Award-winning author, speaker, and CEO advisor Leslie Grandy guides teams, companies, and product leaders to leverage their creative thinking to elevate their organizations. She's worked across the entertainment, retail, and IT industries for the big giants whose names you'd know (including Amazon, Oracle, and Apple.) 

Although her book, "Creative Velocity," encourages us to harness our creativity, Leslie herself felt highly uncreative growing up. She knew she was great at other things; but creativity felt something outside of her realm, which in part inspired her book.  

In our lively interview, we hear of Leslie's first published work through Wiley (2025) and how that evolved vs the popular route of self publishing. 

We learn of the serendipity of her careers which started in Hollywood and her leadership style which includes that enviable hybrid of kind, but firm, direct, but spacious. 

I enjoyed hearing of the ebbs and flow in Leslie's career and the serendipity within. Also, how she found the Sage approach and the creative approach along the way. 

You can find Leslie on LinkedIn and find Creative Velocity here, which will be a great read to add to our must reads by the end of the year. 

D G McCullough has written for the Economist, FT of London, and the Economist. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a personal branding coach to foreign-born leaders working at Fortune 100s, including Google. Find her on LinkedIn.  Join her workshops on Maven, Brag Anyway, and Listen Like a Boss. 

Not often do I meet a fellow writer, entrepreneur, and problem solver like Content Creation Coach Cynthia Trevino. We met via LinkedIn after she liked something wild I put out there (a hype video for a workshop). I noticed her pithy, powerful title and headline she'd wisely crafted and invited her in for a chat. 

I love that Cynthia has reinvented, started out as an entrepreneur after being laid off, and before YouTube or TikTok to guide us on how to market ourselves. She figured things out through experimenting, making mistakes, and rebounding. 

Today she helps women 50+ years and over with their brand, gently coaching them to avoid the vague and broad, a common misstep for all of us, because it feels safe, and because it feels inclusive. I

t is; and it is not. Vagueness and broadness anchor us within the sea of sameness, especially now with epic wild times and corporate upsets and a larger pool of job seekers and hustlers looking to replace lost clients with new ones. 

You'll hear from two older writers and how we're working to keep our own writings fresh, interesting, fun, and (hopefully) impactful for our readers. 

You can find Cynthia Trevino on LinkedIn (and please appreciate her clear, concise framing there!)

D G McCullough has written for the Economist, FT of London, and the Economist. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a personal branding coach to foreign-born leaders working at Fortune 100s, including Google. Find her on LinkedIn.  Join her workshops on Maven, Brag Anyway, and Listen Like a Boss. And on Luma, From Blank Page to Byline, a self-review writing workshop for the shy and humble and those writing about their year or quarter's work in English, their second language. 

Entrepreneur, almost new dad, and tech leader Steven Puri knows a lot about remote teams and work. He's led remote teams across multiple huge companies (including Fox, DreamWorks, and Sony) for 20 years. He's a daily yogi, an almost new dad, and also launched the Sukha Company helping remote workers focus, finish faster, and feel healthier. 

We discovered different ways to connect, even when remote, and ways to get meetings finishing on time. We also talked about entrepreneurship, managing our time, and his Sukha Company venture, including how he and his wife came up the great name. Discover tips and tactics from a leader whose found themes and threads in everything he does, so you can do the same. 

Find more about Steven and the Sukha Company, a company dedicated to helping millions of people improve focus and work-life balance. Connect with Steven via LinkedIn. 

D G McCullough has written for the Economist, FT of London, and the Economist. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a personal branding coach to foreign-born leaders working at Fortune 100s, including Google. Find her on LinkedIn.  Join her workshops on Maven, Brag Anyway, and Listen Like a Boss. And on Luma, From Blank Page to Byline at two time slots this upcoming week. 

My guest this episode is Patrick Chou. His career path has included a PhD from MIT and a thriving Silicon Valley career in the optical telecom business where he understands both the technology and business of pluggable optics. Patrick's also a writer and actor, which helps feed (along with his technology work) a quest to better understand how humans communicate. 

In our conversation, we hear of Patrick's career, his choices, his love for acting, and especially improv, which has taught him to ground and worry less, in even the most intense presentations and discussions. 

You can find Patrick's IMDB page here, his Substack here ,and his LinkedIn page here. 

D G McCullough has written on social trends and struggles for the Economist, FT of London, and the Economist. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a personal branding coach to foreign-born leaders working at Fortune 100s, including Google. Find her on LinkedIn.  Join her workshops on Maven, Brag Anyway, and Listen Like a Boss. And on Luma, From Blank Page to Byline. 

One thing I love about being a coach? Meeting other coaches, who are often just the loveliest, upbeat people--and thoughtful too. Coach Neeraj Juneja is a favorite new coaching friend this year who has already taught me so much.  For ~20 years, Neeraj has worked at American Express, BCG, NatWest, and Axis Bank and has coached leaders for the last 6+ years at BCG and NatWest. 

In our interview (Neeraj in New Delhi, India, me here in Wisconsin, USA), we hear of his eternal optimism, his love for storytelling, and the power of staying upbeat, even during these turbulent times. We hear of the tapestry of his career, which spreads across multiple industries. We hear of Neeraj's pride in his humble roots, coming from a small town in India known for famous sweets and little else, and how well he works as a coach to bring teams and leaders together. 

You can find Neeraj on LinkedIn here. Please do book him for executive and team coach work, talent development, or global facilitating. And you can anticipate he'll come back to my show again. 

Your show host, D G McCullough is a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communications coach to leaders all over. Find her on LinkedIn.  Join her communications workshops on Maven, Brag Anyway, and Listen Like a Boss.

My guest this week is John Hopkins University professor Consuelo Amat whose research interests include state repression, armed and unarmed resistance, political violence, and developing civil society in authoritarian regimes, with a focus on Latin America.

In a delightful conversation, a first-time meeting, Consuelo tells us what started her on this path and why she's remained there fascinated and uplifted ever since. We also explore what we (as business leaders and communicators) ought to keep in mind when working with those who emerge from authoritarian regimes. Because their communication challenges and perspectives to simple requests, like asserting themselves or pushing back on dissent, will feel very different (and more alarming) to most. 

Read up on Consuelo via her website and you can follow her on LinkedIn. 

Your show host, D G McCullough is a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communications coach to leaders all over the globe. Find her on LinkedIn.  Join her upcoming communications workshops on Maven, Brag Anyway, and Listen Like a Boss.

Requests for updates on our work can startle and befuddle us as communicators. Much pressure exists: We must be brief, clear, and on point with what the requester of information needs and wants. Communications strategy and self awareness on why we feel unconfident in that moment helps. 

This week’s episode shares all of that, including a framework for getting in and out of your update in a minute or less, and with reasonable specifics within. 

Wanting more tips and strategies on self promotion, brevity, and staying humble and confident? Join my Sept 9-12 Maven workshop, Brag Anyway. Move your one-liner and bios from basic to powerful in 7 hours. Write to me at [email protected] for a 50% off discount code. Put “Brag Anyway 50 off” in the subject line. 

My guest this week is Jacqueline Freeman, a New Zealander TV industry insider, a media strategist, and the unapologetic voice behind a platform thats rewriting what relevance looks like after 50. After her posts speaking out against ageism went viral, reaching 1 million views (and counting) her podcast interview with the Sage Sayers is her first after many invitations elsewhere. (Lucky us!)

Freeman’s a voice worth listening to. Thousands of people write to her saying they feel heard, stronger from her truth, and that her posts are real. 

Her hope: that those 50 and over can sit and stand a little taller, find their place in a job market that discriminates, and go out on their own. Entrepreneurialism empowers, we both agree, and that brings creativity and an entirely different perspective and point of view. We’re not over the hill, yet. We’re doing the best work of our careers. 

You can find Jacqueline on LinkedIn here. (Don’t be surprised if she writes back, as she did to me, to accept this interview.) 

Your show host, D G McCullough is a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communications coach to leaders all over the globe. Find her on LinkedIn.  Join her upcoming communications workshops on Maven, Brag Anyway, and Listen Like a Boss. Her free Lightning Lessons: Be brief with your Brag (Aug 14) and How to feel less awkward with pause in conversation. (Aug 13)

Polly Leung has long loved conversations on finance. She enjoys getting us talking and thinking about our money and planning ahead so we can enjoy our lives when retired, taking that time to travel. 

Her lesson on money came from growing up in Hong Kong and then starting over in her teens in California, US, moving here with her mother and siblings—an expensive move, and one that also taught her cultural agility. 

In a lovely interview, we hear of Polly’s cultural transition across two continents and a wish that she’d connected with more locals when starting out. We also learn of her fascinating work as an associate director of finance for a leading university, and how we can make small tweaks to how we spend each day to save that nest egg for that rainy day. 

Business owner of College Sharks Lee Norwood helps break down the complexities of college admissions for thousands of college students. And she loves the lessons the teens teach her on humility, storytelling, grit, determination--all which they need to enter a college that will take them places. 

In a lively, unscripted interview, Lee shares her segue from Pharma to college consulting (which happened with serendipity). She speaks on the challenges for students, which include intense competition and misinformation from scaremongering parents. And we hear of her love for helping teenagers get their hearts and minds in the right place for the otherwise grueling college admissions process.

You can find Lee at College Sharks, recently featured in Forbes, by the way, and on LinkedIn. 

Your show host, D G McCullough is a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communications coach to leaders all over the globe. Find her on LinkedIn.  Join her upcoming communications workshops on Maven, Brag Anyway, and Listen Like a Boss.