Catalytic Leadership

Overwhelmed by Hiring? Here’s How AI for Agency Owners Solves It with David Camacho

• Dr. William Attaway • Season 3 • Episode 105

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If hiring feels like a time-sucking maze and you're tired of putting out fires caused by the wrong fit, this episode is for you. I sat down with David Camacho, talent strategist at Regimen and founder of Total Talent Source, to explore how digital agency owners can simplify hiring, reclaim bandwidth, and create better outcomes with AI-powered tools and human-first frameworks.

David doesn’t just talk about systems — he’s built and led them. With thousands of hires under his belt, he brings a rare blend of recruiting experience, strategic insight, and AI integration that agency owners need right now.

We discuss how to use AI for agency owners to accelerate—not complicate—your processes. Whether you’re scaling your team, burned out from being the bottleneck, or curious about what to delegate first, this conversation brings clarity, practicality, and forward-thinking solutions to the hiring process.


Books Mentioned

  • Daily Rituals by Mason Currey


Want to connect with David? Reach out to him directly on LinkedIn or email him at david@totaltalentsource.com. He’s currently serving clients through Regimen, where he helps leaders implement AI-backed hiring systems that actually work.


Join Dr. William Attaway on the Catalytic Leadership podcast as he shares transformative insights to help high-performance entrepreneurs and agency owners achieve Clear-Minded Focus, Calm Control, and Confidence.

Connect with Dr. William Attaway:

Dr. William Attaway:

It is such an honor today to have David Camacho on the podcast. David helps tech founders, executive leaders and scaling startups make smarter talent decisions that drive revenue, culture and innovation. He teaches executives and elite ICs how to reverse engineer his decade of experience in talent acquisition and business so they can secure a role that aligns with their purpose. David, I'm so glad you're here. Thanks for being on the show.

David Camacho:

Thank you, william, it's an honor.

Intro / Outro:

Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help leaders intentionally grow and thrive. Here is your host author and leadership and executive coach, dr William Attaway.

Dr. William Attaway:

I would love to start with you sharing a little bit of your story with our listeners, David, particularly around your journey and your development as a leader. How did you get started?

David Camacho:

So I learned that I am in the I know a person business. I know a guy, I know a gal who does something that is of service to others, valuable in some way shape or form as far as their professional skill set, and I always found that I was making introductions to people. What I didn't know was that that was actually a career, more specifically in talent acquisition, and when I found that role it was through a sales opportunity. I knew someone who knew someone who owned a business. They said they're hiring a salesperson. I ultimately got that job very quickly because of the relationship piece which will probably play in the conversation we have today. And then from there I made a phone call to somebody at Robert Half and I said hey, look, if you need somebody who can do $20,000 in sales a month and is tenacious, give me a call back. I got a phone call in two and a half hours. In two weeks I had an entirely different career and that phone call changed my life.

David Camacho:

Obviously, and I've had a couple of those moments where things have progressed into leadership.

David Camacho:

But I think one of the biggest things I have noticed, even when I'm thinking about conversations I've had recently with people I've managed in the past is if you weren't putting yourself out there for those opportunities.

David Camacho:

If you're not working loudly as I describe it sometimes then you really don't get that seat at the table that you hear a lot of people talk about when they're looking to make their next move, whether they've already been a leader or they're growing into a management position, a director position, senior executive they all have their different levels of challenges at getting that seat at the table. But I found in its oversimplified way it's really speaking up and letting people know that you have an ambition and desire to serve people in some way, shape or form, and the service element is really a big part of leadership. It's not just that I give directives or that I think strategically. It really is in the service of others, and so I've learned that at different stages of my career. But what I found fundamentally is letting people know that you're interested and ambitious in taking on a certain scope of responsibility that falls within leadership.

Dr. William Attaway:

Have you always been good at networking? I would think networking is such an integral component of being a people connector like you are. Is that something you've always been great at?

David Camacho:

Absolutely not. When I explain to people how I got started in it, I am. I am naturally somebody who I I've learned has been described as like an ambivert, so I'm mostly introverted. I have to turn it on. Uh, I get drained, you know. My emotional energy gets lower because the amount of conversations I have to put myself out for. So I have to recharge in ways.

David Camacho:

And I was very, very shy um, all the way since childhood, even into adulthood. It was actually when I became a recruiter at Robert Half, where I had other leaders literally over my shoulder saying, hey, pick up the phone, talk to people, call people, why are you so quiet? And it really forced me to get out of my comfort zone, really forced me to get out of my comfort zone. And that where I got excited about it, it wasn't that someone was telling me hey, do this or you don't have a job. That was very real. But what got me excited about it was I used to describe it like this the reason why I like talent acquisition, or recruiting as some people refer to it, is I got to realize that you're piecing together the world around you, one career and relationship at a time.

David Camacho:

So I remember my first interview I ever had, literally got thrown into it.

David Camacho:

They said you're going to watch me do an interview and then I'm handing this entire schedule over to you and you need to interview I think it was like 15 to 20 people for the week, which is actually my goodness, and I had never done this before and I was already very, very shy, so it really got me out of my comfort zone, as I said.

David Camacho:

But I had one conversation with somebody at a bank I think it might have been Bank of America and somebody's loan department, and then literally the next interview I had was somebody else on the receiving end of the work that they do, and I said, oh, you know, I just spoke to somebody who does this job in a loan servicing and they said, oh yeah, so I take that work that they produce and then this is what I do with it. And then suddenly I'm like, oh, I understand these people better. And then, as I started to build these insights from working in finance and human resources because that's where I started recruiting I could now comfortably talk to people about what they did because I understood them.

Dr. William Attaway:

That type of listening and connecting the dots does not come easily to everybody. Some people are way more focused on what they have to say next than on actually listening, like you did there, as you do what you do with your clients now. What role does that skill play being able to listen to them and connect dots that they may not be aware of themselves?

David Camacho:

I was told by my clients, if I were to look at all the feedback I've gotten collectively so far, that I'm really good at reframing what they're experiencing, seeing or hearing into what else it could be, which makes the problem less complex. It gives them something they can incrementally work on to achieve their goal and or overcome the challenge. And it does come from listening. If I were to go way, way, way, way back and I haven't shared the story with a whole lot of people my grandmother and my mother they went to pick me up at kindergarten one day and they did not announce that they were there and they were just kind of observing me to see how I was interacting with the rest of the kids at kindergarten and they noticed that I was just observing the people in the room and they tell me the story from time to time when it's relevant. But I have had this innate curiosity since I was a child to learn. You know people talk about being a continuous learner, but I also think that maybe to a degree there might be the innate curiosity that people have, and listening is a part of that. It also takes practice. I don't think that I just had this and then I became a great listener. That's not the case. I could find people in my life who said you're not a good listener. But with clients, I really have to be intentional about my active listening, because if I don't, then it's going to be very hard for me to guide them through their challenge or to their goal. So it is something that I also had to learn. I've had great mentors, even in the past year.

David Camacho:

I worked with an executive who has an executive coaching company and they were really, really pressing me to sharpen this skill, for lack of a better description. It is something you have to put into practice, much like any form of communication. Communication is not just the how can I articulate my ideas and speak, but it's also being able to listen. That's why you have two ears and one mouth, as they say. But it took me a long time and I'm still trying to improve it. But I think, if I were to look back really far, I've always had what people have described to me as pattern recognition. So making the observation, being able to communicate it which also took me time to learn and being able to listen has allowed me, or enabled me, to have the skill set where I can see something and reframe in a way that is, frankly, simplified. I don't try to make things too complex, because then you can't do anything with it.

Dr. William Attaway:

Yeah, I think I love the way you describe that is, you know, making it simple. I think all of us are prone to overcomplicating, whether it's through overthinking, whether it's through, you know, internalizing in such a way that we just continue to pile on, pile on, bolt on pieces that really aren't there, but in our minds they are, and we make it so much more complex. It sounds like what you do is you help them kind of clear away the clutter and get to the core, the heart of the matter.

David Camacho:

Yeah, Would that be right? My former CEO said get to the root cause. Yeah, it's a skill. The way that I learned this was you have to constantly be in conversation with people about their challenges or their goals that they're trying to reach in order to get this. Much in the way that you mentioned my background in business development or sales, much in the way you can't learn that skill without having many conversations to provide a service. Even in those conversations, you're looking to identify what is the root cause of why this person is booking a call with me, why are they interested in my product or service?

David Camacho:

It's the same thing when you're dealing with people who have goals or challenges and you have to be intentional about listening. But you have to listen to understand what is underneath all of that. And sometimes I had this revelation at one point where I realized that people feel that their problem is actually bigger than it is. Not to say that it makes it less significant or diminishes it, but the feeling can, as you said, cause anxiety. But the feeling can, as you said, cause anxiety, overthinking, overwhelm, and it makes it hard for them to take action. So when you can hear them, listen to them and reframe it and say, oh, actually, have you considered doing this or this, or have you observed this about that challenge? And then they have these aha moments. They go oh yeah, so well, let's work on that.

Dr. William Attaway:

But I simply I noticed that people have a certain feeling, that is, it seems to overpower what they perceive as being the problem, and the problem can be that the feeling is overwhelming too, because it does stop you from taking action sometimes, but it may not actually be the root cause of the problem. That's good. In the bio that I read earlier, I talked about how you reverse engineer your experience to help other people, whether they're executives or elite individual contributors or wherever they are, to secure a role that aligns with their purpose. When your clients come to you, do they always know what their purpose is, or is that something you help them to determine?

David Camacho:

Yeah, I don't define their purpose. I help avail it through all the noise of, again, their overthinking, their anxiety, the stress of the job market, because a lot of people have been impacted by perpetual layoffs in all business sectors. Yeah, it's hard for people because initially, what they're trying to do is just get back to stability. If we're talking about the job market or having a career, having income, and that adds to the overwhelm which makes it hard to see a way forward. So what they typically default to are standard practices. We've all been trained that you're hired in a specific way and that way is I'm now ready or need a job, I'm going to update a resume, I'm going to apply to a job and I'm going to rinse and repeat until I get invited for an interview and so on and so forth, until I get a job offer. And then most people don't even know how to negotiate even when you get to that stage. And getting to that stage right now is even exponentially more challenging than it used to be in the past. So there's a few things relating to that. If we're talking about pattern recognition too, if I am of the experience where I can reverse, engineer insight that someone doesn't have and say hey. By the way, because I talk to people so often on a daily basis, weekly and monthly in their job search challenges. I can say to you you're doing something that doesn't work. Where people find resistance is what do you mean? This has always been the way that you do something, but if it doesn't work anymore, it's madness Literally madness to continue to do it. So the reverse engineering part is I have been on the other side of the hiring table. I have interviewed thousands of people. I have hired thousands of people personally. I've overseen the hiring, interviewing the thousands of people. So I can tell you how the machine works. The process works because I literally built them from scratch and implemented them up at other companies. So I'm taking my insights and sharing them.

David Camacho:

And the reason why I do this actually goes back to that first recruiting job I had. I walked into the bullpen, and I say bullpen on purpose. It is a sales job. Recruiting is a sales job, especially if you're working for a third party business like Robert Half, lee Hecht, harris, ronstadt and all those companies. I walked into the bullpen and what I thought was it would be more like Oprah you get a job, you get a job, everybody gets a job.

David Camacho:

That was the part that excited me the most, because, as someone who likes to help people, I thought, wow, if I could help someone get a job. I know it was like when someone helped me get a job recruiter or not a recruiter, just a friend or family member that is such a relief, but you're also impacting my stability and everything else that earning an income and having a job offers. So I love the idea of being able to go there and just start calling people who need a job. So then I realized very, very quickly that that's not what recruiting was technically. Now they talk about that. But when I got all these insights very quickly, I was like, okay, this is how I can help someone be successful in getting this job opportunity.

David Camacho:

And the way that I did this actually was not in some tactical way, it wasn't about a system or a process. It was the intention. My intention was how can I help this person? So how I help them actually might be more focused around how they show up, how they present themselves, how they communicate all the nonverbal indicators that you are the person for that organization, for that team, and how do you like really sell yourself again, because it is sales on both sides hiring and being hired and how can I share those insights? So when I say reverse engineer, a lot of it actually has to do with how people are showing up and communicating verbally and non-verbally. Can I tell you about all the tactics? Absolutely, and that's part of it. I love to what I described as like hacking the job market. Um, there are.

David Camacho:

Fundamentally, what I'm trying to teach people how to do is to have a conversation, like you and I are having. Even to get to the point, as you and I did, to have a conversation which was I was talking to somebody and I talked to people at scale intentionally. There is labor behind that. It does take time and energy, but that's how I get into conversation. So I always tell people.

David Camacho:

My experience aside, I am not special, not because I think less of myself, but that's how I get into conversation. So I always tell people. My experience aside, I am not special, not because I think less of myself, but I'm not special insofar as you can't replicate what I'm doing in this regard, meaning I talk to more people more often and I look for where they have conversations in real time, like you and I are having. I look to get invited to conversations and I do this every single day, and if you're a job seeker and you're unemployed, then you definitely have time to do this. So my insights come from connecting with people in a meaningful way at a time where we have all this technology and we've had it for several years now but people are somehow still disconnected. And I'm teaching people a fundamental skill, which is let's have a conversation, but let's talk about how you can make that valuable and reciprocal to that person so that they want to talk to you.

Dr. William Attaway:

I think a lot of people are intimidated by what you're describing. They're intimidated. They're not sure exactly what to do next. You know, and close to home I think about you know my older daughter. She just graduated college. Now she's looking for a job. She's in the job hunt that you're describing and it's a very, very different world than the world I entered more than a handful of years ago. You know like things have changed. There are so many emerging trends and things that are so different, and one of those things is AI. This is something that people who are on the bleeding edge of technology have been in the midst of for a while, but it's now starting to intersect fields and industries, even at senior executive levels that a whole lot of our listeners might be thinking. Well, that hasn't really impacted me yet. What are you seeing from where you sit? How are you helping your clients with this?

David Camacho:

So I interact with people who I'll call AI specialist builders and otherwise have either the technical acumen and or and this is more important the interest, the curiosity to start using it and putting time in to learn it. Interest, the curiosity to start using it and putting time in to learn it. And if I were to look at let's take my opinion out of it If I were to look at a recent article I saw from Korn Ferry they were talking about, I think it was 74% or more of executive leaders are concerned that they're going to lose their job to AI or some automation. That it's very real. What I find ironic is, though, people are kind of like, looking like which AI tool is going to be the best one and I'm saying this sort of arbitrarily I'm also finding that they're ironically resistant to actually implementing it. Now, I'm not saying all, but I find more often than not and the other thing that's interesting is I'm finding more individuals. Now, executives, they can be individuals, but when you look at organizations and the tools to adopt, there's so many, and the crazy thing is that what you were looking at last week has already advanced. So now, which one do you implement? And it takes time to do that from the decision-making standpoint for an organization. Well, we just implemented this one, but then I found out that there's this one. So shiny object syndrome has exponentially exploded with AI.

David Camacho:

But you finding still that, while people are saying, okay, there are, there are percentage who say, okay, we need to do this. What should we do? We're also concerned about our jobs. I was reading an article just before we hopped on here talking about how it's going to continue to impact the job market. So, for folks like your daughter and anybody who's graduated, there's a local university that I speak at where the professors are actively trying to implement this into their education, but they talk about all the red tape to be able to even put any type of new programming into the university. It takes time. The problem with that with AI, is that it's going to take you a year, two years, and that would be a miracle at the university level. Ai changed yesterday and it's going to change tomorrow.

David Camacho:

So, while I think people have an awareness, I'm seeing a couple things. There are the people who are getting curious and they're investing in themselves to go to some place, some person, some program and learn the skills to use AI in a way that is, generally speaking, probably relevant to them, or at least to start them with. I don't know what to do with it, so let me just start somewhere and learn. Do with it. So let me just start somewhere and learn. And then there are the folks who already have some technical acumen and so for them it's just another tool that they're using for efficiency and they're adding it to their toolkit. And then the folks who are curious and want to learn it but ironically, won't really hand over the reins to implement it in a meaningful way. And then I think quietly, there are still the concerns.

David Camacho:

I have a specific perspective which I find that is echoed by people who I don't even know. When I look at thought leadership around this or articles, I believe that one human connection, which is actually the foundation of what I teach my clients, is getting more and more valuable. I heard Gary Vaynerchuk say recently you're going to be paying people in the future to go for walks with you. You're going to be paying more for authentic human connection because of technology growing exponentially, especially with AI, and then the other thing in general is, human connection is going to get more valuable. So how do you replicate that at scale Problems or business goals aside. And then the other thing is that, because there are so many different AI solutions, really what I find is most effective is to talk to the person about what the goal is, because I have a colleague his name is Adam Lieber and he teaches all people how to use AI tools. He's just one of many right now who does this, and what he says is you need to focus it on the challenge, because otherwise you could implement all these AI tools and all it will do is expedite the problems that you have. It'll get you quicker to the oh, this didn't work or there's a bottleneck here. So you have to be intentional about how you use it.

David Camacho:

People are concerned and they are losing jobs. If you look at the Microsoft layoff recently, 30% of their code it's probably changed even today, but at least in the last month I think it was 30% of their code was generated by AI, and so what they're doing is moving to a model where they're pairing AI and people to do the work. But my question is which is probably what everybody's asking at what point is the people part going to get removed? So what I believe will happen is everything that can be automated will. People are right now it's a very small percentage who are getting curious and actively learning how to use these tools. They're going to be in a better position because they will have a relevant skill set. The barrier for entry-level positions and skills is evaporated.

David Camacho:

I've had people say to me you know, I would just like a customer service job. I said, well, why that job doesn't exist anymore. I can go use that or some other AI voice agent. Your job is irrelevant. It's completely irrelevant. There might be companies that still have call centers. They're not going to exist in a very short period of time. So I would encourage people to one focus on what is the challenge or the area of improvement I'm looking for in my business, even if you're a small business.

David Camacho:

Small businesses are actually the people I see adopting AI faster and more frequently, because they're usually teams of one or smaller people, solopreneurs. What do they want to do? I actually have a call with my attorney colleague. He's like I'm drowning in work. Great, now I'm going to introduce you to my AI consultant and we're going to figure out what we can automate in your business so you can actually focus on your work. So it's really a deficiency tool. I don't believe it's a replacement for people, although, inherently, if your skill set can be replaced by AI, it has already and or will be in the near future. So, really focusing on how can I level up my skills to solve problems, to be more efficient because people will be looking at that It'll be on more job descriptions. It already is and that way you can really stand out from the thousands of people in your area I'm just saying in your area, but it's really millions who are going to lose their job to people who have these skills.

Dr. William Attaway:

I had a friend of mine on the podcast last year, jonathan Mast, who spoke about AI at that point in time. This is an area he's got a tremendous amount of expertise in. He said something that I have not forgotten. He said that AI is an amplifier. It's right in line with what you were just saying If you are operating in an inefficient way, if there are holes and gaps in your systems, ai is going to amplify that, and I think a lot of people are not thinking about it as an amplifier.

David Camacho:

Yeah, when you get into it, you'll like. For example, right now I'm trying to do something very simple. I'm setting up an AI agent for my emails because that's a massive waste of my time. It is not the same as having, let's say, like Go High Level, which is a CRM, and just sending out, you know, generic emails. It actually has the ability. This is how I'm using it. It has the ability to read the profiles and the information of all the people who I have been in contact with or who are my connections. It's going to read all their profiles and it's going to send out personalized messages to them in the same way that I would, and it's going to communicate in my tone because I've given it the framework for the system.

David Camacho:

Prompt. This is like super nerdy stuff. This is how the cake is baked, right. But the reason why I'm doing it is because it's an inefficient use of my time. Where my time needs to be spent is on revenue generating activities, yes, and having the face-to-face time quality conversations that are required of me to deliver the service. But for all the other things, I can deliver either digitally in some way, shape or form.

David Camacho:

I'm going to do that right now, typically in the past, if I was hiring a staff, they would be doing this because it would be inefficient for me to spend my time as a subject matter expert on that. So I'm going to have a team of people doing that and, like I said, I find more small business owners are a little more inclined because they own the decision-making, so it can happen quicker than all of the decision-making that has to come to the table with all the different stakeholders say okay, we will implement this company-wide. I'm finding that smaller businesses are faster to do this, even though they're still kind of resistant. The people who are doing it are at a smaller percentage because they're like hey look, I'm tired of wasting my time doing this, I want to make more money, so help me make more money. It's really the problem they're solving. That's good, but it's going to change the benchmark of what work and skill sets are, and it will. It's the same thing as anything else Bad data in, bad data out, but now the AI will, as you said, or as your colleague said, amplify it.

David Camacho:

So that's why it's not effective much in the way that any software tool would be to just say oh, you know, I want to buy the most expensive HRIS system or CRM or whatever it is, well, that's great. But you can go spend hundreds of thousand dollars on a Salesforce license for your company, but if you don't know how to use it and you're putting bad data into it, which is actually a typical problem with that system, you're not going to get the outcome you're looking for. So it's really not the quality or the robustness of the features it's does it work for solving your problem. And back to the individual why it's important to develop the skill set personally, rather than someone say, hey, here it is, take this on arbitrarily. Best is relevant to what you need and the problem that you're trying to solve. And if you don't know where all the bottlenecks are and any other typical problems you have, it's bad data in, bad data out. It's really what it turns out to be. I'm oversimplifying it.

Dr. William Attaway:

No, but I think you're spot on and I think this line of thinking is what I hope our listeners are receiving and grabbing onto, because this is how we need to be thinking about these topics.

David Camacho:

And I really appreciate you bringing these up, david, because this is how we need to be thinking about these topics and I really appreciate you bringing these up, david, you know in line oh, sorry, sorry to interrupt you. Hit pause, no, go for it. In line with this is people are, and when I say people, I mean if you look at the top 50 largest and best companies to work at, according to LinkedIn. They published an article on that about two months ago. If you look at the top 10, as an example, they're all hiring skills-based workers. Why is this important? Because AI is going to be one of those skills they look for. That's right. Actually, companies like Amazon two years ago, were investing in giving free AI education. For this reason, they like to be ahead of the curve for basically everything. But as an example, these companies you will see the skill as a requirement more and more and more. As I said, it's going to change the benchmark of what an entry-level position will be, but this will also be.

David Camacho:

You can develop a specialized application for problem solving based on your expertise or your area of interest. You know we talked about purpose and using AI to do that effectively, but the generalist skill set, I think, is, while I could argue for, strategically, it's great to have awareness, but where people are focusing their hiring is in the specialty. So if you can say, hey look, I can solve your problem with AI, just with the client success management aspect, okay, what are the bottlenecks we have in client success? As an example, what are the bottlenecks we have in sales? What are the bottlenecks we have in mentorship? I'm part of an organization it's an AI company, it's called Regimen, and we use AI for thought leaders like yourself to take their library of content, whether that's video or SOPs, and you can put it into our language model and you can chat with it. So if I you know William's busy, how do I get time with him? He doesn't have time, or he has less of it it's at a premium or I don't quite know him. You can use a tool like this to solve a mentorship problem. I want to learn from William, or I want to learn from all of his peers and I can go chat with them 24 seven, get answers to my questions. If I need to meet with them, let me book time with them one-to-one.

David Camacho:

There's all sorts of ways you can apply AI, but I believe that it's going to get more specialized. People are already doing skills-based hiring and then you can focus on that. You don't have to solve all the problems. You don't have to learn all the AI. You're going to get overwhelmed and then you're going to go into analysis, paralysis, and then you're going to not take action, which is actually the opposite of what AI can help you do. So I always encourage people to use it, and just even one of my own AI business coaches he says look, just take a tool, just one, one a week, and there are many of them but pick one a week that applies to you or at least you're curious about, even to have fun with it. Play with it for 30 minutes a day, hour a day, whatever you have time for, and just build with it. What's less valuable is going to get some arbitrary certification in AI. If you are not building something with it relevant to you, relevant to your goals, your curiosity, your interest or the bottlenecks or challenges you're trying to solve for your business, then it's not relevant. So you don't have to get into this shiny object syndrome and feel like you can't learn it all and it changes every day. So just pick one to play with.

David Camacho:

Usually, people start with ChatGPT. I started there. I can now build custom GPTs. I sell them as tools to people. So I basically learned how to create a business just through my curiosity, or create a digital product. I wrote in one month. I wrote my strategy guide.

David Camacho:

It's a book All the things I had sort of archived in my head about ideas. I wrote a book. I started a podcast. I have sold digital products. I created a supplemental training course using an AI tool that people can chat with me 24-7 if they need to and they can get customized action plans. All these things solve problems specific to me or the service that I want to help people with, and so everybody can do this in some way, shape or form. You don't need all the shiny objects. Just pick one, tinker with it for a week, get into the practice of it and figure out okay, how can I apply this in my way? That? Maybe it's for my hobby or my workflow, whatever it might be. That's where you're going to get the most progress. Credentials or certifications are less relevant, because if you're not building with it, you're not actually learning Right.

Dr. William Attaway:

I love that and I love the way you're modeling this. You know, and not just for you and your business, but of course that's where you start, but you're now modeling this for your clients and for all of our listeners, helping them understand. This is how you're going to stay on top of your game. This is how you're going to level up with the new skills that the next chapter is going to require of you and demand of you. I love that you are leading the way in that and not just talking about it or encouraging other people to do it.

David Camacho:

That's the one thing about me that you know. Back to the earlier observation you made, I don't like to do things that are so complex that you can't take action. And if it is complex, how can we break it down? To be simple, my main goal is and if it is complex, how can we break it down? To be simple, my main goal is how can I? Because I mean this is, you know, fair enough. This is how I think. How can I simplify this so that I can do something with it?

David Camacho:

Yes, I never, ever, advise any client, regardless of what they do, what level they're at. I never advise anyone to do anything that I haven't done myself, that I haven't also seen work or be effective in some way, shape or form towards whatever their goal is or challenge or trying to solve, Because otherwise it's just theoretical. If I want a theoretical, I'll go spend time in university and I do believe in higher education, but I believe in being so far behind the eight ball, at a time where things are moving exponentially, that I can't do something with it today, and that's really really one of my frustrations If I can't do something with it today, and that's really one of my frustrations. If I can't take the information and do something with it today, then is it really valuable to me? I tend to prioritize that less, so I try to give people skill sets that they can walk away with today.

David Camacho:

If it's, I don't know who to talk to. I'm going to show you how I find people very quickly. If I don't know how to get their contact information no-transcript don't have a system to that it's very hard to take action and you get into the overthinking. People start to object to themselves and say, well, I'm not good enough, or should I even be in the room? Am I allowed to have a conversation? Just people, just people.

Dr. William Attaway:

So well said, information is important, but information without execution never leads to transformation, and I think that that focus on taking action is so critical to everything you've talked about today and something that we strongly encourage. I know both of us, with our clients and with our listeners on this show.

David Camacho:

I think what you said is the truest truth of it all, which is transformation comes from action. It doesn't come from talking about it. It doesn't even come from awareness. So if I pick up a book and I'm like, oh, this is some transformative information, it does not matter, Because if you don't do anything with it, that transformation never occurs. It really comes down to the action getting uncomfortable, putting into practice until you are gaining proficiency. I'm not saying perfection, I don't believe in perfection. That was actually hard for me to get over. Just taking the action is where the transformation occurs. Otherwise you're just talking about it so good.

Dr. William Attaway:

Speaking of books, one thing I ask all of our guests is there a book that has made a big difference in your journey that you would recommend to the leaders who are listening?

David Camacho:

Yeah, there's a very simple one that I like that I refer people to all the time. It is the Daily Routines, and I don't have the author in front of me. I should have thought of that one, I'm sorry. It's Daily Rituals and what it is. It's kind of like a social anthropological book. It is very easy to read. It breaks it down into small chapters and it basically covers philosophers, scientists, thought leaders of the 19th and 20th century, artists, creatives in general, political thinkers, and what it does is it breaks down their daily rituals to show you one how they focused and sort of planned out their day, and maybe that helps you identify them. But if I were to look at it and sort of step back, it's how did they systemize their thought leadership or what they were producing in a way that they could repeat it every day? That eventually got them to their goal. So some of these folks.

David Camacho:

Now, one thing I don't like about education or quote unquote, corporate America, is we have been institutionalized to think that you can only operate or perform during certain hours nine to five, arbitrarily, if I could say that. But all the thought leaders that I respect, with the exception and recognition of burnout as a possibility if you don't have balance. These folks have balance and he talks about it in the story. Some of them would work between midnight and, let's say, like 8 am in the morning, and then what I find common with all of them was they had a fixed period of time where they worked in a focused manner, uninterrupted, and it was known if they had families. We don't interrupt this person, men and women. We don't interrupt this person in this timeframe. That's when they do their core work and then they have time for family. So some of them they would work at the middle of the night, have breakfast with their family and then they would move on to their social activities. There's a pattern of this with all these thought leaders that all of them you would recognize. These are not obscure. These are all thought leaders of the 19th and 20th century. They all have the pattern where they have focused time to work uninterrupted, they spend time with their family and then they have their social activities. Rinse and repeat, they're hyper-focused on that. So that's why I like that book, because it shows you that there might be someone that you identify with. That isn't a nine to fiver, and they have examples of people who did operate like that, but I find that most people have some other thing that works better for them. I have a colleague who I'm meeting with after our meeting and we're building an AI-empowered job market platform which I'll share with you later down the road, and you know conversation, but he likes to work between I think it's like 10 am and 8 pm and that's his core focus time to work with clients and to build. That's what works for him.

David Camacho:

Me, I'm kind of like I'm a little bit of a night owl, but I also have family, so I have to sort of adjust my schedule accordingly. But I find that I do some of my best work in the evening. I even coach people in the evening, not because I necessarily want to, but everybody has different schedules. But there's a time in the day. If you really sit down, you would find you have like a peak performance time, and that may not be nine to five. So that's why I like that book. It's a very easy read and I'm sure you'll find someone in that book where you identify and go oh, I bet I could perform better if I had more structure to my day or I focused it in this time frame which works for me and my family or my social life, whatever that might be. But that's why I like that book. It's called Daily Rituals.

Dr. William Attaway:

I have not read this. I'm not familiar with it, so I will be checking this out. Thank you for that. That's awesome, david. I could talk to you for another hour. Every time we talk, I'm constantly learning something new, and today's been no exception, and I'm so glad that our listeners have benefited from the wisdom that you've brought. I know they're going to want to stay connected to you and continue to learn from you and more about what you're doing. What's the best way for them to do that?

David Camacho:

So there's a couple of ways. I'm fine with people reaching out to me on LinkedIn. It's David Camacho. I'm currently at a company it People reached out to me on LinkedIn. It's David Camacho. I'm currently at a company. It's an AI company called Regimen. I'm very easy to spot. I make myself available. If they want, they can email me, david at totaltalentsourcecom. That's my DBA that I do all of these coaching businesses from and these other services related to career and or talent acquisition advising, and I'm very responsive, so feel free to reach out to me. I generally I like to talk to everybody as much as I'm able to and help them with their respective challenges within those areas.

Dr. William Attaway:

We'll have all those links in the show notes. Fantastic, David. Thanks for your time today and your generosity.

David Camacho:

Thank you very much.

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