The Future of Meetups, Community Building, and Human Connection | David Siegel

In this episode of the Millionaire Mindcast, we have a remarkable guest, David Siegel who shares and talks about CEO and leadership mentality, conquering dreams with decision-making, a lot of skills, characteristics, qualities, and lessons that he learned along the way, and the power of community building, meetups, and human connection!

David Siegel is a husband, a father of three teens, a mentor and Management Professor at Columbia, a motivational and executive-level leader, was a President of Seeking Alpha, formerly CEO of Investopedia, and currently the CEO of Meetup, a global largest community platform that connects people in real life, with 57 million people around the world, and in 193 countries.

He is also the author of the book, “Decide & Conquer” which lays out the framework for decision-making that leaders can use to ensure organizational and personal success. Likewise, he is the host of the “Keep Connected” podcast.

Ever since David wanted to be an assistant CEO to really work with CEOs. He worked as a consultant in companies, and later launched his career in DoubleClick, Inc. in Human Resources, became a Director and CEO during the dot-com boom in the 90s, where he developed his skills in building relationships with people.

David really loves connecting with like-minded people and is passionate about building up a community. Many years later, he became the first CEO of Meetup. Its mission is to build a real connection and eliminate loneliness, especially in COVID 19 pandemic.

Like any other successful company, trust has a huge role in the workplace. David emphasizes building trust with employees. He believes that if you don’t have your employees’ trust, you don’t have anything because they’re not going to follow you. If you have trust you can handle anything!

Some Questions I Ask:

Who David Siegel is? (04:00)

What did mentality and climb look like for you? (06:43)

What have been some of the greatest qualities and characteristics that you admired and noticed in other great CEOs and leaders you’ve been around, and you have really worked on and focused on? (09:14)

What you guys have had to do in terms of community building as well as philosophy and execution around Meetup? (14:05)

With the world becoming very digital and online-driven, will in-person ever go away, or is there this human desire to always be physically connected in some way shaper form? (19:05)

What Meetup is currently focusing on and how does it tie up with your mission, and how are you balancing trends? (21:12)

What have been some of the greatest things that you’ve seen come out of the community aspect of meetup.com? (25:03)

What are some of the best practices or qualities and characteristics of some of the most successful and impactful meetup groups that you’ve seen? (27:48)

What lead to the authorship of “Decide and Conquer”? (31:38)

What is your North star that you’re kind of making decisions around and looking to conquer yourself? (36:44)

What’s been your favorite country you’ve traveled to and what’s on the top of your hit list next? (38:58)

How have you been able to keep the balance of this hustle and grind without sacrificing your priorities such as health, marriage, and parenting? (40:39)

What challenges are you working on right now? (45:23)

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

Building trust in the workplace & the best way to gain it (11:30)

The power of building human connections (24:27)

The difference between being nice versus being kind (33:50)

The optionality of decision-making (35:00)

Quotes:

“The best way to build trust is through transparency.”

“The best way to grow professionally oftentimes is personal relationships.”

“The best learning happens when you’re leading.”

“The more niche that you’re able to get, sometimes more powerful those connections can end up being.”

“You can engineer luck through decision-making.”

Connect with David Seigel on:

Community Matters

Meetup App

Decide and Conquer book