Maverick Author
ROB MALLAN
Organizer of TEDx Channelside, Leadership Coach, Founder of "We Love Our World"
"The myth says: 'Work harder than everyone else.' The reality is: Recruit better than everyone else."
About Rob Mallan
Rob Mallan is a distinguished leadership coach, speaker, and movement builder whose career spans decades of connecting people and creating platforms for transformative impact. As a leadership expert specializing in what he calls "Dream Broker Leadership," Rob has coached everyone from inner-city youth to professional athletes, entertainers, and civic leaders—and has collaborated with Michael Jackson, Daryl Strawberry, and Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn.
As the organizer of TEDx Channelside District and co-organizer of TEDx Newport Beach, Rob has built platforms that amplify overlooked voices and create collisions between ideas that spark innovation. His approach to leadership focuses on strategic talent scouting, generous listening, and building infrastructure that turns individual effort into collective impact. Rob is the founder of "We Love Our World," a humanitarian platform connecting resources with needs.
Rob's most notable achievement was orchestrating the Christmas Outreach that served over 15,000 families—not through solo effort, but by brokering partnerships between city officials, law enforcement, businesses, churches, athletes, and nonprofits. What started as one gathering became ongoing collaboration. One partnership sparked three more. The city official and nonprofit director who met at his planning meetings launched the Harbor Hope After-School Initiative, still serving 200 kids weekly.
Through TEDx, "We Love Our World," and his Dream Broker Leadership framework, Rob is building movements that outlast individual leaders—helping people connect gifts, multiply impact, and create legacies that continue long after the work is done.
Chapter: "Why The Best Leaders Are Brokers, Not Grinders"
"If you're the star of every story, you're not a dream broker—you're a performer. Build platforms, not pedestals."
In his transformative chapter for Maverick Leadership, Rob Mallan reveals why the most effective leaders aren't grinding themselves into exhaustion—they're Dream Brokers who connect the right people, build sustainable platforms, and create movements that outlast them. Through compelling stories and battle-tested principles, Rob exposes how the cultural obsession with the "solo grinder" is burning out leaders—and provides the exact framework to multiply impact through connection instead of accumulation.
Rob opens by challenging the myth of the "self-made" success story. Behind every celebrated leader is a long line of people who invested, encouraged, and opened doors—but our culture erases those names from the story. This myth isolates leaders into believing they must carry everything themselves and discourages others from stepping up because they think they don't measure up. Maverick leaders see through this illusion. They're not the hardest workers in the room—they're the best talent scouts, the ones who can spot a gift, connect it to a need, and create value that no one person could generate alone.
"A broker doesn't own the product—they facilitate the exchange. They connect buyers with sellers, investors with opportunities, vision with resources."
Through his signature framework "The Five Skills Mavericks Master," Rob provides actionable principles that dream broker leaders use to transform their impact: pattern recognition, generous listening, platform building, trust architecture, and credit distribution. The chapter culminates with the Christmas Outreach case study—how Rob brought together impossible partnerships to serve 15,000 families, and when the venue fell through two weeks before the event, the network solved in 45 minutes what he couldn't solve alone. Rob's challenge is clear: "Stop grinding. Start connecting. Stop carrying. Start recruiting. Stop building monuments to yourself. Start building platforms for others."
What You'll Learn
The Grinder vs. Broker Framework: How the most impactful leaders Rob has worked with—from Michael Jackson to Mayor Bob Buckhorn—weren't doing all the work themselves, but were connecting the right people at the right time
The Dream Broker Recruitment Strategy: The exact approach Rob used for the Christmas Outreach—asking "What legacy do you want in this city?" before pitching his vision, and how one business owner funded the food three weeks later because Rob showed how it served HIS vision
The Five Skills Mavericks Master: Pattern Recognition (seeing connections others miss), Generous Listening (understanding their WHY first), Platform Building (creating stages for others), Trust Architecture (protecting network integrity), and Credit Distribution (being radically generous with attribution)
Building Infrastructure That Lasts: Why dream broker leadership isn't about inspiration—it's about infrastructure. Vision attracts people. Systems keep them there. How to create committees, weekly calls, shared documents, and clear decision-making authority that keeps people working together when it gets hard
The Real Victory of Brokering: How the Christmas Outreach wasn't just an event—it was proof that collaboration could unlock the impossible. The ripple effects that created the Harbor Hope After-School Initiative, turned one-time donors into ongoing mentors, and sparked three more partnerships from one act of unity
Three Transformative Takeaways:
1. When You're the Grinder, The Work Dies When You Burn Out. When You're the Broker, The Network Becomes Self-Sustaining.
One person can accomplish X. Two connected people can accomplish 10X. But when you broker connections for dozens? The math breaks. Rob spent 40 hours organizing Christmas Outreach. The partners he connected have invested thousands of hours in ongoing initiatives. He didn't grind those hours—he facilitated the connections that multiplied them. The partnerships Rob brokered 10 years ago still produce results—and he's not in the room anymore. That's the dream broker advantage: your impact outlives your direct involvement.
2. You Don't Have All The Answers. You Create The Conditions Where The Collective Intelligence Of Your Network Surfaces The Solutions.
Two weeks before the Christmas Outreach, the venue had a double-booking conflict. Fifteen thousand people. No location. Some partners started talking exit strategies. But then the nonprofit director suggested the waterfront park. The business owner immediately offered to cover tent rentals. The police captain said his team could manage traffic flow. The church leader knew a catering company. In forty-five minutes, the network solved what Rob couldn't solve alone. That's when he truly understood dream broker leadership: create the conditions, and watch what happens when the right people collide.
3. The More Credit You Give Away, The More Influence You Gain. People Want To Work With Leaders Who Elevate Them.
The fastest way to kill collaboration? Hog the spotlight. Dream brokers are radically generous with attribution. When Rob achieves something big, he writes personal thank-you notes to every key player—handwritten notes highlighting their specific contribution. Then he amplifies their work publicly. Why? Because when people know you'll celebrate their contribution, they keep showing up. The paradox: the more credit you give away, the more influence you gain. If you're the star of every story, you're not a dream broker—you're a performer. Build platforms, not pedestals.
Rob’s Impact
Rob's leadership extends beyond coaching to building and scaling multiple movement-creating ventures: TEDx Channelside District and TEDx Newport Beach—platforms that curate collisions between scientists and poets, entrepreneurs and activists, technologists and pastors. As a humanitarian leader, Rob founded "We Love Our World," connecting resources with needs at scale. His Christmas Outreach didn't just serve 15,000 families—it created lasting partnerships like the Harbor Hope After-School Initiative, still serving 200 kids weekly. As a leadership coach, Rob has worked with inner-city youth, professional athletes, entertainers including Michael Jackson and Daryl Strawberry, and civic leaders like Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn. His podcast guests now connect with each other without his involvement. TEDx speakers collaborate on projects. Christmas partners create new initiatives together. That's legacy: when the network you built keeps creating value without you.
Connect with Rob Mallan
Website: www.RobMallan.com
Instagram: @robmallan
