David Long, MyEmployees | The kind of personal growth that gets results in business isn’t always glamorous. What really counts is the day by day process of learning and incrementally changing.

There was a time when David Long, after losing his job, had to move his wife and three kids to his parents’ garage. He understood he had a lot to learn if he was going to build a great life for his family. Over 32 years, he built MyEmployees through a relentless dedication to his - and his employees’ - growth.

MyEmployees builds employee recognition programs for major businesses (including the likes of Walmart). David had been engraving jewelry in high school, and he decided to use those same engraving skills to use to create plaques for companies to celebrate high achieving employees.

A plaque isn’t everything. It’s not just about the symbol of the plaque; it’s about the hard work to be worthy of recognition… the continuous, incremental day by day improvement. So David encourages his employees to read during work hours. He wants them to find new ideas they’re curious about. He wants them to explore ways to make work a better place to be. By inspiring his employees to do this - and his clients’ employees - he has created a virtuous circle where everyone is learning and growing together. 

“I constantly read… I read about three hours a day. You want small incremental changes of constantly improving everything in your company. Not all readers are leaders but all leaders are readers.”