We were lucky to catch up with David Kitchen recently and have shared our conversation below.

David, appreciate you joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

As a former Division 1 Coach, I have had the opportunity to see leadership, culture, and high performance across multiple organizations at the highest level of college athletics and on the biggest stages.

Edge Leadership Academy was born from a simple quote from one of the most talented athletes I’ve ever been around. He came to my office during his senior season and I could tell something was wrong. I sat with this young man, who was one of our team captains, and talked about expectations, the team, coaches, and beyond. Then he said it. He said the sentence I had known to be true but had never heard out loud. He looked at me and said, ‘My whole life I have been the best on every team I’ve played on and people are always telling me to lead, but nobody ever taught me how.’ This young man is not the exception, he is the norm, and Edge was built to change that.

Using leadership as a starting point for my business, I found that most people struggle to lead themselves as well. Whether they are holding on to limiting beliefs, allowing external factors to control their inner dialogue, or just unclear of what they want in life, people are struggling to build the lives they want. I personally resonated with this as a product of a single-parent household and someone who has overcome depression and anxiety diagnoses. I know the power of having clarity in your vision, mission, and values, and making the decision to get out of the stands and into the arena of your life. I saw the changes firsthand when I decided to stop being a character in my story and become the author. I find no greater joy than giving that feeling to others.

David, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

To give you a little background, I am David Kitchen (everyone calls me Kitch), the founder of Edge Leadership Academy which is a leadership consulting and training firm aimed at arming as many people as possible with skills and mindset to win in business, athletics, and in life.

Personally, I am the product of a single-parent household who saw addiction and struggle at a young age. I was raised by a single-mother who instilled one of my most important lessons on a daily basis; lead with love. I became the “man of the house” at 11 years old, and have been working to understand what it means to be a leader and a good man ever since.

My athletic ability and the support of some great coaches gave me the opportunity to play football in college and ultimately sparked the passion in me to become a coach. Prior to founding Edge Leadership Academy, I spent 10 years as a collegiate strength & conditioning coach including being the youngest Head Strength Coach in all of NCAA at 24 years old and spending time in Division 1 men’s basketball at Georgia Southern University and FBS college football at UNLV.

My coaching experience gave me a front-row seat to leadership, culture, and high performance at the highest level of sports and business. It also made me realize that I could make an impact beyond the athletic world. I had built skills, gained knowledge, and backed it with a masters degree in sport psychology. I felt compelled to share these tools with the world.

During the height of the pandemic, I walked away from a contract extension to launch Edge and pursue my PhD in Psychology. Since then, I have facilitated leadership and culture workshops, and consulted for over 35 NCAA teams including the University of Miami Football and 8-figure corporations. I’ve also had the opportunity to deliver keynotes and coaching to 100+ Coaches, Administration, and C-Suite executives across a variety of industries.

The success of our clients at Edge Leadership Academy has allowed me the opportunity to author 3 books on leadership, high-performance, and entrepreneurship including an international bestseller. My first book, The Pyramid: A System for Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders Today, was written to provide coaches and business leaders with a how-to manual for developing leaders within their teams. Shortly after that was published, I had people reaching out to learn more about my habits, philosophies, and personal-development routines. This led to the development of my second book, The Scoreboard: An Audit System to Help You Build the Life You Want. This book was an in-depth look at the exact systems I used to build not only the mindset of my clients and elite athletes, but also the audit system I use for my own habits, relationships, and development. After appearing on over 60 leadership and personal development podcasts, I was asked to co-author a book about how I built my business and my pivot into entrepreneurship. This book, Evolvepreneur: After Hours, became an international best-seller.

With this track record of success, I’ve been invited to deliver keynote addresses nationwide which led to the Platinum Speakers Award in 2023. Whether it is a corporate event, an athletics event, or a self-development summit, I have gotten the opportunity to share the stage with some of the biggest names in leadership and personal development to share the lessons I’ve learned from coaching at the highest level of sports, working with elite entrepreneurs, building businesses, and overcoming depression and anxiety. Most importantly, I’ve gotten the opportunity to inspire and educate thousands of people on how they too can step into the arena of life and build their own fulfilled life.

The next natural progression for me as an entrepreneur was to dive deep with individuals who are committed to building these skills to lead and win in life. That led to the creation of our coaching programs at Edge Leadership Academy. We now offer mindset, leadership, and sales coaching to a variety of clients. These intimate coaching experiences allow me to dive even deeper and utilize the psychology and performance tools I’ve learned to help people get massive results in their business, life, and relationships.

As much as the world may try to define “success” with external metrics, I define success as the ability to lay my head down at night knowing that I traded a day of my indefinite time on this planet to help people. I’m most proud that I have designed a life around living in my purpose of helping leaders show up as the best version of themselves in business and in life.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I’ve always loved the quote “what got you crowned will get you killed.” because so much of life is about learning from your wins and your losses.

Less than a year after launching Edge Leadership Academy, I had exceeded my projections and had become profitable. At the time, one of my driving beliefs was to say yes to everything. Every meeting, every opportunity, and that opened me up to a lot of potential risk. Essentially, my business plan was “bet big, win big, go fast, and break things”. I had built a career in collegiate coaching by being the hardest worker in the room with no regard for my own wellbeing. I carried that over to business without realizing the need for more intentional action. Within a few months, I partnered on other business ventures, invested in projects, and even opened a 22,000 sq ft performance facility. In short, I was doing everything, and doing nothing well.

I was driving home one day from the gym and making a sales call for another business while checking numbers on my iPad….all while driving. All of a sudden, I felt my hands start to shake, my chest got tight, and my vision blurred. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was my first panic attack. My mindset around stress management had always been to just work harder, so that’s what I did. For the next few weeks I put the pedal down even further and spiraled into daily panic attacks and eventually a full-blown depression diagnosis.

I hadn’t walked away from any of the projects I was involved in, and because I was battling my own demons, my businesses were bleeding out. I remember walking to my truck and getting the notification that my account was overdrawn. I had gone from a business growing 10x to broke in just a few months.

I had a choice to make. I took a screenshot of the email, and made a note to myself; never again. That day I made the decision to cut my losses on the other projects and close the training facility. With the help of my family, therapy, and an unbelievable team around me, I worked my way through the depression. I went all the way back to basics. One business, one mission. Since then, we’ve tripled Edge Leadership Academy’s business, and I’ve become a much more calculated entrepreneur. I still take risks, I still push the limits, but I balance those things out with reflection, intentional rest, and a clear vision. What got me crowned almost got me killed and I never forgot that.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Building a brand in today’s age is a non-negotiable for entrepreneurs. The first impression the market gets of you is usually via social media. That being said, I made some mistakes early on. I tried to launch a business brand and build my personal brand. It was confusing for our consumers and there was a lot of carryover. Ultimately, a personal brand is much more powerful than a business brand. This is especially true for entrepreneurs who have multiple services or businesses. As long as you’re developing good products and services, the right consumers from your broad personal brand audience will follow you in whatever ventures fit them.

People buy from people they know, like, and trust. That’s the approach I take with social media. My brand on social is an unfiltered view of who I am as a person. Authenticity is the key to that. So many people use social media as a place for their highlights and it alienates people. I share my good days, my bad days, and the in-between. When designing my brand, I wanted people to know I would show up scars and all, because that’s what the human experience is. It also means accepting that you won’t be for everyone. That’s ok. You can’t serve everyone, so find your people and give them everything you have.

Once you know how you want to show up, it’s about deciding on your platform. Where are your customers at? When I first started, college athletics made up 80% of my business. Coaches and athletes are on instagram and twitter, so that’s where I focused my energy. Now that I do a lot of corporate work, I’m building a more prominent presence on LinkedIn. Again, know where your people are, then go there. One caveat here, I don’t change my voice on each platform. I’m not going to pretend to be something I’m not on LinkedIn vs. Instagram. Authenticity wins.

Choosing your medium can be a challenge, for this I like to lean into my strengths. If you like talking to the camera, do that. If you prefer the written word, do that. Master what works for you. Personally, I felt more comfortable writing at first, so for a long time I would do simple posts with long captions. I still don’t do well with scripted videos, so 99% of the video content you see from me is unscripted. How can you best get your message through? Again, it’s all about knowing yourself.

At the end of the day, building your brand comes down to knowing exactly who you are, and staying true to that. It’s your ability to consistently give people value. I want people to binge my content because they’re getting so much value from each clip. I’m a firm believer in giving away your best stuff. Gatekeeping and teasers don’t build real connection. Showing up and genuinely giving people what they need and want is what builds community. A lot of people look at social media as a way to communicate with their audience, but communication is about what you want. I look at it as a way to connect with my audience. Connection is about how do I serve you so we both win. Social media should be a mutually beneficial experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.edgeleadershipacademy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CoachDKitch/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EdgeLeadershipAcademy/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachdkitch/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CoachDkitch
• Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/built-not-born-podcast/id1538583934 https://www.tiktok.com/@coachdkitch