About the Author

In 1990, David Harder founded Inspired Work, dedicated to helping individuals transform their relationship to their work. In 1997, David’s first book, The Truth About Work (Health Communications), was published, delivering insights into how to move beyond simply making a living to building a richly fulfilling professional life. The first several thousand participants in the Inspired Work Program served as case studies in how to have these breakthroughs.

In 2001, Mr. Harder was asked to redesign the Walt Disney Company’s leadership program. His groundbreaking process uses existing business challenges as the learning opportunity and provides customized stakeholder inquiries conducted directly by the executives. This immersive learning experience produces highly branded leaders who skillfully connect with the needs and expectations of each stakeholder—a watershed change in fulfilling the needs of modern leadership.

For many years, employers were reluctant to provide Inspired Work’s initial and signature program to all employees. The fear was that if every employee connected with the truth and personally changed, most of them would also leave. Quite the opposite happened. In environments like the University of Southern California, intact teams had immediate breakthroughs with employee engagement and the results were sustained. In fact, the benefits only deepened over time. In this environment, it became vividly clear: Full employee engagement hinges on the ability of each team member to change and to help others change. And, it can only succeed as a highly involved, collective, and democratic solution.

Inspired Work has served a wide variety of organizations, including HBO, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Loyola Marymount University, the University of Southern California, the United Church of Religious Science, Morgan Stanley, Smith Barney, Baxter Healthcare, the Art Institute of America, and many others. David Harder’s leadership, career development, and team building programs produce some of the world’s most outstanding satisfaction numbers in any business: 92.6 percent.

David has appeared on many business and human-interest programs including CNN, CBS, KTLA News, KFWB News, and Business News Network. He studied music at USC and is an accomplished jazz pianist. His public speaking venues include such topics as the Four Real Reasons to be Afraid of Change: Four Successful Responses.

In 2016, Mr. Harder was a keynote speaker at the International Human Resource Summit, Tec-Canada, and Ultimate Software’s human resources conferences.

For more than 10 years, David Harder has published a bi-weekly essay about work that directly reaches millions of business leaders and other contacts. His articles promote a brand that treats work as a profound opportunity to bring solutions to the world’s problems and topics that teach how to become more fulfilled, contributive, and successful. He is a promoter of skilled social networking, and his unique method for building virtual communities is now a curriculum delivered to participants from all walks of life.

David is a syndicated columnist for BizCatalyst360, Execunet, and Recruiter.com.

Examples of David’s articles are available at: www.inspiredworkservices.com/library/blog/.

Prior to launching Inspired Work, David was a general manager for one of Los Angeles’s leading staffing companies and a well-respected jazz pianist/composer well-known in the club and concert scene. He lives at the beach in Pacific Palisades with his partner and two outspoken Dachshunds.