Today we’d like to introduce you to Dan Faill.
Hi Dan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
For over 15 years, I worked in higher education, specifically doing student organization leadership development. Then a friend of mine asked if I would be interested in speaking to his students, and the rest has been a journey of a lifetime.
For around seven years, I developed some keynotes and workshops as a side hustle, engaging college students all over the country. Then in the fall of 2018, I realized I truly disliked my cubicle and needed a change. I realized I had been speaking to students about failure and authenticity and vulnerability and leadership but stayed in my own comfort zone. So I took the leap and quit my full-time job to dive into speaking and consulting full time, creating environments that allow for conversations that matter for audiences around the world.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
By no means has this journey of being a solopreneur been easy, even before a global pandemic. There’s a lot you don’t know about starting your own business and going on your own. My first sticker shock was how much I had to pay in taxes that first year. In addition to the pandemic, speaking to audiences looks and feels different now, with a vast majority of engagements being virtual. And as someone who loves being around people and the energy of a stage, living alone with no travel or in-person human interaction just feels different.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
In short, I help teams, organizations and human beings create spaces that allow for conversations that matter, so they can become more content and productive in their work and personal lives. I enjoy taking hard topics and making them relatable and engaging by bringing in personal stories or fables to help hard topics resonate with audiences. My mission is to ensure people connect on a more authentic and vulnerable level – because when we embody those two things, it opens us up to more genuine relationships. And relationships are the foundation of any successful team, organization, and personal interaction. Also, when you grow up with the last name Faill, you learn to see failure in a different light. I created the Phases of Failure, a concept which puts failure as the pinnacle of success and learning, with each level (phase) bringing in a new aspect of team or interpersonal development. This has been a lot of fun to challenge teams and organizations to analyze how they view failure and how they will implement the various phases into their environments.
What matters most to you? Why?
I believe in creating conversations that matter. We have the ability to be more connected than ever, but we don’t feel like we can be our true selves. We stop ourselves from being more vulnerable with our friends, family or colleagues. But when we’re vulnerable, we have deeper connections and conversations with others. We can be more intentional with the relationships we have. Maybe that’s being more intentional when I have my kids, so I put my phone down. Maybe that’s giving a conversation my undivided attention. Maybe that’s prioritizing one project so it has my focus rather than getting sidetracked by anything and everything. Maybe it’s showing the good and the bad things that can happen on social media, rather than just comparing myself to everyone else’s highlight reel. I believe that if we are curious if we ask better questions, and if we allow ourselves to be more engaged and authentic, we will create better relationships by having the conversations that matter.
Pricing:
- Keynotes, workshops and consulting services based on scope of work
Contact Info:
- Email: Dan@DanFaill.com
- Website: www.DanFaill.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danfaill/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danfaill
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/danfaill
