Solid Gold Podcasts #BeHeard

Fresh Fire Wednesday, 30 September 2026 alivewithjoseph.com · website · facebook · twitter · insta

Jazz pianist and organizational scholar Frank Barrett on play, shame, and finding your voice.

This episode is for anyone who has ever felt held back by a voice telling them they are doing it wrong.

Frank Barrett, jazz pianist, organizational scholar, and author of Yes to the Mess, traces the roots of improvisation back to where it really begins: childhood, play, shame, and the difference between learning that is alive and learning that is rule-bound. If you love music, suspect that fear of mistakes is quietly limiting you, or want to understand what jazz can genuinely teach leaders about navigating uncertainty, this conversation is for you.

Frank's story starts at his grandfather's piano in a small Irish-American home in Cleveland, where ragtime and laughter shaped a different relationship with mistakes than any formal lesson ever could. He traces how that early experience of playful, joyful learning was replaced by shame when structured piano lessons began, and how that shame became the main enemy of improvisation throughout his life and career. The contrast between mistakes that generate laughter and mistakes that generate silence is one of the most practical insights in this episode.

The conversation moves through Frank's accidental journey into jazz: teaching himself by ear, playing with the late great jazz clarinetist Ken Popowski, surviving a very public humiliation in the wrong key with the Tommy Dorsey Band at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, and receiving the bluntest possible feedback to find his own voice. These are not polished success stories. They are exactly the kind of messes that turn into wisdom.

Frank also traces how his lived experience as a musician collided with the organizational thinking of Karl Weick, whose concept of sense-making and compressed expertise runs through this episode. He describes the 1996-97 Academy of Management symposium on jazz that sparked his research career, his early connection to David Cooperrider and the birth of appreciative inquiry at the Cleveland Clinic, and his relationship with Deborah Ancona's work on leadership and the family ghosts we carry into our professional lives. The episode closes on the phrase that anchors Frank's entire framework: yes to the mess is an appreciative move.

Part two (next week) covers leadership, unlearning, minimal structure, maximal autonomy, and AI. Connect with Frank on LinkedIn · Yes to the Mess · Karl Weick's Social Psychology of Organizing · Deborah Ancona's research at MIT Sloan · Website · Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn

Nadia Cassim is a novelist and short story writer whose most recent book NOT ANOTHER SAMOOSA RUN is currently longlisted for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize.

A brave and ground-breaking novel, her book has been described as 'funny, thought-provoking, and empowering'.

Nadia joins Fiona and Gail to talk about how she trusts her writing process and knows that her next great idea is just around the corner.

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Alive Sunday Service, 27 September 2026 alivewithjoseph.com · website · facebook · twitter · insta

Alive Sunday Service, 27 September 2026 alivewithjoseph.com · website · facebook · twitter · insta

Arnold Raphael (AMET - Association of Motorcycle Industry Distributors | Director)

Johnny Shand (Bikeman West Rand | Owner)

A wide-ranging conversation about the South African motorcycle industry in 2024 - who is buying, who is riding, what is selling, and where the market is heading. This episode is for motorcycle enthusiasts, industry insiders, delivery fleet managers, and anyone curious about two-wheelers in South Africa, from commuter scooters to adventure bikes to electric delivery fleets.

AMET Director Arnold Raphael and West Rand dealer Johnny Shand join hosts Roger McCleery and Melanie Walker to break down the current state of the local motorcycle market. Topics include the explosion of delivery motorcycle fleets operated by companies like Checkers 60/60, the South Africanisation of a workforce that was historically over 85 percent foreign riders, and the safety and training initiatives being led by Hein Jonker of the Motorcycle Safety Institute.

The panel covers the dramatic rise and fall of South African motorcycle sales - from a record 84,000 units in 1980-81 driven by the oil crisis, to a collapse caused by import duties under the apartheid government, to today's market of around 3,300 units per annum in the 500cc-plus segment. BMW's dominance in the leisure segment, driven by the GS adventure bike range, is examined alongside the growing competitiveness of Chinese brands like CFMoto.

Electric motorcycles and scooters get serious attention: battery-swap infrastructure, weekly lease pricing for electric delivery bikes (around R1,200 per week versus R650-R750 for petrol equivalents), range limitations for riders covering up to 300 km per day, and why the leisure e-bike market remains almost flat. The conversation also covers the collapse of motorcycle publications and TV programmes like Bike SA and Twist Grip, the shift to social media marketing, the rise and fall of the Abbott Motor Show, and the Red Star Racing expo that now draws over 5,000 visitors. Brad Binder, KTM, MotoGP, the Suzuki Hayabusa, CFMoto's Moto2 and Moto3 involvement, and the shortage of skilled motorcycle mechanics are all discussed.

Jax Atchison (Edu Inc | Educator and Self-Determination Theory Specialist) unpacks SDT for students, parents and teachers

This fireside chat is for the entire Edu Inc community - students, parents, and teachers - and gives everyone a shared vocabulary around self-determination theory (SDT) so that motivation can be understood, discussed, and improved at home and in the classroom. Hosted by Gershom alongside Mrs Atchison, who has already trained Edu Inc's teaching staff in SDT, this conversation brings that same framework directly to the people it affects most.

Jax Atchison walks through the foundational work of psychologists Richard Ryan and Edward Deci, explaining why motivation has nothing to do with talent or intelligence and everything to do with three psychological needs: autonomy (volition, not just independence), competence (the feeling of getting better, not a fixed skill level), and relatedness (the proven impact of who you surround yourself with). She unpacks why every human brain is wired to be curious, vital, and self-motivated - and what conditions cause that to break down.

The episode maps the full motivation spectrum from amotivation through external regulation, introjected regulation (guilt, shame, fear), identified regulation, integrated regulation, and intrinsic motivation - explaining what each stage looks and feels like for a student, a parent, and a teacher. Gershom and Jax are honest that flow state and pure intrinsic motivation are MicroMoments, not a permanent condition, and that healthy functioning mostly means operating in the identified regulation zone.

For parents, the episode delivers specific, practical guidance: why the word 'should' is one of the most toxic motivation killers in the English language; why consistent rewards and star charts ultimately undermine intrinsic motivation (the Ryan and Deci puzzle-payment study); why surveillance feels like control and kills autonomy; how to give reasons for rules without negotiating them away; and why autonomy-supportive parenting means keeping guardrails in place while offering genuine choices within them. Jax also explains why rewarding the process rather than the result is the single most important shift a parent or teacher can make.

For students, Jax offers five concrete steps to move one place to the right on the motivation spectrum: find your own reason for doing a task; find your challenge edge (the Goldilocks zone between boredom and anxiety); choose your room carefully because we internalise the value systems of the people we spend time with; notice whether your fuel is guilt and shame or genuine purpose; and protect the activities that already bring you joy. Procrastination is reframed not as a character flaw but as a diagnostic symptom of an unmet need in autonomy, competence, or relatedness. And the episode closes with one of the most counter-intuitive insights in the research: action comes before motivation, not the other way around. www.linkedin.com · selfdeterminationtheory.org · www.ted.com · Watch this episode on YT · EduInc website · Facebook (Public) · Facebook (closed group) · Twitter (closed group) · YouTube · Review us on Google

This week on TBKS Podcast, we get into uMgaranto II, the latest collaboration between K.Keed and Orish. Three years after the first uMgaranto, the duo return with a more cinematic and intentional project rooted in isiXhosa storytelling, kasi life, friendship and the everyday details of growing up in South Africa. From childhood memories and township humour to sharp lyricism and a distinctly local sense of nostalgia, uMgaranto II feels like a love letter to the world that shaped them.

We unpack the album, the chemistry between K.Keed and Orish, and what happens when you let your culture, language and lived experiences take centre stage. Visit TBKS website · Follow TBKS on Facebook · Follow TBKS on Twitter · Follow TBKS on Instagram

Fresh Fire Wednesday, 23 September 2026 alivewithjoseph.com · website · facebook · twitter · insta

The secret of Markus Jooste and the Steinhoff crash

When Markus Jooste died in 2024, he took many of Steinhoff’s secrets with him. But not all of them. The collapse of Steinhoff wiped more than R200-billion from global stock markets and exposed the largest corporate fraud in South African history. For years the full account of what happened remained locked inside a confidential forensic report and was kept from the public.

Now, James-Brent Styan, author of the bestselling 2018 book on Steinhoff, returns to the scandal that shook South Africa’s business world. Drawing on the full forensic report and multiple interviews with key insiders speaking for the first time, Styan uncovers new details about Jooste’s secret lives, the way he ran his company and the silences that allowed the deception to grow.

This gripping sequel reveals how unchecked ambition and blind self-interest outmanoeuvred every corporate-governance safeguard and built a house of cards in plain sight. Until it all came crashing down. Email Solid Gold · For links to buy this book