Feisworld Podcast

Alexander Kjerulf (pronounced a little like care-oolf.) is the founder and Chief Happiness Officer (CHO) of Woohoo inc and one of the world’s leading experts on happiness at work. He is an author and speaker, presenting and conducting workshops on happiness at work at businesses and conferences in over 30 countries. His clients include companies like Hilton, Microsoft, LEGO, IKEA, Shell, HP and IBM.

Alex was "officially" introduced to me by Stephen Shario, a guest from an earlier episode of the feisworld podcast. Long before I found out that Alex is a connection of Stephen's, I had already been reading Alex's blog called The Chief Happiness Officer Blog. A more recent article I loved is called "Why every company should have a CHO?"

Studies show that happy employees are more productive, more innovative, more motivated, more energetic and more optimistic. They are also less sick, stay with the company longer and make the customers more loyal. For those reasons (and many others) happy companies make more money.

Alex owns the space of Happiness at Work. I find this approach inspiring, intelligent and intriguing - I was intrigued! There are 120 million people with full time jobs in the U.S. In 2010, Business Insider reported that 80% Hate Their Jobs, and there are numerous articles asking you the question - should you choose between a passion or a paycheck?

If we set aside people who are generally depressed and miserable no matter where they go (I hope this is a relatively small percentage of the world population), there is still a significant percentage of the workforce that aren't motivated to go to work for a variety of reasons. Alex suggests that it is not without pitfalls but:

Having a great CHO, a person somewhere in the organization who has the skills, the knowledge and the passion to help create a happy workplace and who has the unconditional support of top management makes perfect sense. It will not only make employees happier, it will also most likely make the company money.

To learn more about Alex, please visit Woohoo Inc., The Chief Happiness Officer Blog, and follow Alex on Twitter.

Show notes, links and resources: https://www.feisworld.com/blog/tom-seabourne

Tom Seaborne is a fitness educator, author, martial artist and cyclist.

Tom has a Ph.D. in exercise science. He was a member of the US. Taekwondo Team, and a National and International AAU Taekwondo Champion.

In addition to Taekwondo, Tom is an ESPN professional Karate Association full-contact karate winner.  If there are avid cyclists who are listening to this podcast, it’s worth mentioning that Tom was the winner of RAAM Open West, and ranked top 10 in the 1990 Race Across America. Tom holds a National 12-hr record holder (229 miles), a 24-hr Texas State Cycling Champion (1740 miles in 7 days) and a Guinness World Indoor Cycling Record in 2009 (185 hours).

Besides competition, Tom appeared on a number of televisions and video series such as the QVC Fitness Expert. He also co-hosted the #1 rated infomercial 6-second abs, Fox Morning Show, Good Morning Texas, Stay Fit ABC, Inside Fitness – CBS National and many others.

Tom has authored over 200 articles and 16 books. You can find them on Amazon.

What strikes me the most is not the endless list of Tom’s accomplishments as an athlete and an educator, but rather his openness, honesty, and willingness to flex, listen and learn. To learn more about Tom, please follow him on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.

Part 2 SHOW NOTES:

Wade Devers is an Executive Creative Director and Managing Director at Arnold Worldwide. He always leaves a unique impression.

When I first walked in the door at the Arnold office back in December 2013, I must had met dozens of people on Day 1. I remember forcing myself to remember all the names and faces an felt completely overwhelmed. When Wade walked by me for the first time, I remember thinking "That beard! That face! That outfit!" but most importantly, "That spirit!" 

Wade is both funny and fun to be around. He truly doesn’t look or dress like anyone else I’ve met (which makes remembering him incredibly easy). But what I like most about Wade is his spirit which I refer to as "spiritually warm" - by which I mean: you just can’t help wanting to be friends with him.

If you are listening to this episode because you come from Arnold and have worked with Wade before, you’ll likely discover many things you didn’t know about him.

We talk about agency life of course such as what it is like to be an Executive Creative Director in Boston (only a dozen or so jobs like this in the city) working on some of the coolest brands in the country and around the world. How Wade transformed from a young designer to a creative director? How does Wade approach work, creativity on a daily basis? What does he look for in a new hire, etc.?

The conversation doesn’t stop at the agency talk as we dive deeper into Wade’s secret origin stories. Did you know that he spent years living in Scotland and working at a Chinese restaurant? It was an experience that has forever changed his life (for the better).

As a father of four children, I noticed that Wade is a family man who has wonderful relationships with all his children. I had to ask him about parenthood and how he remains to be so cool in front of his teenage kids.

Thank you for listening to this podcast. Please let me know your comment below via iTunes, Stitcher or via Facebook, Twitter.

As the Director of Audience Engagement at Peppercom, Sam works with companies to better listen to, empathize with, understand, and serve their customers and other key audiences through communications and storytelling.  There are three major components to Sam’s job:

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Sam was introduced to me by Josh Green, remember Josh from Episode #2 back in November 2014? Sam and Josh co-authored the book Spreadable Media: creating value and meaning in a networked culture. 

When you hear the word "media", you may already be thinking about the other word "viral". But viral indicates or hints at that people don’t even have to try to pass that content around. That’s not how culture works, that’s just how virus works.

One of the many interesting POVs from this book confirms:

"The act of sharing, critiquing, passing along are profoundly creative. It also gives people a great deal of pleasure and drive people’s engagement." - Sam Ford

So the first question I had to ask Sam: What was the process like for Sam to combine his knowledge and experience from academia, consulting, journalism (in pop culture) to do what he does today? Furthermore, how does Sam navigate his career path to become the Director of Audience Engagement?

Whether you are already in marketing, advertising, consulting, or running your own business, working in other industries, Sam’s words of wisdom speak to all walks of life. It was a tremendous learning experience for me.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did. If you can't t finish this interview in one seating, make sure that you come back to the second half when Sam reveals his prediction and analysis for what’s next for the social sphere beyond Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Quora, etc.  This is popular question clients would ask. We also dove into the idea of collective intelligence, crowdsourcing, which can be very powerful but also terrifying at the same time. "Everything is a tradeoff" Sam says, "and that tradeoff fascinates me."

Last but not least, Sam and his family live in Kentucky. Sam offers some great advice that left me feeling very intrigued.

If you’d like Sam to further elaborate on topics mentioned in this episode, please drop me a note via this blog post, or Facebook, Twitter.

It is with great pleasure for me to welcome Dr. Lee Schwamm, Professor of Neurology from Harvard Medical School, Vice Chair of Neurology from Mass General Hospital (MGH) to the feisworld podcast. 

I’d like to welcome Lisa Leffert to join me on the feisworld podcast! Lisa the Chief of Obstetric Anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

The focus of Lisa’s clinical work is on the care of pregnant patients. Together with a highly-skilled, multidisciplinary team, Lisa administrates a service, which features 3600 deliveries a year (that is, nearly 10 births per day), involving both low and high-risk obstetric patients, on the Labor Floor and in the associated operating rooms.

“I must have been 6 or 7 years old. I remember gun battle, unmanned helicopter, deserted soldiers. There were candy stores that no one was watching. I wondered if we could just go get candies!”

Van recalled his last memories of Vietnam before he left with his father, grandmother and eight brothers and sisters in April 1975 during the Fall of Saigon.

My special guest on the feisworld podcast is Van Le. We first met in 2006 and kept in touch ever since. Van is now the father of two adorable children and runs his law practice at Van Paul Le, PC Law Firm in Dorchester, MA.

In this episode, Van speaks to us about his journey from the Fall of Saigon to Commonwealth School, Harvard University (and running the biggest student organization at Harvard called Phillips Brooks House as the President during Junior and Senior year), running a campaign for the Mayor of Cambridge (and won), one year of public service in Philippines, the Sports Philanthropy Project and most recently launching his own law practice.

Clint authored and edited an impressive number of books (Good Reads). The most recent one is called: The Boys of Everest: The Tragic Story of Climbing's Greatest Generation. Clint is also the owner of The Writing Company. 

In Part 2, we discover the answers to secret origin questions such as: