Think Fast is a mini-episode featuring 10 rapid-fire questions.

What is one thing that everyone listening to this episode should go and do today?

They should go watch the Taylor Swift eras tour movie.

What is the lesson that you wish you learned earlier in life?

I wish I had learned that nothing is out of my reach and that if I just tried and moved forward every day, no matter what I'm tripping over that, that would be the best. That would have been the best for me.

If you could download one person, dead or alive, you could download their entire knowledge, wisdom, and memories to add to your own, and you can carry it with you for the rest of your life. Who would it be?

Daniel Pink. In his book Drive, he talks about autonomy, mastery, and purpose. And I'm really into that because he sees the future as well and sees where we're all confused in the workplace. And so reading his book was something that really changed me in my thinking. And he's writing more books. So there you have it.

What is a negative experience that happened to you that you are happy that it happened to you?

When I was working at a Fortune 100 company and I was trying to do adaptive change as an experiment I was taken into my boss's office and he told me that I was going to be put on a performance plan, even though the teams I was working with were outpacing the rest of the organization. And productivity, engagement, all the things we measure. And the reason I was put on a performance plan is because I was making human resources uncomfortable. And at that moment, I felt like my head was going to blow up. And he also said, and people are calling you a zealot now, that was a turning point for me because when I talked to the head of global innovation at the company and I said, they're calling me a zealot, he did like the happy dance in his office because more people trying to make real change are often called names and put in their place and all these things. So he knew I was onto something. And so even though it was a horrible experience, it ended up being validating to what I was trying to do.

If you could go, if you had to go back to the start of your entire career and do it all over again, what are the first five, the first three to five things that you would do first?

So when I started my career, I was in a fitness administration long way back when, you know, the fitness, whole fitness craze was starting. And I think that at that time I wasn't very tuned in to what was going to be financially feasible to train enough people, talk to enough people, you know, create a viable business. And so I think that I could have listened to people more, had people come in and talk to me about what I'm thinking, give me feedback. I think I just kind of was a lone wolf and I needed to connect better. So one, I don't know everything. I need to ask questions. Two, I need to connect better to people that can help me move forward. And three, is this really what I want to do?

If you had to pick one, which fictional character would you bring to life?

Bugs Bunny

If you could travel back to a single point in your life and say one single sentence to yourself, when would you travel back to, and what would you say?

I would travel back to when I was in college and I would tell myself, you're too young to get married. There's a lot more you should be doing first. That's what I would have told myself.

What will destroy humanity?

Humanity is going to destroy humanity.

What will save humanity?

I think about John Lennon when you're saying that, and I think about him saying, give peace a chance. You think there's something in the human? You know, I don't know if you call it the genome or whatever you call it that we're missing, and if we don't connect to that and look at the world as a place where we're all people, all trying to live our best lives, how can we all be part of that? It's kind of pie in the sky, but when you look.

The Infinity Gauntlet gives the holder the ability to snap their fingers and make anything their mind can imagine into reality. Here's the catch though: it generally costs the wearer who snaps their fingers their lives. I have this gauntlet, and I'm offering it to you. What would you want to happen?

We heal the planet. I snap my fingers, and our climate catastrophe is halted. And as a society, global society, we always care for the planet. And everything we do, is it helping the planet or not? And, boy, what innovations could come out of that?

Think Fast is a mini-episode featuring 10 rapid-fire questions.

What is one thing that everyone listening to this episode should go and do today?

They should go watch the Taylor Swift eras tour movie.

What is the lesson that you wish you learned earlier in life?

I wish I had learned that nothing is out of my reach and that if I just tried and moved forward every day, no matter what I’m tripping over that, that would be the best. That would have been the best for me.

If you could download one person, dead or alive, you could download their entire knowledge, wisdom, and memories to add to your own, and you can carry it with you for the rest of your life. Who would it be?

Daniel Pink. In his book Drive, he talks about autonomy, mastery, and purpose. And I’m really into that because he sees the future as well and sees where we’re all confused in the workplace. And so reading his book was something that really changed me in my thinking. And he’s writing more books. So there you have it.

What is a negative experience that happened to you that you are happy that it happened to you?

When I was working at a Fortune 100 company and I was trying to do adaptive change as an experiment I was taken into my boss’s office and he told me that I was going to be put on a performance plan, even though the teams I was working with were outpacing the rest of the organization. And productivity, engagement, all the things we measure. And the reason I was put on a performance plan is because I was making human resources uncomfortable. And at that moment, I felt like my head was going to blow up. And he also said, and people are calling you a zealot now, that was a turning point for me because when I talked to the head of global innovation at the company and I said, they’re calling me a zealot, he did like the happy dance in his office because more people trying to make real change are often called names and put in their place and all these things. So he knew I was onto something. And so even though it was a horrible experience, it ended up being validating to what I was trying to do.

If you could go, if you had to go back to the start of your entire career and do it all over again, what are the first five, the first three to five things that you would do first?

So when I started my career, I was in a fitness administration long way back when, you know, the fitness, whole fitness craze was starting. And I think that at that time I wasn’t very tuned in to what was going to be financially feasible to train enough people, talk to enough people, you know, create a viable business. And so I think that I could have listened to people more, had people come in and talk to me about what I’m thinking, give me feedback. I think I just kind of was a lone wolf and I needed to connect better. So one, I don’t know everything. I need to ask questions. Two, I need to connect better to people that can help me move forward. And three, is this really what I want to do?

If you had to pick one, which fictional character would you bring to life?

Bugs Bunny

If you could travel back to a single point in your life and say one single sentence to yourself, when would you travel back to, and what would you say?

I would travel back to when I was in college and I would tell myself, you’re too young to get married. There’s a lot more you should be doing first. That’s what I would have told myself.

What will destroy humanity?

Humanity is going to destroy humanity.

What will save humanity?

I think about John Lennon when you’re saying that, and I think about him saying, give peace a chance. You think there’s something in the human? You know, I don’t know if you call it the genome or whatever you call it that we’re missing, and if we don’t connect to that and look at the world as a place where we’re all people, all trying to live our best lives, how can we all be part of that? It’s kind of pie in the sky, but when you look.

The Infinity Gauntlet gives the holder the ability to snap their fingers and make anything their mind can imagine into reality. Here’s the catch though: it generally costs the wearer who snaps their fingers their lives. I have this gauntlet, and I’m offering it to you. What would you want to happen?

We heal the planet. I snap my fingers, and our climate catastrophe is halted. And as a society, global society, we always care for the planet. And everything we do, is it helping the planet or not? And, boy, what innovations could come out of that?

Jody Thompson serves as the CEO and Founding Principal of CultureRx®, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For nearly twenty years she has worked with organizations to bring them to a state of sustainable high performance.

Leaders from multiple industries including: creative professional services, finance and accounting, information technology, publishing, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, government, education, and more have experienced numerous positive outcomes. Clients report:

What sets Jody Thompson apart from others is her vision, her ability to see beyond current norms, identify macro-level trends, and guide organizations along a path for success in the twenty-first century.

Jody Thompson’s work receives high praise from a number of business journals. She has been featured on the covers ofBusinessWeek, Workforce Management Magazine, HR Magazine, and HR Executive Magazine, as well as in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, TIME Magazine, USA Today, The New Yorker, and on Good Morning America, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, and MPR. She has co-authored two best-selling books on the modern workplace and contemporary management principles: Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It; and Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It.

Once you hear Jody speak, you will quickly understand why Daniel Pink recognized her as one of six business thinkers who gets it, who understands how to redesign work for the future to achieve outstanding results.

Drive by Daniel Pink

Lyndsay Dowd's Heartbeat for Hire Podcast

Taylor Swift's Eras Tour (the movie)

According to a study published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Neurology in 2009, people who own cats have a decreased risk for death due to heart attack or stroke. The study looked at over 4000 people over 20 years.

Another study conducted by scientists from the University of Minnesota found that having a cat living in our homes can be of great benefit and can even make us live longer.

Jody Thompson serves as the CEO and Founding Principal of CultureRx®, headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For nearly twenty years she has worked with organizations to bring them to a state of sustainable high performance.

Leaders from multiple industries including: creative professional services, finance and accounting, information technology, publishing, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, government, education, and more have experienced numerous positive outcomes. Clients report:

What sets Jody Thompson apart from others is her vision, her ability to see beyond current norms, identify macro-level trends, and guide organizations along a path for success in the twenty-first century.

Jody Thompson’s work receives high praise from a number of business journals. She has been featured on the covers ofBusinessWeek, Workforce Management Magazine, HR Magazine, and HR Executive Magazine, as well as in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, TIME Magazine, USA Today, The New Yorker, and on Good Morning America, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, and MPR. She has co-authored two best-selling books on the modern workplace and contemporary management principles: Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It; and Why Managing Sucks and How to Fix It.

Once you hear Jody speak, you will quickly understand why Daniel Pink recognized her as one of six business thinkers who gets it, who understands how to redesign work for the future to achieve outstanding results.

Drive by Daniel Pink

Lyndsay Dowd’s Heartbeat for Hire Podcast

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour (the movie)

According to a study published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Neurology in 2009, people who own cats have a decreased risk for death due to heart attack or stroke. The study looked at over 4000 people over 20 years.

Another study conducted by scientists from the University of Minnesota found that having a cat living in our homes can be of great benefit and can even make us live longer.

Think Fast is a mini-episode featuring 10 rapid-fire questions.

What is your favorite podcast?

The Marketing Book Podcast

Bring one character to life.

Gandalf

If you could download one person’s (dead or alive) entire knowledge, wisdom, and memories to add to your own, whose would it be?

Charles Spurgeon

What industry or career path do you think has the most promising future or potential?

I think it’s being a communicator because no matter what happens. Always, somebody has to communicate skillfully and whether it’s in marketing or sales or consulting or writing or whatever, there’s always going to be a need for someone to take ideas and package them skillfully.

If you could have any one superpower, what would it be?

Easily talk to people and feel sympathetic, feel empathy, just naturally feel.

What is a lesson that you wish that you’d learned earlier in your life?

I really wish that I had learned that I was a consultant sometime before my mid forties, because that would have shaped the course I took.

What negative experience in your life are you most happy happened to you?

one of the biggest negative experiences in my life has been, I’ve lived with undiagnosed clinical depression for almost all my adult life until sometime in my forties. And the only thing I’m thankful about with that is that I can relate to other people who’ve struggled with it.

But I had an internal battle from my teens all the way through my forties, which just sapped the daylights out of me. And I’m still trying to be grateful for it. I’m very thankful to be out of it and to have medication has really helped and I’ve learned how to get ahold. And this is one reason I brought up the book soundtracks by John Acuff, which is controlling your thought life.

The biggest challenge of my life has been controlling my own head. So maybe I’ll be more grateful at some point in the future. But it’s a hard, lonely battle, and I will say this, I’m glad it’s basically over with.

What is your definition of success, and has it changed over time?

My definition of success is twofold. One is, we’ve talked about finding your purpose and running in it, whatever that means. The other definition of success for me is my five kids. And I have five grown boys. They’re all going in directions. They’re all , very good human beings. And despite the thousands of ways I’ve beat myself up over being a bad parent or, every parent goes through the agony of feeling like you’re just the worst human on the planet.

And you’re going to break these kids. To now be able to talk to these adults and have them as friends and then now two of them, one of them just had a child, my first grandchild and other ones coming in February. To me, I’ve always wanted grandchildren. And so this is going to be one of my biggest successes is grandkids.

What’s one thing everybody listening to this episode should go do today?

My goal, when you talk about clarity and communications and all that, on your very next email, bring the point up to the subject line. People are scanning their inboxes, they’re scanning the subject lines, and the lowest hanging fruit, the visual real estate that matters, is the subject line in the first sentence.

So whatever your point is, bring it right up In a way that’s vivid and interesting because then you got to win the inbox battle, but you got to do it fast. And so it’s always starts with email emails, your lowest hanging fruit.

The Infinity Gauntlet gives the holder the ability to snap their fingers and make anything their mind can imagine into reality. Here’s the catch though: it generally costs the wearer who snaps their fingers their lives. I have this gauntlet, and I’m offering it to you. What would you want to happen?

I would change to where all that blocks our view of God fall out of our eyes and we would see clearly and we would see infinite glory and love all of us. I’d give my life in a second, in a millisecond.

Steve Woodruff is known as the King of Clarity. Thirty-seven years in the front lines of sales, marketing, consulting, and entrepreneurship has uniquely equipped Steve to guide others in the principles and practices of clear and effective communication.

He has deep experience in corporate training and workshop facilitation for a wide variety of companies, from startups to Top Five pharma.

Steve is the author of the business book Clarity Wins (2018), and the ground-breaking new book The Point (October 2023). He is the father of 5 grown men and lives in Franklin TN with his wife of 42 years.

It is mission-critical that every communicator get to the point quickly – or the opportunity for engagement is lost.

Soundtracks: The Surprising Solution to Overthinking (Overcome Toxic Thought Patterns and Take Control of Your Mindset) by Jon Acuff

Your Brain: Perception Deception – Season 50 Episode 9

The fact that the human brain processes 11 million bits of information PER SECOND (from all 5 senses). This is the “competition” every communicator is up against.

Think Fast is a mini-episode featuring 10 rapid-fire questions.

What is your favorite podcast?

The Mel Robbins Podcast

Bring one fictional character to life.

Judy Jetson from The Jetsons

If you could download one person’s (dead or alive) entire knowledge, wisdom, and memories to add to your own, whose would it be?

Shawn Achor

If you had a superhero name, what would it be?

Jubilee or Joy Drift

What advice would you give to someone who is feeling stuck or unsure about their career path?

First, give yourself grace. Everybody feels stuck or unsure at some point. Second, I would say start to redefine what success looks like for you right now. It changes constantly. And often we’re trying to go with a version of success that is outdated. Like we’re trying to live in chapter eight as if it’s still chapter one.

And so I think it’s redefining what does this look like and mean to me right now and craft around that. And sometimes when we’re stuck, it’s because we need to redefine and recalibrate.

What is a lesson that you wish that you’d learned earlier in your life?

To really listen to your intuition. I think sometimes our intuition screams at us and we do, what we should, what we think we should. And a lot of us are ruled by shoulds, right? And I call it, we should all over ourselves. And I think there’s this idea of really tuning into your intuition because I feel like when you really tune in, it’s always right and really check in with that.

What negative experience in your life are you most happy happened to you?

When my very serious high school boyfriend cheated on me. It allowed me to open myself up to what a, a real beautiful loving relationship would look like, and I have that in my marriage.

What is your definition of success, and has it changed over time?

I think my definition of success now is still has a lot to do with achievement. I think that’s always going to be ingrained in who I am, but I think the infusion of joy is a huge part of it now, that feeling joyful and fulfilled and community.

And success, I think, is a really key part that has shifted over time. And success also means to me how I’m showing up for my kids just as much as how I’m showing up for my clients. And that’s a part where I’ve recalibrated success in my home life and at me as a human, not just me at work.

What’s one thing everybody listening to this episode should go do today?

I think what everybody should start today is we didn’t, we’ve never talked about this, but flipping from the golden rule to the platinum rule, golden rule is treat others the way we wish to be treated.

Platinum rule treat others the way they wish to be treated. And I think what everybody can start doing today is figuring out somebody you care about platinum, which means. Asking them questions to find out how they want to be treated. How do you want to feel valued? How can I best support you? How can I best give you feedback in a way that lands for you?

What does help look like to you? What does happiness feel like to you? Just starting to ask these questions of people you love. So you can be more meaningful in that relationship.

The Infinity Gauntlet gives the holder the ability to snap their fingers and make anything their mind can imagine into reality. Here’s the catch though: it generally costs the wearer who snaps their fingers their lives. I have this gauntlet, and I’m offering it to you. What would you want to happen?

Yes. I guess I would put it on and I would cure cancer. All cancers. All cancers.

About Mic Swap

The Mic Swap is an original Shareable idea where the guest becomes the host of the show, and Jeff becomes the guest. This gives my guest the opportunity to ask questions from their domain of expertise and gives my audience the chance to learn about me from a variety of angles.

Think Fast is a mini-episode featuring 10 rapid-fire questions.

What is your favorite podcast?

Neurodiversity with Theo Smith

If you could download one person’s (dead or alive) entire knowledge, wisdom, and memories to add to your own, whose would it be?

Bill Walsh

If you could have any one superpower, what would it be?

The diffusion of ideas

What would you sacrifice to have that superpower?

Take away my ability to contribute on all other facets.

What will destroy humanity?

Selfishness

What will save humanity?

Really having a sense of this shared human experience because the flip side of the previous one is we all think about ourselves, our families, our friends, our nations. We all wanna put these barriers up. Actually, look, the big things we are facing today are shared around the world. Let’s just appreciate that.

What is a lesson that you wish that you’d learned earlier in your life?

Saying no to things is a lesson I think you get as you get older.

What negative experience in your life are you most happy happened to you?

Four days into my career mentioned this on the podcast, I had a major car accident, broke three bones, major brain bruising. That was kind of baggage that I wore for a long time. But, you know, why am I grateful for it? I mean, look, I wouldn’t be building this company if it wasn’t for that as well. And in the end, you just have to embrace some of these kind of crazy tangents that, your life goes down and make the best of it.

What is your definition of success, and has it changed over time?

Success for me is, I think we talked about this a little bit as well, it’s making a positive contribution to others. What’s so great about that is it’s so addicting. It’s something that you realize once you’re, once you’re doing it, how happy that makes you as well. The basic level, my goals are to do my best for my family and then at a professional level for the world.

What’s one thing everybody listening to this episode should go do today?

Pick up a book that’s either by a neurodivergent author or about neurodiversity.

The Infinity Gauntlet gives the holder the ability to snap their fingers and make anything their mind can imagine into reality. Here’s the catch though: it generally costs the wearer who snaps their fingers their lives. I have this gauntlet, and I’m offering it to you. What would you want to happen?

I take the glove and I think what happens is we have a cohesive, we get rid of nation states, we have a cohesive global identity, democratic global governance. Shared language, shared sense of humanity, and a shared drive to solve the big problems that I mentioned.