What does it mean to have a friend? What does it mean to be a friend?

Someone you can rely on. Someone who understands you, not just the “you” that you project into the world. A friend is someone who knows they can rely on you, too. 

How many times a week, a day, do you lean on your friends when you feel like you can’t stand on your own?

Our guest today has built his career on the power of those friends – and being a friend, too. Ken Woolley is the founder of Extra Space Storage, those ubiquitous blocky buildings you always see from the highway. He’s managed airlines, developed apartments, even flipped vintage cars. But to hear him say it, none of it would be possible without that true spark of trust that comes from the friendships he’s built.

When’s the last time you got caught in the expectations others had for you? One person wants one thing, one version of you – another needs you to be someone else entirely…

And who do you want to be? Do you even have time to think about that?

The things people expect from us has a profound effect on how we act – we are social beings, after all. We aim, to please.

Our guest today says that the burden of those expectations in the workplace fall unfairly onto women. Jennifer McCollum is the CEO of Linkage, devoted to advancing the real power of women leaders through leadership development.

But how she got there has been a story of what Jennifer calls the double-bind of expectations on women. It’s a story of what she’s been called, too – a cupcake with a razor in it.

There’s an allure around the idea of sales. It’s the same allure they packaged so neatly in the show Mad Men, all confidence and charisma. But take it from the other perspective – have you ever had such a pushy car salesman, that you just left the lot?

Our guest today says that’s because charisma isn’t a sales strategy. There’s no room for building trust in your solution when you’re focused on the close. Scott K. Edinger is a sales consultant to Fortune 50 companies, including AT&T, and he’s out with a new book – The Growth Leader. With such a disconnect from their company leaders, Scott says, sales teams are left to fend for themselves in their calls with clients.

So how do you bridge the gap between the sales department and the C-suite? 

Growing your people to grow your organization – it makes sense, right? But what about approaching the problem from the other direction – growing your organization, to grow your people?

When’s the last time you looked at the state of your org chart? And how willing are you to experiment with it?

Today, I want to bring back an old episode. In 2020, we spoke with Alex Osterwalder about his idea of an invincible company – one that is constantly reinventing itself to stay on the bleeding edge of disruption.

Alex, along with his mentor Yves Pigneur, is one of the top-ranked management thinkers in the world – as of Thinkers50 2023, which just wrapped up, the duo is number 8 on that list.

I hope you enjoy.

Coaching often involves speaking a truth the other person doesn’t really want to hear. Even when we’re lost for direction, being pointed in the right way can feel like this indictment on being lost in the first place.

But a lot of clients will describe this idea of the unlock – the a-ha – when that self-doubting voice fades, and the voice of the coach comes into focus. 

How can we prime ourselves to receive these messages? Our guests today have a new book out on exactly that question. Jacquelyn Lane and Scott Osman are co-authors of Becoming Coachable, along with Marshall Goldsmith. The book was borne out of the 100 Coaches agency, which Scott co-founded with Marshall.

So what does becoming coachable actually look like?

It’s just the nature of our show that we often talk to folks in the mastery part of their professional S-Curve. It’s easy to talk to a CEO about leadership. It’s also another fact that our guests tend to be older – at least, out of college.

But it is rare that we come across an entrepreneur in that very first launch point of their career. A person that put college on hold to pursue an idea, a person willing to put their dreams on hold for an hour to talk to us.

Austin Hillam is the co-founder of ZipString, a handheld toy that keeps a string in constant motion.  It's easier to just watch than explain, here.

And we’ve got Austin today for a rare look at the phase of professional life that a lot of our guests can only reflect on – starting that first business. 

If we’re being honest, we’ve all felt the toll of going into a meeting on a couple hours sleep and a double espresso. The work can often come first, and the body comes second.

But as leaders, we can’t do our job effectively if we’re jittery and wiped. We can’t do our job if we’ve got the worry of heart disease lurking the back of your mind.

What if we could take charge of our health before any of these things happen? Not just waiting for the symptoms, but… intecepting them?

Dr. Bill Kapp realized that changing the paradigm of healthcare means taking on the Goliath in the room – the health insurance industry. A former US Air Force flight surgeon, Dr. Kapp is using his company Fountain Health to argue for a more holistic, preventative approach to living and aging, alongside Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis.

The last time you had to navigate change – real, structural change – who did you turn to? When we’re working from a place of ambiguity, when we’re stuck inside our own head, another person can make all the difference.

But let’s be honest, sometimes, painfully… that person is no one at all. We can have this instinct, as leaders, that reaching out is weakness. We can see it as this flashing neon sign that, hey, I have no idea what I’m doing. Someone, please help.

Melissa Werneck’s spent her career fighting against that stigma. As the Chief Human Resources Officer for Kraft-Heinz, she’s bringing her message of coaching as growth to an international company. Making sure everyone knows, it’s okay to raise your hand, it’s okay to feel a little lost – whether you’re a new hire or the CEO. 

We throw around this term a lot in the management profession, in the coaching profession, really everywhere in business – top thinker. 

But how often do we really interrogate that title? Because, really, wouldn’t we all like to think of ourselves as top thinkers?

In politics, it’s the journalists that hold politicians to account. In the world of management, there are two former journalists who are holding these top thinkers to account as well. Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove used to write columns for The London Times, when they realized they could have a bigger impact connecting these thinkers directly.

As the founders of Thinkers50, an organization that comes together every two years to celebrate the true top thinkers, Stuart and Des have brought their skills of commentary and curation from the front page to a much larger audience.

So what makes a top thinker, truly? 

For all the credit Superman gets, for being the Man of Steel, do you think he ever cries? When he’s Clark Kent, working at the paper, do you think Superman’s ever broken down in a bathroom stall?

When he’s flying folks out of a burning building, it’s easy to forget that his parents are dead, his home is dust and the only family he has wants him dead. All we see is the Man of Steel.

For 45 years, James Dixon only showed others what they wanted to see. What they didn’t see, was his prosthetic leg that he had kept hidden all that time. Until he decided to show them.

Today, James is out with a book about his experience, titled Absolute Motivation. From team lead at General Motors to firing up Fortune 500 crowds, James is in the business of building people up. That’s only after he learned to build himself up, too.