Three Steps to Finding Your Confidence with Dan Mulhern

“Locate your confidence in what you’re great at, in what you love.” Dan Mulhern 

Denise talks to Dan Mulhern, award-wining teacher at the Haas School of Business and Goldman School of Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley, public speaker, radio personality, and acclaimed writer. With all his accomplishments he’s very proud that he learned to be a “different kind of man” to support his wife’s role as Governor of Michigan. Being Michigan’s First Gentleman was not a role that he ever expected to play. 

Like Denise, Mulhern is one of seven children, the firstborn son to his Italian, Irish Catholic parents. When he was only three, already with three sisters, he was elated to learn that his fourth sibling was a baby brother. Two months after his birth, his brother died, and Mulhern suffered his first trauma—a broken heart. He says that much of his life since then has been mending hearts, starting with his own. 

His second bout with adversity was facing his own failure as a campaign manager for a congressional campaign. It took him years to learn that it wasn’t his strength. Eventually he found his sweet spot, teaching. Mulhern says he works to be a good teacher, not just of content, but of people. And so, his advice for cultivating confidence is to find what you’re good at. 

The best kept secret to confidence, he says, “is forget about you,” and focus on others. Research on psychology and resilience supports that serving others is one of the best sources of satisfaction. He also says it’s important to “stay in your zone of control” where you can make the biggest difference.  

He remembers fondly growing up in a family that valued kindness and inclusiveness. But he also recognizes that we pass along less desirable values, like workaholism, by virtue of the way we live. Denise sees in her own children, a strong work ethic, balanced with the desire to spend time with family.  

Mulhern realized along the way that he’s also naturally good at something else, encouraging others and having faith when the chips were down. But he wasn’t very good at doing it for himself. Now, he knows he can trust himself to give the gift he has so readily offered to others—the gift of grace. 

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Dan Mulhern is a nationally recognized expert in the fields of leadership, gender, and organizational culture. He teaches courses on leadership, organizational behavior, and public policy at the Haas School of Business and Goldman School of Public Policy at University of California, Berkeley. He has won numerous awards for his teaching and leadership mentoring and writes an acclaimed blog, “Reading for Leading.” Mulhern, an honors graduate from Yale University and Harvard Law School, is the Co-Founder of LeadingX2 and founder of Dan Mulhern Inc. In addition to his books on leadership, Mulhern co-authored A Governor’s Story: The Fight for Jobs and America’s Economic Future with his wife, former two-term Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. The couple have three children. 

Denise Ilitch, an owner of Ilitch Family Companies and President of Ilitch Enterprises, has been a part of Detroit’s business and philanthropic community for over 40 years.  As a mother, lawyer, entrepreneur, devoted community servant and tireless advocate for women and children, she learned early, from her father, that everyone is worthy of contributing to the world.  Her passion for affordable, accessible, quality education stems from her own experience as a first-generation student, earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, where she currently serves on the Board of Regents, and a law degree from the University of Detroit Law School. 

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