David M. Traversi

About David M. Traversi CEO, Board member, executive coach, licensed  real estate broker, investor and author of THE SOURCE OF LEADERSHIP: Eight Drivers of the High-Impact Leader (New Harbinger Publications, September, 2007).

For a Video Demo, Reading List, Downloads, Blog, Book Endorsements and Speaking References, go to David Traversi’s website,  www.thesourceofleadership.com

The following is reprinted with permission. 

The genesis of The Source of Leadership™ is where all successful projects originate…the creator's heart. David Traversi has been a lifelong leader in athletics, academics, society, and business. More importantly, he has had a longtime passion for the art of leadership.  He has read every significant book about leadership in the past 20 years, and built huge files of articles on every virtually every element of leadership. In a diverse and highly successful career described below, he has led many organizations and had the unique opportunity to work closely with, and advise, thousands of leaders in scores of industries.

Until the new millennium, the source of leadership eluded David.  He had that gut feeling that virtually nothing that had been written on the art of leadership really got to the heart of the matter.  The "how" of leadership development was missing.  Authorities would describe the character traits and functions of a leader, or what a leader must be, and what a leader must do to succeed.  How a leader could accomplish these things was missing.

Seven years ago, David began experiencing a profound personal transformation inspired by the painful realization that the void that existed deep within him through all his successes was caused by living almost entirely in the future.  He constantly thought, "I will be happy as soon as…"  And he was never content.  As he began to practice presence - living in the only authentic existence there is - he became increasingly content, productive, and creative.  David’s choice to be present - to bring the energy of presence into his life - led to one cognition after another.  He began to be aware of his resistances and explored the reasons underlying them and methods of opening up.  He became more aware that several circumstances from his childhood had resulted in emotional and behavioral issues that harmed his relationships, and he began to "air out" those deeply imbedded energies.  He became intimately familiar with his intuition and began a disciplined approach to developing it.  He learned the binary nature of ownership - a choice between the poison of blame and the empowerment of complete responsibility.  David opened up to every creative outlet he could find and quickly became an accomplished artist after never having painted in his life.  And that was only one of scores of diverse creative channels he still pursues.  He became aware that he could focus conscious energy in a direction and influence conditions in his environment and the course of events, something even science corroborates.  His communication skills, in which he had always taken pride as a trial attorney, lecturer, and corporate executive, improved dramatically as he became aware of the subtler nuances of discourse.

As David began to see that making the correct choices in these personal energy fields were the keys to his personal contentment, he also began to see that they are also critical to powerfully effective leadership.  Although he was at first concerned that certain of these choices and practices might render him to a Zen- or Buddha-like, "blissed-out" state of passivity, he quickly learned that they prime a leader for profound action.  A leader who has made the conscious choice to cultivate the eight transformational energies - personal drivers deep within each of us - has unlimited leadership potential.  He has spent the past seven years developing and refining his concepts and the practices set forth in The Source of Leadership™.  He is passionately convinced that The Source of Leadership™ contains a powerful message that will revolutionize how leadership is taught and practiced.

David Traversi's own career is a powerful example of how The Source of Leadership™ will open a world of infinite creativity, possibilities, and leadership success.  He is the Managing Director of  2020 Growth Partners, LLC, a strategic advisory and executive coaching firm serving growth businesses across the nation.  He also recently co-founded Sensor Platforms, Inc., a San Jose-based producer of integrated circuits that enable sensor application development.

Previously, he was the Co-founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of PRE Solutions, Inc., which was the nation's largest electronic processor of prepaid telecom products before its sale to InComm.  Prior to PRE Solutions, he was President of Sirrom Capital Corporation, a $1 billion NYSE-listed financial services and investment firm.  Before that, he was a General Partner and Managing Director in the Corporate Finance Department of Montgomery Securities (now Banc of America Securities LLC), the nation's premier investment bank serving growth businesses in the 1990s.  At Montgomery, he managed transactions totaling over $3 billion.  He has practiced as a business lawyer and is a member of the California State Bar and the Alaska Bar Association.  He is also a licensed California real estate broker.

He serves or has served on the boards of many public and private companies.  He is active in a number of non-profit causes and organizations.  David is a frequent lecturer and facilitator of programs on a variety of business topics, including leadership, negotiation, strategy, finance, economics, and real estate.

He is a professional artist, specializing in abstract figuratives and landscapes, and his work is in collections across the U.S.  An avid wine collector, for five years he wrote a wine column in the Sonoma Valley's Kenwood Press.

He has B.S. in Finance from California State University, Chico; a J.D. from University of California, Davis; and, an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

David M. Traversi is available for speeches and workshops exclusively through the MasterMedia Speakers Bureau and its limited network of bureau partners.

To view David’s video demo, please go to 
www.thesourceofleadership.com/speaking-engagements.php.

Suggested Speech and Workshop Topics

The Source of Leadership: 8 Drivers of High-Impact Leadership
Presence: The Foundational Driver of High-Impact Leadership
Openness and Creativity: Break Out of the Box or Die
Clarity: The Grease of the Success Engine
Intention: Ripening the Seed of Possibility Into the Fruit of Probability
Personal Responsibility: The Empowerment of Owning It All
The Rebirth of the Profound Power of Intuition
Connected Communication: Reclaiming The Honest Exchange

The Source of Leadership: 8 Drivers of the High-Impact Leader
Faced with an existence of extreme velocity and complexity, many leaders are struggling. They find themselves lacking the tools to succeed in this challenging new environment.  On an intellectual level, they know the leadership traits they are supposed to embody (e.g., self-defined, credible, inspiring), and they know the leadership functions they are supposed to perform (e.g., generate ideas, form a vision, build a plan).  But on a practical level to many, making them realities have proven overwhelming.

In this overview of his much anticipated book, The Source of Leadership, David reveals the eight personal drivers of high-impact leadership: presence, openness, clarity of thought and behavior, intention, personal responsibility, intuition, creativity, and connected communication.  Drawing on twenty years of leading organizations and working with thousands of leaders, he shows in vivid and compelling ways how each of these eight drivers maximizes or optimizes one or more of the character traits and functions of the high-impact leader.  You'll see a clear path unfold, leading you to empowerment and fulfillment on the personal level and then profound effectiveness as a leader of people in today's environment.

Presence: The Foundational Driver of High-Impact Leadership
If the historical positional advantages (i.e., superior knowledge, mobility, and communication) of a leader have nearly disappeared and effective leaders must be closer to actual reality than those whom they lead, how do they accomplish this?  By being present.  By being grounded in the present moment - the only reality there is - and aware of all dimensions of that reality. Presence is the new positional advantage of today's and tomorrow's leader.  If a leader is lacking presence, and the grounding in true reality, then he or she will not be effective and someone else who is not so lacking will step forward and assume leadership.

David reveals presence as the foundational driver of high-impact leadership.  He maps out a path to presence, laden with practical tips, and outlines the powerful insights and understandings produced by presence that will irrevocably transform your life and leadership effectiveness.

Openness and Creativity: Break Out of the Box or Die
In today's environment, the need for innovation - the commercialization of creativity - is generally recognized as paramount in most organizations.  Regardless of the arena, an organization must innovate just to survive, let alone thrive.  Creativity - the ability to discover connections in our existence - depends upon openness to "what is."  Unfortunately, as a by-product of our maturation as human beings, we became "boxed in" at an early age. We grew resistant to the unknown, and blind to possibilities.  Our ability to create, and thus, innovate, was seriously compromised.

In this presentation, David first goes right to the bed of creativity: openness.  He shows how to "break out of the box," and become open to all that is.  He demonstrates how openness alone fuels a leader's ability to be forward thinking and intensely curious, to generate ideas, and to form a vision.  He then explores the dimensions of creativity, how it is a choice and the only choice for you as a high-impact leader, and offers tips for developing your ability to identify connections that elude others.  He shows how creativity drives your ability to inspire and be energetic through the ups and downs of leadership.

Clarity: The Grease of the Success Engine
If leadership is ultimately about transforming personal energies into interpersonal results, then clarity of thought, emotion, and behavior can be thought of as the grease that facilitates the process.  The healthier the thought, emotion, and behavior of the leader, the more efficient the transformation and the better the results.  The leader who is positive thinking will be more effective than the leader who is mired in worry, distrust, or negative or critical thought.  The leader who is emotionally stable will be more effective than the one who struggles with envy, anger, impatience, or shame.  Unfortunately, such clarity is largely lacking among leaders.  Not that leaders are less healthy in this respect than non-leaders, but the their lack of health affects more lives just by virtue of their being leaders.

David provides a step-by-step approach for identifying where clarity is lacking and beginning a process of increasing clarity in your life.  He shows vividly how clarity fuels your ability as a leader to be self-defined and people oriented, build a values-based core in your organization, and optimally engage your team to pursue the organizational vision.

Intention: Ripening the Seed of Possibility Into the Fruit of Probability
An intention is a desire for a result.  We all have them, many of them, but we may not be getting the results we desire.  That is because intentions alone have little meaningful effect; they are merely the seed of possibility.  It is the practice of intention that ripens the seed of possibility into the fruit of probability.

David describes the phenomenal transformative power of practiced intention, why we often neglect it, and how we can reclaim and use it as high-impact leaders to be more focused and organized than ever before, build a plan for success, and produce results.

Personal Responsibility: The Empowerment of Owning It All
Through the insidious erosion of community, contagious epidemic of litigation, intense cultural focus on rights, and increasing speed and complexity of society, we increasingly blame others or disown or neglect our responsibility for conditions or events in our environment.  Nowhere is this more evident than in leadership.

In an inspiring presentation, David outlines a program for capturing the enormous power of personal responsibility - the complete ownership of "what is" - and using it to dramatically boost your credibility and courage, and your ability to build an organizational plan and create a culture of accountability to execute the plan.

The Rebirth of the Profound Power of Intuition
Hunch, gut feeling, impression, psychic hit…this power called intuition.  Intuition is a right-brain tool for acquiring knowledge without the left-brain process of rational thought.  It is the sixth sense.  It is also the sense that was largely abandoned over the past couple of centuries as technology boomed and the resulting watershed of data poured into our left brains.

David explains why a new age of intuition is upon us and how the primary cause of intuition's fall - technology and all of its effects - is now fueling its revival.  We simply have no choice.  We are overwhelmed with data.  We need to find an anchor in the storm and that anchor is intuition. Intuition helps us manage the data pouring into us.  It complements the data.  It makes the data more relevant.  It allows us to manage the data with less stress.  It helps us make better decisions and behave better.  It brings us closer to, indeed right into the belly of, reality.  It grounds us and rejuvenates us.

David outlines the facets of intuition, provides a step-by-step approach for developing its power, and explains how you, as a high-impact leader, can use that power to better define yourself, inspire your team members, form a vision for your organization, and build a responsive organizational structure best suited for the high-velocity, highly complex, interconnected environment in which we exist.

Connected Communication: Reclaiming the Honest Exchange
In our complex, adaptive system of existence, communication governs the exchange of energy among the parts.  Up to a certain level, it is necessary for survival.  Beyond that, it is a primary driver of effectiveness in all aspects of life.  The better you communicate, the better your relationships.  The better your relationships, the better your existence.  Today, as a result of technology, we communicate more than one even a generation ago could have imagined.  But many people believe the quality of their personal and professional relationships is declining.  In effect, they are saying, "We are talking a lot, but not improving our lot."  To improve our lot, to be more content, to live more effectively, to lead more effectively, we have to improve the quality of our communication.  We have to communicate in a far more connected way.

In this compelling presentation, David defines connected communication as the exchange of energy between two or more people, facilitated by empathy, honesty, and clarity of purpose and message.  He explains connected communication as more than a leadership tool or mechanical practice.  It is an intensely powerful energy - a driver - deep within the high-impact leader.  On a connected path, the high-impact leader is present, mindful, and completely honest.  He or she is clear and concise, acutely empathic, and in complete alignment with "what is."  Everyone around the high-impact leader senses the integrity, the wholeness, of who he or she is and how he or she communicates, and gathers strength in his or her presence.  David explains the system of connected communication, from clear expression of a purposeful message by an empathic speaker to an empathic listener, and provides tools for optimizing the process.  He shows how connected communication lies beneath the high-impact leader's ability to be inspiring and supportive, and engage a team and create accountability.

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