Leadership experts Doug Lennick and Chuck Wachendorfer, partners at think2perform, endeavor to help clients “make the ideal real.” Their approach emphasizes self-awareness and emotional competency as the foundational elements for improved decision-making, effective self-management and in turn, authentic leadership. The first step is to strengthen your own leadership skills through learning agility, effective communication, and embracing empathy and compassion.

An interesting distinction we discussed is the difference between the ideal self and your real self. Ideal self is about intention and aligning your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors to your values. The real self is representative of the behaviors experienced by others and requires great self-awareness to bridge the gap between the two. Most people skip self-mastery and go straight to technical mastery, which is a huge mistake because living out of alignment is a source of stress, dissatisfaction and poor decision-making.

Values are such a big underpinning of Doug and Chuck’s work that they developed The Values Card Exercise, which has been completed by over 120,000 people in 146 countries. The research they conducted from the results revealed that the top 10 values are consistent around the globe. Tune in to learn what they are! As a hint, the #1 value is Family.

Doug and Chuck are co-authors of the new book in which they share all their wisdom and experiences: DON’T WAIT FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO FIX IT: 8 Essentials to Enhance Your Leadership Impact at Work, Home, and Anywhere Else That Needs You.

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You’ve head of Emotional Intelligence (EI). The next evolution is Spiritual Intelligence (SI), so tune in to learn all about it! Yosi Amram is a licensed clinical psychologist, CEO leadership coach, author, and pioneering researcher in the field of Spiritual Intelligence. Spiritual Intelligence harnesses the immense resources of spirituality such as Purpose, Presence, Egolessness, Compassion, Freedom, and Grace – which are components of effective leadership in general. Yosi’s research has shown that people with high levels of SI have a greater sense of well being and satisfaction with life, and make better and more inspiring leaders.

Lest you think Yosi is solely “woo-woo,” know that he is a former Israeli IDF serviceman, during which time he received numerous leadership awards. He’s also a Harvard MBA and founder and CEO of two technology companies that he led through successful IPOs. Then, despite his company’s success, Yosi shares how he experienced a “dark night of the soul” leading to a new path. That’s when he pursed a PhD in clinical transpersonal psychology, which integrates the psychological with the spiritual, ultimately designing a model for Spiritually Intelligent Leadership. We had an interesting discussion about mirror neurons and the electromagnetic field of energy that is palpable between people and in organizational culture.

Yosi recently published a book on the topic, Spiritually Intelligent Leadership: How to Inspire by Being Inspired. He is also the founder of several non-profits including trueMASCULINITY.org and Engendering-Love.org. If this groundbreaking topic is of interest to you, he offers a free SI assessment as well as a paid SI 360 on Intelligensi. Also, check out his community for “Awakening SI,” a free series of gatherings and workshops occurring every third Friday of the month starting in February 2024.

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Do you struggle with communication clarity, brevity, and/or effectiveness? If so, tune into this episode with award-winning marketing entrepreneur Ben Guttman. In addition to founding and growing a successful marketing company, Ben is an adjunct professor at Baruch College and author of Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win and How to Design Them, which “simply put,” is about how to communicate with clarity. But simple is HARD WORK, so join us to learn how to break through the noise, why some messages work when others don’t, and why some leaders inspire change when others don’t. 

We had conversations about a few specific brands with memorable messages such as Geico with the caveman and gecko campaigns. Other interesting topics discussed included why constraints are good in that they create pressure to experiment and do something different, playing Jenga with your message, additive bias, and the Dunning-Kruger effect.

An author after my own irreverent heart, Ben penned chapter titles such as “Our stupid brains in our busy worlds,” “Fighting the Frankenstein idea,” and “Say shit without the bullshit.” In this insightful (and often funny) book, Ben explains how to design effective messages that feature five key pillars:

Ben also offers speaking, consulting, and fractional CMO services, with the SIMPLE tagline, “I help good people and great brands tell the world why they matter.”

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If you are a business owner or entrepreneur interested in strengthening your business outcomes, worrying less, and improving personal time management and work/life balance, then tune into this episode with Patrick Esposito, an entrepreneur and attorney who has supported 100+ organizations. The cold hard truth is that 50% of businesses fail by their fifth year, and Patrick wanted to know why. With wisdom from his new book, The Structure of Success: A Framework to Help Build Your Business Better, we discuss the eight categories that his research showed most impact success:

As a former salesperson and leader, one of the highlights for me was failure to align compensation with business goals. For example, when salespeople are paid based on top line only, there is little incentive to be cost conscious and compliance focused, for example.

Patrick currently serves as president of ACME General Corp, a leading public sector innovation advisory business. Also, he recently launched Initiative Labs LLC to help small and medium-sized business leaders apply the approaches, methodologies, and tools from this book.

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In this episode, we bust the longstanding myth that “emotions don’t belong in the workplace.” I am joined by Markus van Alphen, Founder and Director of The Excellent Organization. Markus is a renowned leadership psychologist, author of more than 15 books in Dutch and English, and lecturer on Excellent Leadership and Observational Listening, a term he coined to describe a methodology that takes active listening to a higher level. 

The psychological safety to express one’s authentic emotions is the key to improved workplace communication because these can’t be faked. Observational listening demands consistent and purposeful awareness of and empathy for our colleagues. This helps them feel supported, thus boosting performance, well-being, and ultimately, business success. In other words, empathy is a competitive advantage! In fact, an extensive Oxford and British Telecom study into happiness and productivity found that workers are 13% more productive when they’re happy. 

Markus’ most recent books include The Excellent Leader and The More Excellent Leader. The third book in this trilogy, The Most Excellent Leader, will be released in late 2023 and teach leaders dynamic conversation skills in specific situations. In addition, Markus offers a variety of courses sharing essential tools the excellent leader can use to be more empathic and emotionally intelligent.

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What does ESG even stand for? How does it differ from Impact Investing? What does it all mean? What does it look like in practice? Today’s impressive guest and dear friend will shine a light on all of these questions and more. Beata Kirr is a Managing Director and Chief Impact Officer at Chicago-based The Copia Group, an innovative new company that provides growth capital in the form of private credit to women and ethnically diverse-owned businesses. Their focus is on companies with revenue between $5-150 million, which are the true engine of the economy. Prior to Copia, Beata was the Co-CEO of a huge private wealth businesses managing over $100 billion, including leading the creation and allocation to all purpose-driven investment strategies (and before that, we were colleagues at Goldman Sachs!). As you can see, you’ve got a real guru to explain these topics to you in what I promise is a very assessable manner.

Simplistically, ESG tends to be backwards looking for assessing and reporting risk, while Impact Investing is forward looking and intentional – looking at how capital can have an impact beyond financial measures to drive measurable change (comment from the peanut gallery (me): and impact beyond superficial greenwashing PR stunts). For the recipient of impact capital, the money is material to achieving specific goals. Beata explains her three “-alities,” intentionality, additionality, and materiality as key criteria. We then explored an exemplary company in this milieu, Patagonia, which also happens to be one of my favorite brands on the planet. That’s partially due to the internal and external cultures they’ve created through their mission, values, people strategy, product supply chain, and philanthropy. Tune in to hear about their brainchild, 1% for the Planet, as well as the unique restructuring they recently accomplished to align their corporate structure to their core values. Inspiring is an understatement.

Lastly, we had a vibrant discussion about the shift from E (environmental) to S (social) that we’re currently seeing within ESG. Social isn’t just about diversity and inclusion of gender, ethnicity, and other traditional measures. Today, it also involves addressing income gaps, crafting employee cultures of psychological safety, and speaking out consistently and transparently about relevant social issues. For organizations who desire to move toward more purposeful impact, a few of the many suggestions Beata offered include knowing and living by your values, having constructive conflict protocols, setting up an anonymous complaints system, and offering differentiated and modern benefits such as secondary caregiver benefits.

Even if you’re not directly involved in the ESG or Impact world as an organization or investor, this episode is important for all human beings who care about the world.

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Join us for this fascinating conversation with master storyteller and Chief Story Architect of Build the Story, Dan Manning. Of his superpower, he says, “I’m a story specialist. I help you build business stories that hold attention long enough to get to YES!” The role of story in daily life and decision making cannot be underplayed, and it’s an underutilized advantage for leaders. In fact, stories are fundamental to the human experience, and all our stories shape how we view the world and interact with others. 

Dan helps leaders and organizations craft persuasive stories for a myriad of purposes, including marketing and customer acquisition, capital raising, communicating vision, and personal branding. The core of any story is simple, and the focus is on CHANGE: before it was like this, then there was a change, and now it’s like this. Dan shares other helpful tips to help leaders craft their own compelling stories.

Dan has an interesting story himself that we explore and relate to his current business, including 25 years in the Air Force, first as a fighter pilot and then as a military diplomat (think Russia and ISIS campaigns and speechwriter for the most senior officials in the Air Force). Dan works 1:1 with clients and also offers a community-based course on storytelling. To learn more about working with him, contact him on LinkedIn.

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Tune in to hear from Osteopath, Educator, and Posturologist Mat Boule about an exciting new approach to manage pain and restore balance to our oh-so-delicate bodies. Posturology is paired with functional neurology to diagnose and treat problems emanating from the spine. It’s not about ergonomics, sitting up straight, or the inner ear. 

Among other aspects, Mat explains how imbalances in the eyes and feet are major culprits of dysfunction and even learning challenges. Not surprisingly, when there are breaches, the body compensates with tilts and rotations that screw up our bodies for a lifetime. This statistic will shock you: 80% of humans are born with eyes that don’t coordinate properly. As far as the feet, imbalances start to develop as infants when learning to crawl (something else for which we can blame our parents lol)!

IMHO, smart leaders will introduce Posturology as an employee wellness benefit because once people’s bodies are more aligned, their cognitive and technical performance at work will improve dramatically. In full disclosure, I’m a patient and have never experienced anything like this before so I wanted to share it with the world!

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On today’s episode, I chat with Susan Black, the dynamic founder of Wowzitude, which offers interactive, moderated live-streamed virtual walking tours led by local guides. Susan Black is WOW in her own right, and her latest entrepreneurial venture takes it to a new level. Founded in November 2020, Wowzitude not only filled a pandemic void but also a long-term need for armchair travelers looking to scratch their travel itch. Susan shares the story of how the seed for this innovative idea started with a passing comment from her late mother, who was then in an assisted living facility. What struck me is how quickly she busted a move to turn the idea for Wowzitude into a reality, starting small and growing swiftly to currently offer 104 global tours (and growing!) conducted by 87 top-notch guides eager to share their favorite spots using high end A/V technology. And the experiences go well beyond the Zoom tours; they also provide family recipes from the guides, signature local cocktail recipes, and related book and movie suggestions. This space was natural for Susan with her many decades-long travel and tourism experience.

Among the clients Wowzitude serves are assisted living facilities, alumni groups, museums, religious groups, travel agencies, and people who do plan to travel but want to conduct some due diligence on potential locales. In its short time in business, Wowzitude has garnered many awards, including the 2022 Think Global Travel Creative Ingenuity Award, 2023 Top Small Business Big Wins from Barclays, and the AARP Innovation Labs Audience Choice Award. You’ll be a raving fan too if you become a Wowzitude subscriber. To learn more and get a sneak peek at upcoming travel experiences, visit their website.

The post 101: Wow + Gratitude = “Wowzitude!” (i.e., live-streamed travel experiences for the culturally curious) with Founder Susan Black appeared first on The LeaderShift Project.

It’s hard to believe we’ve done 100 episodes of the podcast (actually more because I have a few in the can!). To commemorate this milestone, I’ve curated clips from some of my favorite episodes, including:

Thank you to ALL the great guests who have spent time chatting with me and to all the listeners. LMK who else you want to hear from in future episodes!

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