David Fish No Two Fish

David Fish No Two Fish I’m David.

I help leaders, founders, and sales teams sharpen their message, show up with authority, and turn thinking into commercial traction — online, in the market, and in the room.

If there was ever an example of what it means to show up in such a way that you have presence because of who you are, th...
09/02/2026

If there was ever an example of what it means to show up in such a way that you have presence because of who you are, this is it.

I believe we often talk about legacy glibly. As a workshop exercise, rather than giving it the time to mature and acquire the same depth and finish as a fine wine does when left to cellar for many years.

Last year, Felix was tragically killed in a paragliding accident. I can't claim to know him well, but I did work with him and Red Bull on a record attempt in my London agency days.

At the time, he was pushing the boundaries hard in base jumping, and it's fair to say he was a character with an ego and an edge that wasn't everyone's cup of tea.

I continued to follow his journey and watched how he evolved as a person as he relentlessly pushed himself and the boundaries of not just aviation but what was humanly possible.

As the adventures and challenges grew, he seemed to become more grounded and clear about who he was. And like many, I was shocked by his death as he had become such an incredible force in so many disciplines of flight and a positive role model in ways I suspect he could never have imagined. What he stood for had become bigger than him.

The image is a screenshot of the Flying Bulls' tribute to Felix (the Flying Bulls is the Red Bull Flying Museum in Austria).

His legacy is real.

And achieving this level of presence is inspiring and powerful, something I think we could all be better for holding up as something worth striving for.

If you ever want a baseline for what it means to show up, for me, this is it.

Felix, you are and always will be truly a legend.

Connection doesn't happen by accident. It happens by design. Teams drift when they rely on meetings as a measure of conn...
07/02/2026

Connection doesn't happen by accident. It happens by design.

Teams drift when they rely on meetings as a measure of connectivity. The work gets done, but the
meaning behind the work thins out.

Connection returns when people feel seen, understood and valued beyond their functional outputs. When teams slow down long enough to name what they value, what they bring, and what they need, that's when what needs to change becomes the game-changer instead of another spreadsheet of well-intentioned but never-completed action items.

Designing these conversations is not fluffy. It is the foundation of momentum, trust and high-performance teams.

When teams reconnect to each other, they reconnect to the work with a renewed sense of purpose.

The audience stays with the story when they feel seen.Most messages fail because they assume attention equals connection...
05/02/2026

The audience stays with the story when they feel seen.

Most messages fail because they assume attention equals connection instead of ensuring they create it.

Connection happens when you reflect the audience's world back to them with accuracy and empathy.

Name what they are feeling before you tell them what you think, and you'll find the objections stop when people feel seen, and start listening.

05/02/2026

If you give me a chance, I'll tell you some amazing stories.

But sometimes, being "amazing" isn't what's going to work for us. In fact, sometimes being amazing is just a way of hiding the real story—the powerful, messy, human one.

We often use a polished narrative as a shield. We use it to protect ourselves or simply because we aren't ready for the real story to be told yet. We choose the veneer of being "impressive" over the vulnerability of being real.

But presence isn't built through polish. It's built through showing up as you, by being human even when it hurts to admit you were a bit rubbish at something, like really, embarrassingly rubbish.

People move when they believe you see what they cannot.Information informs. Belief transforms.People take action when yo...
03/02/2026

People move when they believe you see what they cannot.

Information informs. Belief transforms.

People take action when you help them picture a future they could not articulate on their own.

Show them what is at stake, what becomes possible, and why it matters now.

Belief creates momentum where logic alone stalls.

I've learned to be careful about reading team harmony as a pure sign of team health, because sometimes it's not alignmen...
03/02/2026

I've learned to be careful about reading team harmony as a pure sign of team health, because sometimes it's not alignment, it's guardedness wearing a polite smile.

The meeting runs smoothly, everyone agrees quickly, and it can feel like progress, but leaders should be alert to what's missing: the respectful challenge, the honest "I'm not sure," the openly shared alternative view that could sharpen the thinking.

When a team still feels the need to stay guarded, harmony can be hiding the need for self-protection. The good news is that it can shift fast once the environment becomes safe to show up and bring a real point of view into the room.

Influence grows when people feel you, not just see you.We confuse exposure with engagement. We assume views equal impact...
03/02/2026

Influence grows when people feel you, not just see you.

We confuse exposure with engagement. We assume views equal impact.

Real connection is felt, not measured.

In a world where communication is constant but attention fleeting, leaders who create emotional resonance are the ones standing out and getting ahead.

People remember how you made them feel more than they remember last quarter's numbers.

How you show up shapes how people decide.Trust rises when your presence communicates steadiness and intention.This is no...
01/02/2026

How you show up shapes how people decide.

Trust rises when your presence communicates steadiness and intention.

This is not performance. It is how you hold yourself in a moment that feels important to others.

Teams and clients respond to the leader who signals calm authority, not the one who fills space with unnecessary noise.

Presence tells people they are in safe hands.

01/02/2026

We owe our ability to travel the world to two brothers who knew how to argue well.

Wilbur and Orville Wright didn't just build a flying machine. They built a way of thinking together that helped them overcome the impossible. They are credited with the first controlled, powered flight in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, and what lies beneath that moment is something most teams avoid rather than actively seek out.

Healthy conflict.

Every flight attempt before them ended in a crumpled mess. The Wright brothers moved through the same kinds of challenges: wing design, propeller shape, engine placement, and stability, but what separated them wasn't just curiosity or grit.

It was the way they used disagreement to refine their thinking.

When they hit a problem, they would argue for different solutions and actively challenge each other's thinking. To outsiders, it looked like this pair would never get it together enough to finish the project. But at the heart of the tension was the magic.

After intense dialogue laying out their respective cases, they would then switch roles and argue against their own original position, while the other brother defended it.

That move matters. It forces everyone to see the problem from multiple angles and prevents the team from getting trapped in a single story.

What tends to happen next is new ideas show up, a third way that neither person could see at the start because they were standing in their own corner. They didn't move forward by winning arguments. They moved forward by strengthening their thinking.

This is why embracing conflict as a way to expand perspective is a foundation for teams that want to rise above mediocre. Not conflict for heat. Conflict for depth.

But conflict only stays healthy when two conditions exist.

The first is trust, real trust, not just "we get along." Trust that says, "If I challenge you, I'm not challenging your value here." It's trust built on a deep connection.

Without that, conflict triggers something ancient in us, the fear of exclusion. The fear of being pushed out of the tribe. And when that fear gets activated, people stop thinking clearly. They start protecting themselves. That's when conflict escalates, or shuts down, and either way the team loses.

The second condition is alignment. Not alignment as in agreement, but alignment on what we're trying to build. When the goal is shared, disagreement becomes a contribution rather than a threat. It becomes about getting to a better version, not about being right or winning over someone in the room.

So here's the question worth sitting with.

Does your team avoid conflict because the thinking can't get any better, or because the conditions don't feel safe enough to disagree?

And if it's the second one, what is that costing you right now?

Contrast accelerates clarity and decision making.People understand ideas by comparing them to what they already know.If ...
30/01/2026

Contrast accelerates clarity and decision making.

People understand ideas by comparing them to what they already know.

If you want your message to land with ease and speed, help the audience see the shift from old to new, from stuck to possible, from familiar to better.

Contrast fast tracks clarity. Clarity is the key to commitment.

I've noticed the most useful offsites aren't the ones with the biggest energy spike, though they can be fun to run and d...
27/01/2026

I've noticed the most useful offsites aren't the ones with the biggest energy spike, though they can be fun to run and deliver a warm-and-fuzzy feeling in the moment. No, it's the ones that reveal what the team has been politely dancing around, you know that tension that everyone can feel that lives just beneath the surface and quietly erodes performance and starts to fracture trust in the leadership.

I can tell when the conditions haven't existed for this to be dealt with in the day-to-day by observing who speaks early and openly, and who stays guarded or quiet. Where humour shows up as the shield of avoidance and the gentle nudges and deliberate glances as the tension that never gets named is circled once again, and there is the hope that someone will take one for the team, and step into the void.

A good offsite is not about creating exercises that manufacture connection; everyone can see straight through those, and they can do more harm than good.

No, they are about creating the conditions where honest perspectives can surface, shared context is revealed, and real debate can come back into the conversation. When that happens, the team can leave with the kind of alignment that actually survives the reality of Monday back in the office and leads to a lasting change.

Leadership is felt through conviction, not volume.When leaders communicate with hesitation, the audience mirrors that un...
26/01/2026

Leadership is felt through conviction, not volume.

When leaders communicate with hesitation, the audience mirrors that uncertainty.

Conviction acts as a stabiliser. It tells people the path is solid even when the terrain is unfamiliar.

To land this as a leadership message, speak from grounded belief in the future you are asking others to walk toward. People rarely follow information. They follow the person who is already on their way.

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