Most of us have a sense that if we’re really brilliant at our job, we’ll eventually get promoted to a leadership role, but something we often don’t realize is that doing and leading are two different things. And being great at doing, doesn’t mean that you’ll be great at leading.

In this episode, I talk about my childhood — you’ll hear how my tendency to do things differently and challenge how things were done started at a young age, and my early career. Working at some of the biggest global agencies and interacting with international brands really shaped my outlook on innovation, as did my first (failed) business venture.

Let’s face it: To be a good, effective leader in today’s complex and crowded marketplace, leaders need some new skills, and they are skills that we don’t normally talk about or associate with the traditional viewpoint of leadership — things like empathy and intuition. Apart from just the “right-brain” skills, leaders need to tap into their “left-brain” skills and put them all together in the form of Whole-Brain Leadership. Katherine LaVelle joins me on this episode to dive into just what thi

We often take innovation, which should be an “all-the-time” thing, and turn it into a point-in-time exercise, and that’s where companies often get stuck and don’t see innovation happening in their organization. Innovation is about thinking differently across the board, and Tristan Kromer is helping companies make innovation actionable through experimentation.

So many people encounter frustrations in their lives, but shrug it off and do nothing about it. Greg Koberger is someone who experienced a frustration and decided to do something about it. While creating a solution that benefits millions of people and companies alike, he also built a company on some interesting leadership principles and cultivated a company culture like no other — and that’s what we’re diving into in this episode.

We all know that your thoughts drive your actions; the real power is in your perspective — because your point of view creates your reality. When it comes to innovation, challenging assumptions and seeing opportunities, adopting a different perspective can change everything. Heather Nichols joins me to share how looking inward can help you innovate.

Do you ever feel like life is just a series of never-ending projects? In a certain sense, you are not wrong. Everything from cleaning out the fridge to launching a new initiative or product can be considered a project, which is why learning more about effective project management is a game-changer. Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez is a project management champion and he has just the insights we need about how to manage our projects.

Paul Sarvadi is the founder and CEO of Insperity, a company that provides human resources and administrative services to small and medium-sized businesses. Over time, it grew to support over 100,000 businesses, over 2 million employees, and 77 offices across the U.S. and it boasted $3.8 billion in revenue. Paul also authored Take Care of Your People: The Enlightened CEO’s Guide to Business Success, which provides practical advice based on a lot of real-world experience.

What does teaming have to do with innovation and success? How does teaming differ from just mere collaboration? Where does diversity in teams come into play? To answer these questions, I have John Bucsek and Bellaria Jimenez. They couldn’t be more different, but they’ve come together to build a wildly successful business around the style of work they call teaming.

It’s a common belief that good business strategy and tactics are what make you successful. Purdeep Sangha believes that’s not the whole truth — what makes us successful is consistently making better decisions and taking more effective action and he has just the strategies for us to reach our true potential and create the success we want.