David A. Purdy

It's taken me 4o years and 4 careers to find my purpose. But I finally found it: I'm here to help people find their purpose and passion, get them on their feet, help give that passion a voice, and the ability to inspire others to do so as well.

Generative Communication Coaching and Training

A couple of years ago, OpenAI released ChatGPT, exciting and terrifying just about all of us. Would Artificial Intelligence empower humanity or push us aside? I’d argue that managing that kind of uncertainty creatively is our unique value proposition as humans. We just need to make sure that we build on all of our humanity, not just the parts that add and memorize and optimize! After all, the machines are great at that kind of thing! But, as the truly creative creatures we are, we have the potential to generate something truly new, and weave that essence into our everyday work. That's what Generative Communication is designed to help us do.

My approach combines the study and experience of what makes us human, including the arts, sciences, philosophy and business best practices. Generative Communication helps us relearn what we knew as children: creativity is more than just fun, it’s our foundation. It’s about being fully alive in the moment, free to discover what that moment offers both you and others. It’s about empowering your partner, your team, and your company to make a unique contribution to the world, together. It’s a chance to reclaim all of your humanity, creating something new through how we connect, communicate and collaborate with others.

In addition to business best practices, Generative Communication uses a range of subdisciplines that artists use to tap their creativity even in challenging circumstances. Typically, these disciplines – including mindfulness and somatosensory theories and practices – are standalone offerings. We draw them together, not just to sharpen your skills and accelerate your growth, but to help you excel when things go wrong. And, that’s a good thing because today’s world presents us with some newly emerging challenges.

For example, our technology has created a whole new ecosystem, to which we’ve yet to fully adapt. As a result, we’ve seen dramatic increases in levels of anxiety and stress around the world. Generative Communication helps participants understand those challenges and begin to manage them. For example, by using mindfulness in action and developing ‘Yes, and’ energy with others, you’ll be able to fully ground yourself and, as such, take your work to a higher level.

Finally, Generative Communication helps you explore what neuroscience and psychology has discovered over the last 20 years to help you understand how you’re hardwired and how you can use that understanding to grow and change. Knowing those theories can help you understand what you’re working with. But, it’s the arts-based practices that can help you bring those insights to life.

For more than a decade I have taken a coaching approach to my students and clients. My goal is to build on your lived self narratives and help you play the roles you've yet to play.

In addition to my undergraduate and graduate students, I've coached executives from around the world

Emerging Leaders from South Africa's Bankseta Emerging Financial Leaders Program, Summers 2012 to 2014
Extended coaching engagement John Rhodes, Chief Risk Officer, Lincoln Financial Group, from 2012 to 2013
Columbia Translational Neuroscience Initiative, 2-year engagement to work with neuroscience postdocs to translate their research for more effective collaboration and heightened visibility in their specialties, from 2014 to 2016
Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship -- Entrepreneurs competing in the Berkley Award Competition, Springs from 2013 to 2020
Strategic Communication Exec Ed Program from 2012 to 2018
Developed and Facilitated Coaching Session for IBM Watson, 2018
Developed, facilitated and coached financial executives in a 2-week extensive for SKF - a 100+ year old Swedish manufacturing company, summers 2015 to 2019
Developed and Facilitated Writing Workshop for the top 25 Administrators for Espoo, Finland, February 2020 (Program c0-accredited by Aalto University and the University of Helsinki)

Background: A Lifetime in Business and the Arts and Sciences

I had the great privilege of studying classical choral conducting with the great Robert Page and Elaine Brown at Temple University in the 70’s. I was a romantic and idealistic young man. I remember the distinct sense that somehow Bach was underscoring my life, setting the cacophony of the streets in north Philly to some improbable counterpoint that would give meaning to it all. But, instead of becoming the next great choral conductor, I’ve spent most of my life in just about every role one can play in the financial world -- back office, manager, analyst, financial communicator in-house (for Fannie Mae and my own startup) and as a consultant to help startups manage their fundraising efforts. I got an MBA in finance along the way.

An Early Mid-life Crisis, which can Help You Overcome Yours!

I quit my comfy investor relations job, and became an actor, studied at the Studio Theater Acting Conservatory for three grueling years. I had a brief career as an actor but soon realized that it wasn't going to pay the bills. Otherwise, it's been a long and winding road to my position as a professor at NYU’s Stern school of business since 2010. My work at NYU has given me the chance to indulge my life-long love of science, connecting with colleagues at NYU and beyond to study cognitive and social psychology, and affective and somatosensory neuroscience.

My years of business experience help my students and clients understand their experience. But what I learned the arts may be more important. I learned that our conversations can become more effective when they're both a dialogue and duet. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms -- and even Charles Ives -- teach the craft of combining your melody in counterpoint with theirs. Doing so can produce a harmonic whole, what Martin Buber called the 'I-Thou.' Shakespeare, Ibsen, Sondheim and their colleagues can help us embody our truest selves in the roles we play at work and in our larger lives.

What I learned from music and theater is the arts can combine the deep wisdom of human experience from throughout history with the wholly new nature of the present moment. Let me share some of that learning with you and let's see what we can create together.