm hitting my targets, this, this, and this. Can't get my kid to go into school, or my child just won't communicate with me and it's and it's starting to impact work. And these these areas. The difficulty around that is you know, I've worked with over 50 schools now. Schools don't have the budgets to extend the budgets to parents, so they don't get from support from schools in the workplace. A lot of it goes on employee well-being because we want quick return of investment, which isn't really focused around what's going on at home, it's all focused around, you know, some of those um challenges of more generic challenges of like the mental health, the well-being, the financial literacy stuff, which is what we typically see. And so many parents are struggling and they don't know where to turn to for that support. And so it's it's a big thing for me because my you know, my passion, supporting young kids. Well, how do we do that? Well, look at the environments that are around young kids and that's what we cater for. We'll look after at home by supporting the parents. We're working with the schools to make sure that everything in the schools is is uh there's got those services that can connect, that can support, you know, the the ecosystem around a school. But then we're going to work directly with the kids as well through the programs to ensure that we give them the skills, the tools, the knowledge to be able to develop the self over the past tenure of time in time of education, you know, that we've had we've been trying to give kids hope through English, math, science, good grades. That's no longer running because the world's changing at a rate that the current education system can't really keep up with. AI, the the skills that are going to be needed for their future is changing massively, and also there's been no innovation truly in the way that we teach, okay. And so I've been trying to give kids hope through that. But what happens when you've got a kid who who who struggles in the classroom or you know, or struggles with English, maths, and science, and or struggles with behaviour because what he needs is something completely different. He needs to be running in the morning, do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Whatever it is. And to be fair, what I actually love is that you've gone the triangular effect. It has to be, it has to be because and I can uh again, I always use my own lived experience. So I've got two friends, one has got an autistic um child, and one has got uh a child with ADHD. They both speak to me about the challenges and like the different stuff. Um and what I realised is that you need somebody who either understands or lives experience or gets what you're talking about, and it's about connecting people. Well, that's it. I was gonna say it's about so I connected those two. Yeah, it's connection, yeah. I connected those two to allow those two to actually have conversations with no judgment, with understanding, with getting it. So when you're talking about taking the connection between the child and you, then you've got the parents and you from a different angle, and then you've got the school, and you've got getting everybody to understand it, getting everybody to connect, but also to build a community where people can connect because okay, let me think about it, okay. And successful organizations, like AA, CA, it's stuff like this where it is a proven model that basically people connect, people help each other, and people understand each other. Yeah, there's some taboos around AA and CA and all the rest of it, but it has supported, it has helped significant amounts of people across the world, and that is about understanding and putting people together who understand what each other are feeling, yeah and that there is no taboo about what you can talk about, and there is no judgment.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, 100%. But then also just in respect to kind of how do we support our, you know, how do we support the next generation? You know, because and that for me is we go downstream. And so if we can give young people, children, the skills to understand the self, to regulate the self, to use this language to build, um, you know, to build uh the the self-worth, the self-love, whatever it is, to understand boundaries, to know what their values are, so they have a moral compass on how to live from a young age, you know, all of this sort of work. If we give them those life skills and and you know, connection to others, connection to the self, the power of service, how actually if you have, you know, if you if you uh are of service to your community, whether that is helping the lady down the street, whether that is, you know, um volunteering at your your primary school because you're great at sports and you're in year 11 and you want to give an hour a week and you have this connection with all these kids, and then you have meaning and purpose back in your life. We're living in a time where kids don't have meaning and purpose and they don't know who they are because of of how they're brought up, what we teach them, the the funnels and and kind of where what we squeeze them into, social media that says you have to be X, Y, Z, and it and it's all nonsense. And and this is what I'm talking about where the skills that I want to bring to the next generation are what I consider the most important skills of connection to the self, connection to others, you know, the life skills, the understanding of the self. And if we give a child those, the the the understanding of how to set a goal, how to build from nothing, um, how to work as part of a team in order to create something that's of service to other people, um, and and all of these sorts of things which we've kind of let them down on a little bit, um, and which is becoming increasingly more difficult to deliver in a way that's engaging, so they learn them because of technology. But anyway, if we can give them those things, how many of them raise up, how how many of them grow up and have some of the issues that we're seeing? We've got 40% of 16 to 24 year olds are hopeless in the UK at the moment. 14%, we've got a million that are going to be neat, not in higher education or work, a million, 40% that are not hopeless. How do we give young people hope? And for me, that comes in these skills that we're talking about, coming back to human connection. You know, we've we've created a world where now people talk about the science of going for a walk. Do you know how mad that is? Like that, like that's we're at a point where we have to talk about the science of sitting in sunshine and going for a walk. Listen, it shows how disconnected we are.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah, listen, I I grew up in an age where we didn't have mobile phones. Yeah, yeah. If we wanted to go out, we had to go and knock on our friends. Wait till the lights go out.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Leave the bike out, oh my bike.

SPEAKER_01 10:36

I've leave my bike on the park. You've got to go and get it, yeah. You know, 100%. It's it's bizarre, and you know, I I don't understand, you know, I don't understand, you know, how you could sit on a game for like 10 hours to go.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Well, that's easy to understand. It's really easy to understand because the kids are competing against psychologists who are working in Silicon Valley to design the apps and the game. What's more addictive than a phone? And this is the thing for the young kids, it comes to a point where nothing is more interesting than a screen against their little brain. And so then the very normal things of spending time out you mates going for the walk with the family. I went to a walk around a reservoir, I was doing a run, sorry, at the weekend, and it was funny, it was like half a film. I've seen this young kid, 12, 13, 14 years old, young lad, and bless his parents, man. And he's uh, why are we out on this walk? You've dragged me out to walk out for an hour around here. You think I want to be on this walk? Like, have you got a phone? I need my iPad this week. It's sad. It is sad, it's it's sad. No, it's sad.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

But I think I think the powerful stats that you've just talked about are really impactful. And we do need to make a difference, and to be fair, it's it's you can't be reliant on the schools to fix everything for you, but then you can't be reliant on getting everything right as a parent. No, 100%. You are totally on with the triangular approach. So this is it because it has to be it has to come from every single angle because some children be inspired by the children's stuff, some parents will be inspired by the parents' stuff, some schools will will be impactful from the school stuff, but joining it all together and having that three-pronged approach, exactly. You are gonna where the messaging is coherent, exactly, exactly, exactly that.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

And that's the so that's what we're that's what we're building, and and it's gonna be amazing. And so we're launching our parent programs to support parents, delivered by our head of parent programs, Natalie Costa, she's a ex-teacher, background in psychology, and has been coaching parents for the past 10 years. She's amazing, she's just brilliant. Um, and so we have a six-week program um where it's group coaching, where we look at Natalie's work begins with the self as a parent first, yeah, and and understanding how to navigate emotions first as a parent, because I think often what parents don't realise is is the relationship is like a figure of eight. Any change that happens on this side will immediately impact this one and the kids at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

And and listen, it's it's so easy, it's so easy to do, and it's so easy to give too much, to be too generous, or you know, to think that you're helping when you're not, when you're actually, you know, it could be hurting and easy.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Exactly. But sorry to interrupt, I guess, because I'm so passionate about this, and ADHD Daniel goes better than that. I love it I love it. Uh so uh you can have a few passes to interrupt me as well me on the way, but um, but the the same thing being parents are also trying to raise kids in a world that they didn't grow up in. Yeah. How? So there's no no rule book, and so again, these fundamental skills which Natalie delivers and which we deliver through LifeX to support the parents, you know, to give them that breathing space. Like her the results from her work are just incredible because it directly impacts the kid, but it also impacts the parent. The work that I've been doing over the past five years, working with 50,000 young people. I had a young lad, brilliant. I've gone into a school in the morning, gone into the staff room, three teachers back to back. Dan, you got year eights today, Dan? Got year eights, you're gonna have a tough one. Why? There's a kid that won't say his name, I will say uh we'll say James, James is easy. James is in there, isn't he? Uh you're gonna you're gonna find a challenge in life. Great, great. Yeah, yeah. It's gonna be James. Yeah, basically gonna meet James anyway. Oh, okay, then challenge set. Let's go for it. Go into the room. James walks in. And I, every I was doing it, it was a boys' focus group. I'm shaking all the hands. Does he come in properly? I've got some uh some house music playing on in the background as they come into the room, making jokes as soon as you come in. Like I'll allow them five minutes where we're just having banter so that they can calm and get used to the environment before we start to learn. And then straight away I'm bantering with Alex, and I'm and then as we go on, we're doing stuff around values, and I'm praising, praising, praising, praising, and he's being brilliant. Starts to get engaged, I give him some responsibility, and like his eyes are lighting up. He had a few moments where he was a little bit rogue and the class was being and I joined in, and then I set the boundary afterwards, and I didn't put any pressure on it, just kept it nice and easy, nice and chilled, and connected with him and told him about my story first. Did all of that, you know, set the foundations. I'm not gonna ask anything from you that I'm not willing to do myself. Here's my story. Anyway, we get to this point, and I ask him to write 20 positive things about the self and he walks out. Now, young boys what teachers or what we fail to understand is that young boys don't feel able to express sadness if they don't know something, vulnerability, and so when that happens in a room around their peers, it gets masked as anger, it gets masked as walking out, it gets masked as humour, which is why young lads are so much more difficult to deal with in school and why the rate of exclusions is so high, because lads present the same behavior as vulnerability of sadness in a way that's harder to manage because they don't feel safe to do so. Whereas a young girl will say, Well we'll maybe cry or talk about it, and that's really easy for a teacher to manage, but yet we punish the lads as a result of the behavior that comes off the back end without understanding why they're doing it, and they don't even understand truly. They won't in the moment, they won't. But so this is what I mean, and you have to meet those moments with grace. So he walked out. I could have gone. Jeans, why are you just walking out? You as many people and many teachers sometimes do, especially when they're at the top of the you know, the the the the the stress or uh uh stress load. I walked out, put my hand on the shoulder. Can I guess why you're upset? Is it hard to write 20 things about yourself? It's not that done. He said I can't remember the last time I've been complimented. He was easy year eight, and then he just started crying, it broke down. And um I said to him, Look, I said, like the only difference between me and the teachers are in the rest of this school is that you've got a personal brand with them, and so you feel like you need to be a certain way because that's all they've known about you. Like, what if you show them this version of yourself, James? What if you show them this? So there's no difference, or there's no nothing stopping you from walking into your class with your teacher and being this version of you. He messages me on TikTok the next three days. Dad, I've not been kicked out of any lessons, I've not been shy at once, and it's been three, four months since that. And I went and saw him. I was just in the in the in the class in the school. I wasn't with his group, he was doing some other work, and he ran up to me, uniform all sorted. I get goosebumps, uniform all correct, nice haircut, smiling, looking amazing. And he's Dan, Dan, Dan, he comes up to me. How you doing? You okay? Like smiling ear to ear, and they just talk it. And I said, Look how things been like, Oh, it's amazing, like, really, really good. And like this was a kid who's fighting teachers getting kicked out on the verge of getting kicked out. Every teacher's coming to me saying you're gonna struggle with him. Yeah, and and that two-hour interaction with a lad like James, yeah, where I praise, we help him understand what his values are, show him what his strengths are, all of those beautiful things about him, which he's not hearing from the rest of the world because he can't do English, maths, or science. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When we give them that, what do you get? You get a James who now engages with lesson and learns because he feels better about who he is. We talk about our own selves. You were destructing, why? Because you didn't have words for the self. Because if no one's ever shown that to a kid, how is he gonna see it? And so I think people don't understand like creating behavioral change with kids, and they're so malleable. If you if you build up the self, yeah, and this is where schools have been getting it wrong. You build up the self, and everything you want comes off the back end, and this is the work that I'm gonna be doing, and that basically, and it's so such impactful work, but it's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

No, it is, and it's doing stuff doing stuff with people. Oh, of course, yeah. You know, you've got a natural talent, you've got an ability to basically work with those kids, yeah, and this is why I'm partnering up with you because it's like you are providing and offering something that is not available elsewhere, so it's basically and it's all about choice. So if you are a school where you've got struggles and you need some inspirational help, get in touch with you. If you're a parent that you're basically finding that you're not making that connection with your child or you're finding things tough, get in contact with you. If you're a business, your parents are seeing that same thing, yeah. And you're seeing that the parents are feeling it, seeing see or seeing that same thing. Yeah, because I'm a business owner, a multiple business owner, and I have learned over the last five years that the most important thing within the business is my people and how my people are feeling, and basically, you know, supporting them because if I support them to be the best version of themselves, I get the best version of them back in terms of work, and I get loyalty, happiness, I get you know that commitment. And that is the big thing that a lot of businesses miss.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

And exactly that. And he wants to come in to work dreading, you know, your manager seeing that you're a bit anxious or upset because you don't feel like you can have the conversation or the fatsuy numbers have dropped recently because your child won't go into school in the morning and you're not sleeping and whatnot, and you can't have that conversation. No one wants that. And you what you mentioned there was beautiful around like the point of loyalty and and and commitment. I think people, you know, humans are gonna go through difficulty at some point throughout working with you in your business, for example. They're gonna go through it. Yeah, they're gonna go through it when you show that empathy and that compassion and that support, once they're through it, that version that you will get then, once you've shown them and you've helped them through, will be more loyal, we'll work harder, we'll be more committed, we'll bring more ideas, we'll be more engaged than the individual we had before, before it the stuff even went on because of what you've given. Yeah, and because of the connection and the relationship. And the more productive.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

And I've exactly that you see me. In the last three months, I've added an example. I'm not going to speak about it because it's it's personal to each person, but I've seen it firsthand where basically we've supported, we've got above and beyond, we've offered, you know, supported, guided, and basically spoken about it openly. And he's now like thriving so well. And the difference of where he was struggling to where he is now is polar opposite, exactly. And it's about basically not treating people like another number, it's about treating people like a human being and appreciating that all of us will need different support, different choices, and different ways of dealing with those.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

And I'm gonna point at this for the first time. Is this the 18th time? It might be by the end of the podcast, but um, yeah, again, it's like the authentic piece. Um just when people can be authentic, you know, when they can be we can have authentic relationships that aren't built on the premise of games or manipulation or you know, power games or whatever it is. When you can just have that relationship that is without any of that, and it can be authentic and true and real. Again, the stronger that relationship is, the stronger your relationships are in your life, the greater your well-being is, is the largest determining factor of how great your well-being is, is how strong your relationships are. You've got strong relationships in what people are going to work better, the outcomes of the business, they're gonna be happier, you're gonna see their lives improved. It's a win win for everyone in that sense, but it's very hard to do. It's not simple. It's simple in concept, but you know, the to to be able to create those spaces, you know, to lead with those conversations, um, and to be able to ensure that. That culture, you know, from the start is and it comes from a lot of the time the leadership, isn't it? And those values.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Listen, I always say it has to come from the top. Yeah, always it has to be rolled out from the top. Because if it's rolled out from the top, if if it's rolled out, whereas if you try and go from the bottom upwards, it never happens. And we're building companies, businesses for the future, you know, and I I gotta think about what I would want my own son, you know, to be coming into what environment in terms of work. And I want it to be, you know, where it is supportive, where it's open, where it's transparent, where it's there's access to, you know, whatever support or whatever help you need, but also, you know, learnings are so yeah, so important.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

And where everybody wins as well. Like, and I think like it's not I think some businesses get scared that you know the the the care for well-being and whatnot, there's still that old rhetoric of well, it will take away from performance when actually, you know, performance will go through the roof when people are looked after and feel safe. 100%. Yeah, and and uh it doesn't come without boundaries of performance and stuff, you know, all of this. Um, those things still exist, um, but it just they come with a degree of care which helps people feel safe and perform better, which is important. So it's good, but yeah, in terms of the journey, that's the plan with the business, support employee benefits, um, support parents, students, to continue our work with schools, partner with organizations who want to fund stuff in schools because that's the you know the way that I'm seeing this is that the kids that are in the schools right now are gonna be the employees in the businesses. I believe every business should have a vested interest in supporting them through whether it's social value, CSR, which is amazing. Um, and then we're gonna uh build out LifeX to be able to impact those one million parents and students through tech and community events and whatnot. And then also release the music, which is a really powerful, powerful thing, as we touched on. Uh, you know, I love writing music, it's been that way since I was five years old. It was one of the tools that I used to understand the world and my life and the things that I was going through. It was a mechanism where I could take experience and shift it through chord structure and have something wonderful at the end that could impact somebody, you know, and and and it and like tangibly as well. I could see all that. And so finally getting around to the point of releasing music this year. I'm gonna it's my goal to get into the studio once we've launched the business and everything, to get into the studio under my alias Daniel Debek, which is my Polish family name. I'm half Polish. Um, that's where I get my strength from, and um, and then release some of the music, uh, piano, strings, hardware synths over there, really emotional, atmospheric stuff, um, and you know, nurture that childhood element of Daniel, and then be a be a stronger version for my relationship, be a more complete version for my family, um, be a better partner, you know, provide for uh our future family and shift myself into that state, again, that future state of Daniel who spends as much time in the future as he does trying to understand the past. In fact, it's not more now, because I've spent so much time in the past that I've intellectualised that to its nth degree. I don't need to do any more of it. I understand all of its impact, everything that I went through. I know all that, and there's a wealth of knowledge that's come along with it, and now I want to use that to go on a new journey of learning to understand how to form the new and the future, and I'm on that 40% in. So I'm excited, I'm excited, I'm excited by that. Do you know what though? There's no rush. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

There's no rush, and I have said to the exact thing with clarity, just not squeezing too much, yeah. And clarity circle, there is no rush. I am building something on solid, amazing foundations, and when it is meant to grow, it will grow. When it is meant to be, you know, seen by more and more, it will happen. And what is meant to be will be, and it's almost like let's slow, let's be happy with where we've got to. Like, genuinely, 100%. You have done amazing things. Thank you, so you continue to do amazing things, and it is step by step, and I'm super excited to be on this journey with you. Thank you, mate. We will, we will, we will advocate, we will share, we will shout about, we will promote everything you're doing because you're doing amazing work and you're helping other people, you're doing it, yeah, and it is to do with wellness, and it's to do with well-being because it's child children's well-being, it's school's well-being, and it's parents' well-being. You know, three massive things, and you're putting it all together in a triangle. I love it. I love it. I'm passionate about it because I genuinely believe that if we can touch and make a difference in younger people's lives, they will get the best for a longer period, and it's impactful.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

And they will grow up to be the fathers and the mothers that don't need the training to be able to give it back because it's been instilled from a young age, and what a wonderful point to be at where you know the self-fulfilling, exactly that self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, exactly that.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

And it is, and it is step by step and day at a time, like I have to do in my addiction. It's a day at a time, it is literally one day at a time, and you're building something on amazing foundations. Don't rush, let it happen.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

I needed that one this week. Yeah, put a bit of pressure on this week.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Yeah, so don't rush, let it happen. And on that note, stay tuned, get in touch with Daniel or I, and we're on this journey together. It's the second time he's cracked my knuckles shaking on I've got big hands.