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Bio
Nelson Davis is the Founder and Chief Vizion Officer of Analytic Vizion, a data and analytics consulting firm designed to equip and inspire the next generation of data and technology leaders worth following.
Bio
Nelson Davis is the Founder and Chief Vizion Officer of Analytic Vizion, a data and analytics consulting firm designed to equip and inspire the next generation of data and technology leaders worth following.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Welcome to the Fortified Life Podcast, where we learn how
to develop a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. From
the boardroom to the bathroom. God is with you. Here's
our host, author, speaker, teacher, encourager.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Spirit chief coach, and my husband.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's the man they call mister forty five Jason Davis.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode
of the Fortified Life podcast where we are passionate about
developing a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. I'm your host,
Jason Davis aka mister Fortify. Every week we have the
opportunity to bring on authors, speakers, coaches, CEOs, leaders of
(00:58):
nonprofits who are are also passionate about putting God back
in business and folks. As you know, it is no
different this week. I am very excited for this episode.
Shout out to BENJ. Miller for the connection. Well, let
me tell you a little bit about our guests today.
Nelson Davis. He's the founder and Chief Vision Officer of
(01:21):
Analytic Vision, a data and analytics consulting firm designed to
equip and inspire the next generation of data and technology
leaders worth following. He's a man of faith, a dreamer
of big dreams and a lover of people who seeks
to serve those who are serving others. Nelson lives in
Atlanta with his wife and children. His desires to impact
(01:46):
the next generation of marketplace leaders for the better. Ladies
and gentlemen. Please welcome to the Fortified Life podcast. Nelson
Davis Nelson, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Man?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Jason honored to be here, very grateful for the opportunity
to connect with you, spend some time with you, share
a little bit about life, and just humbled by that introduction. Man,
thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Indeed, Well, Nelson, what I love about people is everyone
has a story, and we know you being a founder, Nelson,
that that just didn't come out of nowhere. We know
that there was some trial error, some contemplation involved, so
we know what it looks like in twenty twenty five.
(02:30):
But what led you to founding the company? And kind
of chronicle your career path and how you got here?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Man? I love the question. I will kind of begin
to answer that. As you said, I think it's one
of those things where you could really pick up a
story of a founder in a lot of different places,
and I would say that certainly for me, I begin
it with really the birth of my fourth son, which
happened in twenty eighteen, So contextually speaking, we launch Analytic
(03:01):
Vision in May of twenty nineteen, but it was kind
of spring twenty eighteen, and my son, my fourth son,
is born, and immediately he kind of goes into some
challenges just with breathing and ends up in the nick
you for thirteen days. We get him back, but it's
it kind of finds me in this very busy season
of life, and there's just a ton going on at
(03:23):
my old company as a consultant and leading as a father.
I've now got a fourth son, I've got four boys
that are six and under or five and under at
that time, and i'm you know, father, husband, leader of
my company, et cetera. And the guy that I was
doing a lot of our work with professionally went and
took another role. And so now I've got even more
(03:44):
weight kind of thrust on my shoulders. And went through
a season where I just needed to study that ship
and did so, but never been busier in my life.
And as I get through that season, probably about three
months into that, I'm beginning to just kind of breathe
and As I'm doing that, I'm sitting at Johnson Fairy
Baptist Church and this is back when Bryant Right is
the pastor and he's doing a series on Moses and leadership.
(04:09):
And as I go in, i'm sitting there, I just
begin to get this tug on my heart. It just
says it's time to go. And I was like, I
don't want to go. I'm comfortable. I'm figuring this thing out.
This has been hard. I do not want to do this.
I don't want to leave. So I left. I came
back the next week and it was stronger. And I
left and came back the next week and I was stronger.
And I went to my wife probably after that third week,
(04:30):
and I was like, hey, I feel like God is
asking me to leave SLOM and go start a company.
And she looked back at me, she said, are you
sure it's God? I said pretty sure, And she looks
and she says, well, I think you better do that.
I was like, dang it, because I didn't want to.
You know, I'm not I'm not a guy who's got
a lot of entrepreneurial bones in my body. I didn't
(04:53):
ever have the limitade stand I don't have an NBA.
I never had any interest in founding anything really crossed
my mind. My mom was an elementary school teacher, my
dad was a hospital administrator, and just like entrepreneurship was
not a concept or a conversation for the first thirty
something years of my life. And so I'm beginning to
(05:15):
like try to figure out what the world's even mean.
And I spent the next few months talking to people,
and I had two of the guys that I've considered
kind of doing a partnership with who had more entrepreneurial background,
a little bit more when it came to like nbas
et cetera. And ultimately felt the Lord really kind of
(05:36):
clearly tell me and stay as I explored that opportunity,
that he was going to close that door, and that
it was really he was inviting me to step into
this as a sole founder. And that became very clear
as we got into kind of December and into January,
and then the I could spend hours telling the next
part of the story, but I won't. The kind of
(05:58):
January through May, my father went through multiple forms of cancer,
and it was he had two different, two different four sorry,
three different forms of cancer in two different places, starting
in kind of January February, began to get ready for
(06:19):
all the treatment and so forth was gonna happen there.
And then as he was in April, as he was
getting ready for that, realized that he also had cancer,
a third location, fourth type of cancer. And the good
news is he ultimately survived all of that, which was
absolute blessing. But you don't know that into the story
when you're in it. And so I'm processing all this
(06:43):
and I'm overwhelmed by again all the responsibility and all
the challenge. So you know, there was a moment in
February where, you know, I'm leading critical projects in my
previous organization. I'm leading a large and growing team. I'm
coaching baseball with my old the son. I'm father to
four boys who are now six and under. My dad's
(07:06):
got cancer, and I'm supposed to go because I feel
like I'm called to go start a company. And the
overwhelm of that was just crushing. I sat down with
my wife on a Saturday night and just kind of
prayed and taught through it and felt very much like,
you know, hey, let's put this entrepreneurial thing on the
on the shelf. For twelve months because I just can't
(07:26):
do all this. This is just it's too much. And
there's a moment very clearly that that following Monday, when
my previous company that i'd been at back in twenty
twelve called me said, Hey, we're trying to build this thing.
We don't think it's possible, but we figured we'd call
you and figure out. You know which you said, and
(07:46):
it was, you know, oh, you need somebody to go
build something. Oh you do you need somebody to develop
it and pay them? Oh? Interesting? So when do you
need it? Oh? I could do it. You mean me
or me my company? Oh? You or me? Interesting? Okay.
And so it was like I was trying to get
on the off ramp to exit, and God was like, no,
you're not. The off ramp is blocked you. You were
(08:09):
going to stay on this interstate. We were going somewhere.
So again I could tell a story after story. The
last thing that I'll say is as as I had
turned in my resignation, I had leaned fully into and
you know, kind of going into this next chapter I've got.
It's the Thursday before kind of my very last day.
(08:32):
So two days before I'm done, done, at my old company.
I'm with my dad in the in the hospital room.
I'm telling him all these different stories about starting the
company and his grandkids and this leadership development that I'm
doing coaching the new company, all this different stuff, right,
and you know, spend that time and then I walk out.
I'll get out to my car and I'm in downtown Atlanta.
(08:54):
I'm at the Emery Midtown in a parking lot that
doesn't exist anymore, and I look out to the west
and I just get this vision and the thing that
I had wrestled with. I knew I was going to
go start a data analytic consulting firm because that's why
I knew how to do, and you know, felt called
to do that. But I also have this big heart
and passion for servant leadership. And I was wrestling, and
(09:15):
I'd been wrestling for weeks and months because I had
known enough about business to know that there's just not
enough seats at the leadership table for everybody to sit there.
And so it didn't make sense that we would spend
a bunch of time investing in people helping them understand
the concepts and principles of servant leadership, only to you know,
not ever let them actually be leaders. And so I
(09:38):
because you know, not everybody gets to be a leader
inside of a particular organization. That's just not how it works.
And I had wrestled with this, and in this moment,
as I'm walking out to my car to look out
to the west, and as the best side of can describe,
I just get this vision. It felt very divine because
in that moment it was like all these pieces just
kind of came together, and the vision was basically, hey,
(09:59):
love the consulting firm. Sounds great, super love this heart
and this passion you have for servant leadership. But what
if what if the goal isn't to bring in gifted
technologists and hold on to them forever. What if the
goal is instead to bring in great folks and to
equip and inspire them over the course of years and
(10:19):
actually launch them back out into the marketplace on purpose,
with intentionality, to become the leaders that your kids need
and that your grandkids need. Right what if that was
the whole point of this organization. And I'll tell you
I know a certainty it wasn't my idea, because my
immediate response was, well, that's a terrible idea. And the
(10:42):
reason it's a terrible idea is because I've never seen
any organization, you know, go out find great people, invest
heavily in them, and then hold them loosely as they
go out into the world to go and you know,
take those take that investment and to serve other organizations. Right.
And then I thought about it for thirty seconds and
(11:02):
I said, you know, but if the goal is impact
more than it is profit, that that kind of almost
you know, apprentice or discipleship model would actually be one
of the most amazing ways to create an impact in
the marketplace, to change kind of the correction of what
it means to be a leader in this space. If
we can invest in folks and then launch them out
(11:22):
to go and be those leaders that we would want
the marketplace, that would be sustainable. And then I thought
about it for thirty more seconds, and I realized, if
you could run that play, and you could do it
for ten years, fifteen years, right, and those folks that
go through your organization launch out, become impactful in their
organizations when they need help, when they need someone they trust,
(11:47):
when they need a partner, Who are they gonna call?
Are they going to call big consulting firms that you know,
they know the reputation of or are they gonna call us?
The people that they know really well, the people that
we've brought in, they know who we are, they know
our brand, they know the values we stand for, et cetera,
(12:08):
et cetera. And it made me realize, you know, they're
going to call us, And so as crazy of a
business idea as this was, I began to realize this
is actually the most sustainable way to run a business.
It just takes a really long time, but after ten
fifteen years, it becomes potitionally the most sustainable model of business. So,
(12:28):
again a very long winded introduction into kind of my
journey into entrepreneurship, and it was again, I'm not that smart,
I promise you. But it's been a really amazing journey.
We're six and a half years into it. We've done
work with folks that have spent a season in our
organization and have turned into clients. That has actually happened
(12:51):
multiple times now. We've launched out about fifteen twenty folks
already in different ways, different forms, and we're excited about
kind of how we're able to engage folks. We haven't
figured it all out. We don't do it perfectly, but
we do do it intentionally, and so we've been able
(13:13):
to a lot of times do both and where we
do great works or great clients, but also make a
meaningful impact on the folks that are here inside of
our organization and help them grow and then ultimately go
onto their next journey. So there you go.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
I love it, Nelson.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I could have kept going, man, I got several nuggets.
I don't want the listeners to to miss some of
the gems along the way. One is Gosh, just including
hearing from I'm just gonna call it partnership with God.
(13:49):
There's a painting Nelson. I'm not sure if you've seen it.
It's one of my favorite paintings though, and I don't
know who did it. Maybe that's gonna be my goal.
Maybe some of the listeners, maybe you could tell.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Us who it's by.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
There's a picture Nelson of a businessman and it's like
a networking thing. He's meeting another guy and Jesus is
in the picture and he turned to the guy and
has an open handed Jesus saying, have you met my
business partner? Because Jesus is his business partner. What I
(14:20):
love about what you shared is in going into something
and taking a step of faith.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Jesus was the business partner.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
This wasn't you know, your idea, This was a God inspired,
divine idea.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Then the second Jim, not only is Jesus your business partner?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
The power and connection and trust between a husband and
a wife, sitting down with your spouse and in even
the I love the question back, did you hear?
Speaker 4 (14:51):
I forget how you said?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
She how she said it was like are you sure
it was God?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Are you sure it was God?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
What a question? And then she looking back and he's like, well,
then you probably do that, yeah, because I was looking
for a way. I was like I don't want to
do this right yeah, and you know not not because
I certainly don't want to obey the voice of God.
It's like, man, that's gonna be so hard. I don't
have any idea how to do that, right, yeah, And
so you're kind of looking for an excuse to be like, oh,
(15:17):
my wife's soid we you know, but like, no, she was.
She was very discerning in that moment. And it's a
moment we've talked about many times and are marriage since then,
and it's been a blessing man. You know again, entrepreneurship
isn't extraordinarily hard, but to your point, like you know,
there there were clear times. You know, I'll pay you
(15:38):
back on that real quick. We started our organization in
May of twenty nineteen, and for the audience can do math.
Ten months later, we find ourselves in this global pandemic, right,
and as a young entrepreneur, and you've got a very
fragile idea, vision company, et cetera. Like we were revenue.
We're making money, but it was very right, and we
(16:01):
certainly didn't have an established brand anyway. And you know,
in the beginning, like we had a handful of product
we were about to sign and they all got ripped
up and they all went and they disappeared, and you
begin to just spiral sometimes. And I remember very vividly
my wife looking at me. He said, oh, so is
now the point when God begins to leave you? Like
(16:21):
you know? And and you know, like you got to
understand my wife a little bit and our relationship. She's
she kind of smile and looking at me like you know,
you know better? Right, Yeah, God is not leaving you, right,
but you you're you're sitting here wallowing like God's gonna
leave you. Like that's not how God operates. And you know,
it's just a beautiful reminder and she's I'm a challenger,
(16:45):
and so she she knows when to challenge and kind
of poke in a beautiful way. And so it's like, ah,
and that that sent me back into frankly, Exodus and
then kind of Joshua, Deuteronomy and and just different books
that helped me understand what it was like to go
through the desert. Yeah, and that was that was really
(17:05):
what I held on to a ton during that COVID
time period was I felt like I had left Egypt
only to die in the desert. And it was a
reminder that like no, no, no, no, no, Like I got you.
You are in the desert, but there's a promise on
the other side of that river, right, and you know,
you got to trust me that we're going to get
through this thing. And again, that's just a huge message
(17:25):
of entrepreneurship as a faith driven entrepreneur, is that there's
so much trust that has to go into this. You've
got I have plenty of work I gotta go do.
But the biggest thing that separates me from you know,
just the run of the mill entrepreneur who just doing
it simply for a bottom line or just to you know,
chase something or whatever is. You know, I've got the
(17:47):
creator of the universe that I'm in partnership with, and
I do have to remind myself of that constantly.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
But yeah, I really appreciate it absolutely.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
The third big thing that you said, Nelson, which would
kind of dovetails off of that, was your emphasis on
servant leadership. I mean, the when you look at Scripture,
the chief kind of attribute throughout the Word of God
is humility. And one of the ways that humility is
(18:18):
manifest especially in leadership, is having a heart of servanthood.
So I love how you you know, a lot of
times in business, oh what's the model?
Speaker 4 (18:27):
You know, what's this? What was the strategy?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
And it's really funny, So back to our listeners, it's
really funny how at the end of the day, you
can talk model and all this stuff all you want,
but you come back to scripture and it's like having
a heart of service and then the principle of multiplication
and discipleship.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
So it's just.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Funny how it doesn't matter how elegant, the conversation gets.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
In business MBA, all that stuff. So just that part.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Just highlight that, Nelson, because there's there's a lot of
times that we're not care that could be so much like, yeah,
strategy matters, tactics matters, leadership matters, all at product service,
all these terms and vocabulary that we have in the
business world, and yet having a hard at service. How
(19:17):
have you seen that in year six now you talked about, Man,
this is the only way I think it's sustainable. But
how cool has it been for you watching it play
out day to day?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, so it's really interesting. So we are a data
consulting firm, that's what we do. At the end of
the day, we're Yeah, I tell people a bit like
you know, from the outside looking in, it may not
look a ton different than you know, other technology consulting
firms that you've dealt with in the past. Like we
have consultants. They they do thirty six billibile hours each week.
(19:49):
We reserve the other kind of four hours to do
investment in them leadership, development, strategy, conversations, business, et cetera.
But like you know, from the outside of it, it
looks pret similar and at the same time, I also
believe that consulting is an incredible vehicle for servant leadership.
And the reason I say that is because one you're
in the services industry. What we do is we take
(20:12):
the gifts and talents that we have been given, the
passions that we have to you know, go, you know,
explore data and build things and develop things, and you
take strategy and bring it to life like all those
different things that you know, I think are God given,
and then we use it to help another organization. We
use it so that others can go further faster, and
(20:36):
generally speaking, it's our role to stay in the background.
We we do great work so that others get elevated.
And there's so many principles of that kind of consulting model,
of kind of our posture, how we serve, et cetera.
That really lend itself beautifully to the ideas, principles, core
concepts of servant leadership. And it's one of those things
(20:57):
that I tell folks as they're walking through the doors, Hey, hey, look,
you know, and this organization, as a servant leader, when
things go well, you are to give away all the credit,
and when things go sideways, you're to take all the responsibility. Now,
why would you sign up for such a bad value proposition?
And that's true both for servant leadership, but it's also
true for consulting, and so there's just again a ton
(21:18):
of alignment on that. I'd also say too, that there
are in a model where we're not maximizing the amount
of buildable hours. We're not really maximizing. We tell the
folks that join here, like, if you come here, you're
not maximizing on the compensation you can make, Like we're
(21:39):
we're good, but we're not going to be top of
the market. And so if that's a motivator for you,
then like, we're probably not the right right fit for you.
It doesn't make us right and somebody else wrong. It
just means that we know who we are. And so
part of it is this realization too of we want
to make sure that we have people that are bought
into the greater vision of what we're doing, because you
(21:59):
are are you know, we're paying for that, and they're
paying for that. They're paying for that because there's there's
income they're leaving on the table. And then we're paying
for that because we are creating margin that we believe
allows this this role as a consultant to be sustainable,
so that they can be we can make investments in
them and their leadership and their character and their ethics
(22:23):
to help them become those leaders worth Following that we
want to go out and create. And again, you consulting,
I think has this reputation historically of being a grind.
You know, it's the hours a week, et cetera. And
we just wanted to imagine what if consulting could be sustainable.
What if consulting could be something weird. You know, instead
(22:45):
of starting your week on a quarter of a tank
and finishing on empty, what if you could get refueled
on Fridays, be poured into and then you start your
week each week with a little bit closer to a
full tank. We think it could be a very virtuous,
positive way to go out and serve the marketplace, to
(23:05):
learn a bunch of different things, to grow rapidly, and
ultimately to have a generational impact naturally the biggest things
that motivate us and really kind of have our vision
or mission come to life.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So I love it, Nelson. You get me fired up, man, Nelson.
As we get ready to close here we're kind of
getting into Q four in twenty twenty five. What are
you most excited about before we end twenty twenty five
(23:37):
And if you've been looking at planning, strategizing about twenty
twenty six, what would some of those things be. I
don't want to get you in trouble because I know
some things are internal. But what are you excited about
man over the coming months.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah. One of the things that we love to do
around here is celebrate, but to do that together. And
so for us, we sat back in kind of twenty
twenty twenty twenty one and began to imagine, Hey, how
would an organization like ours do kind of holiday you know,
kind of end of the year celebrations? Thank you? And
(24:14):
most companies again not incorrectly, we just have a different approach,
but most companies will kind of do something in December.
We'll have kind of a Christmas theme. It'll be nice,
it'll be fun, it'll be a party. Right, that's great.
What we decided to do back in the day was
we decided to instead of kind of key off of Christmas,
we do something we call thanks Giving. It's a two
(24:36):
day event where day one is like we come together
with our team and their spouses or their their partners,
significant others. We just have a big kind of Thanksgiving
meal and we say thank you to our folks. We
celebrate them, we give our gifts, and just you know,
we give away our Servant Leader of the Year award,
(24:56):
which is our kind of it's our highest award that
we give. We give it one. It's a year we
just celebrate and then the next day we come back
and we do a day of giving and we go
out into the community and we serve. We've done a
lot of work historically with hands on Atlanta. We also
the first year we did this, we worked with the
Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta. We built a
(25:16):
playground cradled a gray cool which was super cool. Tons
and tons of work, but just super rewarding, super fulfilling.
And so this year, I actually I think we're working
with the Boys and Girls Club through hands On Atlanta.
So it's kind of a cool, you know, back to
the beginning type of thing for us. And it's it's
frankly my favorite week of the year because it's just
(25:38):
an amazing time to see all of our folks, to
be together, to say thank you, to bring that gratitude.
And there's something about Thanksgiving that is just so authentic
and so beautiful to me because there's there's nothing about it.
There's no kind of Christmas is like there's the whole
gift thing, et cetera. But Thanksgiving it's just a time
(25:58):
to say thank you. I love that so much, and
so that's always something I look forward to in Q
four every year. I'd also say too, I've got a
great opportunity to I'm speaking at the end of the
month and I'm having a conversation around how leadership is
going to be impacted and changed and transformed and enhanced
(26:20):
by AI and what's get into kind of the next
three years, five years, ten years even down the road.
And you know, one of the things that I think
is a beautiful exercise right now is I believe that
leaders make the future. And so if we the leaders,
don't believe that this super powerful technology can create a
(26:42):
better world, then it will absolutely not create that better world.
So a big challenge that I have for a lot
of folks right now is what are the ways, what
are the opportunities that you see that we can take
AI and we can actually not just tolerate the world
that it creates, but actually, you know, thrive in this
new world, like what would have to be true in
order for that to be true, And so it's a
(27:03):
really interesting exercise. I think ultimately AI helps us become
more human over the course of time because a lot
of the things that are just busy and technical can
begin to go away. They may transform, but it'll be
really interesting to see. So that's a little bit of
what I'm excited about as we get into kind of
the remainder of the year. As we look at twenty six,
(27:25):
I'm really pumped for I would say professionally, organizations mature
and grow and really begin to understand who they are.
And I think we've gone through twenty twenty five is
a big kind of transformation year and realizing that the
startup phase of our life as an organization was great.
(27:45):
There's a lot of heroic effort that went into that.
Our next season is going to be very much focused
on more systems, more process allowing our consultants to take
their time and energy and just focus on, you know,
challenging complex client facing questions so that we can you know,
(28:06):
the stuff that should be table stakes needs to be
more table stakes for us, and so I'm excited because
we're putting a lot of those things into motion. We're
bringing in folks that have some really great experience, have
a passion for the vision that we have, and we've
been able to launch out some really great folks as
well too. So to just continue those relationships and see
how this organization goes on its journey is just a
(28:26):
really fascinating thing for me. So I'm very excited for
twenty six. I wish, as I think many folks would,
that we had a bit more certainty from that economic
perspective or from a governmental perspective, but I'm you know,
I'm good with the reminder of that uncertainty just makes
me go back to my heavenly father that much more
(28:48):
and say, God, I have no idea like you. You know,
I can't tell you how many times I've reminded him
that I really don't know nearly enough about how to
do this, but I trust that he's got this, He's
got me, And then, you know, I think, as a
father and as a husband, I'm really pumped. We just
(29:10):
had a super cool adventure that we went on back
in the summer, and it's been really fun. To watch
my guys. I have four boys, and they're at this
really cool age where we're having just better and better
conversations and they're bumping up against stuff that's real, and
I love engaging that, and so I'm pumped for kind
(29:33):
of the season we're going into. I'm genuinely excited about
what's in front. But also at the same time, I
know that the edge of the cliff is right there
at all times. So and it's good. It's good the group.
It creates dependence, and it creates a need to to
continuously seek our Father.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
So I love it, and folks, Nelson, ironically, as we
get ready to close out tagline of the show building
a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace, and you got
to hear that directly from a man doing that right
now in the marketplace.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Nelson, You've given wisdom.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
You've talked about strategy, you talked about servant leadership, consulting.
What's the best way for listeners to connect with you
and or the company, because you know, we may have
some potential clients or maybe even people who want to
from a career perspective, have a conversation. So where would
people go to learn more about you and the company.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, I love that. Simplest way would be just reach
out on LinkedIn so you can find me. Just search
for Nelson Davis Analytic Vision Vision spelled appropriately with a
Z right there, and then I would love to connect
with you on there. Otherwise you can go to our
website analytic Vision dot com and I think there's ways
to get in touch with us through that as well.
(30:55):
So if you're looking for new opportunities, I'm always looking
for folks that have a heart and a passion for
serving clients, growing themselves technically and then becoming leaders worth following.
Is just it's what we do around here. It's our passion.
So if that's you, would love to meet you. And
then as far as our client base goes, we work
(31:16):
with kind of large and the enterprise organizations and anybody
who's trying to make a better decision, particularly using data
and analytics, like we can help bring that to life
as in partnership with you. So that's our passion is
really serving organizations to help them exponentially grow their ability
to make high quality decisions through data and analytics. And
(31:39):
so would be honored to connect with anybody out there
that falls into any of those categories.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I love it, folks. You've heard it from the man himself, Nelson.
I can't thank you enough for hanging out with us
here on the four to five Life podcast.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Man, we'll have to do this again sometime.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I'm sure in another you know, three to six months,
going to have even more wisdom and updates to share
about what God is doing in the business. So definitely
thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Nelson Jason, thank you so much. Man. It's been such
a pleasure to speak with you, share a little bit
about the heart that we have here, and I hope
that this has been helpful to somebody out there. Just
as an encouragement. I'll end with this. I spoke with
a guy the other day who is thinking about kind
of taking that entrepreneurial leap in the space of data
(32:29):
and analytics, and I just encourage him, but also told
him at the same time, man, like, if your heart,
your vision, if there's anything in this that is just like, hey,
I just want to go do this to make more money,
et cetera, like you probably won't make it because it
just won't motivate you in a lasting way, as you know,
feeling like you've got a greater purpose behind this, and
(32:50):
so it was one of the just big encouragements I
gave him. And it's a huge reminder to me of, like,
you know, remembering why we started this place in the
first place, as off as I possibly can. And so
hopefully it spen an encouragement to somebody out there that
you know, if you feel like God's tugging on your heart,
there's a good reason for that. It's worth the pursuit.
(33:11):
Find joy in the journey as you go.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Amen to that Nelson. That's a mic drop right there.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Well, folks, that's all we have time for here on
the Fortified Life Podcast. We'll have all on Nelson's information
in the show notes fortified lifepodcast dot com. And don't
you worry you'll be able to find him and the company. Well, folks,
you know how we leave things here on the podcast.
Don't compartmentalize your faith and the marketplace. And from the
(33:40):
boardroom to the bathroom, God is with you. We'll see
you next time on the Fortified Life Podcast. Make sure
you like, share, subscribe, follow us on all the major
podcast platforms, Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and then our YouTube channel
at the Fortified Life where you can see the actual
conversation that Nelson and I had if you want to
(34:04):
do a little bit more than just listen to it.
But we'll see you next time on the Fortified Live podcast.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Thank you for listening to the Fortified Life podcast. You
can catch us live on Wednesdays at eight thirty pm
Eastern Time and on demand. Check out Fortified lifepodcast dot
com for more details. So learn how to live out
your faith in the marketplace. Grab a copy of Jason
Davis's book Fortify Being Rooted in God's Plan for work
(34:34):
in Business, Available on Amazon
Welcome to the Fortified Life Podcast, where we learn how
to develop a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. From
the boardroom to the bathroom. God is with you. Here's
our host, author, speaker, teacher, encourager.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Spirit chief coach, and my husband.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's the man they call mister forty five Jason Davis.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode
of the Fortified Life podcast where we are passionate about
developing a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace. I'm your host,
Jason Davis aka mister Fortify. Every week we have the
opportunity to bring on authors, speakers, coaches, CEOs, leaders of
(00:58):
nonprofits who are are also passionate about putting God back
in business and folks. As you know, it is no
different this week. I am very excited for this episode.
Shout out to BENJ. Miller for the connection. Well, let
me tell you a little bit about our guests today.
Nelson Davis. He's the founder and Chief Vision Officer of
(01:21):
Analytic Vision, a data and analytics consulting firm designed to
equip and inspire the next generation of data and technology
leaders worth following. He's a man of faith, a dreamer
of big dreams and a lover of people who seeks
to serve those who are serving others. Nelson lives in
Atlanta with his wife and children. His desires to impact
(01:46):
the next generation of marketplace leaders for the better. Ladies
and gentlemen. Please welcome to the Fortified Life podcast. Nelson
Davis Nelson, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (01:55):
Man?
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Jason honored to be here, very grateful for the opportunity
to connect with you, spend some time with you, share
a little bit about life, and just humbled by that introduction. Man,
thank you so much.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Indeed, Well, Nelson, what I love about people is everyone
has a story, and we know you being a founder, Nelson,
that that just didn't come out of nowhere. We know
that there was some trial error, some contemplation involved, so
we know what it looks like in twenty twenty five.
(02:30):
But what led you to founding the company? And kind
of chronicle your career path and how you got here?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Man? I love the question. I will kind of begin
to answer that. As you said, I think it's one
of those things where you could really pick up a
story of a founder in a lot of different places,
and I would say that certainly for me, I begin
it with really the birth of my fourth son, which
happened in twenty eighteen, So contextually speaking, we launch Analytic
(03:01):
Vision in May of twenty nineteen, but it was kind
of spring twenty eighteen, and my son, my fourth son,
is born, and immediately he kind of goes into some
challenges just with breathing and ends up in the nick
you for thirteen days. We get him back, but it's
it kind of finds me in this very busy season
of life, and there's just a ton going on at
(03:23):
my old company as a consultant and leading as a father.
I've now got a fourth son, I've got four boys
that are six and under or five and under at
that time, and i'm you know, father, husband, leader of
my company, et cetera. And the guy that I was
doing a lot of our work with professionally went and
took another role. And so now I've got even more
(03:44):
weight kind of thrust on my shoulders. And went through
a season where I just needed to study that ship
and did so, but never been busier in my life.
And as I get through that season, probably about three
months into that, I'm beginning to just kind of breathe
and As I'm doing that, I'm sitting at Johnson Fairy
Baptist Church and this is back when Bryant Right is
the pastor and he's doing a series on Moses and leadership.
(04:09):
And as I go in, i'm sitting there, I just
begin to get this tug on my heart. It just
says it's time to go. And I was like, I
don't want to go. I'm comfortable. I'm figuring this thing out.
This has been hard. I do not want to do this.
I don't want to leave. So I left. I came
back the next week and it was stronger. And I
left and came back the next week and I was stronger.
And I went to my wife probably after that third week,
(04:30):
and I was like, hey, I feel like God is
asking me to leave SLOM and go start a company.
And she looked back at me, she said, are you
sure it's God? I said pretty sure, And she looks
and she says, well, I think you better do that.
I was like, dang it, because I didn't want to.
You know, I'm not I'm not a guy who's got
a lot of entrepreneurial bones in my body. I didn't
(04:53):
ever have the limitade stand I don't have an NBA.
I never had any interest in founding anything really crossed
my mind. My mom was an elementary school teacher, my
dad was a hospital administrator, and just like entrepreneurship was
not a concept or a conversation for the first thirty
something years of my life. And so I'm beginning to
(05:15):
like try to figure out what the world's even mean.
And I spent the next few months talking to people,
and I had two of the guys that I've considered
kind of doing a partnership with who had more entrepreneurial background,
a little bit more when it came to like nbas
et cetera. And ultimately felt the Lord really kind of
(05:36):
clearly tell me and stay as I explored that opportunity,
that he was going to close that door, and that
it was really he was inviting me to step into
this as a sole founder. And that became very clear
as we got into kind of December and into January,
and then the I could spend hours telling the next
part of the story, but I won't. The kind of
(05:58):
January through May, my father went through multiple forms of cancer,
and it was he had two different, two different four sorry,
three different forms of cancer in two different places, starting
in kind of January February, began to get ready for
(06:19):
all the treatment and so forth was gonna happen there.
And then as he was in April, as he was
getting ready for that, realized that he also had cancer,
a third location, fourth type of cancer. And the good
news is he ultimately survived all of that, which was
absolute blessing. But you don't know that into the story
when you're in it. And so I'm processing all this
(06:43):
and I'm overwhelmed by again all the responsibility and all
the challenge. So you know, there was a moment in
February where, you know, I'm leading critical projects in my
previous organization. I'm leading a large and growing team. I'm
coaching baseball with my old the son. I'm father to
four boys who are now six and under. My dad's
(07:06):
got cancer, and I'm supposed to go because I feel
like I'm called to go start a company. And the
overwhelm of that was just crushing. I sat down with
my wife on a Saturday night and just kind of
prayed and taught through it and felt very much like,
you know, hey, let's put this entrepreneurial thing on the
on the shelf. For twelve months because I just can't
(07:26):
do all this. This is just it's too much. And
there's a moment very clearly that that following Monday, when
my previous company that i'd been at back in twenty
twelve called me said, Hey, we're trying to build this thing.
We don't think it's possible, but we figured we'd call
you and figure out. You know which you said, and
(07:46):
it was, you know, oh, you need somebody to go
build something. Oh you do you need somebody to develop
it and pay them? Oh? Interesting? So when do you
need it? Oh? I could do it. You mean me
or me my company? Oh? You or me? Interesting? Okay.
And so it was like I was trying to get
on the off ramp to exit, and God was like, no,
you're not. The off ramp is blocked you. You were
(08:09):
going to stay on this interstate. We were going somewhere.
So again I could tell a story after story. The
last thing that I'll say is as as I had
turned in my resignation, I had leaned fully into and
you know, kind of going into this next chapter I've got.
It's the Thursday before kind of my very last day.
(08:32):
So two days before I'm done, done, at my old company.
I'm with my dad in the in the hospital room.
I'm telling him all these different stories about starting the
company and his grandkids and this leadership development that I'm
doing coaching the new company, all this different stuff, right,
and you know, spend that time and then I walk out.
I'll get out to my car and I'm in downtown Atlanta.
(08:54):
I'm at the Emery Midtown in a parking lot that
doesn't exist anymore, and I look out to the west
and I just get this vision and the thing that
I had wrestled with. I knew I was going to
go start a data analytic consulting firm because that's why
I knew how to do, and you know, felt called
to do that. But I also have this big heart
and passion for servant leadership. And I was wrestling, and
(09:15):
I'd been wrestling for weeks and months because I had
known enough about business to know that there's just not
enough seats at the leadership table for everybody to sit there.
And so it didn't make sense that we would spend
a bunch of time investing in people helping them understand
the concepts and principles of servant leadership, only to you know,
not ever let them actually be leaders. And so I
(09:38):
because you know, not everybody gets to be a leader
inside of a particular organization. That's just not how it works.
And I had wrestled with this, and in this moment,
as I'm walking out to my car to look out
to the west, and as the best side of can describe,
I just get this vision. It felt very divine because
in that moment it was like all these pieces just
kind of came together, and the vision was basically, hey,
(09:59):
love the consulting firm. Sounds great, super love this heart
and this passion you have for servant leadership. But what
if what if the goal isn't to bring in gifted
technologists and hold on to them forever. What if the
goal is instead to bring in great folks and to
equip and inspire them over the course of years and
(10:19):
actually launch them back out into the marketplace on purpose,
with intentionality, to become the leaders that your kids need
and that your grandkids need. Right what if that was
the whole point of this organization. And I'll tell you
I know a certainty it wasn't my idea, because my
immediate response was, well, that's a terrible idea. And the
(10:42):
reason it's a terrible idea is because I've never seen
any organization, you know, go out find great people, invest
heavily in them, and then hold them loosely as they
go out into the world to go and you know,
take those take that investment and to serve other organizations. Right.
And then I thought about it for thirty seconds and
(11:02):
I said, you know, but if the goal is impact
more than it is profit, that that kind of almost
you know, apprentice or discipleship model would actually be one
of the most amazing ways to create an impact in
the marketplace, to change kind of the correction of what
it means to be a leader in this space. If
we can invest in folks and then launch them out
(11:22):
to go and be those leaders that we would want
the marketplace, that would be sustainable. And then I thought
about it for thirty more seconds, and I realized, if
you could run that play, and you could do it
for ten years, fifteen years, right, and those folks that
go through your organization launch out, become impactful in their
organizations when they need help, when they need someone they trust,
(11:47):
when they need a partner, Who are they gonna call?
Are they going to call big consulting firms that you know,
they know the reputation of or are they gonna call us?
The people that they know really well, the people that
we've brought in, they know who we are, they know
our brand, they know the values we stand for, et cetera,
(12:08):
et cetera. And it made me realize, you know, they're
going to call us, And so as crazy of a
business idea as this was, I began to realize this
is actually the most sustainable way to run a business.
It just takes a really long time, but after ten
fifteen years, it becomes potitionally the most sustainable model of business. So,
(12:28):
again a very long winded introduction into kind of my
journey into entrepreneurship, and it was again, I'm not that smart,
I promise you. But it's been a really amazing journey.
We're six and a half years into it. We've done
work with folks that have spent a season in our
organization and have turned into clients. That has actually happened
(12:51):
multiple times now. We've launched out about fifteen twenty folks
already in different ways, different forms, and we're excited about
kind of how we're able to engage folks. We haven't
figured it all out. We don't do it perfectly, but
we do do it intentionally, and so we've been able
(13:13):
to a lot of times do both and where we
do great works or great clients, but also make a
meaningful impact on the folks that are here inside of
our organization and help them grow and then ultimately go
onto their next journey. So there you go.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
I love it, Nelson.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
I could have kept going, man, I got several nuggets.
I don't want the listeners to to miss some of
the gems along the way. One is Gosh, just including
hearing from I'm just gonna call it partnership with God.
(13:49):
There's a painting Nelson. I'm not sure if you've seen it.
It's one of my favorite paintings though, and I don't
know who did it. Maybe that's gonna be my goal.
Maybe some of the listeners, maybe you could tell.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Us who it's by.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
There's a picture Nelson of a businessman and it's like
a networking thing. He's meeting another guy and Jesus is
in the picture and he turned to the guy and
has an open handed Jesus saying, have you met my
business partner? Because Jesus is his business partner. What I
(14:20):
love about what you shared is in going into something
and taking a step of faith.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
Jesus was the business partner.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
This wasn't you know, your idea, This was a God inspired,
divine idea.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Then the second Jim, not only is Jesus your business partner?
Speaker 3 (14:39):
The power and connection and trust between a husband and
a wife, sitting down with your spouse and in even
the I love the question back, did you hear?
Speaker 4 (14:51):
I forget how you said?
Speaker 2 (14:52):
She how she said it was like are you sure
it was God?
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Are you sure it was God?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
What a question? And then she looking back and he's like, well,
then you probably do that, yeah, because I was looking
for a way. I was like I don't want to
do this right yeah, and you know not not because
I certainly don't want to obey the voice of God.
It's like, man, that's gonna be so hard. I don't
have any idea how to do that, right, yeah, And
so you're kind of looking for an excuse to be like, oh,
(15:17):
my wife's soid we you know, but like, no, she was.
She was very discerning in that moment. And it's a
moment we've talked about many times and are marriage since then,
and it's been a blessing man. You know again, entrepreneurship
isn't extraordinarily hard, but to your point, like you know,
there there were clear times. You know, I'll pay you
(15:38):
back on that real quick. We started our organization in
May of twenty nineteen, and for the audience can do math.
Ten months later, we find ourselves in this global pandemic, right,
and as a young entrepreneur, and you've got a very
fragile idea, vision company, et cetera. Like we were revenue.
We're making money, but it was very right, and we
(16:01):
certainly didn't have an established brand anyway. And you know,
in the beginning, like we had a handful of product
we were about to sign and they all got ripped
up and they all went and they disappeared, and you
begin to just spiral sometimes. And I remember very vividly
my wife looking at me. He said, oh, so is
now the point when God begins to leave you? Like
(16:21):
you know? And and you know, like you got to
understand my wife a little bit and our relationship. She's
she kind of smile and looking at me like you know,
you know better? Right, Yeah, God is not leaving you, right,
but you you're you're sitting here wallowing like God's gonna
leave you. Like that's not how God operates. And you know,
it's just a beautiful reminder and she's I'm a challenger,
(16:45):
and so she she knows when to challenge and kind
of poke in a beautiful way. And so it's like, ah,
and that that sent me back into frankly, Exodus and
then kind of Joshua, Deuteronomy and and just different books
that helped me understand what it was like to go
through the desert. Yeah, and that was that was really
(17:05):
what I held on to a ton during that COVID
time period was I felt like I had left Egypt
only to die in the desert. And it was a
reminder that like no, no, no, no, no, Like I got you.
You are in the desert, but there's a promise on
the other side of that river, right, and you know,
you got to trust me that we're going to get
through this thing. And again, that's just a huge message
(17:25):
of entrepreneurship as a faith driven entrepreneur, is that there's
so much trust that has to go into this. You've
got I have plenty of work I gotta go do.
But the biggest thing that separates me from you know,
just the run of the mill entrepreneur who just doing
it simply for a bottom line or just to you know,
chase something or whatever is. You know, I've got the
(17:47):
creator of the universe that I'm in partnership with, and
I do have to remind myself of that constantly.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
But yeah, I really appreciate it absolutely.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
The third big thing that you said, Nelson, which would
kind of dovetails off of that, was your emphasis on
servant leadership. I mean, the when you look at Scripture,
the chief kind of attribute throughout the Word of God
is humility. And one of the ways that humility is
(18:18):
manifest especially in leadership, is having a heart of servanthood.
So I love how you you know, a lot of
times in business, oh what's the model?
Speaker 4 (18:27):
You know, what's this? What was the strategy?
Speaker 3 (18:28):
And it's really funny, So back to our listeners, it's
really funny how at the end of the day, you
can talk model and all this stuff all you want,
but you come back to scripture and it's like having
a heart of service and then the principle of multiplication
and discipleship.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
So it's just.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Funny how it doesn't matter how elegant, the conversation gets.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
In business MBA, all that stuff. So just that part.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Just highlight that, Nelson, because there's there's a lot of
times that we're not care that could be so much like, yeah,
strategy matters, tactics matters, leadership matters, all at product service,
all these terms and vocabulary that we have in the
business world, and yet having a hard at service. How
(19:17):
have you seen that in year six now you talked about, Man,
this is the only way I think it's sustainable. But
how cool has it been for you watching it play
out day to day?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Yeah, so it's really interesting. So we are a data
consulting firm, that's what we do. At the end of
the day, we're Yeah, I tell people a bit like
you know, from the outside looking in, it may not
look a ton different than you know, other technology consulting
firms that you've dealt with in the past. Like we
have consultants. They they do thirty six billibile hours each week.
(19:49):
We reserve the other kind of four hours to do
investment in them leadership, development, strategy, conversations, business, et cetera.
But like you know, from the outside of it, it
looks pret similar and at the same time, I also
believe that consulting is an incredible vehicle for servant leadership.
And the reason I say that is because one you're
in the services industry. What we do is we take
(20:12):
the gifts and talents that we have been given, the
passions that we have to you know, go, you know,
explore data and build things and develop things, and you
take strategy and bring it to life like all those
different things that you know, I think are God given,
and then we use it to help another organization. We
use it so that others can go further faster, and
(20:36):
generally speaking, it's our role to stay in the background.
We we do great work so that others get elevated.
And there's so many principles of that kind of consulting model,
of kind of our posture, how we serve, et cetera.
That really lend itself beautifully to the ideas, principles, core
concepts of servant leadership. And it's one of those things
(20:57):
that I tell folks as they're walking through the doors, Hey, hey, look,
you know, and this organization, as a servant leader, when
things go well, you are to give away all the credit,
and when things go sideways, you're to take all the responsibility. Now,
why would you sign up for such a bad value proposition?
And that's true both for servant leadership, but it's also
true for consulting, and so there's just again a ton
(21:18):
of alignment on that. I'd also say too, that there
are in a model where we're not maximizing the amount
of buildable hours. We're not really maximizing. We tell the
folks that join here, like, if you come here, you're
not maximizing on the compensation you can make, Like we're
(21:39):
we're good, but we're not going to be top of
the market. And so if that's a motivator for you,
then like, we're probably not the right right fit for you.
It doesn't make us right and somebody else wrong. It
just means that we know who we are. And so
part of it is this realization too of we want
to make sure that we have people that are bought
into the greater vision of what we're doing, because you
(21:59):
are are you know, we're paying for that, and they're
paying for that. They're paying for that because there's there's
income they're leaving on the table. And then we're paying
for that because we are creating margin that we believe
allows this this role as a consultant to be sustainable,
so that they can be we can make investments in
them and their leadership and their character and their ethics
(22:23):
to help them become those leaders worth Following that we
want to go out and create. And again, you consulting,
I think has this reputation historically of being a grind.
You know, it's the hours a week, et cetera. And
we just wanted to imagine what if consulting could be sustainable.
What if consulting could be something weird. You know, instead
(22:45):
of starting your week on a quarter of a tank
and finishing on empty, what if you could get refueled
on Fridays, be poured into and then you start your
week each week with a little bit closer to a
full tank. We think it could be a very virtuous,
positive way to go out and serve the marketplace, to
(23:05):
learn a bunch of different things, to grow rapidly, and
ultimately to have a generational impact naturally the biggest things
that motivate us and really kind of have our vision
or mission come to life.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
So I love it, Nelson. You get me fired up, man, Nelson.
As we get ready to close here we're kind of
getting into Q four in twenty twenty five. What are
you most excited about before we end twenty twenty five
(23:37):
And if you've been looking at planning, strategizing about twenty
twenty six, what would some of those things be. I
don't want to get you in trouble because I know
some things are internal. But what are you excited about
man over the coming months.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
Yeah. One of the things that we love to do
around here is celebrate, but to do that together. And
so for us, we sat back in kind of twenty
twenty twenty twenty one and began to imagine, Hey, how
would an organization like ours do kind of holiday you know,
kind of end of the year celebrations? Thank you? And
(24:14):
most companies again not incorrectly, we just have a different approach,
but most companies will kind of do something in December.
We'll have kind of a Christmas theme. It'll be nice,
it'll be fun, it'll be a party. Right, that's great.
What we decided to do back in the day was
we decided to instead of kind of key off of Christmas,
we do something we call thanks Giving. It's a two
(24:36):
day event where day one is like we come together
with our team and their spouses or their their partners,
significant others. We just have a big kind of Thanksgiving
meal and we say thank you to our folks. We
celebrate them, we give our gifts, and just you know,
we give away our Servant Leader of the Year award,
(24:56):
which is our kind of it's our highest award that
we give. We give it one. It's a year we
just celebrate and then the next day we come back
and we do a day of giving and we go
out into the community and we serve. We've done a
lot of work historically with hands on Atlanta. We also
the first year we did this, we worked with the
Boys and Girls Club of Metro Atlanta. We built a
(25:16):
playground cradled a gray cool which was super cool. Tons
and tons of work, but just super rewarding, super fulfilling.
And so this year, I actually I think we're working
with the Boys and Girls Club through hands On Atlanta.
So it's kind of a cool, you know, back to
the beginning type of thing for us. And it's it's
frankly my favorite week of the year because it's just
(25:38):
an amazing time to see all of our folks, to
be together, to say thank you, to bring that gratitude.
And there's something about Thanksgiving that is just so authentic
and so beautiful to me because there's there's nothing about it.
There's no kind of Christmas is like there's the whole
gift thing, et cetera. But Thanksgiving it's just a time
(25:58):
to say thank you. I love that so much, and
so that's always something I look forward to in Q
four every year. I'd also say too, I've got a
great opportunity to I'm speaking at the end of the
month and I'm having a conversation around how leadership is
going to be impacted and changed and transformed and enhanced
(26:20):
by AI and what's get into kind of the next
three years, five years, ten years even down the road.
And you know, one of the things that I think
is a beautiful exercise right now is I believe that
leaders make the future. And so if we the leaders,
don't believe that this super powerful technology can create a
(26:42):
better world, then it will absolutely not create that better world.
So a big challenge that I have for a lot
of folks right now is what are the ways, what
are the opportunities that you see that we can take
AI and we can actually not just tolerate the world
that it creates, but actually, you know, thrive in this
new world, like what would have to be true in
order for that to be true, And so it's a
(27:03):
really interesting exercise. I think ultimately AI helps us become
more human over the course of time because a lot
of the things that are just busy and technical can
begin to go away. They may transform, but it'll be
really interesting to see. So that's a little bit of
what I'm excited about as we get into kind of
the remainder of the year. As we look at twenty six,
(27:25):
I'm really pumped for I would say professionally, organizations mature
and grow and really begin to understand who they are.
And I think we've gone through twenty twenty five is
a big kind of transformation year and realizing that the
startup phase of our life as an organization was great.
(27:45):
There's a lot of heroic effort that went into that.
Our next season is going to be very much focused
on more systems, more process allowing our consultants to take
their time and energy and just focus on, you know,
challenging complex client facing questions so that we can you know,
(28:06):
the stuff that should be table stakes needs to be
more table stakes for us, and so I'm excited because
we're putting a lot of those things into motion. We're
bringing in folks that have some really great experience, have
a passion for the vision that we have, and we've
been able to launch out some really great folks as
well too. So to just continue those relationships and see
how this organization goes on its journey is just a
(28:26):
really fascinating thing for me. So I'm very excited for
twenty six. I wish, as I think many folks would,
that we had a bit more certainty from that economic
perspective or from a governmental perspective, but I'm you know,
I'm good with the reminder of that uncertainty just makes
me go back to my heavenly father that much more
(28:48):
and say, God, I have no idea like you. You know,
I can't tell you how many times I've reminded him
that I really don't know nearly enough about how to
do this, but I trust that he's got this, He's
got me, And then, you know, I think, as a
father and as a husband, I'm really pumped. We just
(29:10):
had a super cool adventure that we went on back
in the summer, and it's been really fun. To watch
my guys. I have four boys, and they're at this
really cool age where we're having just better and better
conversations and they're bumping up against stuff that's real, and
I love engaging that, and so I'm pumped for kind
(29:33):
of the season we're going into. I'm genuinely excited about
what's in front. But also at the same time, I
know that the edge of the cliff is right there
at all times. So and it's good. It's good the group.
It creates dependence, and it creates a need to to
continuously seek our Father.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
So I love it, and folks, Nelson, ironically, as we
get ready to close out tagline of the show building
a dependency on Jesus in the marketplace, and you got
to hear that directly from a man doing that right
now in the marketplace.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
Nelson, You've given wisdom.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
You've talked about strategy, you talked about servant leadership, consulting.
What's the best way for listeners to connect with you
and or the company, because you know, we may have
some potential clients or maybe even people who want to
from a career perspective, have a conversation. So where would
people go to learn more about you and the company.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, I love that. Simplest way would be just reach
out on LinkedIn so you can find me. Just search
for Nelson Davis Analytic Vision Vision spelled appropriately with a
Z right there, and then I would love to connect
with you on there. Otherwise you can go to our
website analytic Vision dot com and I think there's ways
to get in touch with us through that as well.
(30:55):
So if you're looking for new opportunities, I'm always looking
for folks that have a heart and a passion for
serving clients, growing themselves technically and then becoming leaders worth following.
Is just it's what we do around here. It's our passion.
So if that's you, would love to meet you. And
then as far as our client base goes, we work
(31:16):
with kind of large and the enterprise organizations and anybody
who's trying to make a better decision, particularly using data
and analytics, like we can help bring that to life
as in partnership with you. So that's our passion is
really serving organizations to help them exponentially grow their ability
to make high quality decisions through data and analytics. And
(31:39):
so would be honored to connect with anybody out there
that falls into any of those categories.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
I love it, folks. You've heard it from the man himself, Nelson.
I can't thank you enough for hanging out with us
here on the four to five Life podcast.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Man, we'll have to do this again sometime.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
I'm sure in another you know, three to six months,
going to have even more wisdom and updates to share
about what God is doing in the business. So definitely
thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Nelson Jason, thank you so much. Man. It's been such
a pleasure to speak with you, share a little bit
about the heart that we have here, and I hope
that this has been helpful to somebody out there. Just
as an encouragement. I'll end with this. I spoke with
a guy the other day who is thinking about kind
of taking that entrepreneurial leap in the space of data
(32:29):
and analytics, and I just encourage him, but also told
him at the same time, man, like, if your heart,
your vision, if there's anything in this that is just like, hey,
I just want to go do this to make more money,
et cetera, like you probably won't make it because it
just won't motivate you in a lasting way, as you know,
feeling like you've got a greater purpose behind this, and
(32:50):
so it was one of the just big encouragements I
gave him. And it's a huge reminder to me of, like,
you know, remembering why we started this place in the
first place, as off as I possibly can. And so
hopefully it spen an encouragement to somebody out there that
you know, if you feel like God's tugging on your heart,
there's a good reason for that. It's worth the pursuit.
(33:11):
Find joy in the journey as you go.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
Amen to that Nelson. That's a mic drop right there.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
Well, folks, that's all we have time for here on
the Fortified Life Podcast. We'll have all on Nelson's information
in the show notes fortified lifepodcast dot com. And don't
you worry you'll be able to find him and the company. Well, folks,
you know how we leave things here on the podcast.
Don't compartmentalize your faith and the marketplace. And from the
(33:40):
boardroom to the bathroom, God is with you. We'll see
you next time on the Fortified Life Podcast. Make sure
you like, share, subscribe, follow us on all the major
podcast platforms, Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and then our YouTube channel
at the Fortified Life where you can see the actual
conversation that Nelson and I had if you want to
(34:04):
do a little bit more than just listen to it.
But we'll see you next time on the Fortified Live podcast.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Thank you for listening to the Fortified Life podcast. You
can catch us live on Wednesdays at eight thirty pm
Eastern Time and on demand. Check out Fortified lifepodcast dot
com for more details. So learn how to live out
your faith in the marketplace. Grab a copy of Jason
Davis's book Fortify Being Rooted in God's Plan for work
(34:34):
in Business, Available on Amazon
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