The Dov Barron Show

Leadership and the environment. Is a conversation about climate change and the environment relevant to you and I as leaders…

Or is it just the flavour of the day?

Environmental issues are part of the everyday news cycle. But here’s the question: Above and beyond either side of the discussion and the environment being a a political catapult.

Is it relevant to us as leaders of industries? And if it is why is it relevant?

Well stay tuned because we are about to take a dive into this controversial subject.

Our Guest on this episode is Joshua Spodek. He’s a bestselling author of “Leadership Step by Step” And his resume is far beyond impressive!

Joshua is an Adjunct Professor at NYU, leadership coach and workshop leader for Columbia Business School, columnist for Inc., and founder of Spodek Academy. He has led seminars in leadership, entrepreneurship, creativity, and sales at Harvard, Princeton, MIT, the New York Academy of Science, and in private corporations. He been the co-founded and led as CEO or COO several ventures, and holds six patents.

He holds five (5) Ivy League degrees and studied under a Nobel Laureate. He’s visited North Korea twice, swam across the Hudson River, has done burpees daily since 2011 -- 130,000 and counting.

And as commitment to being a leader he takes 16 months to produce one load of garbage, and in the age of easy access he (by choice) hasn’t flown since March 2016.

He's the man Esquire’s Genius issue called “best and brightest”, NBC said he’s “astrophysicist turned new media whiz”. Author of "Initiative: Bring Your Passions to Life!" Returning champion Joshua Spodek

On this episode we go FullMonty on:

Why we need to focus on Initiative rather than entrepreneurship.
Why Leadership is NOT about telling people what to do, pushing legislation without popular support, spreading facts, figures, doom, and gloom.
Why we must learn to lead and practice initiative
Using your lack of integrity to become an outstanding leader
Why you being a Genuinely happy leader is so important to loyalty
Why it's all about the "little things"
and so much more

In a world where we know engagement sucks, if we are going to be world class leaders we must have the self accountability to ask ourselves:

Are we really engaged….Are we full present and mindful?

Forget The Mother of Dragons on the episode we go Full Monty with the Mother of Mindfulness!

As a leader you know that engagement is a very real issue. Too often our employees and team members seem distracted. It’s a constant struggle to find new ways to not only keep good people, but to keep them engaged…and a new ping-pong table isn’t going to cut it.

So in a world where almost everyone on the workforce seems to be to a varying degree living on the ADHD spectrum. How can we raise not only the engagement of our teams but also of ourselves?

Well stay tunes because our guest on this episode is: Dr. Ellen Langer. She is a social psychologist and the first female professor to gain tenure at the department of Psychology at Harvard University. She is often referred to as the mother of the Mindful Movement She is an artist, and the author of eleven books, and over the last 35 years she’s written more than two hundred research articles for general and academic readers on mindfulness.

She is also the recipient of four distinguished scientist awards and the Liberty Science Genius Award.

On this episode we go Full Monty about:

Mindfulness; The Power of Mindful Learning
The Art of Noticing
Mindful aging
The illusion of control
Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility
Mindfulness and Health, weight loss, vision, diabetes, and colds even stage four breast cancer
Why being Goal driven is contradictory to being Mindful
Mindful Purpose Vs Soulful Purpose
Commitment and Agility

Have you ever gone for night out and had it ruined by bad service? Conversely, have you ever been having a pretty crappy night and had it turned around by a fantastic customer experience?

As business becomes more and more commoditized it’s easy for our business, our brand to get lost in the shuffle. So how can we incorporate the very best of hospitality into not only our business, but also our leadership?

Well stay tunes because our guest on this episode is:

Dan Sachs, he is a professor at DePaul University’s School of Hospitality Leadership, and is the Entrepreneur In Residence at DePaul’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center.

He teaches classes on Entrepreneurship and Service Leadership.

Dan is the founder and owner of the BIN 36 restaurant and wine brand. After successfully opening the first restaurant in 1999.

Currently, Dan consults on hospitality operations for private equity firms, large hotel companies and live entertainment on hospitality operations.

His experience working with executive teams as well as on the “front lines” makes him uniquely qualified to translate a strategic vision into executable daily operations.

Dan Sachs has been a featured speaker for Nation’s Restaurant News, the National Restaurant Association, Food & Wine magazine as well as at a number of Chicago events.

He’s the author of the bestselling book: The Million Dollar Greeting, that focuses on integrating hospitality practices across the service economy.

Dan is a graduate of the La Varenne culinary school in France and Harvard University.

On this episode we explore:

Some of the most powerful tools of hospitality that apply to all business
What we Don't understand about Empathy
The danger of being an empathetic leader
Why Millennials are not as different as we might think from previous generations
The 3 styles of management
5-step Million Dollar Greeting roadmap that can help entrepreneurs and businesses create their own success story
Why the top companies are Purpose Driven
Why great customer service strategy start with employees, and not with customers

To find out more about Dan Sachs and his organization: Themilliondollargreeting.com

If you want to last, you better find your purpose. But how do you do that into a company that’s NOT a start up, a company that is already doing well, wouldn’t it just be better to let in be?

Well to move forward you better... Get Your Head Out of Your Bottom Line: And Build Your Brand on Purpose!

But how?

Well stay tuned because you are about to find out, our guest on this episode is Bethany Andell

Bethany Andell is the President of Savage Brands and co-author of Get Your Head Out of Your Bottom Line.

As President of Savage Brands, she believes in unleashing the inherent good in all companies.

She is passionate about connecting company leaders to their purpose, ensuring that their companies are culturally aligned and that their brands have meaning. Bethany is a true believer that purpose drives performance and performance drives profit – in that order.

Based on that philosophy she takes an “inside out” approach to help companies uncover their purpose and align it with their operations, culture and brand to achieve enduring success and lasting relationships.

Bethany doesn’t just talk the talk – she walks the walk. As a second-generation leader, she led her 45-year-old company through the challenging, rewarding, ongoing process of discovering and aligning with purpose.

She is an alumna of The University of Arizona with an MBA from Rice University. She serves as Past-President of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI)-Houston, on the Houston Advisory Board of Iberia Bank, on the Alumni Board of Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business, on the Advisory Board of Houston Exponential and as Board Secretary of AVDA – Aid To Victims of Domestic Abuse.

On this episode we dive into:

Why she walked away from her Hollywood Dreams
Why purpose drives performance and performance drives profit
What to do when your industry is becoming increasingly commoditized
Why we all need to embrace being "Savage"
CEOs: Why do we love to hate them
Conscious Capitalism
The toxicity of "superficial" branding
The Good, bad and ugly of the need to be liked...

This is one of those conversations that you think will go one way and it turns out to take many unexpected twists and turns that will make your head spin and have you see Venture Capital completely differently than you ever did!

Silicon Valley has transformed the World of Venture Capital But What the real cost of receiving VC and is venture capital the way to go for your organization?

All to often even people in the VC world can’t be clear about answering those question. But if you want to know who can

Stay tuned because you are about to find out, our guests on this episode are Andrew Goldner & Sean Sheppard

Andrew Goldner & Sean Sheppard are the Founding Partner of GrowthX. Andrew has been in the technology sector since 1998, based in New York City, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Palo Alto.

Andrew began his career in technology as a lawyer for the early Internet

pioneers in Search (Alta Vista and Yahoo), and others while practicing law. He has served as Publisher of Reuters News and then Co-Founder and Managing Director of the company’s legal media business in Asia Pacific and the Middle East.

He then co- founded GoodMoney to democratize high performance, values-based investing.

During that time Andrew met his current partners and co-founded GrowthX.

Sean Sheppard is a Serial tech entrepreneur and currently a founding partner at GrowthX.

As a serial entrepreneur Sean Sheppard has successfully grown dozens of early-stage companies across a wide variety of products and markets. He was recently named the # 2 Sales Influencer online and contributor at The Huffington Post.

As co-founder of Silicon Valley based Seed-Stage Venture Capital Fund and Market Development Accelerator GrowthX and GrowthX Academy, he’s now committed to working with countries, companies and startups on developing the next generation of entrepreneurs, innovators and sales leaders on how to execute in the innovation economy.

On this episode we dive into:

Why Venture Capital need innovation
Why 70% of funded companies fail, and what needs to change
Why there's a different set of Leadership skills needed for the Innovation Economy
Founders shouldn’t have to leave their homes to build great companies
Why the best people for founders to raise money from are their customers
The imperative of governments to retrain their workforce for the innovation economy
And
Personal Vs Professional Development
Facing and dealing with Self Doubt
Fake News
Promises from a deathbed
Should we place the individual over the group or the group over the individual
"Faithfulness" has it been vilified?

We all know we need a clear strategy to move forward. However, most leadership team fall down on implementing strategy. Why is strategic thinking is so challenging to most leadership teams?

Leadership requires strategy, but how do you know if you (or a team member) is a relationship leader, a visionary or a strategic thinker?

Have you found yourself wondering how you can tap into the strategic thinking that remains dormant inside your organization?

Too often leaders just don’t know where to start planning for the future of their business; they usually start with the familiar: internally, operationally and incrementally focused. This is the wrong place to start.

Where is the right place?

Well stay tuned because for more than two decades of leading successful custom consulting engagements for corporations, entrepreneurial business and non-profits, Cecilia Lynch, principal of Focused Momentum® demystifies how to think strategically about your business to enable you to craft a winning strategy with the outside-in approach.

Cecilia Lynch is a seasoned strategist, author and the leading authority on strategic thinking. Recognized for her strategic mind while still in her 20’s, Cecilia started her executive career leading the strategic planning for a $1B global brand. In January of 2018, Focused Momentum, the strategic consulting firm she founded, celebrated its 20-year anniversary! Cecilia’s latest book “The Hidden Strategist” discussed the great need executive teams have for strategic thinking and how they continue to overlook the best strategists in their organizations – women.

On this episode we dive into:

“Strategic thinking” Has become a catch phase. What’s the best definition/understanding of Strategic Thinking”?
How great strategic thinking resides untapped in most organizations.
Why women are often the greatest resource for great strategic thinking
Why women are often overlooked or set up to fail - think glass cliff - when they are recognized.
Are women undermining themselves or are they overlooked or set up to fail?
Why strategic thinking is so challenging to most leadership teams.
Where leaders can find the hidden strategists in their organizations?
Why older women will be a formidable force for strategic leadership in the next decade.

The changing face of business and why we have to get our customers and our teams to buy into more than a single or for that matter even a repeat purchase.

Business, leadership and maybe most importantly the way the economy moves have all changed.

We’ve all heard of the share economy, brought into popularity with shared cars. But do you realize there's a new emerging economy that the leaders in business and entrepreneurship or already moving into called the Membership Economy?

Well stay tuned because you are about to find out; our guest on this episode is…

Robbie Kellman and Robbie coined the term “Membership Economy”. Robbie Kellman Baxter has been advising entrepreneurs on business strategy for 20 years. She has worked with nearly 100 organizations in over 20 industries on growth initiatives.

She’s a sought-after writer and keynote speaker, who has presented at top universities, associations and corporations, as well as to corporate boards and leadership teams around the world.

As the author of The Membership Economy: Find Your Super-users, Master the Forever Transaction & Build Recurring Revenue, a book that has been named a top 5 Marketing Book of the Year by Inc.com, Prior to launching Peninsula Strategies, Robbie was a strategy consultant at Booz-Allen, a New York City Urban Fellow and a Silicon Valley product marketer.

Robbie is the leading subject matter expert on membership and subscription models, and the author of The Membership Economy. She has advised companies including Netflix, the Wall Street Journal and Electronic Arts.

On this episode we discus:

What is the membership Economy and why does it matter to leaders?
Why Membership and Purpose fit so beautifully together
How to build a forever transaction with the people you serve
The difference between subscription and membership
Why does the The Membership Economy matter to the leaders of today

When it comes to the disruptions of business many leaders seem to fluctuate between "I Can't Go For That" I'm Wrestling with a "Man Eater" through to "You make my dreams come true"

Business as we’ve known it is in a constant state of disruption, which means, we, as leaders have to be constantly shifting changing and innovating. However, many old school leaders want to keep things the way they were, and, all too often, that’s a recipe for disaster. So how do you and I work out what we need to hold onto and what to let go of? On top of that what about those who are in business partnerships? How can we maintain long term partnerships that not only work as creative collaborations, but also grow the partners in the process?

Can long term partnerships work in the age of disruption.

Well, stay tuned because our guest today has been involved in one of the most disrupted industries for 40+ years. That industry, the music business. He’s also an author whose memoir, Change of Seasons, was published in 2017.

John Oates, is one half of, if not, the most famous music duos of their time; Hall & Oates. John Oates was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004,[2] and in 2014. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of Hall & Oates.[3] He’s the creator and executive producer for the “7908 the Aspen Songwriters Festival”.

On this episode, we go inside not only the music industry but also what's made Hall and Oates last, while other duo/partnership have fallen apart, and what we can learn from this, as leaders.

We dive into

The disruptions in the fickle music business and the impact on them (Hall & Oates) and as a duo.

The most important lessons he's been able to impart to his son.

We even talk about the famous moustache of his and the cartoon series based on it.

The importance of mentors in business, in music and in life.
What happens when the fame goes away.
We talk about his guilty pleasures, what brings him joy.
The most difficult decision he had to make that transformed his life.
Why they (Hall & Oates) are on a massive US, Europe, and South American tour right now

The demands of leadership and entrepreneurship are high, but is it possible to lead and genuinely have quality of life?

Leadership and entrepreneurship are highly demanding of your time, but is it possible to attain the level of success you desire and it not cost you your very heart and soul?

Well stay tuned because we are about to find out!

Our guest today is… Bedros Keuilian

Bedros Keuilian is a best-selling author, speaker and business consultant. He’s the founder and CEO of Fit Body Boot Camp, one of the nation’s fastest growing franchises and an investor in over a dozen companies ranging from subscription software platforms, digital ad agencies as well as mastermind and coaching services.

He’s known as the hidden genius that entrepreneurs, best-selling authors and thought leaders turn to when they want to create high level mastermind and coaching programs, quickly scale their businesses and solve their most pressing bottlenecks so that they can making the quantum leap to massive success.

His sales, marketing, mindset and business systems are the secret weapon used by thousands of successful digital marketers and entrepreneurs who want to reach more high paying clients and customers without the use of unpredictable or sleazy marketing tactics.

He's been featured on some of the top media including The New York Times, Inc, The Wall Street Journal, Fox, CBS, NBC @TomBilyeu Impact Theory and many more.

On this episode we dig into:

How from eating out of dumpsters and not being able to speak a word of English to being a highly successful business leader and in demand speaker
The philosophy that's a bit of a slap upside the head for many leaders and entrepreneurs:
Going from Hustle and grind to scale and structure
How he helped 24 of his clients go from being in debt to growing 7 figure generating empires
The turning point in his life, leadership a business philosophy that took him from lazy to leader.

To find out more about Bedros: https://bedroskeuilian.com

Why when looking at your growth and development as a leaders you may have been looking in the wrong direction.

is there a more effective way to grow and develop yourself as a leader?

Well according to our guest today…. The answer is Yes!

Jayne Jenkins is CEO and Executive Coach at Churchill Leadership Group, She is a Fortune 500 Leadership veteran from multiple companies including Exxon.

Over 23 years, Jayne refined her team development and leadership capabilities and built sales teams, responsible for delivering over $600M/year.

Jayne Jenkins has also been successful in Marketing, Operations, Strategic Planning and Organization Development.

Today Jayne is the founder and CEO of the “Churchill Leadership Group Inc.,” a global professional development organization, providing Strengths-accelerated solutions to corporations that need to increase organizational and leadership capability, greater team effectiveness and higher employee engagement.

The global Churchill team is made up of 80+ highly experienced certified executive coaches who also have extensive real-world successful leadership experience.

Churchill clients include eBay, Paypal, LinkedIn, Electronic Arts, AMEX, LuminarTech, Momentive, Turo, TechData, Sodexo, Cardinal Health, AstraZeneca, Medtronic, Roche, Nestle Health and more.

To find out more about Jayne Jenkins and her organization: https://churchillleadershipgroup.com