What does success mean to you? Fiona Hatton hosts David Stark, the host of The Athletes Podcast, for a quick discussion that goes beyond traditional notions of success. From humble beginnings interviewing athletes in his college bedroom to now inspiring thousands daily, David offers a fresh perspective on doing meaningful work with passionate people. We explore his journey and the pivotal role of understanding your purpose in life, tackling challenges head-on, and the importance of authenticity.
David's dedication to empowering female athletes through Cook Start Management is a testament to his commitment to equity in sports. Listen in as he shares his insights on the evolving landscape of women's sports and the growing media investment that promises a brighter future. Whether you're an athlete or someone striving for personal growth, David's wisdom on self-development and pursuing your biggest goals will leave you inspired and ready to take action. Don't miss this enriching conversation on how to make a lasting impact and leave the world better than you found it!
What does success mean to you? Fiona Hatton hosts David Stark, the host of The Athletes Podcast, for a quick discussion that goes beyond traditional notions of success. From humble beginnings interviewing athletes in his college bedroom to now inspiring thousands daily, David offers a fresh perspective on doing meaningful work with passionate people. We explore his journey and the pivotal role of understanding your purpose in life, tackling challenges head-on, and the importance of authenticity.
David's dedication to empowering female athletes through Cook Start Management is a testament to his commitment to equity in sports. Listen in as he shares his insights on the evolving landscape of women's sports and the growing media investment that promises a brighter future. Whether you're an athlete or someone striving for personal growth, David's wisdom on self-development and pursuing your biggest goals will leave you inspired and ready to take action. Don't miss this enriching conversation on how to make a lasting impact and leave the world better than you found it!
Hello everyone, welcome to Formanus with Fiona. My name is Fiona Hutton, I'm 20 years old, I grew up in Alaska and now I play college hockey in Massachusetts. I started this podcast in 2022 to help reduce the stigma around mental health in sports. Since then, it has expanded to include discussions about success, self-development, authenticity, identity and more. I'm excited to have you listening.
Speaker 1:
Today. I talked with David Stark. We got into his definition of success, why putting yourself out there is difficult but key to achieving your biggest goals, and the importance of knowing yourself, your why and how you want to impact the world. David is the host of the Athletes Podcast. To date, he has interviewed over 250 athletes, fitness professionals and high achievers, providing insights and education to anyone looking to be their best selves. He started the show after attending Brock University, where he began interviewing athletes from his bedroom. Now the show is an incredible resource, helping thousands of people on a daily basis. David also co-founded Cook Start Management alongside Lander Cook, a talent agency representing and supporting elite female athletes. David is passionate about helping female athletes obtain equitable treatment and opportunities, which I love. David is such a knowledgeable human and I hope you take away valuable insights from this episode. Let's get into it. How do you define success for yourself now, and how has that changed over time?
Speaker 2:
Oh, hitting the hard questions early, fiona, I used to define success, probably similar as to a lot of kids. Growing up, you know whether it was making the NHL, pga Tour, nba, insert any kind of high-profile sporting position. And as you age, you realize that, at the end of the day, everyone's high performers athletes in their own respective fields, whether that's work, business, professional entrepreneurship, athletics, et cetera. And to me, it's doing cool things with cool people, surrounding yourself, with those other people that are like-minded individuals and hopefully having fun along the way, making an impact bigger than just yourself and leaving the world in a better place than when you found it or when you came in.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's awesome, I love that. So you started Cook. Start Management correct.
Speaker 2:
Correct.
Speaker 1:
And can you talk about how important it is to empower female athletes in that way and why you started that?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I'll give full credit to Leander Cook. You know, three and a half four years ago he started LDC Talent, which was a division of Cook Start Management now, and it was the hockey specific realm. He had been providing these opportunities to female hockey players for a couple years. Saw he as a male athlete was treated better than his girlfriend, who was better than him at the time in U Sports, and said hey, we need to make a change here. I saw what he was doing connected through the podcast obviously featuring hundreds of athletes.
Speaker 2:
You start to see some reoccurring themes, one of those being the lack of attention females were getting. So I talked with Flanders, said why don't we offer this to every single female out there? That's an athlete and that deserves, frankly, the same kind of attention that males have been getting for decades. Um, you know, I think over the past couple of years we've seen media investment into female women's sports go from 4% to 15% I think the most recent data point. So it's going in the right direction. But until we get to 50-50, it's not equal right.
Speaker 1:
Definitely yeah. I think the opportunity has gotten a lot better in the past couple of years, even with like leagues. I mean, pwhl is doing good now, so that's great to see, and it's great to see you get involved with that too. So back to a podcast question.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, absolutely. Who doesn't these days? I still do. But you got to get over that right and you got to get comfortable being uncomfortable. That was pounded into me during university and I feel like the only way you're going to grow is if you get other people's thoughts, insights, opinions, learn from them, try and be a sponge, soak it up, and that's what you got to do in life, right? I?
Speaker 1:
feel like I struggle with that a lot and I hear a lot of other people struggle with it and I think it's a normal thing. But just, you have such an established platform. I feel like it's just interesting to hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 2:
Established platform is just consistency compounding over time. It's four and a half years. You're going to have that Fiona after four years too. You're going to have 250 episodes after five. Like this is what happens when you put out something on a weekly basis. It's like working out, it's like practicing for hockey, it's like insert any other drill workout regime that you're able to stick to and consistently put forward. I just had Ben Sporer on the podcast. It goes live today. He just wrote a book called Output and, at the end of the day, we can't control some of the things that we do in life, but we can control what our output looks like, and so if, at the end of the day, that's what you're focused on and that's what you work to achieve, you're doing everything under your control, right?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, I do love that. I feel like you definitely learn more by doing.
Speaker 2:
Oh yeah, I went, went to school. I went to school for sport management, right, like there was no degree for podcasting. I started interviewing athletes in my bedroom after I graduated from school, right, and you know, we're probably going to get back to that point at some point here over the next couple years, right, and that's the beauty of being able to just have a conversation with someone like this, right, like you're chatting with Jeff Levesque, natalie Allport people who you know are featured on my show, and those are incredible human beings to be able to have five, 10 minutes with. And I'm grateful to have, you know, done that 220 plus times now.
Speaker 2:
And I think that's the success piece that people don't necessarily even look at. It's like people are always talking about, like enjoying the process. That's the win. You know, you're getting 5, 10, 15 minutes with these incredible individuals on a weekly basis, like that's the win. It's not the platform that we build at the end, it's that those pieces along the way, and then, yeah, the platform at the end will be nice, but you know, if you can enjoy pieces along the way, that's what really makes it special.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, 100%. I completely agree. It's nice to be able to talk to a lot of different people, even like yourself. So final question what do you think is one lesson you've learned from any one of your guests that really resonated with you?
Speaker 2:
I think it's a reoccurring theme, not just from guests, not just from athletes, entrepreneurs, high performers. It's like closed mouths don't get fed. And if you want to achieve something in life, you got to go do it, and it's not going to be easy. It's probably going to be really hard, and the bigger your goals are, the harder you're going to have to work and the longer you're going to have to wait. But it will be worth it. If you know exactly what you're doing and you know your why and I'll refer back to Jeff Lavecchio's pod that you had with him and if you know your why, if you watch Simon Sinek's TED Talk, you're going to have a much clearer future self. At the end of the day and I think that's the biggest piece of advice is just knowing who you are, what you want to do, how you're going to do it and then executing.
Speaker 1:
Awesome. That's so important. I love that. Thank you for listening to today's episode with David. It was great to hear from him and it's inspiring to see how much his show has grown. I think it really speaks to the power of embracing the process and putting yourself out there. Give him a follow on Instagram at DaveStark1 and at the Athlete's Podcast If you enjoyed this talk. Leave a review and share it with a friend. It really helps. In the coming weeks, I'm going to try and publish as many episodes as possible. I have a lot that I need to edit and I'm also going to try and put out a few solo episodes. Some people have asked me about that and I decided to finally start doing it. I think there's a lot of insights I've gleaned from talking with so many high achievers and athletes, and also just some stories about myself that I want to share and I think would be fun to share. So prepare for that. I hope you have a great week and thank you so much for listening. Bye.
