69. What Happens When You Realize You Don’t Want the Life You’re Headed Towards with Damon Young, Founder of DK Counsulting & CEO of LEAD Wichita
What does it actually take to wake up, choose differently, and become someone new?
Whether you're staring down a milestone birthday or quietly sensing it's time for a change, this conversation with Damon Young will meet you right where you are. Damon is a civic leader, executive mentor, public speaker, and founder of DK Young Consulting — and he sat down to talk candidly about what it looked like to go from heads-down in construction to stepping fully into his purpose as a connector of ideas and people. We covered the grief of letting dreams die, the power of writing something down with a shaking hand, and why 10% improvement might be the most radical thing you can do.
Highlights
- The "roots before fruit" framework — why focusing on the fruit actually prevents it from growing
- Why 10% improvement is more transformative than trying to nail it 90% of the time
- The real cost of living with intention — and what you have to let go of to get there
- How the 12 Week Year changed the trajectory of Damon's life and career
- The shaking-hand moment: writing down a buried dream for the first time in 15 years
- Why regret is a powerful motivator — if you let it illuminate instead of sink you
- Letting fantasies and alternative lives die so you can fully choose the one in front of you
- What Damon's son said at his rehearsal dinner that made all the intentional living worth it
- The Kia story: a small, symbolic decision that said everything about who Damon was becoming
Chapters
0:00 – Choosing to Wake Up
1:18 – Meet Damon Young
2:58 – Turning 40 and 50
4:30 – Kids Grow Fast
7:38 – Roots Before Fruit (don't focus on the fruit — get in the soil)
11:22 – Shiny Objects and Grace
13:37 – The Power of Ten Percent
16:17 – Advice for Your Forties
19:42 – Damon at Thirty-Five
27:40 – Stress and Self-Soothing
31:13 – The Cost of Intention
33:54 – Letting Dreams Die
35:48 – Marriage and Becoming
24:57 – Facing Regret in New Decades
25:56 – Regret and Finite Time
26:42 – Heidi and the 12 Week Year
27:52 – Writing Down the Dream
29:34 – From Baby Steps to Paid Speaking
31:15 – Assessments and Finding Your Magic
33:57 – Regret as Motivation and Experiments
36:28 – Letting Go of Comparison
42:35 – The Kia Identity Shift
44:30 – Kids Notice Your Growth
45:52 – Where to Find Damon
Resources Mentioned
- The 12 Week Year by Brian Moran & Michael Lennington — the goal-setting framework that helped Damon write down his dream for the first time: https://www.12weekyear.com
- Arthur Brooks — author and social scientist; Damon references his concept of the "reverse bucket list": https://www.arthurbrooks.com
- When Everyone Leads — https://kansasleadershipcenter.org/when-everyone-leads/
- Designing Your Life — Stanford framework referenced for experimenting and "renting" ideas before committing: https://designingyour.life
- DK Young Consulting — Damon's boutique consultancy focused on vision casting, executive mentoring, and public speaking: https://dkyconsulting.com
- Lead Wichita — civic leadership organization where Damon serves as contract CEO: https://leadwichita.org
Want to learn more?
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