Leading Visionaries Podcast

What happens when the vision you have for your life is bigger than what the people around you believe is possible? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Steve Gutzler, leadership expert, speaker, coach, and the president of Leadership Quest.

Steve shares how lessons from his family's pancake house shaped his approach to leading people, why attitude sets the tone for an entire organization, and how a clear vision can create the passion needed to keep moving forward when life does not go according to plan.

Get ready to discover how to keep getting better forever while leading with vision, emotional intelligence, and purpose.

Why a compelling vision can create passion and motivation in the present.

How a leader's attitude can influence the people and culture around them.

Why leaders manage things but lead people.

How to maintain perspective and navigate emotions when life goes sideways.

Why entrepreneurial and leadership journeys rarely move in a straight line.

How lifelong learning can help leaders continue growing and evolving.

Why emotional intelligence is a critical leadership skill, not simply a soft skill.

How emotionally intelligent leaders create trust, connection, and a sense of value in others.

Why your inner circle can either strengthen or diminish your biggest vision.

How anchoring yourself in your core values can help you navigate challenging seasons.

What is the relationship between vision and leadership?

Vision gives leaders a clear picture of the future and creates the passion needed to move toward it. A strong vision can help people understand where they are going, why it matters, and what they need to do in the present to make that future possible.

How does emotional intelligence improve leadership?

Emotional intelligence helps leaders understand and navigate their own emotions while recognizing and responding to the emotions of others. This creates stronger relationships, greater trust, and a leadership environment where people feel valued, appreciated, and empowered.

Why is emotional intelligence important for entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurs are constantly communicating ideas, building relationships, making decisions, and influencing others. Emotional intelligence helps entrepreneurs connect with people beyond simply exchanging information, making it easier to build trust and move people toward a shared vision.

Website

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group

What happens when you stop looking at people as a business expense and start seeing them as the force that creates value? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Rohit Bassi, the founder of People Quotient and the creator of PQ, a framework that defines an organization’s capability through its people.

Rohit shares how his childhood vision for global impact shaped his leadership journey, what he learned from working with more than 100 businesses, and why translating a big vision into something tangible is essential for creating real-world impact. He also explains his five-year vision for bringing PQ to businesses around the world.

Why having a big vision requires both imagination and practical structure.

How to connect what you are solving for with the value you want to create.

Why people are fundamental to turning a vision into measurable business value.

What People Quotient, or PQ, means and how it applies to leadership, organization, and talent.

Why businesses benefit from thinking about their people proactively instead of only reacting to employee issues.

Why bringing a vision to life requires other people, not just the person who created the vision.

How a big idea can become a tangible framework that other people can understand, use, and apply.

What is People Quotient?

People Quotient, or PQ, is a framework for thinking about an organization’s people through three areas.

Why are people important to business success?

People are responsible for carrying out the work that creates value within an organization.

How is People Quotient different from IQ and EQ?

Rohit describes IQ and EQ as familiar ways of thinking about individuals, while PQ focuses on the people and organizational side of a business.

Website

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group

What happens when you spend years learning how to lead, knock on 9,000 doors, and discover that the conversations happening face-to-face are dramatically different from the conversations happening online? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Christopher Rivers, former Army Officer and author of You Shouldn’t Have to Kill to Get Ahead.

Christopher shares what he learned from knocking on thousands of doors, why he believes meaningful change starts with everyday conversations, and how his book became the foundation for a larger mission to make complicated policy and political conversations more approachable.

You'll also hear how Christopher is turning his ideas into multiple formats, including an audiobook and digital experiences, while building a mission-driven business.

How having a clear vision differs from being able to see the path to achieving it.

Why your vision may develop through experience rather than appearing fully formed.

How a 1% improvement mindset can help develop leadership over time.

Why leadership is built through consistent personal growth rather than a single workshop or title.

What Christopher learned from knocking on 9,000 doors during his political campaigns.

How information overload can make it harder to find the information needed to make good decisions.

Why face-to-face conversations can help people navigate disagreement and different perspectives.

Two questions that can create more productive conversations around difficult issues.

How a book can become the foundation for a larger mission-driven business.

Why entrepreneurs need to meet people where they are and create multiple ways for people to engage with their ideas.

How speaking, books, digital products, and educational tools can become revenue streams for a mission-driven organization.

How does the 1% mindset help develop leadership?

The 1% mindset focuses on becoming a slightly better version of yourself each day. Christopher Rivers believes that consistently improving yourself over time can develop the discipline, experience, and personal growth required for leadership.

What can knocking on 9,000 doors teach you about leadership?

Knocking on 9,000 doors created an opportunity to speak directly with people across different political perspectives. Those conversations showed Christopher that many people's personal concerns and conversations were different from the broader conversations happening through media and online platforms.

How can people have better conversations when they disagree?

Two questions can help create more productive conversations: "What would you have to see to change your mind?" and "How would you feel if it happened to you?" These questions encourage people to consider whether they are genuinely open to new information and how an issue might affect them personally.

Website

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group

What if the biggest thing standing between your big vision and the life you want isn't a lack of ambition, but a lack of a road map? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Jason Clark, Chief Marketing Officer of Tectonic. Jason helps organizations connect branding, technology, marketing, and growth strategy.

Jason challenges some common assumptions about marketing and visibility. Marketing doesn't create value where none exists. It amplifies the value that's already there.

Hear Jason's perspective on ego, collaboration, knowing when you're truly ready to sell a business, and why getting out of your own head may be one of the most important leadership practices of all.

How road mapping can turn a big vision into practical milestones.

Why BHAGs need benchmarks and smaller steps along the way.

How to lead and support other visionaries without taking over their vision.

Why ego can become an obstacle to long-term success.

How relationships and community contribute to achieving ambitious goals.

Why marketing works best when it amplifies proven value.

Why likes, followers, and visibility do not automatically create cash flow.

How founders can recognize when they are ready to sell or exit a business.

What changes when a founder moves from business owner to C-suite leader.

Why disconnecting from work can help leaders gain perspective.

How legacy, family, and presence can shape a leader's definition of success.

How do you turn a big vision into an actionable plan?

Start by defining the desired outcome and then work backward to identify the milestones required to reach it. A large goal becomes more manageable when it is broken into benchmarks, timelines, and measurable steps.

How can leaders help entrepreneurs achieve their vision?

Leaders can help entrepreneurs by bringing experience, perspective, strategic guidance, and an understanding of potential roadblocks. Rather than telling someone exactly what to do, effective leadership can help them anticipate challenges and create a practical path forward.

Does marketing create value for a business?

Marketing primarily amplifies existing value. Strong marketing can increase awareness, improve messaging, support sales, and create momentum, but marketing cannot compensate indefinitely for an offering that has not demonstrated real value in the marketplace.

Team Tectonic

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group

What happens when a personal problem becomes the doorway to a much bigger purpose? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Carmine Del Sordi, founder and president of Pure and Easy Tea, a luxury tea company built around purity, transparency, quality, and purpose. Carmine shares how self-discovery shaped his approach to leadership, why he believes vision and visualization are two distinct but connected practices, and how he learned to turn what he could see into a roadmap for action.

If you've ever had a vision that wouldn't leave you alone, this conversation offers a powerful reminder: sometimes the thing that begins as a solution for yourself is actually the beginning of something meant to serve others.

Why self-discovery is foundational to intentional leadership.

How knowing your core values and principles can strengthen your leadership.

The difference between receiving a vision and using visualization to bring that vision into reality.

How to turn a vision into a practical roadmap for action.

How a personal challenge can become the starting point for a business idea.

Why curiosity and experimentation are important parts of the innovation process.

How to recognize when an idea feels like a calling rather than simply an opportunity.

Why purpose can provide the persistence needed to navigate the difficult seasons of entrepreneurship.

How ritual can create space for gratitude, reflection, release, and intentional creation.

Why entrepreneurs need to recognize the financial investment and opportunity cost involved in bringing a vision to life.

How Carmine built Pure and Easy Tea around purity, transparency, quality, and function.

Why staying committed to a vision can matter when early business results are discouraging.

How do you turn a vision into reality?

Turning a vision into reality starts with clearly seeing the desired outcome and then creating a practical roadmap to move toward it. Visualization can help clarify the destination, while intentional action, experimentation, persistence, and planning help transform the vision into something tangible.

What is the difference between vision and visualization?

Vision is the ability to see or receive a clear sense of what could be created or accomplished. Visualization is the intentional practice of mentally seeing the desired end result and using that image to help construct a path toward it.

Why is self-discovery important for leadership?

Self-discovery helps leaders understand their core values, principles, motivations, and identity. Knowing who you are makes it easier to lead with intention and create a vision that is authentic to you.

Pure and Easy Tea

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group

What if changing the way you see yourself could change the way you move through one of the hardest seasons of your life? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Amanda Goodwin, founder of Cancer Sharks, a storytelling and advocacy platform inspired by her experience with stage four melanoma. A longtime communications and leadership professional, Amanda has led nonprofit initiatives, fundraising campaigns, childcare organizations, and a technology startup.

Amanda shares how Cancer Sharks is evolving through storytelling events, merchandise, publishing, and speaking, while staying rooted in its larger purpose: creating connection when people need it most.

This conversation is about far more than cancer. It is about trusting your knowing, advocating for yourself, and having the courage to let a vision grow before you know exactly where it will lead.

How self-leadership can become a powerful form of advocacy when navigating difficult circumstances.

Why advocating for yourself sometimes requires researching decision-makers and understanding what matters to them.

How years of leadership experience can become unexpectedly valuable during a personal crisis.

Why vision isn't always visual and can instead emerge through intuition, awareness, feeling, or a deep sense of knowing.

Why changing the language we use around difficult experiences can change how we relate to them.

How storytelling can create connection and vulnerability in places where people often feel isolated.

Why a vision does not have to be perfectly formed before you begin bringing it into the world.

How Amanda is building Cancer Sharks through storytelling, events, publishing, merchandise, and speaking.

Why entrepreneurs and visionaries need to be willing to experiment, learn, and allow their original vision to evolve.

How the words used by leaders, healthcare professionals, and caregivers can profoundly affect people during critical moments.

Why no one should have to swim alone when navigating a difficult season.

What is Cancer Sharks?

Cancer Sharks is a storytelling and advocacy platform founded by Amanda Goodwin following her experience with stage four melanoma. The platform uses storytelling, community, merchandise, events, and speaking to create a more empowering way for people to connect around cancer.

How can storytelling help people going through difficult experiences?

Storytelling can help people feel less isolated by creating opportunities for shared vulnerability and connection. Amanda found that sharing Cancer Sharks stickers and cards in medical settings often encouraged people to open up and share their own stories.

Why is the language used during critical care important?

Words can significantly affect how people experience vulnerable and frightening situations. Amanda's keynote, The Weight of Words in Critical Care, explores how communication can either increase fear or provide reassurance, connection, and empowerment.

Cancer Sharks

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group

How can you stand out in a world where everyone sounds the same? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Judy J. Winslow, the Brandologist, pioneering brand strategist, two-time international best-selling author, and founder of TEDx Sarasota. With three decades of experience helping visionary CEOs and founders become unforgettable brand leaders, Jay brings a refreshingly holistic perspective to branding, leadership, vision, and human connection.

The conversation then moves into what it really means to build an unforgettable brand. Jay challenges the traditional way we think about branding and explains why a powerful brand is about much more than logos or marketing tactics.

How leadership can emerge before we consciously recognize ourselves as leaders.

Why observing and listening can be powerful forms of leadership.

How authentic leadership differs from performative influence.

Why branding is about more than logos, visual identity, and marketing.

The four aspects of becoming an unforgettable brand leader: visionary, catalyst, creator, and coachable/coach.

Why leaders need to consciously evolve their vision as they grow.

How leaders can energize and activate people around a shared vision.

Why culture and team development are essential parts of sustainable leadership.

How coaching and mentoring can help create more leaders within an organization.

Why authenticity is increasingly important in the age of AI.

How human relationships and community can become a competitive advantage.

Why building a brand for longevity requires more than creating a temporary burst of attention.

How local relationships and community involvement can strengthen a leader's brand.

Why the way a leader is being can be just as important as what the leader is doing.

What is authentic branding?

Authentic branding is the process of consciously building a brand around a genuine vision, identity, voice, values, and way of showing up rather than relying on manufactured positioning or tactics that do not reflect who the leader or organization really is.

What makes a brand unforgettable?

An unforgettable brand is built around a distinctive vision and authentic positioning rather than simply visual design. It requires leaders to consistently communicate and embody what makes their vision different while building meaningful relationships with the people they serve.

What are the four aspects of becoming an unforgettable brand leader?

The four aspects discussed are being a visionary, catalyst, creator, and coachable coach. A visionary owns and evolves the vision, a catalyst activates people around it, a creator brings the vision into reality, and a coachable coach develops both themselves and others.

Unforgettable Brands

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group

What if leadership is about becoming more conscious of how you show up in every moment? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Marcy Axelrod, bestselling and award-winning author of “How We Choose to Show Up”, TV Contributor, 2X TEDx speaker, and visual artist.

Marcy challenges us to stop living on autopilot and consciously choose how we show up. She introduces a deeper way of understanding our role in the world, including how our actions affect ourselves, the people immediately around us, and the broader social networks connected to us.

This episode invites you to reclaim depth and understand the leadership power they already possess.

The difference between a job, a career, and a calling.

How quiet, grounded leadership can create meaningful influence.

Why consciously choosing how you show up is a form of leadership.

How childhood experiences can influence patterns of behavior and self-expression.

Why humans are constantly influencing and changing one another through interaction.

How interpersonal neurobiology helps explain connection between people.

Why your energy and presence can influence others before you even speak.

How to recognize when you are living from a default version of yourself.

Why deeper awareness can change how you experience people and everyday moments.

How purpose, meaning, mattering, and fulfillment are connected.

Why leaders need to take accountability for their own influence.

How intentional leadership can invite others to show up differently.

What does it mean to consciously choose how you show up?

Consciously choosing how you show up means becoming aware of your thoughts, emotions, behavior, energy, and influence rather than automatically responding from familiar patterns. It involves intentionally deciding how you want to engage with yourself, other people, and the situation you're experiencing.

Why is showing up important in leadership?

Showing up is important in leadership because people influence one another constantly. The way a leader communicates, behaves, and carries themselves can affect how other people respond. Conscious leadership requires recognizing that influence and taking responsibility for it.

What is the difference between a job, a career, and a calling?

A job is work performed to earn a living. A career is a longer-term professional path. A calling is connected to a deeper sense of purpose and what someone feels they are meant to contribute or express through their life and work.

Choose to Show Up

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group

What if that persistent idea, inner knowing, or urge to write is actually a calling you are meant to follow? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Wiebke Tasch, founder of Digital Authors LLC.

Wiebke shares her own lifelong calling to write, beginning with short stories at age nine and eventually leading her into publishing and entrepreneurship. She explains how a calling can show up as restlessness, intuition, or an inner knowing, and why ignoring that calling can prevent an important message from reaching the world.

Whether you have been carrying a book idea for years or are simply feeling called to bring a bigger vision into the world, this conversation offers practical encouragement for taking the next step.

How to recognize the difference between a passing idea and a persistent calling to write.

Why trusting your intuition can be an important part of bringing a meaningful message into the world.

How meditation and quiet reflection can help clarify what you are being called to create.

Why your life experiences, challenges, and knowledge can become the foundation for a powerful book.

How market research can help determine whether a book idea has demand and revenue potential.

Why positioning a book for the right audience does not require compromising its core message.

How authors can use market analysis to identify niches, competition, and opportunities.

Why the work involved in publishing a book does not end when the book is finished.

How building momentum around a book launch can help increase visibility.

Why the first several days after a book launches can be important for generating traffic and attention.

How becoming an author can represent a personal transformation as well as a professional accomplishment.

What aspiring authors can do to begin writing when they feel overwhelmed by where to start.

How do you know if you are called to write a book?

A calling to write a book can feel like a persistent inner urge, restlessness, intuition, or knowing that continues to return even when you try to ignore it. Taking time to become quiet, reflect, meditate, and listen to what keeps coming up can help clarify whether writing is something you are being called to pursue.

How do I know what my book should be about?

Start by looking at your own life, experiences, knowledge, challenges, and transformations. Consider what you have learned that could help other people and what message you feel compelled to share. Market research can then help you determine how to position that message for an audience.

How can I determine whether my book idea has market potential?

Market research can help you evaluate whether people are searching for your topic, how much demand exists, what competing books are available, and whether there is an opportunity to establish a strong position within a particular niche.

Digital Authors

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group

What do you do when your life, finances, and career all seem to be falling apart at the same time? In this episode of Leading Visionaries, host Anjel B. Hartwell sits down with Mandi Feely-Swain, EVP at Premier Mortgage Resources, a Top 1% mortgage originator, and author of Origination Boost.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, executive, sales professional, or someone navigating a difficult season, this conversation offers practical wisdom and inspiring reminders that your greatest challenges can become the foundation for your greatest successes.

Why leadership begins with a decision rather than a title.

How adversity can become the catalyst for long-term success.

The importance of choosing growth over comfort.

Why surrounding yourself with people who believe in your vision matters.

How systems and consistency create sustainable business growth.

Lessons learned from rebuilding after financial hardship.

The role gratitude plays in resilient leadership.

Why self-awareness is essential for making bold career pivots.

How leading from the front creates stronger teams and cultures.

Practical mindset shifts that help overcome setbacks and uncertainty.

How can someone rebuild after experiencing major financial setbacks?

Recovering from financial hardship starts with focusing on what you can control, creating consistent systems, making intentional decisions, and taking action every day. Long-term success often comes from resilience, adaptability, and a willingness to start over when necessary.

What is the difference between being a leader and having a leadership title?

Leadership is defined by actions rather than a job title. Effective leaders take ownership, make difficult decisions, serve others, and inspire confidence regardless of their position within an organization.

Why is stepping outside your comfort zone important for success?

Growth happens when people embrace challenges instead of avoiding them. Staying comfortable may feel safe, but pursuing bigger goals often requires learning new skills, taking calculated risks, and remaining committed through difficult seasons.

Origination Boost

Leading Visionaries Podcast

Join the Leading Visionaries Community

Make a Donation to Support the Show

Creative Age Consulting Group