The most played episodes among Podcast App listeners.

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   Number 1: 685: Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy (Strategy Skills classics)

   For this episode, let's revisit a strategy skills classic featuring an interview with the authors of Fair Shake: Women and the Fight to Build a Just Economy, Naomi Cahn, June Carbone, and Nancy Levit. This book explains that the system that governs our economy—a winner-take-all economy—is the root cause of these myriad problems. The WTA economy self-selects for aggressive, cutthroat business tactics, which creates a feedback loop that sidelines women. The authors, three legal scholars, call this feedback loop "the triple bind": if women don't compete on the same terms as men, they lose; if women do compete on the same terms as men, they're punished more harshly for their sharp elbows or actual misdeeds; and when women see that they can't win on the same terms as men, they take themselves out of the game (if they haven't been pushed out already). With odds like these stacked against them, it's no wonder women feel like, no matter how hard they work, they can't get ahead. Naomi Cahn is the Justice Anthony M. Kennedy Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law, as well as the Co-Director of the Family Law Center. Cahn is the author or editor of numerous books written for both academic and trade publishers, including Red Families v. Blue Families and Homeward Bound. In 2017, Cahn received the Harry Krause Lifetime Achievement in Family Law Award from the University of Illinois College of Law and in 2024 she was inducted into the Clayton Alumni Hall of Fame. June Carbone is the Robina Chair of Law, Science and Technology at the University of Minnesota Law School. Previously she has served as the Edward A. Smith/Missouri Chair of Law, the Constitution and Society at the University of Missouri at Kansas City; and as the Associate Dean for Professional Development and Presidential Professor of Ethics and the Common Good at Santa Clara University School of Law. She has written From Partners to Parents and co-written Red Families v. Blue Families; Marriage Markets; and Family Law. She is a co-editor of the International Survey of Family Law. Nancy Levit is the Associate Dean for Faculty and holds a Curator's Professorship at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law. Professor Levit has been voted Outstanding Professor of the Year five times by students and was profiled in Dean Michael Hunter Schwartz's book, What the Best Law Teachers Do. She has received the N.T. Veatch Award for Distinguished Research and Creative Activity and the Missouri Governor's Award for Teaching Excellence. She is the author of The Gender Line and co-author of Feminist Legal Theory; The Happy Lawyer; The Good Lawyer; and Jurisprudence—Classical and Contemporary. Get Fair Shake here: https://rb.gy/r2q7rw Claim your free gift: Free gift #1 McKinsey & BCG winning resume www.FIRMSconsulting.com/resumePDF Free gift #2 Breakthrough Decisions Guide with 25 AI Prompts www.FIRMSconsulting.com/decisions Free gift #3 Five Reasons Why People Ignore Somebody www.FIRMSconsulting.com/owntheroom Free gift #4 Access episode 1 from Build a Consulting Firm, Level 1 www.FIRMSconsulting.com/build Free gift #5 The Overall Approach used in well-managed strategy studies www.FIRMSconsulting.com/OverallApproach Free gift #6 Get a copy of Nine Leaders in Action, a book we co-authored with some of our clients: www.FIRMSconsulting.com/gift

   September 16, 2026·53min
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   Number 2: 684: Founder and CEO of Triggers, Leslie Zane. The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion (Strategy Skills classics)

   For this episode, let's revisit a strategy skills classic interview with an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth, founder and CEO of Triggers, Leslie Zane. Leslie is the author of The Power of Instinct: The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life. In her book, Leslie shows that to grow a brand, business, or even a social movement, traditional persuasion tactics fall short. Instead, you must connect to the instinctive mind. And to do this, you need to understand the science of consumer choice and employ techniques that work with a person's brain, not against it. Leslie Zane is an award-winning marketer, TEDx speaker and the foremost authority in harnessing the instinctive mind to accelerate brand and business growth. In her early career at P&G and Johnson & Johnson, Zane championed the position that what people say is unreliable and that telegraphic cues are more powerful than direct communication, but her unconventional thinking was often disregarded. In 1995, she founded Triggers®, the first brand consulting firm rooted in behavioral science, where she continued to champion the primacy of the instinctive mind in brand decisions. With her groundbreaking discoveries in boosting salience, the Brand Connectome® and Growth Triggers®, Zane and her team have delivered over $20 billion in incremental revenue for Fortune 100 clients. Today Triggers' strategies are evident in diverse fields from consumer-packaged goods, health care and insurance to fighting anti-Semitism, showcasing its versatility. An alumna of Yale, Harvard Business School and Bain & Company, Zane is a recipient of the Congressional Women of Distinction and the Ogilvy Award. In 2021, she coined the term "Covid-stasis" forecasting the pandemic's lasting psychological and behavioral effects. Zane has been published in prestigious publications including Knowledge@Wharton, Harvard Business Review, World Economic Forum, Newsweek and Ad Age. Zane is a board member of El Centro Hispano, the leading non-profit empowering Hispanic immigrants with skills to thrive in the United States. Get The Power of Instinct here: https://rb.gy/l3ofdo Claim your free gift: Free gift #1 McKinsey & BCG winning resume www.FIRMSconsulting.com/resumePDF Free gift #2 Breakthrough Decisions Guide with 25 AI Prompts www.FIRMSconsulting.com/decisions Free gift #3 Five Reasons Why People Ignore Somebody www.FIRMSconsulting.com/owntheroom Free gift #4 Access episode 1 from Build a Consulting Firm, Level 1 www.FIRMSconsulting.com/build Free gift #5 The Overall Approach used in well-managed strategy studies www.FIRMSconsulting.com/OverallApproach Free gift #6 Get a copy of Nine Leaders in Action, a book we co-authored with some of our clients: www.FIRMSconsulting.com/gift

   September 09, 2026·49min
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   Number 3: 683: Professor of Finance at Copenhagen Business School, Jesper Rangvid, on the End of 40 Years of Falling Interest Rates

   Jesper Rangvid, professor of finance at Copenhagen Business School, explores what leaders should understand about interest rates, inflation, the cost of capital, prioritization, and AI. Rangvid explains why the roughly 40-year decline in interest rates was "a completely unique historical period" and why executives should not assume borrowing will continue to get cheaper. Falling inflation and demographic changes helped drive rates lower, while low rates also contributed to rising house prices and increased borrowing. As he puts it, "lower and lower interest rates are not always good." He discusses the post-pandemic shift toward higher inflation and interest rates, including the growing financing needs of governments and major AI companies. For executives, the key question is how changing financing costs affect investment and strategic decisions. The conversation also explores prioritization and reflection. Rangvid describes scaling back his media commitments because "it simply takes too much time" and using running as "a time of reflection" to think through difficult problems from different angles. Finally, Rangvid shares a cautiously optimistic perspective on AI and argues that technology does not eliminate the value of human judgment. Even when AI can produce an answer in seconds, "facilitating a discussion among executives is still unbelievably useful" because different perspectives help people challenge assumptions and think more deeply. Get Jesper's new book, How Low Interest Rates Change the World, here: https://tinyurl.com/fbjzvwkz Claim your free gift: Free gift #1 McKinsey & BCG winning resume www.FIRMSconsulting.com/resumePDF Free gift #2 Breakthrough Decisions Guide with 25 AI Prompts www.FIRMSconsulting.com/decisions Free gift #3 Five Reasons Why People Ignore Somebody www.FIRMSconsulting.com/owntheroom Free gift #4 Access episode 1 from Build a Consulting Firm, Level 1 www.FIRMSconsulting.com/build Free gift #5 The Overall Approach used in well-managed strategy studies www.FIRMSconsulting.com/OverallApproach Free gift #6 Get a copy of Nine Leaders in Action, a book we co-authored with some of our clients: www.FIRMSconsulting.com/gift

   September 07, 2026·51min
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   Number 4: 680: Psychotherapist, Glenn Hutchinson, on Why Good People Cheat: What Infidelity Reveals About Decision-Making

   Glenn Hutchinson, a psychotherapist who developed the personality science behind the assessments used by Match.com, explores one of the most misunderstood aspects of infidelity: why people sometimes violate their own values without fully understanding how they arrived there. The conversation begins with a broader look at human behavior. Glenn explains that much of what drives our decisions happens outside conscious awareness. Using the familiar experience of driving on "autopilot," he argues that our unconscious mind is constantly shaping our judgments, emotions, and interactions long before we recognize it. As he puts it, "subjective experience is very deceiving," and "our behavior is more complicated. It comes from a deeper place than we realize." A central theme is how people interpret situations through mental categories rather than objective reality. Someone may believe they are "just being friendly" instead of crossing emotional boundaries, or see an affair as "a unique situation" rather than recognizing it for what it is. Glenn explains that these unconscious mental frameworks can influence behavior in powerful ways, even for people who genuinely see themselves as honest and faithful. The discussion also challenges the tendency to blame oneself after betrayal. Glenn explains that there is "no evidence" that a partner's infidelity means the betrayed person was lacking. He discusses several research-backed risk factors, including growing up aware of parental infidelity, having many sexual partners before marriage, and an anxious attachment style, while emphasizing that these are risk factors—not predictions—and that greater self-awareness and healthy boundaries matter far more. The conversation concludes with practical guidance for both preventing and recovering from infidelity. Glenn argues that no one is completely immune to temptation, making honest communication and emotional openness essential in long-term relationships. For those healing after betrayal, he advises avoiding rash decisions, finding a trusted person to talk to, and recognizing that recovery takes time. As he says, "The first thing you got to do is become aware of it." Lasting change begins by recognizing the unconscious assumptions that shape behavior and gradually aligning actions with personal values. Get Glenn's book, Unfaithful Minds, here: https://tinyurl.com/ybxtnrcs Claim your free gift: Free gift #1 McKinsey & BCG winning resume www.FIRMSconsulting.com/resumePDF Free gift #2 Breakthrough Decisions Guide with 25 AI Prompts www.FIRMSconsulting.com/decisions Free gift #3 Five Reasons Why People Ignore Somebody www.FIRMSconsulting.com/owntheroom Free gift #4 Access episode 1 from Build a Consulting Firm, Level 1 www.FIRMSconsulting.com/build Free gift #5 The Overall Approach used in well-managed strategy studies www.FIRMSconsulting.com/OverallApproach Free gift #6 Get a copy of Nine Leaders in Action, a book we co-authored with some of our clients: www.FIRMSconsulting.com/gift

   August 26, 2026·46min
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   Number 5: 676: The key strategy question most boards do not answer, and cannot answer

   Porsche just announced workforce cuts because of dropping sales in China. Every board reads that as an operations problem. It isn't. It's a risk problem — and it's the wrong risk almost every board is looking at. Here's what nobody asks in the boardroom: once a strategy is successfully implemented, what new risk did it just add to the business? Not the risk of getting there. The risk of what you've built once you have. That's the question 99% of boards never answer, because most don't have a way to see it.In this video I walk through how we use Michael, our internal AI, to build a digital clone of a company, plot its actual risk and return position against the efficient frontier, and test what a proposed strategy does to that position before a single dollar moves. I use Porsche as the live example: what happens to their risk profile if they cut back cautiously versus if they fully rebalance toward EV and the Americas. This isn't a theoretical framework. It's portfolio modeling — the same logic that governs a diversified investment portfolio — applied to a company's revenue streams and cost base. Correlated streams add risk. Diversified ones don't. Most executive teams have never plotted their own business this way, which means most boards are approving strategy without knowing if it moves them toward more return for the same risk, or just more risk they haven't priced. If you sit on a board, run a strategy function, or advise one, this is the question you should be asking before the next planning cycle — not after. Free resource library. Choose the one that fits you: → Business leaders, consultants, and serious operators (strategy, leadership, executive presence): https://specialoffers.firmsconsulting.com/leaders → Authors and online business owners (growing your brand and business): https://specialoffers.firmsconsulting.com/builders Free newsletter for corporate leaders: http://www.firmsconsulting.com/gift Download our resume template: http://www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf

   August 12, 2026·19min
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