With Special Guest: Richard Newman, Founder and CEO of Body Talk

Most leaders think a failed change initiative comes down to a bad strategy. Usually, it comes down to bad delivery. In this episode of Ask for Change, I sit down with Richard Newman, founder and CEO of Body Talk and author of the bestseller Lift Your Impact. Richard has trained over 150,000 leaders at companies like Microsoft, Virgin, and 3M. His path started in an unlikely place. He was a painfully shy teenager who spent six months in a Himalayan monastery with monks who spoke no English. That forced silence became the foundation of his career.

Richard's research with UCL psychology professor Adrian Furnham surveyed more than 2,000 people worldwide. The results are hard to argue with. A few specific shifts in posture and presence changed how people voted for a candidate by 59 percent. Nonverbal signals move an audience 42 to 44 percent more than words alone.

We talk about why teams lose trust in a leader before that leader even speaks. We break down the three Cs every leader needs during change: clarity, care, and courage. And we unpack why the habits you call "just who I am" are actually the habits holding your influence back.

If your organization is running into change fatigue, this episode gives you a different lever to pull. Not new words. A new presence.

Connect with Richard:

http://www.richardnewmanspeaks.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/

https://www.instagram.com/richardnewmanspeaks/

With Special Guest: Brian Biro, America's Breakthrough Coach and Bestselling Author of The ROI of Kindness

Kindness has an image problem in business. Brian Biro has spent decades proving that image is wrong.

In this episode, Meridith welcomes her longtime mentor Brian Biro, "America's Breakthrough Coach," to make the case that kindness is not a soft skill leaders can afford to skip. It is the foundation of trust, performance, and results. Brian traces his passion for kindness back to his own mentor, legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, and shows why the companies that top every industry, from Southwest Airlines to Starbucks to Kaiser Permanente, all share kindness as a core value.

Brian introduces his ESPN framework for building people: deliver thanks with real Effort and energy, use the power of Surprise, be fully Present, and choose Now over "as soon as." He and Meridith also tackle the question every leader eventually faces: how do you stay kind while still holding people accountable? Through stories, including Coach Wooden confronting a star player over a broken team rule, and Meridith's own story of delivering hard feedback to a talented young executive, they show that real kindness means telling someone the truth because you believe in what they can become, not withholding it to protect their feelings, or yours.

What you will take away from this conversation:

• Why the Pygmalion effect means what you focus on in your people is what you create in them
• The ESPN framework for building trust: Effort and energy, Surprise, Presence, and Now
• Why kindness and accountability are not opposites, and how to deliver a hard message with genuine care
• The difference between being liked and being respected, and why leaders who chase the first lose both
• Brian's closing truth: "The love we fail to share is the only pain we live with"

If you lead people through uncertainty and want a culture that performs and holds together, this conversation gives you the blueprint.

Connect with Brian Biro: brianbiro.com | Book: The ROI of Kindness

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianbiro/

With Special Guest: Anne Bonney, Change Management Authority, International Keynote Speaker, and Author of Get Over It! and Get Them Over It!

Most people spend their whole career running from discomfort. Anne Bonney built hers by running straight at it.

In this episode, Meridith sits down with change management authority Anne Bonney, who traces her path from a childhood spent moving across four continents to training seals and sea lions at the Boston Aquarium to a corner office job in New York City that looked perfect on paper and left her unable to get out of bed. Anne shares the moment she realized having the title, the salary, and the city she loved was not the same as having a life she wanted, and the leap she took into her parents' basement in Michigan to rebuild from scratch as a change speaker and author.

Anne and Meridith dig into what actually moves people through uncertainty: shifting from an external locus of control to an internal one, focusing energy only on what you can act on, and letting go of the anger you feel toward everyone else. They also unpack what leaders get wrong about difficult conversations, including the shift from calling people out to calling them in, and why teams trust a leader who is consistently direct far more than one who is inconsistently nice.

What you will take away from this conversation:

• Why "what can I control right now" is the single most useful question in a season of change
• The difference between an internal and external locus of control, and why it determines your resilience
• How one manager's simple question, "what are you worried about, what are you mad about, what are you losing," turned a scary company-wide change into a team that trusted him
• Why being liked and being respected are not the same goal, and choosing wrong costs you both
• The teapot metaphor for feelings, and why bottling them up always ends the same way

If you are navigating your own basement moment, or leading a team through one, Anne's closing advice says it best: don't do it alone.

Connect with Anne Bonney: yourchangespeaker.com | Books: Get Over It! and Get Them Over It!

LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/annebonney

Facebook or Instagram: @SpeakerAnneBonney

Using Humor to Find the Success in Uncertainty

With Special Guest: Joel Zeff, Work Culture Expert, Keynote Speaker & Author

Uncertainty is serious business. But the leaders who navigate it best may have one thing in common: they never stopped having fun.

In this episode, Meridith sits down with Joel Zeff — work culture expert, improv performer, and author of Make the Right Choice — to make the case that laughter is not a soft skill. It is a competitive advantage hiding in plain sight.

Joel has spent 25-plus years turning corporate audiences into improv performers and proving that the same instincts that make a great improv scene — listening, adapting, supporting your team, saying yes — are exactly the instincts that make a great leader.

What you will take away from this conversation:

• Why improv is not just entertainment — it is one of the most powerful leadership development tools available
• How fun drives engagement, passion, and performance in ways that money simply cannot replicate
• The one question every leader should be asking their team — and almost never does
• Why the ability to embrace change is a choice, and how to start making that choice consistently
• How creating psychological safety for mistakes unlocks creativity, risk-taking, and results

Whether your team is burned out, playing it safe, or just going through the motions, this episode is the permission slip to lead differently — and the roadmap to make it stick.

Special offer from Joel: Mention Ask for Change when you connect with him and receive a free chapter from his new book on change.

Connect with Joel Zeff: joelzeff.com | LinkedIn: Joel Zeff

The Power of Abundance

With Special Guest: Dr. Mitchell Levy, Global Credibility Expert & Executive Coach

When uncertainty hits, most leaders default to scarcity. They protect, they contract, they play defense. What if the leaders who win are the ones who choose something different?

In this episode, Meridith sits down with Dr. Mitchell Levy — global credibility expert, executive coach, and member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches — to explore what executive abundance actually means, why it matters in a world of constant disruption, and how the right framework changes everything.

Dr. Mitchell spent years researching credibility, clarity, and leadership before arriving at a concept that cuts to the root of why so many executives struggle to translate vision into results. His book, Executive Abundance, is the product of a PhD dissertation that proved academically what he had seen in practice for decades.

What you will take away from this conversation:

• Why 98% of executives lack clarity — and why that single gap undermines everything else
• The Executive Abundance Engine: the four interdependent components every leader needs in order
• Why the quarterly-numbers-only framework is costing companies their people, their customers, and their future
• How abundance thinking reframes the five stakeholder groups every leader is responsible to
• Why frameworks are not just strategy tools — they are the bridge between vision and execution

In times of uncertainty, the leaders who hold onto scarcity thinking fall behind. The ones who build a new framework move forward. This episode shows you how.

Connect with Dr. Mitchell Levy: mitchelllevy.com

Being Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With

With Special Guest: David Avrin, Customer Experience Expert & Bestselling Author

Your product is good. Your team is good. Your pricing is competitive. So why are customers still leaving?

In this episode, Meridith sits down with internationally in-demand keynote speaker and customer experience strategist David Avrin to tackle the question most businesses never think to ask: how hard is it to actually do business with you?

David has spent decades helping organizations across the globe rethink how they serve customers, build loyalty, and grow in a marketplace where quality alone is no longer a differentiator. His latest book, Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With, is the manifesto every business owner and executive needs right now.

What you will take away from this conversation:

• Why ease of doing business has overtaken price as the primary driver of customer decisions
• The difference between necessary friction and the unnecessary friction that is quietly costing you customers
• Why chatbots, contact forms, and rigid policies are driving your best clients straight to your competitors
• How uncertainty in the marketplace amplifies customer frustration — and what you can do about it
• The one question every leader should ask: what is it like to be your own customer?

If you have worked hard to earn your customers' trust, do not lose them over something you can fix. This episode will show you exactly where to start.

Connect with David Avrin: davidavrin.com | LinkedIn: David Avrin

With Special Guest: Brandon Hance, Serial Entrepreneur, Investor, and High-Performance Coach

What separates leaders who perform at the highest level under pressure from those who crack when it counts? According to serial entrepreneur and high-performance coach Brandon Hance, it's not talent. It's not even strategy. It's identity - and most leaders have never taken the time to define theirs. In this intellectually rich and practically grounded episode of Ask for Change, Meridith sits down with Brandon to explore the inner work that high performers across sports, business, and entrepreneurship consistently credit for their competitive edge. Brandon draws on his experience playing under legendary USC coach Pete Carroll - and winning back-to-back national championships - to break down the four mindset shifts that separate performers who rise under pressure from those who collapse: moving from fear to love, from projection to presence, from self-centeredness to selflessness, and from drift to deliberate identity. He and Meridith connect these frameworks directly to the business challenges leaders are facing right now - how to build cultures of transparency and alignment, why speed and shared vision are inseparable, and why the next frontier of human performance will be unlocked through inner work, not harder work. Brandon reframes resilience in a way that will stay with you: it's not about how high you can go, it's about your rate of return to center. Raise the floor, not just the ceiling. If you lead a team, run a company, or are simply trying to perform at your best in one of the most uncertain markets in recent memory, this episode delivers the strategies and the mindset to do exactly that.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonhance/

X: @brandonhance_

With Special Guest: Mark Hunter, "The Sales Hunter" and Author of Integrity Selling

In a marketplace flooded with noise, shortcuts, and quarterly pressure, integrity has become one of the rarest competitive advantages in sales. And according to Mark Hunter, that's exactly why it's the most powerful one. In this candid and compelling episode of Ask for Change, Meridith sits down with her Sales Logic co-host and one of the most respected voices in professional selling, Mark Hunter, to talk about his newest book Integrity Selling and why he believes now is precisely the right moment to make integrity the foundation of every sales conversation. Mark and Meridith go deep on what integrity actually looks like in practice - from referring a customer to a competitor when you're not the right fit, to showing your homework in a complex sale, to calling out the quarter-end games that quietly destroy trust and long-term revenue. Mark shares a defining personal story about closing a deal he knew was wrong, and the painful consequences that followed years later, a reminder that in sales, you're not closing deals, you're opening relationships. They also tackle the harder question: what do you do when the pressure to hit a number comes from the top and your own integrity is at stake? Mark's answer is uncomfortable and honest. This episode is essential listening for sales leaders, business development professionals, and any executive who wants to build a culture where trust is the strategy, not an afterthought.

www.TheSalesHunter.com

With Special Guest: Dr. Mary Kelly, Co-Author of Leadership is Tough (with Peter Stark)

Leadership looks easy when the market is good. It's when conditions get hard that you find out who's actually running a great organization - and who's just been riding a favorable tide. In this high-energy episode of Ask for Change, Meridith welcomes back one of the show's most popular guests, Dr. Mary Kelly, to dig into her new book Leadership is Tough, co-authored with business strategist Peter Stark. Mary pulls no punches on what actually separates great leaders from average ones in a change-fatigued, uncertain world: the disciplines they practice daily, the decisions they make before the decision gets made for them, and the accountability they hold even when it's uncomfortable. She and Meridith unpack the real cost of letting uncertainty dictate business decisions, why the best people leave organizations where accountability is selectively enforced, and how leaders who fail to constantly reinforce vision watch their teams revert to old behaviors under pressure. Mary's chapter on holding the line without breaking trust is worth the price of admission alone - it maps out all four layers of accountability and the specific ways organizations erode from the inside out when leaders look the other way. Her closing advice is direct and actionable: action trumps uncertainty. You don't have to have all the answers. You just need to pick a direction and move. If you're a leader who's been waiting for conditions to stabilize before you make your next move, this episode is your wake-up call.

youtube.com/@MaryKellySpeaker

linkedin.com/in/drmarykelly/

x.com/marykellyspeaks

With Special Guest: Steve Bonar, EVP, Conklin Company

Most leaders coast once they earn the title. The ones who build lasting teams — and lasting results — never do.

In this episode, Meridith sits down with Steve Bonar, Executive Vice President of the Conklin Company, to talk about what it actually takes to lead, sell, and grow when the pace of change is relentless and uncertainty is the only constant.

Steve has spent 25 years developing entrepreneurs and leading large sales organizations inside one of the most relationship-driven industries in business. His perspective is practical, proven, and direct.

What you will take away from this conversation:

• Why "systems permit ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results" — and what that means for how you build your team

• The mindset shift that separates leaders who fold under pressure from those who drive performance through it

• Why obstacles are not blocking your road to success. They are the road.

• How to keep your people motivated and focused when uncertainty keeps escalating

• The rearview mirror principle — and why most leaders are looking in the wrong direction

If you are leading a team, building a business, or trying to find your footing in a marketplace that will not hold still, this episode delivers the strategies you need to stop managing uncertainty and start leveraging it.

Connect with Steve Bonar: conklin.com