#1 | What No One Can Take From You

In this opening episode, Dr. Daniel Freeman explores the kind of skills that stay with you no matter what title you hold, organization you serve, or season of leadership you are in.

This conversation centers on the internal disciplines that shape better judgment, deeper confidence, and long-term relevance. When roles shift, pressure rises, or circumstances change, the leaders who endure are the ones who have built what cannot be handed to them and cannot be easily taken away.

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Available for Speaking I'm selectively available for keynotes, leadership retreats, and executive panels on decision-making, organizational culture, and leadership identity. If you're building a lineup for your next event, I'd love to be in that conversation. 

→ Reach out at dan@fsgventures.biz or  YourExecutiveThoughtPartner.com

If you made it this far, I want to offer you two limited time discounts. 

• Executive Thought Partner 3-Month Commitment
• 8-Week Fundraising Intensive Program 

View this form to see the discounts:https://forms.gle/ngxwgS6sjCpyppuA8

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Executive Thought Partner Podcast, where leadership, strategy, and growth intersect. I'm Dr. Daniel Freeman, Executive Thought Partner and Co-founder of the Growth Alliance. This isn't just a podcast about fundraising. It's about how leaders think, decide, and build systems that scale impact across nonprofits, higher education, athletics, and mission-driven enterprises. Here we explore major gifts, governance, culture, and the quiet decisions that determine long-term momentum. If you're leading something that matters and you want clarity with conviction, you're in the right place. Or here, we've done it. This is episode one of the executive thought partner. I had to pause this there for a second because that uh that mail truck is loud. So, this is gonna be the start of it for me. Uh, Dan Freeman, EDD, Dr. Dan, as some people call me. I'm gonna have my own podcast under the Culture Lab. Specifically, I'm gonna be talking about what it's like being an executive thought partner, what goes through the heads of executives, nonprofit, for-profit, entrepreneurs, leaders, athletic directors, all different people. Maybe sometimes I'll have someone on the podcast. Who knows? But what I really think you should know is that the work that we're doing in the culture lab is different. Check out jointegrowth alliance.com. If you want to learn more about what's going on in my head, the experience I've got, and the work that we are doing in the nonprofit sector to actually create change and help nonprofits implement that change and that execution. So back to me. I think this first episode should really be about who am I?

unknown 2:07

Right?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

I grew up in Rhode Island. I'm a millennial, not an elder millennial. I know my business partner, Kyle, likes to say that uh I just turned 50, and I look great for 50. I'm not really 50, I don't need to tell you how old I am. But grew up in Rhode Island, spent the majority of my time there. I was an athlete in high school, even though I didn't really identify as that. But athletics really shaped my life and my outlook and my view of the world. And everyone always asks me, they ask me, how do you get to North Carolina? How did you get to Charlotte? Well, UNC Charlotte was in the Atlantic 10 conference, and their indoor track and field championships were in Rhode Island, in Newport, Rhode Island. Many of you probably know about Newport. Shout out to Newport, love Newport, Rhode Island. And the track and field coach invited me and my parents to meet. He offered me an official visit in March of that year. We flew to Charlotte and we drove in his pickup truck. Shout out, Coach Fitzpatrick, to the inner mule fields, what used to be the inner mural fields, now as the football stadium. Overlooked the baseball field, softball field, and the track. And it was kind of like a Lion King moment where he was like, all of this could be yours. And that's what I wanted immediately. So I committed two days later. That's how I ended up in Charlotte. Now my time at Charlotte was plagued with injuries, plagued with a lot of learning, some struggles academically, that really helped shape how I look at academics and what I needed to be successful. And ultimately one of the reasons that I wanted to become a professor, which I am. And that really shaped who I was, those failures, those struggles. But I also had a lot of successes. Last four to six uh semesters of college, I had a 4.0 GPA. I was on a bunch of different dean's lists and all those fun things they have for athletics. And I broke the school record, my second and last year in the javelin. I'm still the school record holder at UNC Charlotte. I still compete now. I've been competing since I was 12. That's when I started throwing javelin when I was 12. So it's been significantly over 20 years of throwing. And I still coach. I do a summer camp, which we're hosting here at Wingate University this coming June. So athletics really shaped my life, and it shaped a lot of the people I met. I remember in my career when I was in collegiate athletics, uh, well, when I was a college athlete, I wouldn't go to meets the year I was hurt, and sometimes I just wouldn't travel to different meets. Uh, I didn't really compete in indoor track, I did shot putting through. But athletes would come up to my coach occasionally and be like, oh, is this where Dan the Jav Man is? And that stuck with me. And do you know why the reason why people would come up to them? The reason that people would come up to them is for one reason. When those athletes came up to my coach and said, Where's Dan the Jav Man? That's because I had no shame. That's because even at a young age, I was reaching out and I was talking to people that I was interested in, whether I saw them on Facebook. I mean, let's be real, it was all Facebook at that point. I reached out to them because they had value, they had experience, they had everything that I wanted. And at that time in my life, I wanted to learn, but I wanted to learn how I wanted to learn. I needed individual options. And again, that plays into why I'm a professor as well, why I do some adjunct instructing. And I've done that for the past five years since the pandemic. So that was a real start to my career. And that, I believe, was one of the successes that played into my work in fundraising and philanthropy. So I ended up graduating there, and I wanted to be an athletic director. I interned in our athletic department at UNC Charlotte. I was the chair of the UNC Charlotte Student Athlete Advisory Committee for two years. I was the vice chair for one year. I was the chair for external relations for the Conference USA athletic conference we were in. And then I was the chair for the Conference USA Student Athlete Advisory Committee. I loved that. I thought I wanted to be an athletic director. And one of my mentors at the time said, okay, here's your opportunity. Go into marketing, go sales, sponsorships, do it. So I did it. And I got my master's at the same time. That was a struggle. There was a lot of things going on there. But that was the start of my journey as a generalist. I was talking with people, I was building confidence. I was trying to figure out who I was. I was learning what made people tick, how they thought, right? What went into their thought process, how they executed decisions. And at that time, I started to get relatively close with the athletic director. And through questions, he had told me if you want to be an athletic director, you need to get your doctorate because that's the way that I see things moving. And you need to learn how to fundraise. He said, Those are two things no one can take from you. And throughout my career, I've always looked at what are things that I can do that no one can take from me? How do I create that kind of opportunity? I want everyone listening to this to think to themselves. I do call myself the executive thought partner. So I want you to think to yourself, what kind of skills have you built that no one can take from you? Skills that you market yourself on. Maybe they're high character traits versus skills. Are they things that you've learned? Are they things inherent to you? But they're things that you should have that no one can take from you. That's how you set yourself apart. And I'm just not, I'm not talking about in your career. I'm talking about in life. What makes you who you are? Think about that. What makes you tick? Because in the world that we live in, those things are the most prized possessions to every person. When you can understand what makes someone tick, what high character traits they have, and low character traits, even if they don't always share those uh vulnerably. What are those things? Because the moment you can understand the root of why people make decisions, that's the moment that you realize you've gained people's trust. And in our world, trust is worth the most more than any money. So back to the regularly scheduled program. So I got my master's, I was working in college athletics, I got into fundraising, and my alma mater called Ring Ring Ring, and I went back to Charlotte. I did some time there in fundraising, building out from a position that was completely new. Then I went to UNC Asheville and I did the same thing. And I met a mentor of mine that I really appreciate. Shout out to Janet. She's been great. I haven't been in Asheville for six years, but she is such a great person. I admire her work and her and love staying connected with her. And at that time, I had a reflection point. And there's been a decent amount of them in my career. There were two at UNC Asheville. There were some two big reflection points for me. The first one was my office was in a cubicle with student rec, which meant that I was around other students. And I loved my time around those students. I got to mentor them a little bit. I'd helped them with resumes. I was actually doing a little bit of interview prep for a few of them because I just thought they were so awesome. That opportunity is what taught me what it truly meant to serve people in a fundraising role. That was such a buzzword when I worked in athletic fundraising was servant leaders and how do you serve others and this, that, and the other. And everyone that used it. This isn't surface level consulting, it's focused partnership for leaders ready to scale impact with intention. Visit fundraisewithdan.com to start the conversation. I felt like we're not doing that. And I didn't know what it meant. When I finally felt it internally, what it meant to serve others. That was a defining point for me. That was number one. The second point was that I was building out that role just like I was at UNC Charlotte for the time before. And I put together an event for my largest owner. And the chancellor and the athletic director were there when it was a small group of people. And the chancellor sat next to me and my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife, and said, Have you ever thought about being a vice chancellor or vice president of advancement? Now I want you to pause for a second. You're working somewhere that has hundreds of employees. Your CEO is invited to something that you're doing in a small group, and they sit next to you as an entry-level employee making $40,000 a year, getting your doctorate at the same time. At that point, I was getting ready to finish my doctorate. I graduated in May of 2020. That CEO of the company with hundreds of employees sat next to you, an entry-level employee, and said, Have you thought about being the VP of Advancement? Which, in relation to the CEO, it would be in the executive cabinet. In some places, the VP of Advancement is the number two. They're the second most external person to the president or the chancellor. Sometimes they're more external than the chancellor or the president. What would you do if the top person in your company sat next to you and said that to you? I always tell people it's like the meme where my head exploded. And I was like, What? What are you talking about? That's that's crazy talk. And it all changed at that moment. And my belief that I was meant for something bigger, I was meant to support individuals beyond athletics. When I thought about the student rec students that I was working with, I was like, why am I only fundraising for athletics? Why don't I fundraise for more, for larger groups of students? And that was when things changed. And my journey brought me to Drexel. In Drexel, Pennsylvania, Philly, was an incredible time for me. Shout out to my supervisor at the time, Brett, who I'm still in contact with. That opportunity was my first opportunity to test my skills as a frontline fundraiser. And I had the opportunity to be part of their business, their college business, their school of entrepreneurship, school of professional studies. And then due to the great work that I was doing, a little bit through my tenure there, I was given another school to use the skills that had helped me become successful with the three schools I mentioned before. They gave me the school of education to do the same thing. At my time at Drexel, the defining moment for me was realizing I was an entrepreneur. The way that I always thought was entrepreneurial. I loved business. I loved meeting with founders. I loved meeting with former CEOs, current CEOs, hedge fund managers. I remember finding someone through something. I forget where I even found it. I reached out and connected with him and then connected him with someone else. And because of that initial relationship that I started with that individual before they moved out of my territory, that person ended up making their first gift ever, and it was multi-six figures. And that person was overseeing a hedge fund worth billions of dollars. It was crazy. But I loved it. I loved the mentality. I loved the freedom of how they thought. I loved the work that I was doing there. Now, when I was in Philly, there were a lot of things going on. I ended up uh losing my dean very quickly and suddenly, which was pretty jarring. There were, you know, I went during the pandemic and I was mostly remote for my time there and started to be a little more in-person towards the end of it. But that was such a defining experience to me to say that I could raise 65,000 in my first year, 740 plus thousand in my second year, and then 1.2 million in the first six months of my third year. And then to leave and know that a new colleague of mine that had come in right when I was leaving was able to take the relationships that I had created, and close multiple six-figure gifts planned and current from people that I had, in other words, teed up and built strong relationships with because they were great people. That felt incredible. And that showed the sustainability of what I was doing. Now, from there, I went on to another role. We ended up having our son at the same time, which really changed my outlook on life. And then we decided as a family where did we want to be in general? Now I want you to think back to my story up to this point. There's been a lot of reflection. Reflection is so important to me. So important. Every summer from the time I was in high school, I would come home and I would choose something that I wanted to excel at. And that's all I would focus on. Every summer I wanted to evolve. I wanted something to change, something to improve. I always wanted a goal. I thrived off of goals. And I think that's why I took the metrics and fundraising and the competitiveness of being a former student athlete. And also still being an athlete, because I still compete. Now I'm just about once a year. But we moved back to Charlotte. Again, back to our community, back to an executive leadership role. And in the words of my presidential mentor, I'm always thinking about now what have I been called to learn? And now I want to come up to where we are now. The executive thought partner, work in the culture lab, the incredible things that we're doing. You know, we had a conversation today. My close friend and business partner Kyle and I, the founder of the Culture Lab and the founder of the Contagious Culture Podcast. We were taking some notes today. And I just want to end this before I go into the next episode. Took some notes right over here on the side of my desk. And one of the really interesting things that I just want to hit on that I'll probably follow up with in my next podcast is that in our work, there needs to be an understanding and awareness along with separation. For when you're talking to people in the nonprofit field, whether you're selling something to people in the for-profit field, whether you're an athletic director selling a job to someone, or now with NIL selling something to a prospective athlete because some of them want that access to talk to you, especially if they're a high-level athlete you're trying to get in or transfer to your institution. Or you're a founder and you're great with your product, but you don't have the situation awareness, you don't know how to communicate with people, you don't know how to talk to people. I want you to understand there needs to be awareness and separation for what you're asking for. In the nonprofit world, and a great example for that is when someone tells you I don't know how to fundraise. I don't want to fundraise. It's scary. I don't know what to say, I don't know what to do. I don't want people to think I'm only there for their money. It's not about you. And this is a life thing. This is an executive thought partner thing here that carries over to everything else. When you're thinking about asking someone for money, when you're thinking that you want to sell someone something in a sales role, if you're trying to sell a job, sell to a student athlete, sell a product, sell a vision, you need to understand you're the conduit, you're the facilitator. You need to have the awareness to separate yourself from the situation and say, you're not giving money to me. They're not giving money to me. I'm asking this person, and the nonprofit will use that for the example. I'm asking this person to give me funds to help facilitate how I serve the population of the non-profit that I'm connected with. When you're selling something, you're separating yourself from that work. You are selling a product through your company or business to benefit someone else. They're not giving the money to you. When you're fundraising for a nonprofit, they're not giving the money to you, they're giving it to the nonprofit. In entrepreneurship, it's a little bit different, but it's really not. In entrepreneurship, when you're a founder, whatever it may be, people are buying your product and your business and your vision. They're not buying you. Sometimes you could be a liability. We've seen that enough in the tech sector and all these other places. You need to separate that and understand you're not asking people for their money. You are not asking people for your money. You are facilitating a conversation. Ask people for funds and support in whatever way it is that will benefit the population that you're serving, whether it's in a nonprofit sense or a for profit sense. So let's wrap this up here. If you want to keep learning about this stuff, you need to go to jointegrowth alliance.com. You need to come to our our conference that we're having on October 15th and 16th. Spreadcontagious culture.com. I think I said that one right. You need to come to these things in hear us. And if you want to talk with me individually, I do that stuff every day. Reach out to me. But this is episode one. I hope you liked it. I hope you liked all the birds in the background and the sound. I'm reading a book called The Nature Fix. I might talk about it in another podcast. See you soon. Thank you for listening to the Executive Thought Partner Podcast. If today's conversation helped clarify your leadership or expand your thinking, share it with someone navigating meaningful decisions. Through my Executive Thought Partner practice and the Growth Alliance, we work with leaders and organizations ready to strengthen strategy, align systems, and build sustainable momentum. You can learn more at fundraise withdan.com. Until next time, think clearly, lead intentionally, and build what