Downshift

A boutique coaching firm and decelerator program designed for high achievers in transition.

Coach and Facilitator

Spinks Coaching

I coach community founders and leaders, helping them to consciously grow their community and business, without getting overwhelmed and burning out.

Learn more at davidspinks.com/community-coaching/

Community Leadership Coach

Author

Learn more at DavidSpinks.com/book

The rise of the internet has brought with it an inexorable, almost shockingly persistent drive toward community. From the first social networks to the connected world of today, the need for and value of community have emerged as unavoidable realities. The business world is keeping up, sort of. The successful brands of tomorrow will be those that create authentic connection, giving customers a sense of real belonging, and unlocking unprecedented scale as a result. But how do we achieve this lofty communitarian goal? Nowhere is the path made clearer than in this book. In his career of over 10 years in the business of building community, Spinks has learned what a winning community strategy looks like. From the fundamental concepts—including how community drives measurable business value, and what are the appropriate metrics—to high-level community design—to ¬practical engagement techniques, The Business of Belonging is an epic journey into the world of community building.

Author, The Business of Belonging [Wiley 2021]

Bevy (bevy.com)

Bevy is a customer-to-customer community management platform, building products that brands use to build, grow and manage their offline user groups and event communities. Bevy builds community in real life.

VP of Community

CMX is the premier network for community professionals. Thousands of community professionals come to CMX for support and education in community strategy. The community industry's largest event, CMX Summit, brings together 2,000+ attendees each year, and 50+ local CMX Connect chapters gather regularly around the world. CMX was acquired by Bevy (bevy.com) in 2019.

Co-Founder and CEO

LetsFeast inc.

Feast is a cooking class for people who would never go to a cooking class.  Our goal is to make it a less miserable experience to learn how to cook.

The Community Manager

http://thecommunitymanager.com is the home for anyone building communities.

Co-Founder

LeWeb

Le Web is the largest tech/startup conference in Europe.  

I worked to bring together the attendees of LeWeb and the millions of online viewers both before and during the events.

Community Manager

Zaarly, Inc

I made sure that Zaarly's community, marketing and product were well aligned.

Director of Product Marketing and Community

Blogdash.com

I developed the concept and managed the design, UI, UX, development, community management, business development, marketing, PR, and everything else of blogdash.com, a blogger outreach platform for brands and bloggers to connect.

Co-Founder and GM

Hi, I’m David. Friends call me Spinks.

I'm a coach and facilitator helping ambitious professionals recalibrate their relationship with work to be more intentional, balanced, and energizing. Learn more about my coaching at downshift.me.

My newsletter is both a documentary of my journey and sharing of the lessons, tools, and truths I’ve learned. It's helped thousands of readers. I hope it will help you too. Read it at davidspinks.substack.com.

Learn more about me and my story at davidspinks.com

David Spinks

them: you should be more vulnerable! 

me: ok how's this?

them: no that's too much, you're trauma dumping

me: ok how about now?

them: ew no now you're just performing vulnerability 

me: hm. ok. and now? 

them: perfect! which is bad. being perfect isn't authentic. try again. 

me: ugh, this is infuriating 

them: woah woah stop being so emotional

🌀 David Spinks

founder coach | transition guide | community strategist | linkydinky silly boy - davidspinks.com 🌀

am i doing this right Jillian Richardson 👋?

i'm feeling called to offer to the world something that weaves together two big threads in my life: community strategy and inner work coaching.

so i'm putting this call out there to the linkydinky universe...

if you're a community executive (VP/Director/Head of) who is:

- wanting to step into greater leadership, impact, and personal growth, or navigating transition 
- while also learning how to stay present and grounded, and suffer less, through intensity and adversity
- and ready and willing to do inner work (self inquiry, emotional regulation, somatics, etc) alongside business/community strategy

i'd love to be your coach. 

why me?

- 17 years of experience leading community and starting companies
- wrote a book about it (The Business of Belonging)
- i'm a trained transformational and leadership coach (Aletheia, Hakomi, + other methods) who has coached dozens of execs, founders, and leaders
- been through my own dark night of the soul and reckoning with the ego
- i write in all lowercase which means i'm fun

comment or email me (david at davidspinks dot com) or whisper into the breeze and i'll get back to you

FYI - i offer a wide range of pricing options to make this form of support more accessible. and i'm happy to offer a complimentary coaching session with no strings attached to anyone who would like to experience this work.

you can help the energy along by engaging with this post or forwarding it along to someone you know who may be inviting this energy into their life.

tagging some of my community exec dream team Danya Shults, Paz Pisarski 🏵, Holly Firestone, Evan Hamilton, Erica Kuhl, Sarah Hawk, Max Pete (thanks for helping inspire this direction Max!), Joshua Zerkel, CPO, Brian Oblinger, Regina Walton, MA, JD, Laura Nestler, Stephanie Grice, April MacLean, Bri Leever, Bailey Richardson, DOUGLAS ATKIN, Ankit Shah, Tony Bacigalupo, Ashley Gallman Williams, Saumya Gupta, Melissa O'Young, Philippe Beaudette, Gabi Messinger, Adrian Speyer, Laura Small, Elizabeth Kinsey, Derek Andersen, Susan Tenby 🙏 appreciate you all

ok hitting send. energy going out BLBLBBLBLLLBLBLBL 〜✨〜✨〜✨ (that's the sound energy makes when it's going out)

-- 
p.s. i'm practicing making more direct "sales-y" asks like this even though it makes me feel cringe and uncomfortable because i genuinely want to bring more of this kind of coaching support to people, especially in the community industry where i feel it's lacking and needed, so here goes something

Leadership Coach | Transition Guide | Community Consultant - DavidSpinks.com 👋

hey friends 👋

i’m putting this out there directly, because referrals *really* matter in the coaching biz...

i’m looking to fill four remaining 1:1 coaching spots starting in early 2026, and i’d love your help.

if someone in your world is:

- a founder, exec, or community leader
- navigating a big decision, transition, or trial at work
- ambitious, thoughtful, and open to looking inward (patterns, beliefs, behaviors, etc)
- trying to build something meaningful without burning themselves to the ground

…they might be a great fit to work together.

this could look like:

- scaling a business without getting overwhelmed with anxiety and self-doubt
- stepping down or reorienting after a long push
- navigating cofounder or leadership tension

if someone comes to mind, i’d be really grateful if you passed this post along to them, made a quick intro, or nudged them to reach out.

and if referrals aren’t your thing, even liking or commenting to help this travel a bit further means a lot.

thanks for reading, and for being part of my world ❤️

it's just wild to me that:

1. my grandparents grew up Transylvania
2. they barely escaped the Holocaust (my saba was put on a train and escaped. my safta's sister was taken away by russian soldiers never to return, but she was spared)
3. they were able to get papers to escape to israel. my safta became terribly sick on the boat and barely made it
4. they lost everything and started totally new in a totally new land
5. my mom and her brothers served in multiple wars, fighting for their survival 
6. then my mom met an irish/englishman, got married, and moved to the US
7. i was born a year later in Long Beach, NY, totally unaware of all that had to happen for me to enter this world in this place at this time

my life has been worlds away from the life my grandparents and parents grew up with. different beyond my possible imagination. my parents didn't have a lot, but i was safe, cared for, and given every opportunity to thrive in my life and career. what a blessing. 

and yet, i've lived my life with a persistent state of anxiety. hypervigilant. always looking out for the next threat or opportunity.

i'm starting to learn that this state isn't *just* the result of my lived experiences (though those are also highly relevant). it's the result of experiences of my grandparents, who had to do whatever they could to survive, which shaped the experiences of my mother and her siblings, who also grew up having to fight for their safety, which then shaped my experiences.

i may be extremely safe, but my body and mind has rarely felt that way. 

i now see how the work i'm doing to heal myself isn't just about me. it's about shifting the thread of trauma that my parents, grandparents, and ancestors endured. it's so that i reform the patterns that i pass on to my children. i'm sure i won't undo it all, but perhaps i can make a big dent. 

this has been a helpful reminder on the days where i feel totally disregulated.

there is a great deal that gets passed down to us that we are not conscious of.

this type of trauma travels in the nervous system, in our belief systems, unconscious patterns, attachment systems, and even in how our genes behave.

whatever you're experiencing, you may not know where it came from. it may not make sense. it's possible it began a long time ago, way before you were born.

the way to work with it isn't always to know the cause (though it helps, if we do). we can't possibly know all the complexities that led to us being us. all we can do is learn to be with it as it is now. learn to not run from it. to feel it fully in relationship with others. see that you are capable of being in this world without needing to escape.

slowly, over time, our nervous system catches up to reality, to the present moment, and sees that it's safe, that it's okay, and it doesn't have to be on alert all the time.

note: i'm early in my learning about generational trauma so feel free to correct me on anything i'm misunderstanding here!

what a bitter-sweet day for jews.

wishing you all a very happy and peaceful hannukah. i had a wonderful day playing with my kids in the snow and celebrating with our neighbors. feeling very blessed.

at the same time, my heart is feeling broken, and is with all of the families who lost loved ones in sydney, and the jewish community as a whole. it sucks that we have to be afraid of attending public celebrations with our families. it sucks that there are people with so much hate in their hearts. i don't have any  platitudes to offer. it just fucking sucks.

you know how at the end of calls people always ask "is there anything i can do to support you?"

i never have a good answer to that.

do you? or am i the only one who never knows what to ask for help with specifically.

a few things i've been learning about myself recently:

1. i have adhd - at least i think i do. my therapist agrees. and was shocked (apparently im very good at masking). 

this has been eye-opening. i feel very seen by what i'm learning. and a bit of grief that i didn't know this whole time. 

i'm reading "how to adhd" which has been hugely helpful. it's also written in an adhd friendly format, which literally made me cry when i started reading it because it made me feel better about all those chunky books i've struggled to read throughout my life

2. i'm learning about my attachment patterns

i'm doing a 12-week program on secure attachment. it's teaching me about my anxious attachment patterns, how they formed, how they show up in my relationships, and how to develop a more secure "base".

we did an exercise called "the ideal parent visualization" this week, which is a powerful meditation used by therapists working with attachment patterns. it was surprisingly impactful (i cried through the whole thing... yeah i've been crying a lot). i'll link to the exercise in the comments if you want to try it. 

one surprising but delightful outcome of learning about my attachment patterns has been in my parenting. i'm seeing all the ways i'm providing a secure base for my kids, in the ways that i didn't always have. and i'm seeing areas where i'm still insecure in my parenting, and learning how to come back to security. i think the work i'm doing will have a huge impact for our kids in the long run.

3. i've been going deep on my conflict avoidance patterns. 

another thing that's emerged from my attachment work and working with my therapist is that i have a core belief/wound that "i'm bad" underneath my conflict avoidance, people pleasing, anger aversion, and many of my other patterns

i connected with a shadow part this morning which was fascinating, and scary, and now i'm going down the rabbit hole of carl jung's shadow and learning how to integrate. it feels like i'm experiencing real shifts around my ability to receive and express anger after struggling with this my whole life.

--

those are the big edges i've been working with over the past couple months. curious to hear if y'all are working at similar edges!

WTF Should I Do With My Career?!

that's the title of the workshop Cristina Espinal 🤸‍♀️and i are hosting next friday. catchy, eh?

it's focused entirely on folks who are ambitious, big-hearted, and totally effing stuck with a big career decision, like...

"do I finally take the leap to start my own company?"

or

"is this job right for me or should I be looking for a new job where I don't hate my life every day?"

or 

"should I leave my company to go start a farm in the Catskills? i've never even met a cow."

...asking for a friend.

you might know Cristina already. If you don't, you should. she's the founder of Play Big Careers, which is all about helping people through their career confusion. she's a badass and brings only the best vibes.

so we decided to combine forces to offer a 2-hour, free, curated workshop for folks who are sitting with big career decisions and feeling stuck.

what you’ll experience:

- ​a practical framework that reveals how your inner world shapes your career choices.
- ​guided exercises to awaken the wisdom of your mind and body, invite safety + co-regulation so you can access new options.
- ​small-group practice to explore your real WTF career question in a supportive, intimate group with others like you.
- ​live coaching + Q&A to see inner work in action, and apply it to your situation.

​you’ll walk away:

​- with greater clarity on the next step in the decision you brought in.
- less stuck, more grounded, more confident.
- equipped with a repeatable process for navigating big decisions with less anxiety and more trust.

this workshop is free, but by application only, to ensure there's a strong fit amongst everyone in the room. we expect it to be intimate, deep, and delightful.

deets: 📆 friday, 19th december | 12pm EST / 5pm GMT

sign up here! 👉 https://luma.com/mpsuzm3k

p.s. if you came to the Unstuck! workshop i hosted with Astrid Schanz-Garbassi, you can expect to experience a lot of similar practices. this time, Cristina and i are going deep on career decisions. it's going to be a blast!

everyone's going to be offline for the holiday

which is a golden opportunity for you...

...to also gtf offline for the holiday

there are lots of folks here on linkydinky who have some remaining professional development budget that's going to expire at the end of the year.

well...

i'm of the belief that that money is rightfully yours, and i'd hate to see you not spend it on some professional goodies. spend 👏 your 👏 corporate 👏overlord's 👏 money 👏. it's the right thing to do.

what do you spend it on? let's see what linkydinky has to offer...

comment below if you have an offering that someone can buy NOW and use next year. make sure to add a sentence or two (but not more) about who it's for and what it is, and pricing.

courses, coaching, cohorts, retreats, etc. all are welcome as long as it's *professional development* focused. just keep it classy.

ready, go 👇

my wife reads all my newsletters but never likes or comments on them. 

is this grounds for divorce or...?

a challenge i have with "no self promo" rules in communities: 

it ignores the social capital at play. 

for example, i notice i don't like it when someone promotes themselves if they haven't been active in the community. it just feels extractive. 

but if someone has been actively involved, helping others, and i know and trust them, i get excited when they promote themselves. i want to know what they're creating and i want to support them. 

but because of the first scenario, where folks are more extractive, we create rules that say no one can promote themselves. 

as a result we lose the benefits of supporting and being supported in the second scenario. 

in an ideal world there would be a more fluid system, where members are invited to promote themselves more as they become more engaged in the community. 

perhaps some communities can organically navigate this, naming when a member seems to be taking more than giving in a way that's honest, inclusive, and secure. 

but that's really fucking hard. for the majority of us, we just have to resort to arbitrary rules.

meant to write something this morning and ended up spending 2 hours going down a rabbit hole on generational trauma from the holocaust.

the adhd is strong today.

how’s your morning going?

there's a difference between building community as a service, and building community as a collective. 

here's how i'd articulate it... 

what building community as a service looks like :

it's usually a membership where people pay a premium to join, and largely expect the community programming to be provided to them. there's a central person or team who offers the community. that team does 90%+ of the work to facilitate programming for members. there may not be many initiatives kicked off by members. 

what building community as a collective looks like:

a group where membership is often free, has a nominal fee, or some form of equal buy in. it may have been started by an individual or small group, but the orientation of the community is around cocreation. there may be committees and other organizing structures that decentralize responsibility to some degree. no one expects a central person or body to do everything for them. everyone feels responsibility to create the experience. 

--

both are great. both are valuable. both offer paths to belonging. 

but they can feel TOTALLY different.

 so much so that if we didn't use the word "community" to describe them, we might not even consider them in the same conversation.

and i get the sense that the form of connection were longing for is rooted more in the collective. 

sure it's harder. you have to take ownership. you can't just sit back and be served. you have to play an active role. it's messier. less convenient. 

but i think we all long to be needed in our communities. to have dirt under our nails from tending to our social gardens. to be held not because we paid for it, but because we are an integral part of a loving network of humans. 

at least that's what's coming up for me this fine morning.

i'll know i have made it on this professional networking website when i see others calling it "linkydinky". 

but they have to have no idea it came from me.

i've been shifting how i look at my anxiety into more of an ally that lets me know when there's something important to look at. 

it's like an alarm reminding me to slow down and go inward. whenever i do, there's gold on the other side.

who needs a smart watch when we have our dear friend anxiety?! 

--

Justin Mulvaney inspired this post and should know that he's fabulous

say you're unhappy at work and want to be happy again. 

should you:

a. change what you do? 
b. change how you relate to what you do?

this has been an interesting question that comes up with folks considering career changes. 

for example, i'll be working with a founder who is unhappy at their company, and their theory is that it's how they're relating to their work that's the problem. their strategy is:

- better management of their nervous system
- better understanding their triggers 
- better self-care habits 
- better communication 
- better emotional fluidity

and sometimes they do these things, and find that yes! this was the blocker to their joy! they love their work again, they just needed to get out of their head and get to the root of their fears. 

but to be honest, this is rare. 

what usually happens is they do all of this work, and they become more calm, more grounded, have more resource, but they're still lacking energy and motivation at work.

in these cases it wasn't just how they related to their work, it was the work itself making them unhappy. they weren't doing the work that their heart and soul longed for. they were doing the work they *should* do.

and so they start to open up to the idea of changing their work, which could mean:

- focusing on things that feel energizing and handing off or cutting the rest
- changing the direction of the company / product to feel more aligned
- leave, and do something different 

this is where i've seen people get their joy back in the work they're doing. 

it can be as simple as that. just do the thing that feels joyful. choose the sweet fruit instead of trying to squeeze the joy out of a bitter one. 

all of that inner work is still incredibly important. because even joyful, aligned work will feel stressful if we still have attachments, or are using work as a way to avoid feeling our feelings. the inner tools are also invaluable for helping us figure out what aligned work looks and feels like.

but not all paths were made for us. imagine michael jordan trying to become a sumo wrestler or a marine biologist. we can't force ourselves to be happy doing work that we weren't designed for.

(unless michael jordan was also a secret scientific genius in which case, dude had options)

one conversation with someone who could truly see me and hold me, without judging, or flinching, or running away, has done more for my struggles with loneliness than 1,000 meetups.

--

image credit: the quantum model on substack

do you need to feel stressed in order to accomplish big things?

this question comes up a bunch in my coaching sessions with founders.

here's how it usually goes down:

1. they arrive to coaching very stressed
2. we work together to soften the stress
3. for a bit they feel at peace, but then they get worried. "what will motivate me if i'm not stressed?"
4. afraid of losing momentum, they get themselves stressed again
5. until the stress boils over and we're back to #1

i know this pattern well. i lived it for my whole career. 

this belief that we need to be stressed in order to succeed... it runs deep in capitalist culture. and it's causing us all a great deal of suffering.

but i understand why we do it. when we've used stress to motivate ourselves our whole life, it's hard to imagine any other way. what else could possibly motivate us if not stress?!

and when you're a founder, with ambitious goals to hit every month, you can't risk losing your motivation. not for a week, not even for a day. 

so we just stick with what's "worked". we use stress to keep the fire under our ass burning. even as we can feel that fire starting to singe the hairs on our buttocks, and guide us ever farther from our soul.

have you ever seen the soul and buttocks hairs mentioned in the same sentence? well... now you have. 

anyway... what do we do with this? is it true that stress is needed to accomplish big goals?

no. i don't think it is needed. it's dirty fuel, and it burns bright and fast. so it definitely works, but it leaves scars. 

the other option is to tap into clean fuel. it burns smooth, long, sustainably. 

dirty fuel is things like fear, anger, and shame. 

clean fuel is things like love, connection, and creativity.

can you build massive companies, start big movements, and have world-shifting impact while using clean fuel? you betchya. i've experienced it firsthand. i've seen it. 

but it does require faith. you have to be open to the possibility that you can still work hard without dirty fuel. 

are you willing to give it a shot?

Founder Coach | Transition Guide | Community Consultant - DavidSpinks.com 👋

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