In 2017, Mike Davis created his podcast Humans of Purpose, a show dedicated to shining a light on Australia’s top leaders in the purposeful sector. Fast forward to today, and Mike has spent 250 hours with Australia’s leaders, including Lord Mayor of Melbourne Sally Capp, entrepreneur and three-time Olympic Gold Medallist Stephanie Rice OAM and HoMie Founder Nick Pearce. Davis was also the first to conduct a podcast interview with the Governor of Victoria, Hon. Linda Dessau AC.
The podcast has amassed 6,000 unique monthly listens from across the globe, and has seen a huge spike during lockdown as people turn to stories of hope and inspiration in the community.
Tell us about Humans of Purpose.
Humans of Purpose brings you weekly podcast conversations with inspiring and purpose-driven leaders from our local community. Guests join me, Mike Davis, for relaxed conversations in my home (or via Zoom during lockdown) to discuss their career journey, purpose and how they create a positive social impact through their work. Tea, coffee or single malt whiskey are provided as we traverse meaningful subjects and gain insights into business and community. The podcast gives listeners access to a curated collection of inspiring, purpose-driven leaders across the not for profit, social enterprise, government and business sectors. Recent guests include Professor Patrick McGorry, Kylie Moore Gilbert, Fiona Patten MP and at least 200 more.
We are independent and community supported. This enables us to exist to serve our community (you) and in doing so we are guided by our generous Patreon Supporter community. The podcast now has an international following with audiences in the US and UK and averages about 6,000 unique listens each month. One thing that makes us special is we don’t have an inbound application process, I only reach out to people I want to talk to. This makes sure the interviews are all filled with great quality conversation, wit, banter and wisdom. Podcasts are also not edited and are recorded in one single sitting.
A special fact about Humans of Purpose, we are more than just a podcast, we are a connected community. Our latest listener survey 2021 indicates that up to 50% of listeners have met up with at least one of our Humans of Purpose podcast guests before. Our podcast helps people to navigate towards meaningful work that has a social impact. They also give listeners a chance to connect with for purpose leaders they admire, look up to and aspire to emulate. The secret formula to a great Humans of Purpose episode is 1/3rd experience, 1/3rd banter and 1/3rd wisdom. When we stick to this we know we’ve made a great Humans of Purpose podcast.
What inspired you to start Humans of Purpose?
I came up with the Humans of Purpose idea, whilst I was away on holiday in New York. I kept thinking about why none of the podcasts I listened to featured the amazing people from the for purpose and social impact sector back home in Australia. I was also lucky enough at the time to be starting my own consulting business and therefore having lots of fascinating conversations with people whose work was having a significant social impact. So I thought, wouldn’t it be great to just record these conversations and share them with anyone who is interested?! A few years and 200+ episodes later I am still just as inspired but now our podcast extends to conversations with academic experts, authors, civic and social leaders, changemakers, politicians and more. We are also a far more professional operation, we are supported by the best digital agency in the world – Neon Treehouse and put a lot more effort into planning our seasons and episodes.
The other inspiration was to help disengaged people move from the corporate sector into the for purpose sector, where they could play a greater role in creating positive social change through their work. Through my research I learned that people working for a higher purpose and social impact enjoyed their work much more, were far more engaged, less likely to leave their jobs and were far happier overall. I also learned that the for purpose sector doesn’t naturally attract our brightest and best people and a good way to do so would be to pick some of the best for purpose leaders out there and showcase the amazing and impactful work they are doing.
Tell us about your career and background.
I started out as a lawyer in training, cutting my teeth as a Judge’s Associate at the County Court of Victoria. This experience was intellectually very stimulating, but ultimately wasn’t for me. However, I continued my Masters of Law (Human Rights) study and completed that degree. I instead went into policy and advocacy working at two of Australia’s biggest medical colleges and then onto working in the Victorian Public Service for a few years in health and social policy. I liked the work, but found the environment too hierarchical, process-obsessed and creatively stifling. That’s when I took a punt and started my own social impact consultancy – Purposeful and also Humans of Purpose. The consultancy was great fun and I did it whilst also starting a strategy manager role at not for profit TaskForce. Over time, I grew the consultancy to a team of 5 and worked with a range of amazing small not for profits and social enterprises as well as a billion dollar global law firm, developing strategy and social impact resources and frameworks.
I sort of fell out of love with running the consultancy and didn’t have the networks or deal flow to make it sustainable as a business, so after 3 years I closed that up and focused on my new role as Head of Strategy at TaskForce. A few years later, having helped TaskForce to triple in size, I was ready for a new challenge and joined the team at Spark Strategy, a B Corp that helps for purpose organisations develop impactful strategies, business models and impact measurement approaches. I have always run Humans of Purpose as a side project after work hours and have been lucky to have been approached from time to time to do freelance podcast mini-documentary series on a range of interesting topics including mental health. So Purposeful is now the holding company for Humans of Purpose, Mental Wellth and any other creative podcast projects I take on.
Describe a typical work day for you.
When my wife’s alarm clock goes off and wakes me up at approximately 6:15am I make a French press coffee and then I go for a walk with my dog Cyril and we’ll often pick up a takeaway coffee before heading home to start work at about 7:30-8am. I spent the day in meetings with my amazing Spark colleagues and senior leaders representing our clients. The day is split between delivering strategy projects, developing growth opportunities for Spark and also working on improving the business overall. I always take a lunch break and enjoy spending a good 20 minute finding the best gourmet sandwich within 10km of my house. At about 5:30pm I log off and jump on the Peloton bike for a 30 minute session and then a 30 minute infra-red Sauna. After that it’s Humans of Purpose time and I will usually have a podcast interview lined up for 6:30pm or am working on writing blogs, articles or just managing guests and scheduling for a few hours.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
Don’t just do what you’re passionate about. Find something that can fulfil you and keep you interested for at least 3-5 years, make sure you are good at it or can get good at it during this time, and also make sure that it can draw you a sufficient income from doing it. It’s okay to start with 2 out 3 of the previous qualifiers but any less and you’re in trouble. It’s also worth being mindful of the risks involved and that it will take you some time to draw any income from your business and to cover costs. A risk mitigation strategy that works well is to hold on to a job and work at your business after hours until it is ready to scale or even work part time and slowly increase your hours on the business when it is ready to take off.
Another tip is that not all hobbies or things you are good at need to be turned into a business. These things can be a great creative outlet and trying to monetise them may destroy them for you. So consider, if it’s worth the trade off.
Finally, consult with people you trust broadly and deeply to determine if your business idea has legs. Develop the best questions you can to ask them, do the research and come to your own conclusion about whether you can make it work. Keep the conversations going with your trusted advisors throughout your business journey. No man (or woman) is an island.
What’s next for you, and Humans of Purpose?
This season we’ve focused on providing a real diversity of guests. I’m going to be speaking to more political leaders and independents specifically who may be able to contribute to a stronger democracy. I’ll also be talking to more authors, thought leaders, human rights advocates and creators. We are always interested in pursuing hard topics that other podcasts wouldn’t touch like honest conversations about mental health, fertility challenges, drugs and the dark web, biohacking and more. We will keep bringing on guests who can challenge our audiences’ thinking, mindset and beliefs and open them up to new perspectives.
Now that we have a growing international audience, we will also be looking to find thought leaders globally to appear on the podcast who can enrich perspectives of our audience. Other than this, it is just about getting 1% better every single week to make the best quality podcast I can.
Humans of Purpose has also opened the door to me to do freelance podcast production, telling stories about social impact and covering difficult topics like mental health. I did my first freelance mini-series Mental Wellth, on the state of mental health in Australia, supported by Cooper Investors and will look to do more podcast series that can draw from my creative side and love of documentary storytelling that has a social impact.
