The MECE Muse Unplugged Podcast - Empowering Go-Getters on Their Journey to Greatness

In today’s episode, I share how I discovered my definition of success throughout my career and what you can do to help you define (or redefine) success towards your journey to greatness.  I’m joined by guest Bobbie Carlton, Founder of Innovation Women, one of the world’s most successful online speaker’s bureau for women. as she shares her journey to greatness and weighs in on defining success on your own terms.

Links from today’s show

* “Success on your own terms” Success Magazine article

* Carlton PR & Marketing

* Innovation Nights

* Innovation Women

* Bobbie on Twitter: @BobbieC @MassInno @WomenInno or @CarltonPRM

More about Bobbie Carlton

Founder of Carlton PR & Marketing, Innovation Nights and Innovation Women, Bobbie has been called Boston’s Innovation Den Mother and the Startup Fairy Godmother. She’s an award-winning marketing, PR and social media professional. She speaks regularly on marketing, public speaking and women’s issues. Her humorous approach and fiery “let’s make something happen” brand is supported by the real world results she helps drive: 1200+ new products launched, $3B in funding, and 1000+ women speaking at conferences and events.

Currently a “parallel” entrepreneur (instead of a serial entrepreneur), Bobbie has spent the last 10 years building her own businesses as well as supporting client and community efforts. Previously, in addition to working with a number of Boston-area PR and marketing firms, she headed global PR at Cognos and PTC, both publicly-held enterprise software companies. In 2006 she switched gears, joining a startup focused on supporting self-esteem and positive role models for preteen girls through a social network and book series.

In 2010 she was called one of the “ten Bostonians who have done the most for the startup community”. She’s also received numerous professional awards: Marketing Sherpa Viral Campaign of the Year, several PRSA Silver Anvils, Mass High Tech All-star, Boston Business Journal Woman to Watch, PR News Gamechanger award and Boston’s “50 on Fire.”

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In today’s episode,  I share the top three things I learned over the last year during my podcast hiatus, highlight what you can expect for this upcoming season as well as in the future for this podcast relaunch.  We cover you can apply the lessons you will learn from this season theme,  the science of success. You might want to stick around to the end of this show because I have a surprise announcement!

References from today’s episode

* The MECE Muse Unplugged’s first episode

* Dom Brightmon and Going North Podcast

* Office of State Representative Liz Miranda

* The MECE Muse book website

* Past episode of Bianca J Jackson on MECE Muse Unplugged

* Purpose Driven Consultant School

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We’re BAACCKKKK!!

The MECE Muse Unplugged podcast has been relaunched after a year hiatus.  The podcast show now focuses on helping go-getters on their journey to greatness.  In 12 episodes, season 2 will focus on the Science of Success and this trailer highlights the following upcoming guests:

* Bobbie Carlton: Founder of Innovation Women, one of the largest online women’s only speaking bureau

* Bianca J Jackson: Owner of Brickrose Exchange, Baltimore’s premiere coworking space for creatives and social entrepreneurs

* Mark Metry: Host of Humans 2.0, one of the world’s top podcast shows focused on celebrating humanity

* Jessicah Pierre: Political Blogger and Founder of Queens Company, a community focused on empowering women of color

* Ashley Pare: Founder of Own Your Worth, a negotiation advisory firm

* Amanda Hennessey: Owner of Boston Public Speaks and San Diego Public Speaks, a public speaking training company

The first episode of season 2 drops on July 29, 2019.

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Jürgen Schemel is an author & business strategist from Germany now based in Australia and relationship expert of Inspiring Relationships Expert. Jürgen is a mathematician and business analyst who says he has worked out the formula for a successful marriage.

 

Over the past 24 years, Jürgen realized that he and his wife are doing things differently in their marriage from others. Some of their behavior was conscious, some more on the unconscious level. And with more and more relationships all around the world deteriorating, Jürgen decided to bring his wisdom and coaching to the people.

 

He started his Inspiring Relationships only in January 2017, but already had so many discussions and sessions with people searching him out for advice and guidance. His mission is to inspire thousands of men yearly to stay in loving, respectful relationships.

 

In this episode, Jürgen shares perspectives and tips on how you can cultivate a loving relationship while juggling a demanding career.

 

Listen to the Episode Here:

Interview with Jürgen Schemel

I wanted to make sure before I ended the podcast show, we talked a little bit about work life, home balance and being able to have a healthy relationship. As consultants, we’re working a lot, traveling a lot. One area that easily is a challenge for a lot of consultants that I know and has been impacted is people’s love lives and being able to have relationships and marriage. How do you make all of that work? I was able to bring a guest on the show that is a relationship expert. I’m excited to introduce Jürgen Schmechel. He’s an author and business strategist from Germany. He’s now based in Australia and he runs a company called Inspiring Relationships. As part of the things that he does, he focuses on helping people create and cultivate successful healthy marriages, partnerships. Being able to make sure that your love life is intact and it’s a healthy addition to your life. It’s such an important conversation. I love the feedback and the guidance that Jürgen brings. You’re going to get a lot from this show to help you take your relationships to the next level.

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Jürgen, how are you doing? Welcome to the show.

Thank you, Christie. I’m excellent.

What part of the world are you sitting in?

I’m sitting in Sydney, Australia. I’m from Hamburg, Germany and moved to Australia.

Thank you so much for joining us. Jürgen is a relationship expert. Why don’t you introduce yourself to the go-getters and tell them a little bit about what you do?

Thanks for the opportunity. I’m Jürgen Schmechel. I’m 58 years old. I’m happily married for many years. We’ve got two boys which are now grown up young men. For a couple of years, I’ve realized that relationships are falling apart, left, right, and center. Not just in Australia or in the US, but also in Germany and all parts of the world. Being a mathematician by trade or by education, the stats are always interesting. The stats are shocking because more than 40% of marriages are getting divorced. With many years of marriage under my belt, I thought, “We’re doing something right, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously.” I then looked into this a little bit further and found that there are some tricks and traits that you could have in a relationship which help you to have a lasting and maybe a lifelong relationship.

 

As consultants, one of the things that I’ve heard time and time again throughout my career is people working extremely hard and putting a lot of focus on their career. That sometimes being at the detriment of relationships. It’s important as a great consultant to balance both home as well as work.

Eric Williamson is a nationally recognized keynote speaker, workshop trainer, and author of the book, “How to Work with Jerks: Getting stuff done with people you can’t stand.” He’s also a consultant focused on helping organizations strengthen relationships with colleagues and clients by creating an atmosphere where employees are engaged, valued, and developed into leaders.

Eric shares the backdrop of why he decided to write the book and how you too get stuff done working with people you can’t stand.

Listen to the Episode Here:

I have a special guest. I want you to welcome Eric Williamson to the show. He is a nationally recognized keynote speaker, workshop trainer and he is the author of the book, How to Work with Jerks: Getting Stuff Done with People You Can’t Stand. I am excited to speak with him. Eric is also a consulting go-getter. He specifically focuses on helping organizations strengthen relationships with their colleagues and clients by creating an atmosphere where people are engaged, valued, and they are able to bring their best self to work. I’m thrilled to be having this conversation with Eric. As consultants, we spend 99.9% of our time working with all types of different people, whether it’s clients, it’s team members, it’s leadership, it’s vendors. You’re going to get a lot from this show in speaking with Eric. I want you to check his book out. Part of being a great consultant is also being able to influence and that sometimes means working with people that are a little difficult. Eric is going to drop some nuggets that you all will find extremely useful.

Interview with Eric Williamson

Eric, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Thanks for having me, Christie. I’m doing wonderfully.

The name of your book was amazing. I was like, “I have to get him on my show. There’s no question my audience needs to hear the tips and gems you’re dropping with this book.” Maybe we can take a step back. I’d love for you to introduce yourself to the go-getters of the show.

My name is Eric Williamson. I am the author of the book How to Work with Jerks. I’m an expert consultant. I’ve worked with organizations, large and small, to build relationships and strengthen them to create a positive culture and environment where employees and staff are engaged, valued and developed into leaders. I’ve been doing that for the past many years. I have a passion to see people succeed and help other people. I’m also a family man. I’ve got two kids. I’ve got a three-week-old son named Jackson and a two-year-old daughter named Sophia. That’s been one great balancing act, as you can tell little or no sleep if any. I’ve been going but I’ve loved every moment of it.

Congratulations on your baby son. I was talking to you and I know you’re not getting a lot of sleep these days.

Sleep is at a premium. I had some practice with my two-year-old daughter who’s a big fireball. She’s got tons of energy. As soon as she was born, she was keeping us all on our toes. I can’t recall the last time I reclined on my couch. Our whole living room was turned upside down with toys and play pins and all this other stuff. You’ll see a stack of my books ready to get shipped out for people who are purchasing signed copies as one whole crazy mess but it’s a beautiful mess. Sometimes I find a way to steal 20 to 30 minutes of a catnap here or there and that recharges me before I go to my next event or next meeting. It’s all good.

Eric mentioned the name of his book. I’m going to say the full name because I don’t think you d...

 

Harvey Deutschendorf is an emotional intelligence expert, speaker and internationally published author of The Other Kind of Smart, Simple Ways to Boost Your Emotional Intelligence for Greater Personal Effectiveness and Success.

In today’s episode, Harvey shares his own personal journey, how he discovered the importance of emotional intelligence, and provides tips on how you could further explore building emotional intelligence as a skill towards your journey to greatness.

Listen to the Episode Here:

We’re going to be talking about the importance of emotional intelligence. If you’ve been reading the blog, you know that I continuously pound and talk about EQ and how important it is. I based my entire first book, The MECE Muse, on how having emotional intelligence as a skill is what makes an individual from being a good consultant to a great consultant. I had a chance to connect with Harvey Deutschendorf for this discussion. Harvey is an EQ expert. He is an authoritative figure on the topic of emotional intelligence. He’s also an author and a speaker. Go-getters, you are in for a treat. Harvey shares his personal story, which I found compelling. I was touched by a personal story that he shared. How he discovered along the way the importance of emotional intelligence. How he created a purposeful journey towards making sure that he built his expertise and skill in that area. What’s promising about this conversation as you read Harvey’s story, is that emotional intelligence is something that can be learned. It’s something that you can take on as a skill and build on it day-to-day. You don’t have to feel like, “Maybe I missed the boat.” Emotional intelligence is one of those skills and traits. It’s a super weapon of a great consultant. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Harvey.

Interview with Harvey Deutschendorf

Harvey, thank you so much for joining us on the show. How are you doing?

I’m doing great. I’m looking forward to the show. Thank you for having me on.

What part of the world are you sitting in, Harvey?

I’m in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. For those that are unfamiliar, it’s the second province from the West Coast. We’re about five hours drive from our beautiful Canadian Rockies.

I’ve been to various different parts of Canada. I have not been to Edmonton.

We’re one of the furthest north capital in North America. We get a lot of winters here, but our summers are wonderful. We’re known as the Festival City. A few months of summer that we get, we make up for it. We have tons of festivals so it’s a great place to be in the summer.

It sounds it would be one of those postcard-type of places. Thank you so much for joining us. Harvey, if you can take a moment to introduce yourself to the go-getters of the show.

I’m the internationally published author of The Other Kind Of Smart: Simple Ways To Boost Your Emotional Intelligence For Greater Personal Effectiveness And Success. That book’s been published in English but also in China, Vietnam and also translated into Arabic as well. I’m a speaker. I love to speak about emotional intelligence and do training as well. My interests in emotional intelligence go back quite a few years. It ties into my personal story. My parents came to Canada after World War II as refugees. They lost everything and had to borrow money from the church for passage, and they left the rest of the family behind that we settled in Europe. The first several years of my life were spent in serious poverty. My parents were poorly educated. I went out into the world with very little support and direction. I had to go out there and figure things out and basically figure o...

 

Really important conversation with Celeste “The Therapist” Viciere, a licensed mental health clinician, author, and cognitive behavioral therapist.  With the world’s sudden loss of legends Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, mental illness is a topic that is rarely discussed openly, yet more and more people are affected by it.

Celeste peels back this topic, sharing insights on surprising mental illness symptoms, how behaviors may trigger, and what you could do if you or someone you know may be exhibiting chronic depression, anxiety, or suicidal behaviors.

Listen to the Episode Here:

We’re going to do something a little different. This was unscheduled. This is an impromptu episode but I would be remiss to not do the show and not do a segment specifically on mental health. The importance of us, particularly the high performing go-getters out there, it’s making sure that we take care of ourselves. This episode comes on the heels of the shocking news. The world lost two amazing legends, Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain. I wanted to make sure that we have that conversation. Mental health is something that people don’t talk about regularly and sometimes they don’t talk at all. It’s not a topic, at least here in the US, that is talked about publicly and it should be. People are going through a lot of different issues and tough times. Sometimes individuals may not even be aware of what’s happening. I thought it was important to begin and have that conversation. We did bring an expert in to kick that off.

My guest is Celeste Viciere. She is a licensed mental health clinician. She’s got a private practice that she runs called The Uniting Center. As a cognitive behavioral therapist, Celeste spends her day in and day out for the past years working with different individuals, helping them through hardships, challenges, helping them to address many of the challenges that sometimes we face. I thought that it would be cool for her to come and bring some tips and tricks, some things that you can think about if you may have bouts of depression, anxiety and going through a bad cycle. How can you conquer that and be able to get back on your journey to greatness? Celeste is also an author. She wrote a cool journal called 365 Days of Intentional Living. I’m super thrilled and hopefully, you will enjoy this conversation, go-getters.

Interview with Celeste

Celeste, thank you for joining us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing?

I’m good. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you.

I’m excited to talk to you because I definitely had wanted you on the show. You’re going to bring a lot to the go-getters but it’s unfortunate in terms of the timing of this conversation. I felt I could not end the show and not have a discussion about mental health awareness, depression, and anxiety, particularly in the workplace. Go-getters who are in consulting, they know how demanding, how intense a profession it can be and sometimes it’s isolating. You’re constantly traveling on the road. Mental health is not something that’s readily talked about. I wanted to make sure, in respect to Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, to have a conversation. You’re the perfect person to kick that conversation off. Introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged.

My name is Celeste and I am a therapist. I work with adults. My specialty is in depression, anxiety, substance abuse, alcohol disorder, and psychotic disorders. I’ve been a therapist and I’ve been in private practice for many years.

Celeste is also an author. She’s got a cool book called 365 Days of Intentional Living.

Quick wins interview with Kit Pang, strategic communications expert and Founder of BostonSpeaks,  one of Boston’s leading professional development organization providing training in communication, leadership and business.

As a speaker and seminar leader, Kit is on a mission to help individuals become exceptional speakers and communicators. Kit’s seminars and talks have been credited as super fun, engaging, soul-searching and insightful.   In this episode, Kit shares specific tactics on how you could become an effective consultant through the art of empathetic listening.

Listen to the Episode Here:

Interview with Kit Pang

We’re going to be talking about the art of listening. Go-getters, if you want to be a great consultant, listening is your secret weapon. I’m excited that we’re going to get a chance to connect with Kit Pang. He’s the Founder of BostonSpeaks. He’s a communications expert. He calls himself a people whisperer. He’s also a keynote speaker as well as a TEDx speaker. We’ll be talking to him, deep diving on a number of different techniques that you can use to enhance your listening skills as well as hear a little bit about his journey. We’re super excited to have Kit on the show and let’s get started. Kit, how are you doing? Welcome to the show.

Christie, thank you so much for having me on. I’m excited. Let’s do it.

I would love for you to introduce yourself to the go-getters of the show.

I’m the owner of three cats. That’s what the audience should know. I’m having all these cat issues. I’m not sure if your audience ever heard of the guy named Cesar Millan. He’s known as The Dog Whisperer. He has a TV show. He takes a bad dog and at the end of the show, he turns the bad dog into a good dog. We all know it’s a TV show, but it’s a skill that he has that he knows what to do with these animals. Even if the bad dog goes back to the owner that day, that bad dog can turn bad again. This person knows what he is doing with the animal to relate to the animal and make that animal change.

I had all these cat issues. They can never be in the same room, so I had to call a cat consultant myself. What about people? There’s no such thing as a people whisperer. It’s the same exact thing they are doing with animals, but there’s no such thing as a people whisperer. If you understand it, it’s still mammals at the same time. Do you know how to listen to people’s body language? Do you know how to listen to their tone of voice? Do you know how to listen to their emotions? Basically, that’s what I do for a living. I help people understand people a little bit more. They can be like people whisperers and that’s a little bit of what I do.

It would be great if we can take a step back and you could maybe share a little bit about yourself. How did you get started in terms of the work you do with BostonSpeaks and being that people whisperer?

In the more official pitch, I’m the Founder of BostonSpeaks. It is a leading professional development company in Boston. We help individuals improve their communication skills from public speaking to executive presence, mainly focusing on professional development. I used to be a hip-hop street performer. I used to break dance. I used to dance hip-hop. I used to be a choreographer for several years. I loved it, but my passion for dance was going down. When it was going down, at the back of my mind I was saying, “How are people getting booked and paid to speak? I wanted to do something like that.” When my passion was dying down, I wanted to investigate this public speaking thing. I would find a room and then I would do somethin...

 

Interview with Dr. Rachel Headley, a PHD scientist turned consultant! Dr. Headley is a Culture Change Strategist, Consultant, and TEDx Speaker.  In this episode, Dr. Headley shares how she made the leap from scientist to consultant, provides insights into her recent TEDx talk, and shares how you could create high performing teams in any work environment.

Listen to the Episode Here:

Interview with Dr. Rachel Headley

We’re going to be talking about high-performing teams. A topic that for me is near and dear to a lot of the work that I do. I’m excited about our guest. Her name is Dr. Rachel Headley. She is a PhD scientist turned consultant. She’s the Founder of the Rose Group International, a boutique consulting firm focused specifically on organizational cultures. Dr. Headley is also a coach and a TEDx speaker. We’re going to talk a little bit about high performing teams, talk about her journey and how she made that transition from being in the science field and going into more of a consultancy space. We’ll also talk a little bit about her TEDx journey as well and some of the things that she shares. Rachel, thank you so much for joining us on the show. How are you doing?

Thanks for having me. I am great.

We’re going to have a great conversation about a topic that is near and dear to my heart. I know it is to other go-getters out there around high-performing teams. I want to take a step back and would love for you to introduce yourself to the go-getters of the show.

I go by Dr. Rachel Headley because I spent a lot of my life as a PhD scientist working with satellite data on the Landsat satellite mission for the first several years of my career. In the second several years of my career, I spent as the Operational Science Officer of that same mission. That’s what got me excited about high performing teams. It’s not some magic thing that you do. It’s a leadership choice. About a few years ago I started business consulting around high intellect, high tech, high science companies.

I continue to hear people that are scientists or in the science in that space that’s transitioning into consulting. That seems to be a trend I’ve seen over the years. How did you decide that was the pivot you wanted to do?

These days, especially for independent people, as young individuals we go into college thinking we have to decide on the thing and then we do the thing. Over our life, we wander around and find the next fun thing to do. I still love science. My TEDx was connected to science with the humanity part of the world. I love all of that. An interesting thing about science is what we do in science. At least in the science I do is we take different ideas and try to find the commonalities and the connections across different disciplines and try to bring together a whole story.

The reason I love business consulting so much is because that’s what we do as business consultants. As your go-getter audience knows is go into a client organization and we try to figure out what’s going on from everyone’s perspective and how can we put together a whole picture. The mechanics of it are similar. The older I got, the more I realize that it’s all about the humans. It’s all about the people and how we all interact as a team and interact together and how do we make our lives better every day. That’s how my life merged from hard science to leadership in a big science team into the business world where I now still help grow and create teams in a slightly different way.

It sounds like there are synergies within consulting and the science disciplines. What would you say is your definition of a great consultant?

A great consultant is someone who has the knowledge that it takes to provide value to their clients.

 

Quick wins interview with Brian Miller, a professional speaker, TEDx coach, and magician is globetrotting magician turned speaker who works with organizations, students, and educators who want to create an environment in which everyone can feel heard, understood, and valued.  Brian’s TEDx talk is one of the became a global sensation, now viewed, and shared 3 million times worldwide.

In today’s episode, Brian shares his career journey as a magician, discusses his TEDx journey, and provides helpful tips/tricks on how you can prepare to nail your next speaking engagement.

In this episode, I also provide a special announcement about the podcast show.

Listen to the Episode Here:

I’ve got a lot of cool announcements to share with you and they are long awaited. I’ve been talking and thinking about this for some time. I want to actually take a moment and introduce our guest that we have on the show. We have Brian Miller on the show. A little bit about Brian, he is a professional speaker, he’s a TEDx coach and he’s also a magician. In this episode, we’re going to connect with Brian and help you be able to get some tips and tricks if you are preparing for a global speech or just a regular speaking engagement with clients in front of a conference. Brian is going to give some really cool tips.

Brian was one of my speaking coaches when I did a TEDx Talk in Zaragoza, Spain. We’re going to talk with Brian and have a really cool conversation about how you can really take your speaking game to the next level. I’ve been doing a lot of soul searching about the show. For those that may have not listened to some of the past episodes, when I first started the show, I mentioned and I continuously called it a pop-up podcast because I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be doing the show.

I originally thought I was going to do it for a couple of months and try it out. I’ve never done podcasting before. By nature, I’m usually more of an introvert, but I said, “I’m going to get out of my shell.” I’m going to try this out and really share my perspectives and really help consultants on their journey to greatness. I was able to push forward and it’s been such an amazing ride. I’ve got listenership across the world, which is fantastic. I’ve been doing some soul searching.

I’m always getting feedback about the show from listeners. One thing that I continue to hear, which I found fascinating, was that while my guests are awesome and the interviews are insightful and really helpful, a lot of my listeners are telling me they want to hear more from me. They want to hear me. They want to hear some of my stories, and hear some of my ideas and insights, which is flattering. When I created the show, I did make it for it to be a variety show. I do share perspectives from time to time, but people want to hear more from me. I’ve gotten that message loud and clear.

The other thing that I’ve also realized in having the podcast and this pop-up platform, is that now that I’m used to podcasting, I enjoy it. It’s something that I can see myself doing for a long time. I want to talk about more things. I love consulting, and that’s definitely one of the things that I’m very passionate about. I’m passionate about a lot of other things and I’m sure all of my go-getters out there are as well. I feel like this platform, while it’s been really awesome, I really want to expand it out a little bit more. I want to do something a little different, bring more of my personal style into it, talk about consulting, and a whole other host of topics that are trending, that are interesting,