Intentional Performers

Dr. Charles Camarda on Research, Organizational Culture, and Going to Space

Dr. Charles Camarda has a resume that scares the heck out of me because there are so many technical elements of his background in research engineering that I know that I can butcher a lot of these words because it’s basically like speaking Chinese to me. I love this conversation because it’s actually not about a lot of the technical background that Dr. Camarda brings to it. You have Dr. Camarda, and you have Charlie. And I think this conversation was really with Charlie. He will seem down to earth the entire time, but just know the background is pretty wild. He has over 45 years of experience at NASA as a researcher, he worked at the Langley Research Center, and worked on numerous teams to develop and analyze and test advanced thermal structure systems for hypersonic vehicles such as the space shuttle. This is someone who is highly technical. He holds 9 patents over 20 national and international awards for his research. He is someone who is a scientist and cares deeply about creating culture and people around research. A lot of today is his challenging of NASA and their inability to bring a research culture forward and his concerns about that. A lot of those concerns stem from him witnessing the Columbia disaster, which happened in the early 2000s, that killed 7 people on board. The space shuttle disintegrated on its way back to Earth. At the time, Charlie was planning, prepping, and training to be an astronaut, which he ended up doing. He was part of the first mission to leave earth and go into space after the Columbia disaster. He has such a unique perspective having been in the lab and researching and spending time as a research engineer to try to understand how space shuttles need to work and how they need to properly prepare and test and make sure that things are the way that they should be, and then he’s also had the view of being in space. He’s going to talk about some of the mistrust that the astronauts had with their mission control and what that led to from a team functioning dynamic. He calls out some of the lack of strong culture that existed at NASA while he was there, and it is a good reminder for all of us to think deeply about our culture, with whatever organization we are in, and what are we doing to try to allow people to have the psychological safety to raise their hand and voice concerns. You are going to love Charlie, he cares deeply about culture, we talk a lot about organizational culture in today’s conversation, so much so that you’re going to hear me try to bring him back to his astronaut experience because I just think it’s so unique and it’s an experience that so few of us have. But, I do think the culture element that he discusses is so critical for all of us to think about and think about how we can intentionally positively impact the environments that we are in.

Dr. Camarda had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“The same people that made these bad decisions were extremely arrogant” (9:00).

“As a crew, we came together and said we can handle this” (12:25).

“We’re ready to fly. We will accept the risk” (15:00).

“There’s a big difference between researchers, research engineers, and engineers” (17:20).

“If something didn’t look right, they would ask probing questions” (24:05).

“The primary cause of [the Columbia disaster] was NASA’s culture” (26:25).

“I could sit at a meeting and I could tell the people in the room that were afraid to raise their hand. I could see the fear on their faces” (27:50).

“If we don’t correct these problems and go back to our past culture, our research-type culture, we are going to lose the race to the moon” (31:20).

“The entire senior management at NASA is we are going to do the bare minimum to meet the requirements” (36:50).

“NASA had no intention of fixing its culture” (37:40).

“Culture is very difficult to change” (49:40).

“More than 80% of companies that try to transform their culture fail” (49:45)

“I always wanted to be an astronaut” (53:05).

“If you have a fear, the way Charlie Camarda gets over that fear… [is to] face it head on” (1:03:20).

“I was not nervous at all [on launch day] because we were totally prepared” (1:04:50).

“The thing that I got the most joy from was working together with our team on the ground and our team on orbit” (1:07:15).

“The most rewarding aspect of flying into space is the amazing people you get to share the experience with” (1:10:10).

“If we don’t fix this culture, NASA and the United States will not be the number one country in space” (1:12:15).

“Let’s bring the data to the table and let’s learn together” (1:17:55).

“If it can happen to NASA, it can happen to any place” (1:21:35).

Additionally, you can check out Charlie’s podcast, Leading Edge Discovery, on any podcast platform. You can also find his website here and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Thank you so much to Dr. Camarda for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Mickey Bergman on Negotiating with Emotional Intelligence and Empathy

Mickey Bergman is one of the most fascinating, interesting people that I’ve met (and certainly that we’ve had on this podcast). He’s currently the Vice President and Senior Advisor at the Governor Richardson Center for Global Engagement. We are going to talk about Governor Richardson, who’s also known as “The Gov” to Mickey, and the impact that he’s had on Mickey’s life. The Center for Global Engagement really was at the forefront of what Mickey calls “fringe diplomacy,” which is a field that he is forming, which is an innovative discipline exploring the space in international relations that are actually beyond the boundaries of states’ and governments’ capacity and authority. So, Mickey and his team, they try to negotiate and help represent families of hostages, people whose loved ones are imprisoned and in awful situations and places like North Korea, Cuba, Lebanon, and the Middle East. We talk a lot about Mickey’s work in Gaza and trying to help a lot of Israelis who are currently hostages of Hamas. So, he has been in some of our most challenging areas of the world. We talk about Russia in today’s conversation. Mickey and his people go in and they try to help families get their loved ones back; that is really what they do, that is his job, and he represents families, not governments. He was the Executive Director of the Global Alliances Program at The Aspen Institute, and he’s a professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service where he teaches about emotional intelligence and international relations. Emotional Intelligence is something that Mickey references often in today’s conversation and the importance of being able to manage emotions and find ways to understand people they are talking to and try to create what he calls symmetry and common ground and try to really get to know people even if they represent some of the atrocities that exist in our world. Mickey talks a lot about evil and good and bad and how that bad people can do good things and good people can do bad things and how he tries to keep that the forefront of his brain when he is representing hostages and personally trying to get them back to their families. He’s published numerous articles, he’s been interviewed, and he’s done opinion pieces in The New York Times, Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, and The Boston Globe just to name a few. He’s appeared on TV on places like CNN, ABC, CBS, FOX News, etc. So, Mickey is an expert when it comes to trying to understand what it takes to bring people home. And just to give people an idea of the scale and the scope of Mickey and his colleagues’ work, in 2019 he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work at the Richardson Center, where he led a team to facilitate the release of more political prisoners than any other organization. And Mickey is from Israel and he talks a lot about his work in today’s conversation to try to bring hostages home from Gaza. And remember, Mickey represents the families that have members that are still in hostage situations in Gaza. And so, this conversation goes deep and gets vulnerable pretty quickly. Mickey still has family in Israel, he cares about the country, we both talk about how we are proud to call ourselves Zionists in today’s conversation, and still there are challenges that exist with governments at play and his ability to get people home, and that is what Mickey is most focused on is trying to help families reunite with prisoners that are held hostage, oftentimes in an unjust way. And so, I found this conversation to be extremely inspiring, I find Mickey to be someone to be thoughtful, to be caring, to make you think, and I know and I hope that he does that with all of you today. He has a wonderful book which we talk about quite a bit which is called In the Shadows and I highly recommend you check that out, it is a wonderful read as I share in today’s conversation. And so, as you listen, I hope you listen with an open mind, I hope you learn from Mickey today, I know I did.

Mickey had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“I don’t go into panic modes” (12:00).

“Governor Richardson was a father figure for me because not only was he a mentor, he was in my life day and night” (16:25).

“[During that highly stressful time] I was missing my grounding power, which was Governor Richardson” (19:35).

“We knew that we had to make it an American issue” (28:50).

“It’s about the sheer level of devastation here and trying to explain why people do what they do” (32:05).

“The heart of my work is around emotional intelligence” (34:30).

“In reality, when you first hear those shots, you have no idea where they’re coming from” (36:25).

“If you can’t take care of yourself, you’re not going to be able to take care of anybody else” (38:20).

“My blinders were removed from the side and I could actually digest what I was hearing” (41:30).

“You try to cling to any straws of humanity in order to do this [work]” (45:20).

“Even people who are responsible for absolutely terrible things, they are not born evil, they are not all evil” (45:30).

“The dichotomy of good and evil is not as absolute as we like to think” (45:55).

“I try not to compare” (50:05).

“Our brains, especially under trauma, look for shortcuts” (52:50).

“You need to scratch really deep beneath the surface of a human in order to find the humanity sometimes. But you have to do it, because otherwise we’re in an all-out war: (54:45).

“We actually need to process this as a society. We need to figure out who we are as a society” (1:01:30).

“95% of the time when you actually pay the ransom the victim comes back alive and well” (1:19:40).

“Until it’s a loved one or a friend of yours who is in that situation [of being kidnapped], you really can’t judge those who do everything in their power to bring them home” (1::20:35).

“Empathy is a must within our society” (1:24:15).

“Empathy is not sympathy” (1:24:40).

“In my line of work, empathy is a must, sympathy is a trap” (1:24:55).

“When you remove resistance movements but don’t remove the source of the resistance, the next resistance movement is not going to be more moderate, they’re going to be more radical” (1:29:30).

Additionally, you can purchase Mickey’s book, In the Shadows, here. You can also find the Global Reach website here. Additionally, you can connect with Mickey on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Thank you so much to Mickey for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Andy Lopata on Asking for Mentoring

Andy Lopata is all about building quality, strategic, and intentional relationships, and trying to teach others how they can do so as well. He’s written 6 books on networking and professional relationships, with his latest being all about aentoring; it’s called The Financial Times Guide to Mentoring, and it was co-written by Ruth Gotian who is a past podcast guest. He also writes a regular blog for Psychology Today and has been quoted in the media multiple times, including The Sunday Times, The Financial Times, and Ink. He is someone who not just thinks about networking from a transactional standpoint, but really from an intentional place, which is why he made for such a quality guest on the podcast today. He started working in networking in 1999 with his father, and he’s going to talk about his relationship with his father and what he learned from him as a mentor along the way as well. He spent 8 years as a Managing Director of a UK networking organization that had over 2000 member companies. His approach to building professional relationships is all about being authentic, being genuine, and being thoughtful about the political nature that we might find ourselves in. At the end of the day, it’s just as important that people know who you are as it is to know who you know. At his core, I think Andy is someone who cares a lot about people, cares a lot about being intentional and thoughtful with how we’re connecting with each other, and, as I said, I think he is someone who will come off as being genuine and authentic, but also extremely thoughtful in his own expertise, in his own knowledge, around how we connect. The last point I’ll make is a lot of today’s conversation revolves around vulnerability and the power of asking for help. So, I am grateful to all of you who continue to support this podcast and I hope that you can continue to support us in sharing this conversation with the world.

Andy had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“You don’t want to wait for someone’s life [to end] before you tell them what they mean [to you]” (6:25).

“I came from an aspirational family, so I always wanted to impress and make them proud” (10:40).

“I got to that point where I needed to hear [feedback]” (11:35).

“It is good to like your mentor, but I always think it is more important to respect them” (12:05).

“I need a combination of someone I respect that I’m working with that I allow to challenge me… but also the sense they are listening to me” (16:20).

“It’s not what you know or who you know, it’s who knows you” (19:50).

“Opportunity knocks when you don’t even know there’s a conversation taking place” (20:00).

“We can see how dangerous it gets when people start believing their own publicity and they think that every idea they have is brilliant” (21:55).

“There are a number of reasons why it’s important for a mentor to be vulnerable” (26:50).

“Ego needs to be left at the door before you go into the room to mentor” (27:25).

“Your message is going to resonate more with the other person if you’re not perfect” (27:45).

“We learn from people who say I succeeded but I had challenges along the way and I made mistakes along the way” (32:30).

“Performance only accounts for 10% of any promotion, image is 30%, and exposure is 60%” (36:40).

“What I do is I take things that should be natural and authentic and then I break them down into their component parts” (41:20).

“You need to be able to separate the strategic thinking from the way you engage with people” (41:35).

“You need the strategy, you need to understand what you’re trying to achieve, and recognize when people can help you so you can ask the question but then focus on the relationship” (44:40).

“Most people will get a lot more joy from helping other people than from receiving help” (49:05).

“We assume people know what’s going on in our lives” (54:10).

“Vulnerability is not a weakness; vulnerability is a strength” (55:30)

“It takes strength to say I could do with some help” (55:35).

“I have countless informal mentors” (1:00:55).

“I’m teaching myself to not take it personally when I’m [not getting exactly what I want from my mentee” (1:08:30).

Additionally, you can find the website for Andy’s new book here, you can check out The Connected Leadership Podcast on any podcast platform, and you can find Andy’s monthly Psychology Today blog here. Lastly, you can find Andy’s linktree here.

Thank you so much to Andy for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Zaza Pachulia on Consistent Authenticity

I’ve been really fortunate to spend time with some of the best athletes in the world, whether it’s through my podcast or whether it’s through other relationships I’ve had in my life, I’ve gotten to be inside certain circles that put me in spaces with professional athletes. I also had a sport psychology practice where I worked with a number of professional athletes. One of my favorite athletes that I’ve ever interacted with is today’s guest. Zaza Pachulia is just an amazing human. He’s likeable, he’s thoughtful, he’s curious, he’s caring; he is the type of person that you just want to be around. He was an amazing teammate; I think if you asked players that played with Zaza, that’s how they would describe him: a great teammate who would do whatever it took to help the team win, including some of the not so glamorous aspects like playing defense and setting screens and helping out on the boards; he was an amazing offensive rebounder. As I think about today’s conversation, it actually has less to do with Zaza’s 16 years and over 1000 games that he played in the NBA, and more to do with his mindset and his curiosity and his desire to learn, grow, develop, be vulnerable, be willing to change, be willing to evolve, be willing to grow. At the core, that’s as much who Zaza is as winning 2 championship rings with the Golden State Warriors. And make no mistake, he’s also a competitor. He cares deeply about winning and being the best version of him that he can be when it comes to parenting, when it comes to mentoring, and when it comes to playing a game.  

Zaza had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“Every human being has a turning point in their lives” (6:15).

“Every day is a battle” (9:20).

“[Your kids] have to have goals, have to have dreams, and how can we, as parents, make sure that every day they wake up they’re inspired” (11:15).

“Give your best, give 100% every single day” (13:35).

“We all have different journeys. Every successful person has different paths to success” (15:35).

“When I retired from basketball, I had to work on myself because I was preparing to live a different kind of life” (21:45).

“It’s not only about what I tell [my kids]. It’s not authentic if I tell them to be happy but I’m miserable” (22:55).

“Kids observe everything” (25:55).

“Lead [your kids] by example” (26:35).

“I was lucky to have coaches who cared a lot” (27:40).

“It’s not about what outsiders think. It’s about what we think as a group, as a family” (31:30).

“Control whatever is in your hands” (36:25).

“I believe in consistency and I believe in authenticity. You have to be who you are” (38:50).

“I am who I am, but I am the same person every day” (39:05).

“In everybody’s journey, decisions are such an important part” (46:45).

“Basketball helped me bring [my curiosity] into my real life” (53:15).

“You’re never going to get time back” (1:00:45).

“Curiosity led me to reading and hearing the stories of amazing people” (1:01:00).

“Basketball has always been priority number one” (1:02:40).

“I gave everything to basketball and basketball gave lots of things back to me” (1:02:55).

Additionally, you can find out more about the Zaza Pachulia Basketball Academy here.

Thank you so much to Zaza for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Chris Waddell on Embracing Vulnerability to Collaborate

When I was first introduced to Chris Waddell for this podcast, I was super excited. His bio is absolutely inspiring. He was Dalai Lama’s Unsung Hero for Compassion. He’s won 13 Paralympic medals. He’s in the Paralympic Hall of Fame. He’s in the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. NPR credited him with one of the best graduation speeches ever for his keynote at Middlebury College in 2011. He has won more medals than any male monoskier in Paralympic history. He is somebody who has been recognized for being one of the 50 most beautiful people by People Magazine, which we talk about in today’s conversation. The accolades are endless, they’re inspiring, they’re impressive, they’re almost outer worldly. In our conversation, we talk about the downside that comes with people who view Chris as a hero. I watched a documentary that he was featured in, and the documentary was beautiful, it was all about his ascent to Mount Kilimanjaro as an unassisted paraplegic. That documentary was a fascinating watch and it is the focal point of a lot of our conversation today, as Chris challenges the notion that others sometimes think that he’s outer worldly and that he’s some sort of hero because of some of the challenges he’s faced as far as with his ability to walk. That is what makes this conversation so real, so unique, so vulnerable: even though Chris is paralyzed and doing things that most able-bodied people would think is beyond the realm of possibility for them, Chris is a human and you’re going to love him in today’s conversation because he’s open, honest, and vulnerable.

Chris had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“If you don’t tell the story, it didn’t happen” (6:25).

“In climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, I wanted to confirm I was a superhero” (7:50).

“I wanted to free myself of this burden of being the superhero” (8:00).

“If you’re a human being, you’re part of the team” (8:30).

“The victim thing is the thing that I want to avoid at all costs” (12:20).

“If I continued to be a victim of circumstance, then my life ended at 20 years old effectively” (12:40).

“We often see our greatest strength in crisis” (16:25).

“The vulnerability is where we ultimately connect as human beings” (18:05).

“The only way that we really connect with other people is through being honest” (18:50).

“I wanted to stretch people’s imaginations and do things that were never possible” (24:25).

“I want to create and be able to convey whatever is in me” (26:05).

“I find heroes everywhere I go” (28:00).

“We’re always capable of more than we think we’re capable of” (28:25).

“Simplicity is the ultimate goal, but it takes a lot of work to actually get to the point where we achieve simplicity” (32:35).

“Ease can be the real root of our genius, too” (33:40).

“[Busyness] draws us away from efficiency” (38:25).

“If we’re occupied, then we have no time for thought” (38:50).

“I don’t get there on my own” (45:55).

“If we’re not aware of what other people are doing, we’re doing ourselves a huge disservice” (46:10).

“The key to communication… is ultimately about being direct” (47:05).

“The biggest struggle for me is conflict” (51:15).

“There’s the way I see myself, the way that people see me, and then there’s the way I think that people see me” (54:10).

“You don’t want to be seen for that surface level stuff” (57:45).

“The struggle is where we connect as human beings” (58:00).

“If we’re perfecting our craft, we’re never growing old” (58:20).

“It’s the getting better part that’s the most addictive part of being a human being” (58:55).

“Fear is my greatest motivator” (1:01:50).

Additionally, you can find the website for the One Revolution Foundation here and Chris’s personal website here, where you can find his books and much more. I’d also highly encourage you to check out the One Revolution documentary on Amazon Prime.

Thank you so much to Chris for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Devon Harris on Supreme Confidence

Devon Harris is an original member of the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team and captain of the 1992 and 1998 teams. He’s a 3-time Olympian, and he achieved something that he could only have dreamed of having been brought up in Kingston, Jamaica. And yes, Devon and his teammates were the inspiration for the movie Cool Runnings, which if you’re like me, you probably grew up watching on loop over and over and over again. We talk about that a little bit in today’s conversation. Most of today’s conversation is about Devon’s perspective on the culture in Jamaica and how that leads to great performers and great athletes. We talk about Devon’s own perspective and how he had naivete, and his teammates probably had naivete, to achieve something that they could have only dreamt of where they were going to compete in the Olympics. He is someone who is philosophical, he is thoughtful, and he has a military background which he’s going to share greatly served him and helped him when it came time for the Olympics. And so, this is conversation that gets deep into themes like confidence and themes like greatness. Devon is a motivational speaker, he thinks deeply and thinks in ways that might be new to you and I think will be helpful to you.

Devon had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“There is nothing glamorous about a bobsled” (5:35).

“Other people have done it before so I should be able to figure out how to do it” (6:00).

“If I die, I die. But I’m going” (7:25).

“Every time we set out to do something amazing, great, different, there is a certain amount of fear with it” (7:40).

“Courage is being scared to death but doing the thing anyway” (8:15).

“I could not allow that fear to stop me, so I went for it” (9:05).

“Anyone who has achieved something great and out of the box experiences some level of delusion” (13:15).

“There’s a certain level of delusion, but it’s founded on the experience and the knowledge and the work that you did before” (14:55).

“You can always learn new skills” (16:10).

“You have to be willing to acknowledge that you don’t know so you can learn” (17:50).

“We [Jamaicans] feed off the success of our compatriots” (23:20).

“There’s a kind of defiance that’s embedded in us as Jamaicans” (26:25).

“No task is too difficult; no obstacle is too great” (29:35).

“It was the army experience that I relied on to get through those early days” (31:50).

“Adversity allows you to grow. Adversity allows you to be inventive and be creative” (35:05).

“Once you learn to deal with adversity in one area of your life, it translates into another area” (35:50).

“I never could have imagined, coming from where I’m coming from, that you could have a movie made about a part of my life” (42:35).

“I don’t know if they really captured the hardships we experienced trying to get to the Olympic games” (44:05).

Additionally, you can find everything you need to know about Devon on his website. You can also find the link to his foundation, Keep on Pushing, here.

Thank you so much to Devon for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Dhani Jones on Exploring with Curiosity

Dhani Jones is someone who I did not grow up with, I think he’s about 6 years older than me, but we went to the same high school and his name was a name that we heard over and over again growing up. He helped our high school get to the state championship, he went on to play football at the University of Michigan where he earned All-Big Ten Honors. You’re going to hear him mention the University of Michigan experience quite a bit in today’s conversation; he is quite proud of his time at the University of Michigan and being an alum is something that he likes to talk quite a bit about. He was selected in the 6^th round of the NFL draft and he ended up playing 11 seasons, playing for the Philadelphia Eagles, the New York Giants, and finally for the Cincinnati Bengals where he really had a transformative experience in his own career and he really took off in some of his later years and performed some of his best ball at the end of his career, which is not necessarily typically the case in professional football. But I think what makes Dhani so unique and why I was so excited to have him on the podcast is that he has range. He’s not just a football player, he’s actually more of an artist; he’s an explorer, he has been a tv host with VH1 and with The Travel Channel and with CNBC, he is a venture capitalist and loves to make investments, he’s an entrepreneur, he loves to tinker and try new things. He is a unique guy, he is an N of 1, and I hope that comes across in today’s conversation. So certainly we talk about mindset, we talk about his experience playing football, leadership, we talk about strategy and exploration, and really this conversation is about philosophy and about life as much as it is about performance.

Dhani had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“You’re taught that if you’re a jack of all trades you’re a master of none” (6:00).

“It’s okay to have a range of beliefs, it’s okay to have a range of curiosity, as a matter of fact it’s even been proven that it’s better; it creates a better level of elasticity and it creates a better level of understanding where you are in this world” (7:30).

“It’s always important to ask more people more questions, to ask them what they see in you” (8:55).

“In the end, I loved the game (football) that gave me the tools necessary to move into the real world” (10:20).

“I see how things align through the chaos” (11:40).

“A lot of times what might look like confusion is just a misunderstanding” (12:20).

“Conviction is sometimes more of an easy route [than curiosity]” (16:45).

“On Sunday I would turn it all off because I had reached my conviction, and I would go play” (21:35).

“What I needed to survive was actually how to better control some of the curiosity and the questions that I had” (26:30).

“My real passion is art. I always wanted to be an artist… The waves of creativity have always struck me in so many different ways” (28:45).

“The last 4 years of my career, I came to love and appreciate the game because those that were around me appreciated me” (38:20).

“[Golf] is the ultimate lesson” (42:00).

“You want to learn about yourself, you want to learn about other people, you want to learn about life, you go to the golf course” (42:25).

“I go into a different frame of mind when I’m cycling” (45:30).

“No one should be given permission to learn. Everybody should be given an opportunity to learn as much as possible” (51:35).

“The world of curiosity gets narrower and narrower as you get older” (52:25).

“How do you arrive at your greatest gift if you didn’t even know that it existed?” (52:50).

“I’m curious about what people really care about” (54:00).

“I would go to outer space tomorrow” (56:20).

“We should never limit our curiosity. We should never limit our brain’s opportunity to see and to experience more light” (57:50).

“The game of football has provided me the opportunity to be creative and to learn this world of discipline” (58:50).

Thank you so much to Dhani for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Dr. Bob Lefkowitz on Scientific Discovery

Dr. Bob Lefkowitz is currently the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at the Duke University Medical Center. He’s been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1976, and he began his research career in the late 1960s and early 1970s when there was not a clear consensus that specific receptors for drugs and hormones even existed. He’s a trailblazer. He’s a ground breaker. He’s a Nobel Prize winner. He’s an author; his memoir, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stockholm, recounts his early career as a cardiologist and his transition to biochemistry. He is a researcher, he’s a teacher, and he’s just very very wise. And sometimes you meet knowledgeable people, smart people, who lack wisdom and emotional intelligence; that’s not what you’re going to find in this conversation. We talk as much about philosophy as we do about his groundbreaking research. This conversation was inspiring, it made me think, and it made me question how I think, which is the sign of a great conversation. He has won numerous awards as well; he’s been acknowledged by his field in a multitude of ways and at Duke University. The work that he’s done finding these receptors and working on proteins has led to a discovery that impacts 30-50% of all medications that we take. He is someone who cares deeply about making an impact and influencing our society for the better.

Bob had several amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“Tell me your strongest asset and it will also be your biggest deficiency” (6:30).

“The most important characteristic necessary for success at anything is focus” (7:05).

“A totally fulfilling life needs to be one that embraces not just whatever your passion and obsession is, but a host of other things” (7:30).

“I’ll continue to be a work in progress” (9:00).

“I have found as I’m aging that friendships have become more and more important to me” (13:10).

“Life is so filled with surprises and twists and turns” (16:20).

“Nobody’s smart enough to make truly amazing discoveries because they’re so far outside the frame of how we currently understand things that nobody’s that smart” (19:50).

“What I loved the most when I was younger and was at the peak of my power was making discoveries” (25:50).

“The more you know, the less able you are to make discoveries” (29:30).

“Each of us has a unique personality which is shaped in varying extents by the nature and the nurture” (30:50).

“Education is a double-edged sword. On one hand we need education to get certain facts and ways of thinking, but also it constrains us” (31:25).

“This inherent skepticism I’ve always had led to burning curiosity” (34:10).

“What drives me the most and gives me the most satisfaction is mentoring young people” (34:50).

“It is an interesting and a life-changing experience to win the Nobel Prize” (40:55).

“Winning awards was not a factor. I was just driven because I was driven [to discover]” (41:15).

“The whole nature of science is that whatever it is, you have to do it first. You don’t get any credit for doing something second” (46:45).

“Questions are a reflection of curiosity” (56:35).

“Every experiment is a question. The better framed the experiment, the more likely you are to get an informative answer” (56:45).

“The best outcomes in medicine are when the patient and doctor form an alliance” (57:40).

“I thought [when I was younger] the most heroic thing you could do was become a physician because you could alleviate human suffering” (1:04:40).

“I’m so focused in what I’m doing or who I’m interacting with that the time just disappears” (1:16:45).

Additionally, you can learn more about Bob and his work here.

Thank you so much to Bob for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Emma Seppala on Finding Sovereignty

Dr. Emma Seppala is a bestselling author, she’s a Yale lecturer, and international keynote speaker. She teaches executives at the Yale School of Management and is Faculty Director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program. She’s a psychologist, she’s a researcher, she is somebody who is constantly thinking and wondering about the science of happiness, emotional intelligence, and social connection. She is also an author, as I mentioned earlier, and her books are what we focus on in today’s conversation. The two we focus on are The Happiness Track, which has been translated into dozens of languages and was published in 2016, and her new book which we really dive into in today’s conversation which is called Sovereign. Dr. Seppala is also the Science Director of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. Emma has been featured in just about every publication you can imagine, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and NPR, and she also has done TED Talks all over the country. Her contributions and writings have been featured in places like The Harvard Business Review, The Washington Post, Psychology Today, and Time. She’s been fortunate to also consult and speak to organizations like Google and Facebook/Meta. Her research on breathing is also something that we talk about today. She has done amazing work with our military and their experience with trauma, so we bring that into today’s conversation.

Emma had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“It really doesn’t make any sense to sweat the small stuff” (7:10).

“There is an inner wealth that is more precious than any external wealth you can have and any material good you can have” (8:00).

“This idea of the ability that we have to have sovereignty over our mind; it is there, it is something we can have, but we forget about it” (10:20).

“Through the breath you can actually shift which emotions you’re experiencing” (11:25).

“Suppression [of our emotions] actually makes them stronger” (12:25).

“Emotion is energy in motion. You need to learn how to move it” (14:35).

“Vulnerability and authority can coexist. Vulnerability and strength can coexist” (21:50).

“When you suppress the negative, you’re also suppressing the positive” (26:15).

“We’ve bought into this idea of high stress all the time, and all it’s doing is burning us out” (31:00).

“It’s good to question how we always do things, even if everyone’s doing it, because it may not always be the best thing we can be doing with ourselves” (33:25).

“Self-criticism is different from self-awareness” (37:00).

“It doesn’t make sense to have an antagonistic relationship with yourself” (38:10).

“Our mind is like a mirror; it’s going to reflect whatever we put in it” (40:15).

“For sovereignty, the key is discernment” (42:35).

“Having the attitude of kindness is one of the greatest secrets to happiness and fulfillment over the length of your life” (46:20).

“The happiest people, who also live the longest most fulfilled lives, are the ones who live lives characterized by compassion, balanced with compassion for themselves” (47:40).

“The most successful leaders out there are leaders that are compassionate” (50:35).

“Happiness is a very individual experience” (52:20).

“Everybody, to some extent, has an addiction” (56:50).

“We can get stronger and better at everything if we just force ourselves to do it over and over” (1:07:25).

Additionally, you can purchase Emma’s new book Sovereign anywhere you buy books. You can also check out her website and connect with her on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.  

Thank you so much to Emma for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Simon Mundie on Champion Thinking

Simon Mundie is on a mission to have discussions that reveal something important about life and how best to live it. He’s the host of the Life Lessons Podcast, and that’s where he uses that vehicle to learn from some of the best performers in the world about how they are not just successful at their craft, but what they’ve learned along the way, and even some of the dark sides that come with high achievement. And he really is someone who has used sport as a metaphor for life. His podcast doesn’t just interview some of the best athletes in the world, but it also is a platform where he gets to sit with some of the best thinkers, philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists to try to unpack and discover what living a truly meaningful, successful life is all about. He has spent time in the sports world as a journalist. He worked for BBC Radio, where he covered sporting events like the World Cup and the Olympics. So, he’s been around some of the highest achievers in the world, and he often found that our obsession and focus on results was actually quite shallow. His interest in sport as he became older was actually around the metaphors that exist within the games. So, this conversation gets into a lot of wisdom, a lot of ideas around enlightenment, a lot of ideas around meaning and purpose and what will cause us to truly feel like we’re living our best lives. So, it’s a deep conversation, it’s a rich conversation.

Simon had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“I am actually not a big fan of the word [champion]” (4:55).

“I think it becomes problematic when we look at people who are described as champions and consider them to be special or different, and therefore consider ourselves or others to be less than” (6:10).

“We are all unique with our own skills and value” (6:45).

“We are not better or no worse than anyone else” (7:00).

“So often people are incredibly identified with their thoughts, the voice in their head, they think that’s who they are” (9:30).

“Thoughts and thinking are coming and going, but this ‘aware’ mind is always there and is aware of any thoughts that come and go” (10:10).

“A thought… has a beginning and an end” (10:35).

“I’ve always been interested in the deeper questions” (18:10).

“There’s nothing that anyone needs to fix. It’s just the belief that there is” (19:15).

“Sport is a metaphor for life” (21:00).

“Sport is just a way to illustrate these deeper truths and deeper implications” (21:40).

“We are not separate. We are connected” (22:45).

“On the human level we are individual, unique, and discrete, but on the being level we are one and the same” (24:50).

“We are different expressions of one life” (25:40).

“Spirituality is the recognition that at the deepest level we are not actually separate” (25:45).

“Anytime [“problematic”] feelings come up, it’s an opportunity to allow them to be there and then they lose their strength” (31:30).

“A lot of trauma can stay in the body” (41:20).

“That capacity to be able to cry is a really important way of actually releasing stress and tension from the body” (42:55).

“Attention is like the stretching of awareness towards an object” (45:55).

“What we all really want is peace of mind, is contentment, is fulfillment” (49:25).

“Peace and fulfillment and contentment are not things that come from outside ourselves; they are already at our source and then they can be revealed by, for example, being in flow when your sense of self disappears” (49:40).

“Culturally, we tend to think of success as achievement” (50:15).

“Don’t be too quick to judge other people” (1:02:45).

“We have to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions” (1:07:40).

“I’m going to take risks. I’m going to put myself in situations that are uncomfortable. I’m going to ask people for stuff until they say no” (1:12:20).

“I’m going to put myself out there and really try and create opportunities, and then see what life throws my way” (1:13:30).

Additionally, I’d encourage you to check out Simon’s podcast, The Life Lessons Podcast, on any platform. I’d also highly encourage you to purchase Simon’s book, Champion Thinking. Lastly, you can find Simon’s website here and connect with him on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn.

Thank you so much to Simon for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Dr. Gloria Mark on Attention Span

Dr. Gloria Mark is Chancellor’s Professor Emerita at the University of California, Irvine, and has spent ten years as a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research. She received her PhD from Columbia University in psychology. For over two decades, she has researched the impact of digital media on people's lives, studying how using our devices affects our multitasking, distractions, mood, and behavior.

She has published over 200 papers in the top journals and conferences in the field of human-computer interaction, has received numerous paper awards, and was inducted into the ACM SIGCHI Academy in 2017 in recognition of her contribution to the field. She has also been a Fulbright scholar and has received the prestigious NSF Career Grant.

Her work has been widely recognized outside of academia: she has appeared on The Ezra Klein show, NPR’s Hidden Brain, Sanjay Gupta’s CNN Chasing Life, CBS Sunday Morning, Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, among many others. Her work has been featured in the popular media, e.g. New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, The Atlantic, BBC, and others. She has been invited to present her work at SXSW and the Aspen Ideas Festival.

Her recent book Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity, was named by The Globe and Mail as the #1 Best Business and Management book of 2023, and chosen as the Season 20 selection of the Next Big Idea Book Club.

Gloria had several amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“You have to be agile to put your attention to where it’s important” (6:50).

“Multitasking is not possible for us humans unless one of those tasks is automatic” (7:50).

“It’s not humanly possible to do 2 challenging, difficult things in parallel” (8:25).

“It takes longer to do 2 or more tasks when we multitask compared to if we do the tasks sequentially one after the other” (11:20).

“[Multitasking] creates stress” (12:35).

“There’s a myth that when people multitask, they’ll be more productive” (14:15).

“There’s a blurriness between our work and personal lives” (18:20).

“Our motivation changes when we work from home” (19:30).

“So often we might be with other people, but we have this lure of the internet still there” (25:30).

“When something becomes a habit, it really prevents us from using our conscious attention” (28:30).

“It’s really about becoming more intentional and conscious about what we’re doing when we’re on our devices” (32:15).

“Distractions are natural. It’s part of our human experience” (33:30).

“People mind-wander about 47% of the time” (33:40).

“Attention spans have declined [over the last 20 years]” (39:05).

“[New technology] has created a lot of pressure to think about performance at the expense of our wellbeing” (43:00).

“60% of global respondents reported some symptoms of burnout” (44:15).

“When people have positive wellbeing, they actually perform better” (44:55).

“Being an artist taught me that I could think out of the box” (46:30).

“The way I talk with scientists is very different from the way I talk with artists” (48:05).

“Boredom is associated with negative affect. When people are bored, they tend to be in a bad mood” (56:45).

“20 minutes in nature can help people destress” (58:40).

“We can practice forethought” (1:04:00).

“Goals are very powerful but they’re very slippery” (1:05:00).

Additionally, you can connect with Gloria on Twitter and LinkedIn, check out her website (where you can purchase her book, Attention Span, and find much more), and also subscribe to her Substack.

Thank you so much to Gloria for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Steve Clagett on High Performing Teams

Steve Clagett is the Director of Learning and Development with the Baltimore Ravens. Prior to arriving with the Ravens, he’s had quite a journey and quite an experience and a pretty incredible resume, which includes serving as a White House Fellow, where he got to interact with the President of the United States and a lot of other dignitaries and people that are making decisions that influence our daily lives. He also worked within the US Navy, rising to becoming a Lieutenant Commander where he also worked with the Navy SEAL Teams. We talk about mission, we talk about values in today’s conversation, and we talk about what is applicable and what may not be when it comes from the military to the sports world. We also talk about politics in today’s conversation. He also was a Pat Tillman Scholar. He is someone who cares about the work that he’s doing and is looking to make an impact certainly within the NFL, but beyond the NFL and in the community that he helps serve in Baltimore as well. So, this is a rich conversation where we really zoom in and think about character and how you assess for character and how you think about putting together the best possible team to compete, to contend, and ultimately to win.

Steve had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“The power of the year [2020] means more now than it did then” (8:00).

“We don’t say he’s a [Navy} SEAL. We say he’s a team guy” (11:50).

“Part of the competition is who you are as a teammate” (12:20).

“I believe in having a hypercompetitive organization” (12:30).

“You have to make sure that competition reinforces selflessness” (12:40).

“For me, accountability comes in phases” (14:15).

“Both [the military and the NFL] exist in some ways to inspire others” (16:40).

“When I look back at my career, I think of times I could have been more of a glue guy” (19:15).

“As a leader, there’s that constant balance between the mission and the man” (19:25).

“You need people [on the team] who get people out of their comfort zones and push the team in different directions” (21:05).

“I really enjoyed leading teams and solving complex problems” (22:10).

“I would define effective leadership as working with the team on establishing a vision, giving them clear roles and responsibilities, the resources they need to get the job done, and then getting out of the way” (27:50).

“Ideally you want a culture of disagree and commit” (30:50).

“What I’ve learned over the years is the value of diverse perspectives” (36:20).

“When you can improve the morale, when you can improve the culture of an organization, it just makes coming to work every day better” (39:05).

“The toughest decision I ever made was leaving the SEAL teams” (41:35).

“Sometimes loyalty is just [to] your teammates” (44:35).

“I think intrinsic motivation isn’t as important as external motivation” (52:50).

“I wonder sometimes if we’re too hard on people for their honesty” (53:20).

“One of our biggest reasons for success is we know who we are” (58:50).

Additionally, I’d encourage you to check out Farming 4 Hunger and The Taylor Anne Foundation. You can also connect with Steve on LinkedIn.

Thank you so much to Steve for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Ruth Gotian on Success Factors

Dr. Ruth Gotian has studied extensively what it takes to be successful. That is, at the end of the day, what she’s obsessed with, interested in, and curious about. She also has spent a lot of time thinking about mentorship and mentoring. She is currently the Chief Learning Officer, Associate Professor of Education in Anesthesiology, and former Assistant Dean of Mentoring and Executive Director of The Mentoring Academy at Cornell Medicine. And so, today we focus more on her focus on success and less on mentoring. She has a book coming up in the future about mentoring, but today this conversation is really about her research and dedication and, to be honest, an obsession with success. In 2021, she was one of 30 people worldwide to be named to the Thinkers50 Radar List, which is dubbed the Oscars of Management Thinking, and is a semi-finalist for the Forbes 50 over 50 list. During her extensive career, she’s personally coached and mentored thousands of people, ranging from faculty members to undergraduates, and as an Assistant Dean for mentoring, she oversaw the success of nearly 1800 faculty members at Cornell.

Currently, she researches the most successful people of our generation, including Nobel Laureates, astronauts, CEOs, Olympic champions, and more. We get into that in today’s conversation. Dr. Gotian received her BS and an MS in Business Management from The University at Stony Brook in New York, and certificates in Executive Leadership and Managing for Execution from Cornell. She earned her doctorate at teacher’s college at Columbia University. So, she’s well educated, she plays in the lab, but she also plays in the field. She works with athletes, she works as an executive coach, and she regularly publishes in journals such as Nature, Scientific American, Academic Medicines, Psychology Today, Forbes, and The Harvard Business Review. So, this conversation really focuses on her book, The Success Factor, which is all about developing the mindset and skillset for peak performance, and if you know anything about me you know that is a topic I am quite interested in.

Ruth had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“If I want to be better, I need to know what the best of the best are doing and then I reverse engineer their path” (7:50).

“I knew if I leverage my peak performance hours I will write better and I will be more effective” (12:40).

“I need to be able to rest” (15:25).

“I work really hard to be around people who jazz me up and don’t drain me” (15:30).

“Very often people get overlooked, misunderstood, because they’re different” (20:00).

“Sometimes it’s the people who carve out a different path that have the greatest learning journey” (20:15).

“[Success] is very personal” (21:55).

“I have interviewed hundreds of people who are at the top of their game. Not one has gotten there alone” (25:15).

“Any person who has achieved anything has done it with the support of other people” (25:50).

“The extrinsic motivation is fleeting” (28:55).

“If you really want to maximize everything that’s going forward, take a break” (34:00).

“Having a positive impact and leaving this world better than I found it, to me, that’s my way of doing something important and not just interesting” (39:15).

“Do something important and not just interesting” (42:05).

“When our situations change, our passions can change” (43:25).

“Mindsets trump habits because we can take the idea of the habit but customize it to our life” (46:10).

“Just because you’re moving up doesn’t mean you know more. You actually know less” (53:25).

“A leader is someone who can inspire other people to be the best versions of themselves” (55:00).

Additionally, you can find all of Ruth’s information and connect with her via her website.

Thank you so much to Ruth for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Stephen Panus on Grief and Walking On

Stephen Panus is somebody that my path may have crossed with, and at some point led him to coming on this podcast professionally. He’s worked in the sports world, he’s worked as a marketer, as a lawyer, and as an agent. So, it would make sense that at some point he would be someone that I would interview. But the real reason and the impetus for today’s conversation is based, in part, off of adversity, tragedy, and trauma. Stephen’s son, Jake, was killed in a drunk driving accident when Jake was 16 years old. Jake’s girlfriend at the time was actually the one driving the car. We don’t get into the specifics as far as how Stephen feels about Jake’s girlfriend, and we really don’t get into all of the details around the accident per se. But this conversation gives us a window into the grief, the trauma, and also some of the inspiring work that Stephen has done since then. Make no mistake, this is an experience that Stephen went through that was a watershed moment for him in the worst of ways. He doesn’t mince words about how much he misses his son and how much he dreads the day that he was taken from their family. And this is also a story about what Stephen has done since, his perspective on life since the accident, his thoughts on his son and around what it means to be a father, what it means to be a husband, what it means to be a professional, and Stephen also wrote a wonderful book called Walk On which we feature in today’s conversation. I think you’re going to find Stephen to be a philosopher, a spiritual animal, somebody who thinks deeply about psychology and how we can show up as our best. So, this is a difficult conversation, this is a tough conversation, but it’s also an inspiring one.

Stephen had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“It sometimes is hard to remember what I was like before August 9th. My life was split into a two-act play” (6:25).

“[I define success as] happiness” (9:00).

“Happiness comes from within. If you can be happy with who you are and what you’re doing, then I think you’ll be a success at whatever that is that you’re doing” (9:10).

“When you become a parent, it’s so similar to being on a [sports] team; you take on a responsibility much greater than yourself and your own interests” (11:40).

“Being spiritual is just being open. Being open to things you feel, things you see… and I think in being open you experience a lot more” (14:00).

“Everyone’s quest is their own” (17:10).

“I think it’s super important to have faith in something” (17:15).

“We’re all carrying invisible backpacks with some form of suffering or hardship or grief” (21:20).

“Our vulnerability is our strength” (21:50).

“All of the answers reside right within ourselves, we just have to source them. They’re all there” (22:10).

“Practice vigilant mercy... Be easy on yourself, be easy on others, set healthy boundaries, know what you’re capable of and what you’re not capable of” (22:45).

“There’s something about nature that brings some peace” (23:40).

“You need to lean into the sharp point if you want to be able to get through it” (25:10).

“Grief is your shadow now. It is always there. You have to deal with it” (25:35).

“The closer you stand to death the more it makes you want to feel alive” (33:00).

“Grief is love with nowhere to go” (37:10).

“There’s so few things we control on this planet, but what we do control… is what we feel and what we do about what happens to us” (44:50).

“We discipline our children to teach them” (47:10).

“I don’t make a big deal about so many little things now” (50:00).

“I connect with people’s pain. That’s a good thing because it connects us as human beings” (52:10).

“Grace is really just the inner light within all of us” (57:30).

“The most important relationship you’ll have on this planet is with yourself. And if you can learn to love yourself, accept yourself, agree to work on yourself, then the world opens up to you” (58:00).

“Grief isn’t linear” (1:05:40).

Additionally, you can check out Stephen’s website here, where you can pre-order his book, read about his scholarships, make a donation, book him as a speaker, and more.

Thank you so much to Stephen for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Mosheh Oinounou on True News

Mosheh Oinounou is an Emmy, Murrow, and Webby Award-winning Executive Producer. He worked in traditional news for quite some time. He was actually the youngest ever executive producer of the CBS Evening News in 2018 and 2019, where he led more than 150 people and covered everything from the war on Isis to natural disasters to mass shootings to presidential interviews. It seemed as though Mosheh was heading in the traditional media place where he was becoming a rock star and working on his craft and earning a title, something he had dreamt about when he was a little kid. And then some things changed. He went in a completely different direction. And so, this conversation is going to be about identity, it’s going to be about entrepreneurship, and it’s going to be about the future of our media and the way we consume information. He currently is the President of both Mo Digital and Mo News, where they provide a variety of outlets for us to digest content. One of the places where he plays a lot is on Instagram, where they share stories in the stories side of Instagram. They constantly are sharing interesting information and trying to give a true experience, a trustworthy experience, in a landscape where many of us have lost our faith in the news. Mo also has a wonderful newsletter, he’s a great follow on social media, and I think anywhere that our media is going and trending towards in the future generations, Mo is going to be there delivering us the news. One thing to bring up before we get into today’s conversation: we do talk about politics in today’s conversation, I share some of my questions and hesitancies, and I do want to make it clear that I will be voting in the election and I think it’s something that all of us should take seriously and we talk about that in today’s conversation. And whoever you decide to vote for, hopefully you take advantage of that democratic right.

Mosheh had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“It’s an incredible challenge to try to fit the world into 20 minutes each night at 6:00 pm” (6:45).

“I wanted some semblance of control over what I did” (8:05).

“It was my identity [at the time]. Who am I if I’m not the CBS Executive Producer?” (8:55).

“Running the evening news was the most stressful, least happy, I’d ever been” (9:15).

“My career was my relationship for most of my 20s and my 30s” (14:45).

“I had imposter syndrome very quickly as I tried to do my own thing” (18:20).

“It took me a while post-CBS to navigate the wilderness and figure out what value I bring, what I learned, and why I, as Mosheh, even independent of an organization, brought value to various companies and clients” (19:05).

“I’m in a unique situation because I’m the owner, the General Manager, the coach, and the player” (20:00).

“I like being the player because I’m the owner” (20:30).

“One of my frustrations was our lack of transparency with the consumer” (28:10).

“Projecting that you’re human is so incredibly important” (30:40).

“The only profession mentioned in the Bill of Rights here in this country is the press” (32:30).

“Some people in the media have sort of gotten high on their own power” (33:15).

“We try to be transparent about our biases” (37:50).

“I want to present the news to you like a friend talking to you at lunch” (40:45).

“[I’m] using the data to inform what I’m doing, not necessarily as a bible so to speak, but more of like a modern bible; let’s interpret it as opposed to using it in a declarative way” (46:50).

“As humans, we struggle dealing with crises that aren’t acute” (50:40).

“If we take for granted what we have, when we lose it it’s hard to get back” (54:50).

“You want to feel more engaged in the process? Get more engaged in the process” (56:40).

“You’re only able to digest a certain amount of information” (1:01:20).

Additionally, you can find the Mo News website here where you can also find access to them on all platforms (YouTube, Newsletter, Podcast, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram).

Thank you so much to Mosheh for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Craig Wiley on Building Enterprise Cultures

I was first introduced to Craig Wiley a number of years ago when I was starting my journey in executive coaching. The people that told me about Craig spoke about his integrity, his ability to think strategically, and help them as their executive coach. When we connected years ago, he was awesome, he was authentic, he was genuine, he had a clear vision for where he wanted to take his company, and it’s really cool to reconnect with him today and check in with him on where he’s at and where the company has gone.

So, a bit about Craig: He is the CEO and Founder of Transcend, a company that helps to transform C-Suite leaders and their businesses. He’s been doing this for over 2 decades as an executive coaching expert and business strategy thought leader, two spaces in which he really does live. He lives in almost this consultant, strategy, thought leader space, which we get into in today’s conversation along with this executive coaching space. Ultimately, he’s really passionate about driving continual innovation through what they have determined to be the best practice and the best solutions necessary to advance leadership within organizations. One of the key themes of today, and one of the things that we talk about quite a bit and Craig really brings to today’s conversation, is this ability for an organization to focus on their enterprise first rather than last (and a lot of organizations focus on their enterprise last). When he works with organizations, he helps them align their values, their purpose, their mission, to whatever it is they’re doing at the enterprise level. Then, they go from there to the team and then it filters down to the individual.

Craig had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“Every single day when we’re working with executives, they are being pushed and pulled in unbelievably dynamic ways” (6:05).

“If you’re a CEO, you really don’t have a community in your business” (6:25).

“The notion of resilience looks different to different people” (6:55).

“We think about individual performance, we think about team performance, but then we also think about how [an enterprise performs]” (8:50).

“We think about resilience through the lens of a community that is resilient in unison” (9:05).

“People love in engaging in things that are difficult when it’s meeting a bigger purpose” (11:15).

“The highest functioning organizations are enterprise first, team second, individual third” (11:50).

“We know that people are driven by impact and connection” (14:05).

“We invest a ton of time and energy in being an enterprise-first company” (18:10).

“As a coach or a leader, we have to be talking about the bigger meaning and the bigger purpose than this week’s game or this quarter’s deliverables” (23:05).

“It’s the CEO’s sole job to ensure that they have a dynamic, innovative enterprise” (29:05).

“Progressive business engages robust dialogue across all levels of the organization to build the future of the organization” (32:30).

“People want to have a meaningful existence and they want to have impact and they want to feel good about what they do every single day” (35:10).

“If [a private equity firm has] operating partners that understand how to take a company and make it enterprise first, team second, individual third, and understand how to create the highest performing ecosystems for people to flourish, the private equity firm wins” (46:45).

“Business dynamics are the most dynamic they’ve ever been” (51:05).

“You have to agility and resilience and innovation in organization” (51:20).

“When people are operating from one playbook, they perform better” (59:10).

“People came to America because they saw opportunity through equality” (1:08:50).

“Success is not purpose” (1:09:00).

Additionally, you can find the Transcend website here and connect with Transcend on LinkedIn. You can also connect directly with Craig on LinkedIn.

Thank you so much to Craig for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Topaz Adizes on Questions for Connection

Topaz Adizes is an Emmy Award winning writer, director, and experience design architect. Topaz is currently the founder and executive director of an experience design studio called “The Skin Deep,” which produces incredible, heartwarming, thoughtful, emotional videos that you can find on YouTube. They have over 1200 videos online, some of which are referenced in today’s conversation. I mention that experience design architect piece because at the beginning of this conversation, we talk about this concept that he created called “The And.” “The And” is a series of cards that you can purchase, and there are 199 questions in these boxes. These cards contain powerful questions that are meant to help build connections amongst human beings. In the beginning of this conversation, we reference the cards and how I might use them people with people in my life. He has also played in this writer/director space. His works have been selected to Cannes, Sundance, IDFA, South by Southwest, and featured in New Yorker Magazine, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times. So, he is certainly an artist at heart. He is someone who loves to document life, and he has gone towards this space of bringing people together for connection. So, at his core, Topaz is a deep thinker, a thoughtful guy, who wants to make this world a little bit better than he found it.

Topaz had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“Giving people the freedom to walk away, to not answer, to not respond, is really imperative so that you create this space for people to explore” (7:55).

“There’s a lot said in the space between. We don’t have to articulate everything to feel everything” (8:15).

“Two things are required to have a cathartic conversation: creating the space and well-constructed questions” (10:45).

“Don’t ask a binary question” (17:20).

“Ask a question as a gift” (17:50).

“It’s much easier to shake a hand than a finger that’s pointing at you” (17:55).

“Be aware of the questions you’re asking” (22:05).

“The answer is shaped by the question you ask” (24:10).

“Good relationships lead to a more vital life” (29:25).

“Try to connect two things that are not usually connected” (29:35).

“I traverse this journey (of life), I learn from it, and then hopefully I can convert these sources of pain that have created hunger in me to then offer a gift” (38:10).

“The energy I put out did not come back to me in excess” (43:30).

“Why not just change one person’s life profoundly?” (29:50).

“What could I do today that would make my grandkid’s life better?” (51:50).

“I don’t think about my legacy, I just think about the future” (53:55).

“Big changes come from micro changes consistently” (54:30).

“What we do now does echo into the future to people that you will never meet” (56:30).

“I’m going to do my best to put the effort out. And then whatever happens, happens” (1:06:40).

Additionally, you can find “The Skin Deep” website here and follow them on all social media platforms at @TheSkinDeep. Lastly, you can find Topaz’s personal website here.

Thank you so much to Topaz for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Jared Freid on Stand-Up Comedy

Jared Freid is a comedian, he’s a podcaster, he’s a writer, he’s a TV host, and perhaps he may be best known at this point for his Netflix comedy special “Jared Freid: 37 and Single.” I watched it over the holidays and loved it, I watched it with my family. I’ve been watching Jared really since he got started in comedy; we have a mutual friend who we reference quite a bit in today’s show, and he brought me to see Jared and he just has the humor that I love. We talk about Jared’s journey and how he developed his style and really learned the mechanics of stand-up comedy. So, he’s going to give you the behind the scenes look at what it takes to be a comedian and his approach and what he’s done to build his brand. We do talk about branding, marketing, media, and the future of media and what he’s done to try to build his platform; I think there’s a lot to learn there. He’s also performed on TV; he’s been on The Today Show and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, so certainly he’s been on some big stages and arenas around the country. Jared is authentic and he’s genuine (so there are going to be a lot of f-bombs in today’s conversation; if you have kids, this is your warning: maybe this isn’t the episode for them to listen to). Whatever you are as you listen to today’s conversation, I think you’re going to love Jared’s approach, I think his mindset is really interesting when he talks about how he sets his mind for preparation and for performance, so hopefully there is something to learn for all of us.

Jared had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“I spent most of my days [back then] writing funny emails to friends” (10:30).

“I made my own performing arts school” (13:25).

“Really, what matters is the work” (14:40).

“Becoming a stand-up comedian, which is what I want, which is what really makes everything I do funnier than most, takes a lot of footwork” (15:25).

“My goal was to be funny for money” (17:35).

“You can literally do any show you want with podcasting” (18:25).

“Success [in stand-up comedy] is always did you kill or not kill?” (23:50).

“I like that I like what I’m talking about [in my set]” (27:05).

“You have to make fun of yourself… you have to be present” (36:45).

“I’ve had shows for 50 people that are the best of my life” (40:25).

“A comedy club is like a small boat that’s easier to steer, a big theater is like a cruise ship” (41:20).

“If I did a new minute a week, and 22 of the 52 are really good… I would’ve never gotten to 22 if I didn’t try for 52” (42:50).

“In comedy, you [now] have to do these extreme things to get people to pay attention to you” (56:15).

“My power is in how normal and relatable I am” (56:35).

“I need to be better at being more discerning on what I’m doing” (1:01:10).

“It’s easier for me to look at sports from a macro level living in Manhattan” (1:08:15).

“Stand-up is the most athletic art form” (1:15:05).

“[Stand-up comedy] is tennis. It’s you vs. the audience” (1:15:25).

“It’s hard to be able to move forward without credibility” (1:19:10).

Additionally, you can check out Jared’s website, where you can find all his tour dates, and podcast. You can also find all of Jared’s information on his Instagram, as well as following him on Twitter.

Thank you so much to Jared for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Kyle Stark on Creating Culture

Kyle Stark spent several seasons in Major League Baseball. He started his career with the Cleveland Indians (now the Cleveland Guardians). Then he went to the Pittsburgh Pirates for an amazing run, and he’s going to talk about that run and that experience working with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He started in 2007 and ended his run with the Pirates in 2019. And what’s pretty cool about Kyle is he’s vulnerable, open, honest, real, and genuine in today’s conversation about being fired.

If you work in sports, you know that most teams, organizations, and people have a shelf life regarding the amount of time they work at an organization. So, we talk about that in today’s conversation. But he had an amazing run with the Pirates. In his 12 years with the Pittsburgh Pirates, he became the Assistant General Manager, worked as the Vice President, and started off in player development as a director. Today’s conversation is really about both player development and organizational development.

I think Kyle is uniquely positioned and has had a front-row seat to what a baseball team does to try to create an environment that can help its people thrive, and he was integral in trying to help the Pittsburgh Pirates find ways to thrive, while also thinking about the individual. And so, this is a conversation about mindset, it’s about leadership, and I think mostly it’s about culture and how we can create an intentional culture to help our people be the very best that they can be.

Kyle had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“[One] key to being a great communicator is recognizing that communication is as much about heart as opposed to your head” (5:50).

“It’s ultimately not about the message that I’m trying to deliver; it’s about the message that’s received” (6:10).

“Unless your God, it isn’t truth; it’s your perspective” (7:55).

“Know yourself, like yourself, be yourself, and grow yourself” (10:50).

“As a leader, it doesn’t matter what I do; it matters what my people do. The people who are performing and producing is how you’re measured” (11:00).

“At the end of the day… people want the truth” (11:25).

“The best leaders think beyond the task” (19:25).

“Vision leads to systems; process leads to systems” (20:05).

“I think [baseball] replicates life better than any sport” (21:40).

“At the end of the day, I’m someone who’s obsessed with excellence” (22:35).

“That’s why sports exist: for teams to accomplish something together” (28:50).

“I identify more as a change agent than a sustainer or a maintainer” (38:15).

“The principles of being a great leader can show up in any situation if I understand those principles and stay true to those principles” (41:55).

“Sometimes I think our expertise can actually be a trap for us as a leader” (42:35).

“I believe every problem is a leadership problem” (44:10).

“When I talk about culture, I see it as who you are and how you do things” (44:40).

“Everybody has a culture, it’s just a matter of how intentional you are with it and whether it works for you to bring the best out in people or not” (44:50).

“We have to build alignment” (52:10).

“We’ve got to continue to refine” (55:10).

“Success is a matter of consistency” (56:00).

“The interplay between selection and development is absolutely critical” (1:02:45).

Additionally, you can connect with Kyle on LinkedIn.

Thank you so much to Kyle for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.

Doug Lemov on Making People Better

Doug Lemov is the author of the International Bestseller Teach Like a Champion. That title really does speak to Doug and his background in the education system, but also that idea of a champion. “Play like a champion” is a line that Notre Dame Football uses in their locker room (and perhaps you know of the sign they hit before they enter the field), so “teach like a champion” is a nice play on that concept. Doug really does live at the intersection of sport and education, teaching and coaching, and that book, Teach Like a Champion, is now in its 3^rd version and has had wild success, especially in the world of education and teaching and coaching. He also has written The Coach’s Guide to Teaching and is the co-author of many books. He’s a writer, he’s someone who likes to be with his computer and create theories, ideas, competencies, and concepts that can serve other people. In addition to his work studying teachers, he also is somebody who is obsessed with coaching in the sports world. He writes his books by studying what high performing teachers do, which then can help us better understand how we learn and how we educate in and outside of the classroom. So, he definitely has his roots in education, but has expanded his range to include the sports world. This is a conversation about sport, about education, and more importantly, about learning (and Doug is an elite thinker when it comes to learning and teaching).

Doug had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:

“My goal was to find high performing schools in underprivileged communities. And it turns out they’re there” (6:50).

“Coaching is a form of teaching” (8:05).

“I think schools are the most important institutions in society. And when they don’t work, it’s morally untenable” (9:40).

“You can really only think of one thing at a time. If you try to think about too many things at a time, things leave you’re working memory; you can’t remember them” (13:45).

“When you plan a session, don’t just plan what you want to have happen. Write out notes on what A+ execution looks like… and what are the mistakes that students are likely to make so that I’m more likely to see them” (16:10).

“They don’t care what you say until they know that you care” (17:00).

“Really the way to show people that you value them and care, especially in an endeavor where people want to get better, is to make them better and to be an effective teacher” (17:35).

“Teaching well is one of the primary ways that teachers show that they care” (17:45).

“One of the most overlooked moments in coaching is a player gets it right and doesn’t know they got it right because no one’s watching carefully and no one says that’s exactly it, do it again” (20:50).

“The most motivating thing is your own success” (21:50).

“I’m not saying I don’t believe in transformational leadership, but I think it starts with the transaction in most cases” (22:35).

“There’s a danger in skipping the transaction and going right for the transformation” (22:45).

“There’s a risk of wanting to be loved as a teacher” (23:10).

“One of the biggest challenges of the teaching profession is it’s an incredibly lonely, isolating job” (29:45).

“If everybody’s looking for everything, then nobody is looking for anything” (31:05).

“Watching is so underrated as a teaching and coaching skill” (32:05).

“Experts and novices learn differently” (33:40).

“I think the world of schools has to be a lot more serious about understanding what the cognitive science tells us (and doesn’t) and how it shapes learning” (37:25).

“It’s so easy to underestimate the amount of discipline it takes [to change a habit]” (44:30).

“One of the reasons that people don’t build off of other people’s ideas in meetings is because they don’t remember who said what” (53:35).

“The purpose of discussion is to change your ideas based on what people in the room said” (54:25).

“Social science researchers find that gratitude is one of the most beneficial emotions that you can feel” (59:50).

“For me, equity is about helping every young person, or every learner, have the option, have the ability, to be the person that they aspire to be” (1:04:50).

“The way to honor people is to invest in them and to teach them well and to hold them to high expectations and to say, ‘That’s not your best work’” (1:05:40).

“I think people mistake authority for authoritarianism” (1:06:55).

“Your job [as parents] is not to make [your kids] happy in every interaction” (1:11:20).

Additionally, you can follow Doug on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also find the Teach Like a Champion website here, where you can check out Doug’s blog along with much more.

Thank you so much to Doug for coming on the podcast!

I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.

Thanks for listening.