David has spent much of his life around conventional measures of success: titles, companies, money, influence, achievement. He understands their value. He also understands their limits.
Today, he is interested in a different measure.
Usefulness.
What do you do with everything life teaches you? Can something you learned shorten someone else's suffering? Can a mistake become wisdom? Can an experience become an idea? Can an idea become a book? Can a book become a practice? Can a practice become a program? Can a program become a company? Can a company challenge an industry? Can an experience that nearly broke one human being eventually help another survive? Can something you build continue helping people after you are gone?
That is the ambition behind this work.
There are young people standing near the beginning.
Who could I become?
There are people building lives, careers, relationships, families, companies, and dreams.
Who am I becoming?
There are people standing in the wreckage of something they never imagined losing.
Who can I become now?
And there are people in all three places who possess tremendous potential but lack access to the resources that could help unlock it.
What might become possible if someone showed up?
Before. Becoming. After. And surrounding all three: Access.
Helping Human Beings Become Who They Are Capable of Becoming.
Ideas. Action. Access.
The Way, 365 Days of Becoming, Life After Anything, Ideas, speaking, and writing that help people see life differently.
Panorama Future, Panorama Cares, Life After Rehab, and advisory work that translate ideas into systems, programs, services, and human support.
Panorama Foundation, expanding extraordinary guidance, resources, and opportunity beyond the boundaries of privilege.
The objective is not simply to publish books. Not simply to build companies. Not simply to advise extraordinary people. Not simply to give speeches. Not simply to help someone get into a great school. Not simply to help someone complete treatment. And not to create world-class solutions that remain available only to the fortunate.
The objective is larger.
To make what has been learned useful. And whenever possible, to make what is useful accessible.
Useful to the young person trying to choose a direction. Useful to the leader who has achieved everything except clarity about what comes next. Useful to the family confronting crisis. Useful to someone walking out of rehab. Useful to someone walking into grief. Useful to someone rebuilding. Useful to someone succeeding. Useful to someone beginning. Useful to someone who cannot afford the kind of guidance that could change the trajectory of their life.
There is a final reality beneath all of this. We don't have forever.
There are only so many mornings. So many conversations. So many opportunities to say what needs saying. So many chances to forgive, begin, risk, love, create, serve, become.
Eventually every title disappears. Every balance sheet closes. Every possession changes hands. Every career ends. What remains is harder to measure.
That is a different definition of success. And perhaps a more enduring one.
See the work