In this concise "6 questions in 7 minutes" interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with David M.R. Covey, son of Stephen R. Covey and founder of a global licensing business. Covey shares his career path—from a sales role at Procter & Gamble to 16 years at Franklin Covey and now running his own licensing firm. He reflects on how each major economic crisis (2001‑02, 2008‑09, COVID‑19) highlights the importance of adaptability, urging companies to reinvent themselves before they are forced to. Covey emphasizes three core insights for leaders: (1) great work stems from strong relationships, illustrated with examples from Disney’s Robert Iger, Pixar, and Star Wars; (2) organizations should cultivate "successful failures"—learning from experiments rather than avoiding risk, echoing Jeff Bezos’s philosophy; and (3) never settle in work, aligning with human needs for fair pay, mental engagement, passion, and purpose, citing Steve Jobs. He also discusses his intensive reading habit and recommends Barry O'Reilly’s Unlearn and Donald Miller’s StoryBrand. The conversation closes with Covey’s first job experience at Procter & Gamble, reinforcing the power of relationship‑based selling, and provides contact information for listeners.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
All right. Well, thanks for having me on. I'm David Covey, and I'm one of Stephen R. Covey's sons, his third son. And I think you had a prior guest, my brother Stephen M. R. Covey, who wrote The Speed of Trust. So, and then I have my own business, which I've had for the last 10 years. It's been awesome. It's a global licensing business where we help content providers go global with their content through licensing. And so that's what I do. And prior to that, I was at Franklin Covey, the company that my father helped build, for about 16 years, both in the US and international world.
Well, David, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you.
Question number 2: What is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?
Well, I mean, I think that here we are with our third crisis in the last, what, 19 years? You know, we had the crisis of '01, '02, you know, what people refer to as the Great Recession in '08 and '09. And now we have this COVID, you know, this global pandemic. What I find humorous is, is that in every one of these, you know, it's not like we haven't had a warning or a rodeo. And try, uh, is that, you know, some businesses are flat-footed and they don't want to change and they kind of stay where they're at, and others are really, really good job at pivoting and changing and adapting. And, and I marvel and I kind of smile at those who are not able to adapt and change and evolve.
I love that. It's, it's so true. I, I completely agree with you. Question number 3: I have a a fictitious book with all the answers for business, what chapter would you think most companies should read?
I think the chapter that I would recommend would be about reinventing yourself, kind of similar to the, the theme that I talked about before. And I think that a lot of companies are enamored with their success or even their past successes, and they become complacent. And so I think that we have to constantly reinvent ourselves Businesses need to reinvent themselves, countries as well. I think it's something that all of us need a reminder, and a lot of times we let force of circumstances that force us to change rather than the force of conscience. Knowing, changing before you have to change is really what it's all about. I think that would be the chapter I would emphasize.
I like that too. And, and, you know, if, if you change before you have to, you avoid, I would imagine, a lot of stress, etc., as well, right? Because, um, you know, you're, you're being proactive more rather than reactive.
Exactly. I have a friend that doesn't like to work out, you know, exercise, and he says anytime I feel like working out, I lay down until the feeling goes away. And of course, you know, that's not a good formula for staying fit and keeping your body fit and all that. But, you know, obviously if you take that to the extreme, you know, when is this person gonna change? You know, when they have a heart attack? You know, and then what do your options look like? You know, when you're in a health crisis like that. So absolutely, you know, for our own lives, for our own business, we need to evolve and adapt and change and reinvent ourselves constantly. And in fact, everything changes so fast that if you're not reinventing yourself, every 5 years now, you know, you become obsolete very, very quickly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I would agree with you there, and it's, it's not a good thing to be sitting there being the one that is obsolete.
Yeah.
Goodness. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
So the insights— I have 3 insights. So one is, uh, Great work comes about through relationships. I just finished reading Roger, sorry, Robert Iger's book, "The Ride of a Lifetime." He was the CEO of Disney, you know, for many years. He actually retired right before COVID but it was a good time to retire. But I love that, I really believe that, you know, business and life is really about relationships. And our job is to try to create great relationships 'Cause we get things done through relationships, through other people. And also I think we need to repair the broken relationships. I love in the book where he talks about how he had to repair the relationship with Roy Disney, you know, who was the nephew of Walt, who was, you know, causing all kinds of havoc in terms of his dissatisfaction with the company. Well, he repaired that relationship. Steve Jobs at Pixar, when he took over, the Pixar relationship was in shambles. There was no relationship with Steve Jobs. He built that relationship, which enabled Disney to buy Pixar. Then of course, the George Lucas, Lucasfilms example where he built an amazing relationship with George to where he was able to even let go. Star Wars was his baby, you know, he wasn't gonna give it to anybody, but he was willing to give it to Robert Iger and to Disney because of the relationship that he had. So that would be my number one. The second one is I would say that we need to have more successful failures. I think a lot of times as people and as leaders, we're not willing to fail enough. And I have a quote by Jeff Bezos that I, you know, that I love. It says, one area, talking about Amazon, where I think that we are especially distinctive is failure. I believe we're the best place in the world to fail. We have plenty of practice. Failure and invention are inseparable twins. To invent, you have to experiment. If you know in advance that it's going to work, it's not an experiment. I think that what's made Amazon a terrific company and Jeff Bezos a great leader is their willingness to fail. He calls it successful failure because You don't wanna fail and just keep repeating the same mistakes. You need to learn from those mistakes. And then lastly, I would just say this idea of never settling for in your work. I think that we have massive disengagement, as you know, not only in the United States, but globally. And why is that? There are really 4 parts to us as human beings. We have the, and for us in a job, we wanna be paid fairly.. We want to be able to have our mind utilized. We want to have our heart engaged. You know, that's the passion part of it. And we want to have our spirit also contributing. And the spirit is really about, you know, making a difference. Steve Jobs called it, you know, putting a dent in the universe. And I think a lot of times we settle. And today with all the options that are out there with companies, none of us should ever settle in our work. And I have a great Steve Jobs quote that he says, The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. And as, as with all matters of the heart, you'll know it when you find it. So anyway, those, those would be my 3 things.
They're all 3 are so powerful. I really appreciate you sharing them, and it just, it, it, it brings up so many different inspirational thoughts. So thank you so much. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Yeah. So I read a lot. That's one of my business practices. I try to read like 3 or 4 books a week. In the month of April, I've set this crazy goal to read 500 pages a day. And I read, I actually read like 33 books in that month. It wasn't good for my marriage for that month. I was reading like 8 or 9 hours a day, but I had set that goal. So there's 2 books that I have really been influenced by, and those are recommended to guests. One is a book called Unlearn by Barry O'Reilly, and it just talks about how we just need to unlearn what we've learned. And, you know, so this is kind of the same theme of reinvention. The other book is by Donald Miller, who talks about building a story brand, has great advice on how to build your brand and how to market your brand. Uh, so yeah, so I would say Barry O'Reilly and Donald Miller would be the two.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for those referrals. I will reach out to them and see if we can get them on the show.
Yeah.
And our final question, question number 6: please tell me about your first job.
So my first professional job right out of college was working for Procter Gamble, and I was a sales rep in Phoenix, Arizona, and, uh, and I sold their paper products and their soap products and their food and beverage products. And it was, you know, especially during the summer in Phoenix, you know, it just becomes, you know, people say, well, it's not, it's not a, you know, it's not a humid, the humidity is not there yet. But you know, when you get to 122 degrees, it doesn't matter about whether the humidity is not fully at the same, at the same degrees. But it was an amazing experience. I mean, what I liked about it is that I discovered this concept that I'm talking about, relationships. I found that if I could build great relationships with the grocery store managers, even if my presentation wasn't exactly how they wanted or the economics weren't as good as they wanted, they would buy because I had a good relationship with them. Whereas if I didn't have a good relationship, was very, very hard to make any progress or any traction. I also felt like, are you kidding? I went for 4 years to do this, which was a lot of the work was, you know, cutting in new products in the shelves, you know, that Procter Gamble had, bringing stuff out from the back room, building displays, you know, end cap displays and all that. So part of me, it just felt like, you know, 4 years of college for this, you know, it felt like a you know, like a job that I wouldn't— it wasn't exactly expecting out of college, but I learned a lot and I got some great experience.
Well, and I love how you mentioned about the fact that you have to build the relationship with the store managers too, otherwise you're not going to sell as much. And that just reinforces the power of relationships because people buy from people.
Absolutely. Yeah. And that's, I think, that's really one of the most underrated things. You know, a lot of times people just think, well, I'm big, I have a lot of assets with my company and we can just do what we want. Yeah, you can, but ultimately, if you really want to be really, really successful, you've got to be able to have great relationships with people and companies because if you don't, you eventually suffer. And I think that's one of the most underrated things in business.
Yeah, and I would agree 100% with you. So, David, thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you?
So they can find me at David M. R. Covey. Uh, you know, I have my own website, uh, or my business, SMCovey. Uh, SM is my business partner, Stefan Mardiks. And, uh, and you can find me on, you know, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Uh, so pretty perfect. Yeah, perfect.
Well, this is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
