The Future of Human Experience

The Season 6 finale of Future of Human Experience. Eric sits down with Aaron Blawn — his first manager at Intel, 16 years ago — to reveal the framework underneath everything Eric teaches: Eyes Wide Open. Passions + Skills + Business Opportunities, with the honesty to be clear about all three.

Long description

For 16 years, I have been quoting one mentor.

The manager who told me that every job is a tool in my toolbox. The manager who told me that the question is not my title — it's whether I can see my own passions, my own skills, and the actual opportunities in front of me with eyes wide open. The manager who, in a 1:1 a year into my first job, asked me what I actually wanted to do — and changed the trajectory of my entire career with that one question.

His name is Aaron Blawn. He is the Season 6 finale of Future of Human Experience.

We cover:

• The framework — Eyes Wide Open (Passions + Skills + Business Opportunities)

• Where Tools in the Toolbox actually came from

• Aaron's management philosophy: "My customer is the person I'm working with"

• The 1-to-5 review story that changed how I think about feedback

• The career formula: have a plan, be flexible with it, find advocates for it

• The energize/de-energize question every manager should ask

• Aaron on legacy — people, family, friends

• A book recommendation that became the lens for how I work

• What's coming next on Future of Human Experience — and what's coming this summer

This is the last new episode until August. Subscribe to the newsletter to be the first to know what's coming next.

▶ Subscribe to the newsletter: ericjrodriguez.com

▶ Arizona Forward: arizonaforward.org

▶ Aaron's book recommendations: SWITCH (Heath brothers); Dungeon Crawler Carl (Matt Dinniman)

That's Eric McIntosh, Senior Director of Community Engagement for the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and founder of Yo Amo AZ. He's the guest on this week's Future of Human Experience.

Phoenix is the fifth-largest city in the country. The state is booming. The talent is coming, the infrastructure is being built, and the global attention is real. And there is a quieter risk underneath all of it that almost nobody is talking about, the risk of losing the cultural identity that makes a place worth choosing in the first place.

We talked about:

• Why people are choosing where to live and work based on identity, not just economics

• The brand he built (Yo Amo AZ) and what it's teaching about local pride

• Why business and commerce are not enough, stories are what connect people to a place

• Arizona's 2040s case and what could derail it

• The canals built by the Hispanic immigrant workforce that nobody talks about

• The light, personal Eric-with-a-C vs Eric-with-a-K moment

If you lead a community-impact team, a corporate brand, a Chamber of Commerce chapter, a civic initiative, or you've ever wondered what makes one growing city feel different from another, this conversation is for you.

▶ Connect with Eric Rodriguez: ericjrodriguez.com

▶ Yo Amo AZ: yoamoaz.com

▶ Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: azhcc.com

"The industry has gamified health so much that we've actually disconnected people from their body."

That's Greg Lim, the co-founder of Well Beings, a universal health record built for the person, not the insurance company or the hospital. Greg is the guest on this week's Future of Human Experience.

We sit down to talk about what's quietly broken in consumer health right now, why your wearable can know your sleep score went up but can't tell you why you still feel tired, and what it actually takes to build the premium experience in healthcare, the way Greg is building it.

We cover:

• The 7-minute gap and the 364 other days the system is ignoring

• Why wearables make people feel disconnected from their own body

• The bank-account analogy that exposes what's broken in healthcare

• Building a universal health record FOR the consumer (not for the insurance company)

• Greg's communication framework: what we see, why we see it, what to do

• Why the premium experience in healthcare has to be human-centered

• What's coming next for Greg, for Well Beings, and for the rest of us

If you lead an employee benefits team, a wellbeing program, or a chief medical office, or if you've ever felt your wearable was lying to you. This is the conversation to share with your team.

▶ Connect with Eric: https://linktr.ee/ericjrodriguez

▶ Well Beings: wellbeingshealth.ai

▶ Email Greg: [email protected]

As the World Cup arrives in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, Manny Colon — Director of Minor League Operations for the Athletics — shares what sport quietly builds for culture and community when no one is watching the ratings.

We cover:

• The 17 countries of talent inside one MLB minor-league system

• Why "the human element" is the operating principle behind managing 300 players

• How baseball globalized differently than basketball — and what other industries can learn

• The Athletics' growing Japanese, Taiwanese, and Korean rosters

• The WBC, the Bad Bunny halftime show, and what sport-as-culture looks like in 2026

• The Miracle League of Arizona — where sport becomes community at the most local level

• My own story growing up between Houston and Ecuador, and what it taught me about belonging

▶ Subscribe to the newsletter: ericjrodriguez.com

▶ Connect with Manny on LinkedIn

▶ Support the Miracle League of Arizona: miracleleagueaz.org

Executive presence accounts for more than 25% of every promotion decision your company makes.

And almost everything you've been told about how to build it is making it worse.

In this episode of Future of Human Experience, I sit down with Kristy Siefkin — executive coach, keynote speaker, and former broadcast journalist (CBS, ABC, NBC) — for a conversation that will change how you think about being an executive.

What you'll learn:

• Why "executive presence" is the most misunderstood leadership trait of 2026

• The three things people unconsciously evaluate before they decide to trust you

• Why mimicking a traditional male executive in the room actively backfires for many leaders

• What the leaders who actually have executive presence are doing differently

• The smallest, most concrete shift you can make in your next Zoom call

• The one question to ask before any high-stakes conversation

If you've ever been told to "work on your executive presence," if you sit on promotion calibration cycles, or if you coach leaders for a living — this conversation belongs in your week.

▶ Subscribe to the newsletter: ericjrodriguez.com

▶ Connect with Kristy: kristysiefkin.com

▶ Follow Kristy on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kristysiefkin

Most workforce plans are built on a three-year horizon. Most jobs no longer change on a three-year horizon. In this episode of Future of Human Experience, I sit down with Jason Weinstein, from Maricopa Corporate College, to talk about what it actually looks like to build a workforce for an AI era. Where AI and automation are accelerating the rate of skills change inside the roles your team already has.

If you lead a CHRO function, a talent organization, an L&D team, or you sit on the executive committee at a company that is going to look very different in 2028 than it does today, this conversation is the one to share with your leadership team.

Connect with Eric's work on building a human-centered future.

Connect with Jason on Linkedin. Learn more about Maricopa Corporate College.

Eric Rodriguez hikes 5,500 feet up Red Rocks with global keynote speaker and #1 bestselling author Sterling Hawkins for the most unique conversation The Future of Human Experience has ever produced.

Sterling is the founder of the No Matter What movement, has reached over a million people across six continents, and has worked with Fortune 500 leadership teams at SAP, Sally Beauty, Hensel Phelps, Fortune Brands, and the United Nations. His book Hunting Discomfort is a #1 bestseller.

This is not a studio interview. Eric and Sterling spend hours on the trail together — climbing rock stairs with 25-pound goruck backpacks, surfacing memories Eric has carried for years, and participating in a ceremonial practice Sterling brought back from his time with the Shipibo in the Amazon.

Key moments:

• Why Plan B kills more dreams than failure (08:30)

• The 30% problem: your mind tells you to stop before your capacity is tapped (15:30)

• "We sacrifice this moment for the one that we may never have" (17:30)

• The rapé ceremony — an indigenous practice for marking sacred conversations (28:00)

• Eric's story about reading Because of Winn-Dixie to his daughter (40:00)

• The joy of the unplanned (44:30)

Go deeper — Eric's full essay on what he's carrying down from this conversation

Guest: Sterling Hawkins — Global Keynote Speaker, #1 Bestselling Author of Hunting Discomfort, Founder of the No Matter What Movement

Four families on a cul-de-sac. Four different schools. They can't even carpool.

That tiny scene, from Tracey Beal, founder and CEO of School Connect, is the whole problem in miniature. We dissolved the village around our schools one personal choice at a time. And it turns out it wasn't just a community thing. It was the infrastructure for everything downstream: engineers, builders, innovators, problem-solvers, every role we'll need more of in an AI-disrupted economy.

In this conversation, Eric Rodriguez and Tracey unpack a counter-narrative the innovation world is overdue for: the future of innovation doesn't begin with smarter technology. It begins with humans who will sit at a table together: businesses, faith, government, nonprofits, parents, kids, and decide what their school, their pipeline, their community is going to be.

You'll hear how 200 engineers show up for 600 seventh graders, why iterative leadership beats heroic leadership every time, and the leadership story most education conversations refuse to tell: that AI doesn't reduce the need for a village. It raises it.

If you're building anything that depends on people, this one's for you. I send a short note each week where I sit with these ideas a little longer, get it here.

Connect with the work of School Connect: https://schoolconnectaz.org/

In this episode of The Future of Human Experience, Eric sits down with Howard Wright, Vice President of Startup Ecosystem at NVIDIA, who leads NVIDIA Inception, a global program supporting over 35,000 startups building the future of AI.

From early-stage founders to world-class researchers, Howard shares a unique perspective on how innovation is emerging from every corner of the world, and how access to AI is expanding opportunity in ways we've never seen before.

This conversation explores:

• How NVIDIA Inception is supporting startups across the globe
• Why AI has the potential to become a powerful equalizer
• What it takes to build and lead in a time of constant change
• Lessons from working alongside Jensen Huang
• Why experimenting with AI is becoming essential for individuals and organizations

As AI continues to reshape industries and careers, this episode is a reminder that this moment is not just about technology, it's about how we choose to engage with it.

These are the kinds of conversations Eric is having with leaders and teams navigating AI, leadership, and change across industries. Connect with Howard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/howard-wright-10b81584/

Learn more about Inception at Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/startups/

Stay connected with Eric's work on building a more human-centered future: https://linktr.ee/ericjrodriguez

Safety is often treated as a requirement.

But in reality, it shapes everything.

In this episode, we explore how safety impacts culture, trust, and performance and why leaders who prioritize people create stronger, more resilient organizations.

This conversation is for those who already believe in safety, and want to help others see its importance through a more human lens. Learn more about the upcoming NSC event: https://acnsc.org/southwest-safety-conference/ Connect with Eric: https://ericjrodriguez.com/