The Books That Shaped Me Featuring Dave Leon

Dave Leon, an executive, business, and life coach based in Austin who spent 34 years in corporate America first, seven years on Wall Street, then 27 years in enterprise tech and SaaS sales, including over a decade selling cloud and AI services for a major hyperscaler.Dave was laid off twice. The second time, at 56, he sat with himself for three months until he ran out of excuses. In the years that followed he was also diagnosed with cancer and went through a divorce, all inside about 18 months. Out of that he rebuilt his own definition of success (peace plus joy, no variable for wealth) and built his coaching practice around five pillars he mapped out on his own whiteboard.We talk about stoicism, neuroplasticity, why saying your own name can interrupt a bad pattern, and the book that reframed rigid goal setting for both of us.Books that shaped this episode:A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy by William IrvineLimitless by Jim KwikTiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World by Anne-Laure Le Cunff