We know we were made for so much more than ordinary life. It's time for us to more than just surive. We were made to thrive. [Music] Welcome to Thrive. This is a podcast focused on the intersection of leadership, resilience, and faith, where we're going to discuss the importance of gospel- centered living in our professional and personal lives. We're here at Ensign College in Studio E, and I'm excited to share that NSIN College students are producing this podcast, Everything is Student Designed and Student Directed. I'm joined by my co-host, Greg Fox, who is the dean of applied sciences at Ensign College, and our guest today, David Bradford. David has over 45 years of experience in the high-tech world and currently serves as the CEO of Fluent Worlds and QuickLearn and has more awards than there are time to name them all. And uh we're excited to have David as our guest today. Thank you. So David, we're just going to get into the questions. It's really great to have you here. Thank you. Would you just begin by sharing with us the most important lesson that you've learned in leadership during the the course of your illustrious career? You know, I think I'd start with compassion. I I remember reading a study when I was CEO of a company called Fusion IO some years ago and uh the study focused on what characteristics were the most important for any leader. and they surveyed a bunch of employees and the number one answer that came back was compassion. And so when I think about that and I think of the savior's life, I think of the way in which he demonstrated his compassion for everybody. And um I I think that's the greatest lesson. I just always wanted to be a listening ear. I wanted to be, you know, sympathetic to a personal situation that people might have and so forth. So, if you're compassionate as a leader, I think that's a really important characteristic. I want to ask you just one more follow-up question about that and then uh I know Greg's got some questions, too. So, did compassion for you come naturally or did it come through a series of learning experiences? I'll just call them learning experiences. You know, that's a great question, President. Uh I do think back to my mother, K. Bradford. And I knew I was going to get emotional today because my mom attended LDS Business College in 1940 is the year I want to say when she was 17 or 18 years old. She grew up in Huntington, Utah in a very poor family. somehow made her way to Salt Lake City and um she was part of the original LDS business college, studied secretarial there and she was a great secretary throughout her entire life but uh she was a compassionate person. She listened, she engaged and so forth. So, I guess partly from that, uh, but partly from just the training that we receive in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Holy smokes, from the time we're in primary, we're learning about loving others and being concerned about other people. And so, uh, we can get into a book I wrote some years ago, but the number one characteristic that I talk about in there, I talk about seven steps to being a great networker is the first thing you do is to think first of other people. Not what's going on in your life, but rather think first of other people. Yeah, that's that's terrific. Thank you, David. Great to be with you today. Leadership is kind of a broad category, and we often hear about Christ centered leadership. Yes. What is that as you think about Christc centered leadership? What does that what does that mean to you? Well, you know, some years ago I spoke at Southern Virginia University and when you mentioned that I I remember how centered they were on Christc centered leadership and uh so forth. Uh I think it involves humility. Uh when I think of the savior, I think of someone who is just humble uh salt of the earth. Um, but I also think about someone who is a doer that would execute on a plan or a vision and so forth. So I think it's humble but someone who can go out and get a job done if you will. Okay. Thank you. I have talked about humility a little bit. Has there been a time where you've experienced, you know, humility in your career or in your personal life that really caused some internal reflection about, you know, what to, you know, what to do differently. Uh well, certainly there's numerous times when I've been humbled. Uh but I always felt it important to surround myself with great people that would boy me up and so forth. when you mentioned uh the word humility and and uh specific instances, I remember some years ago uh we had hired Steve Waznjak uh the inventor of the Apple computer uh to work as our chief scientist at a company called Fusion IO. And uh toward the end of my tenure there and toward the end of his work at Fusion IO, I called him into my office and I said, "Steve, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. uh we'd been named America's most innovative company by Business Week magazine. I think partially as a result of W coming into the organization, but I says,"I just want to reward you and here's a piece of paper and we want to give you 200,000 stock options in the company just to thank you for your work here and so forth and so on." He took that sheet of paper. He gently pushed it over to the other side of the room and he says, "No, David, those aren't for me. Those are for the people doing the real work, your engineers." And so I took those 200,000 stock options and then divvied them among our best engineers. And so, you know, he could have I said, "Thank you. Yes, I've got more stock in Fusion IO." But instead, humble enough to just say, "No, I don't deserve those. Somebody else does." That's a great example. Thank you. Excellent. David, you're um extremely networked, right? You've formed you've seen the the value of of a strong network, formed relationships, incubated those relationships. Those have been a really important part of your life. What advice would you give our students starting their career? Some may have zero connections in in the industry. What h what is the importance of networking and how should they go about doing it? Well, listen. Um, surround yourself with greatness. Chad Lewis wrote a book some years ago. I think it's called Surround Yourself with Greatness. And in my book, I emphasize the same thing. Uh, create your own personal advisory board. Right? So, that's networking principle number one. Find people that are in your space that are knowledgeable, that can elevate you. That's what's happened in my life. I'm not the smartest guy in the room, but I can put people together and together come up with solutions because I knew how to hire the smart people and so forth. So, form your personal advisory board. Um, you can do that off your wedding list. Go through your wedding list, you know, uh, etc., and figure out, okay, who are the four people on here uh who are smarter than I am in a particular area. By the way, nobody's smart in every area. Eric Schmidt I worked for for four years at Noville, who later became chairman and CEO of Google. I love Eric Schmidt and he taught me a lot, but he didn't know everything. Noville missed the internet. And then later Schmidt goes to Google and reinvents the internet and it, you know, explodes. And so every one of these people put their pants on one leg at a time. And I would just say, uh, that you can do it, too. You can be part of the solution, uh, etc. So, I've seen some people that are just amazingly extroverted when it comes to building a network. I remember students from my days at BYU Idaho that some were just they just had incredible networks and others that were shy and they found it difficult to approach people that they didn't know. What counsel would you give to somebody that says I I it's just uncomfortable for me to just reach out to a a perfect stranger. What are some are there some things that you've learned or that you could share that would be helpful to help a student that's maybe or anybody that's knows that they need to develop a network but they're a little reluctant to reach out to strangers. I I think of the C word. I call it the C word and it's called curious. Simply be curious. You're maybe not a natural networker but you walk into a room at a conference etc. Get to know those people. be curious about each other. Um, when I came to BYU in 1969 after graduating from Red Lodge High School with 40 kids in Red Lodge, Montana, coldest place in America. If you could snowplow through Red Lodge, Montana, you really had something. It was a crazy place to grow up here. I come down to BYU with 30,000 students or 25,000 students at a time, but I got curious about wherever people come from and what they did, etc. And that got me talking to people. Years later, there was a fellow who was our dorm president at uh or dorm mom or dad or whatever you call it at Stover Hall on the BYU campus. and uh his name was Paul Tusano and years later I reconnected with Paul and he said David oh my gosh congratulations on your career it's been exciting and so forth and I says oh Paul I I just been blessed to work with great people etc etc he says no I knew from 1969 in the dorms at BYU that you were going to be successful I said Paul how in the world could you ever have anticipated that he said you were the most curious person in the dorms. So be curious, it'll help you network, etc. Great answer. Love that. David, you spoke a lot about the importance of networking. Yeah. Right. And LinkedIn is a valuable tool that is really prominently available to be able to network. talk about the importance of LinkedIn in today's uh you know career success. Well, I tell you what, it's absolutely essential. when I ran a company called Hireview going back oh 2011 to 2015 time frame uh we were a digital interviewing company and so we recognized the importance of attaching documents etc to someone's digital interview and I got the people starting to attach people's LinkedIn profiles to that because it tells people in a very quick summary what they're all about and so forth. So, I've been blessed to have 32,000 followers or something like that on LinkedIn. But it's because I spend time on it almost every day. Uh even as much as 15 or 20 minutes a day, every day, even to this day, because connecting and building relationships are absolutely invaluable. And um now we've got an easy way to do it. Uh don't be afraid to connect. and then reach out to a Greg Fox of the world or to president or David Bradford and say, "Hey, I heard your podcast. I was moved by XYZ." Try to make your introduction on LinkedIn a personal one. And more often than not, you're going to get a good response. Thank you. One intriguing skill that you have is golf. I've been with I've been with you on the course before. I've seen your straight down the middle drives, your long drives, your accuracy around the, you know, the pin and your putting. And I know you've had a lot of success, you know, with the USGA senior amateur golf champion in Utah, you know, at Riverside Country Club as club champion. What are some of the lessons that you've learned from golf over the years that kind of that would be valuable to know? Well, this was going to throw people just a little bit, but my next book I'm writing now is called My Life in 20 Minutes. You know, we're all busy with family home evenings, church assignments, uh, etc. You can only allocate so much time, but I have found in my life, what's worked for me personally is 20 minutes. my 20 minute lessons. I'll take a 20 minute power nap this afternoon after this is all done. I'll uh go to the practice range and I'll practice for 20 minutes. But I try to keep it short, concise, etc. And it was that when I when Noville set up its headquarters in South Provo back, oh gosh, uh, mid to late 90s where I started practicing at East Bay at lunchtime and I'd go over there for 20 minutes and hit balls. But I do it regularly. And so 20 minutes regularly, whatever you're involved in, it turns into that 10,000 hour rule, right? Yep. Spending 10,000 hours, you become an expert at something and eventually that worked for me in golf. Fascinating. Thank you. I love to fish, but 20 minutes is never enough. We can talk about fishing. I've got a backyard in Provo. You're always invited to come do some trout fishing at. I'd love that. I may just take you up on that. Okay. So, as we uh begin to wrap up, uh David, I wanted to ask you a question about uh your faith in the Savior in Jesus Christ and how uh the influence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the things that you've learned, the things that you are, how that's influenced your approach to business. Boy, that's that's a lifelong uh lesson. And I it started in Burbank, California back in maybe 1957. And I remember uh I was at my grandmother's house and her name was Ivy Parks. Incredible woman. North Hollywood Third W I think she was in. And we'd go over to her house. I was living in Burbank at the time. But I was tossing a ball in the air and I got a new baseball for my seventh birthday, I want to say, and I kept throwing that in the air and I'd catch it and so forth. One time I threw it really high into the air and it went back over my head and I lost track of that ball and so uh it landed in a massive ivy patch at my grandmother's home and I searched for that ball for a good 30 minutes just looking through the ivy and so forth. And finally the words of my mother came to me said David if you ever have a problem pray. And so you know here I am 7 years old. I kneel down in the ivy patch in my grandmother's home. And uh as I knelt down to say my prayer, my right knee hit that ball that I wanted so bad. We didn't have much money and my dad gave me that baseball. I wanted to keep that baseball. But so having faith I I guess is the most important thing. Christ demonstrated that unbelievably in the time that he rose Lazarus from from the grave. He waited two days um you know before he even showed up. He knew the outcome and yet he waited two days. He came despite you know people he knew we'd rail on him. He was facing abuse and all of that stuff but he came. He had faith in his father. He knew the outcome was going to be. The other thing when you think about Lazarus and Christ, the way Christ had him come from the grave, he said, "Rise, rise up." And I'm sure he said in a commanding, powerful voice. And when you think about that, again, faith and action, I guess, are two things that you've got to have in your life. He not only had the faith, but he acted upon it. So I think those are a couple of good lessons. David, uh I know family plays an important part in career success and also the ability to balance, you know, church with career with family duties and responsibilities. Tell me a little bit about how family has been important to you and and in particularly your wife Linda, what role that she's played and Well, Linda is a precious soul. She's one of the most uh deeply rooted in the faith of Christ of anyone I can imagine. Uh we've been married 51 years. It's been fantastic. Uh we have 17 beautiful grandchildren, four kids. Uh great great family that has always supported me in in my business. And for the last five years, I've been working with Dr. Linda. She was a professor at BYU for 11 years teaching at the university level. but got her PhD in instructional technology and she has gone on to build the coolest company called Quicklearn. The ability for people to go back in time and meet with Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, take a course on painting from Da Vinci or go and have a visit with Cleopatra and found out what made her tick, etc. quicklearn.ai. So it's again using artificial intelligence for something good combined with video gave me technology. So Linda is remarkable and it's been great to have her support. Final question. Okay. So our mission as Ensign College is to develop capable and trusted disciples of Jesus Christ. What advice would you give any aspiring Latter-day Saint or any other aspiring professional uh as they prepare to go into the workplace, the the best advice you could give? Well, I I'll answer that in two ways. Number one, I want to say one of my favorite quotes I ever heard was, "The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers, but most of all, the world needs dreamers that do." So go off and execute on your vision. Nolan Bushnell, who grew up a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Clearfield, Utah of all places, was the inventor of the Atari computer. And Nolan wrote a book some years later kind of called Finding the Next Steve Jobs. And in that book, he says at one point, hey, everybody who's ever taken a shower has had a great idea. But it's the person that gets out of the shower, towels off, and does something about it that changes the world. So emphasis on action there. Um, and now I'm losing track of the question, but advice for young people as they enter the workforce and and and be part of uh their professional lives. Read the scriptures every day. Just read the scriptures every day. We're told that a million times. We've heard it a million times. Just do it. Just do it. open those scriptures and then read what happened to Elma and Elma the Younger or you know Captain Moroni or uh the Whitney store or whatever it might be and then take those lessons that you're reading in those scriptures in real time and apply them to your life. And you know I think that's been so invaluable in my life. I'm not a 100enter but I do my best on reading the scriptures. you know, um, we talk about thriving and students coming to Ensign College and learning to thrive. You've taught us about that today. So, thank you very much. Thank you, President. I appreciate it. And Greg, great seeing you again. It's amazing that we've all come out of this technology thing. And think about it. It's not an accident. It's not an accident. The Lord prepares his people. We know from President Nelson's last remarks the second coming is happening. It's our opportunity to be a grand part of that. And technology when you look at the history the last 50 years of technology so much of that has come out of this state. You think of word perfect word processing. You think of networking software with novel. You think of the airline simulators that were f first built at the University of Utah. You go down the list of innovations. Uh Ethernet cable was developed by a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There's been so many contributions and I don't think it's an accident that Lord has put you who come from the technology world in a place where you can make a difference. So congratulations. Well, these are days never to be forgotten. We love every one of them. Thanks so much. Thank you David. Faith uninkable unstoppable anything is possible. Joy unspeakable faith unsinkable. Love unstoppable. Anything is possible. Joy unspeakable. Faith unsinkable. Love unstoppable. Anything is possible. Joy unspeakable, faith unshakeable, love unstoppable, anything is possible.