Sarah David, thriving in adversity

Sarah is Managing Director of Thrive Consulting Collaborative. She has a side hustle, Love Work More, with friend Richard Ferguson. Thrive is based on the premise that we all have enough time to prosper and works with organisations and leaders to achieve this. Love Work More provides people with tactics and strategies to find a working life that they love.

Sarah originally qualified as a lawyer then moved into legal recruitment. After an MBA she moved into senior roles in professional services management and also joined the board of the Children’s Society. Subsequently she and her husband moved to Colorado where she became CEO of an autism school. “It was a job that was about meaning rather than making money” she says.

18 months later, her husband Jonathan died in a car crash leaving Sarah with two young boys. She moved back to the UK and set up her consulting business. Six years on she reflects that “friendships and reading” have kept her sane. She has found that while “not everything has a reason, you can give everything meaning.”

Sarah is a team player. “I think it is that sharing.” Sarah runs Thrive as a social enterprise and gives between 10 and 20% of her time pro bono. She is currently doing this with a programme at The Pankhurst Trust. During her career she often found herself the only woman in the room. Her sporting knowledge and background helped her cope, but in her coaching she tries to provide women with other strategies to flourish in what are often male dominated professions. There are 50 coaches and 50 coachees on the programme at the moment. Her current coachee runs a social enterprise in Manchester. “There is so much potential in all of us…”

Sarah is disappointed by the current quality of political debate. She observed that in times gone by our politicians were our philosophers. She became involved in politics because she felt that the world was moving both environmentally and socially in a negative direction. She joined the Women’s Equality Party several years ago and has since enjoyed canvassing and discussing politics in the town centre on Saturday mornings. All the research shows that “more equal societies are happier.”

One of her proudest achievements at work related to a major restructuring in 2009. “It was about courage and values.” The CEO wanted everyone to feel heard, listened to and supported, so he and Sarah met everyone in the organisation.

Her advice to her 18-year old self would be to find a coach or mentor, and to learn about mindfulness, meditation and stoicism. Those things would have stood her in good stead for the events of the coming 30 years. She would have also told herself that “you’re going to be OK.” Your relationships and friendships will see you through.

Sarah’s has to work hard at self-care. Running, hill-walking and pull-ups(!) feature prominently. She encourages everyone to take some physical exercise daily, if only 15 minutes. She is big on visual cues to make things happen and so has fixed up a pull-up bar in her hallway. The running developed as a response to grief.

The death of her husband profoundly changed her life. It devastated yet also transformed her and “the results of it have been inspirational in some ways.” He was her soul mate. The feeling that “we don’t know how much time we’ve got on our clock” informs the way that she works with people. She was deeply moved by the response of people after Jonathan’s death. The community in Colorado brought them a meal three times a week for three months.

Reading is one of Sarah’s passions, but she encourages all aspiring leaders to find their natural way of learning. There is a reading room on her website thrive.co.com. She is an enthusiast for medium.com. Regarding podcasts she recommends ‘Hurry Slowly’ by Jocelyn Glei – time and energy management is a common theme of her work with leaders – and also ‘How to Fail’ by Elizabeth Day. ‘How to Own the Room’ by Viv...