I created this podcast because I believe that much can be learned from digging deep with intentional performers. You can learn more about me and my company at www.strongskills.co.
Episodes
Wednesday Mar 22, 2023
Wednesday Mar 22, 2023
Stephen Ludwig has amassed over 4 million followers across all platforms. As a young inspirational speaker, he delivered his life story to various audiences through high school. After noticing the extreme growth of social media, he aimed to build a brand that would spread the message of positivity in ways that public speaking simply could not.
Stevo had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“Growing up, I needed some sort of person to idolize” (7:10).
“When you go through the motions of going in and out of the hospital, you lose a sense of who you are, and you need to find that person to look after. And Kobe was that guy” (7:35).
“It was all about competition for me, and Kobe was competition” (9:45).
“I’m starting to realize that maybe I went too hard on occasion growing up” (12:55).
“Getting through college and seeing the world as a bigger place, I started to slow down and really start showing love and compassion instead of just competitiveness” (13:35).
“Every single day I would try to find strength” (14:45).
“My superpower is my self-confidence, my ability to just completely and 100% wholeheartedly understand myself and believe in myself” (16:50).
“If you spend enough time lying in a hospital bed and starting at the clock, you start to learn who you are inside and out” (17:05).
“People can feel a confidence aura from you” (18:15).
“We all experience life in a different vision” (20:40).
“I always wanted to be the person that could make everyone else laugh in the room” (28:20).
“I love my relationships with pain” (29:00).
“I always wanted to be a creative; and artist, of sorts” (34:00).
“I wanted to embody my own brand” (34:30).
“My goal is to be an inspiration to as many people as I can” (35:45).
“It’s absolutely incredible that I have the opportunity to reach 4 million people” (37:10).
“Every conversation I have, I feel Iike I can learn something” (42:15).
“I’ve had to learn how to accept [anxiety days]” (43:05).
“Your day-to-day life is completely in your control” (43:40).
“I enjoy moments more than planning for the future” (53:30).
“I’m basking in comfortability” (57:45).
“I enjoy being uncomfortable. That’s why I’m confident in myself (57:55).
“Being famous is not cool” (1:02:55).
Additionally, you can check follow Stevo across all social media platforms @stevoluddy. If you’d like to personally connect with Stevo, you can email him (stevoluddy@gmail.com).
Thank you so much to Stevo 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.
Wednesday Mar 15, 2023
Wednesday Mar 15, 2023
Vanessa Bohns is a social psychologist, Professor of Organizational Behavior at Cornell University, and author of the book You Have More Influence Than You Think. She is an expert on help-seeking, social influence, compliance, consent, and why it’s so hard to say no.
Vanessa had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“Influence is any kind of change in another person’s way of thinking, their emotions, their way of seeing things” (6:40).
“You don’t have to be a leader in a leadership position to have influence” (7:00).
“Even as a follower, you have a lot of influence” (7:10).
“My idea of influence is broader than just leadership” (7:30).
“Influence is also these more intimate moments between just you and one other person” (9:20).
“Influence comes with responsibility” (11:40).
“We’re not very good at telling when someone’s authentic or not, and if we’re hearing what we want to hear we’ll just kind of go with it” (16:30).
“When we think about how someone else is going to react to something we say… we really focus on how competently we can express ourselves… to the point where we hold back and wind up saying nothing because we can’t find the right words” (19:05).
“People respond much more to the emotion and the act of just saying something than they do to the precise words” (19:55).
“Our fears of these negative reactions are so often overblown (22:55).
“A lot of influence does happen emotionally and unconsciously” (25:50).
“If we a trust a source, it doesn’t really matter what they’re saying on many occasions, we just kind of trust [what they’re saying] because we trust that person” (25:55).
“Behavioral contagion is the idea that when we see somebody else doing something, we’re more likely to do it ourselves” (27:20).
“Whether it’s a ‘no’ or a ‘yes,’ be mindful about what you agree to” (38:05).
“Each time I say yes to one thing, I am saying no to something else” (38:45).
“We often think that interactions are going much worse in our head, that we’re having much less of an impact than we’d like, than we actually are” (42:30).
“A simple ask is the simplest form of influence. And it’s insanely powerful” (44:10).
“It’s so hard to say no” (44:20).
“We often hammer things that we are trying to get someone to do so much more than we need to” (47:30).
“You don’t need to be so assertive when you’re trying to influence people. You can say something and trust that that message is in there and it will percolate for a while” (48:20).
“We tend to underestimate the power of expressing gratitude, both for ourselves and for the other person” (56:00).
Additionally, you can check out Vanessa’s website here and follow her on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. I’d also encourage you to check out Vanessa’s book, You Have More Influence Than You Think: How we underestimate our power of persuasion, and why it matters.
Thank you so much to Vanessa 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.
Wednesday Mar 08, 2023
Wednesday Mar 08, 2023
Ryan Lavarnway was originally drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the sixth round in 2008 out of Yale University. Since making his Major League debut in 2011, Ryan has played in parts of 10 Major League Baseball seasons for eight different teams. He has also represented Israel in the Olympics and the World Baseball Classic. More recently Ryan has been building a brand off the field, starting with his podcast and website with more to come!
Ryan had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“It always felt like something there was a little something missing [from baseball] until I started to get onto these teams that really came together as a unit” (5:30).
“Religion is something that, unless you have a Star of David on your chest and are being persecuted for it, people can’t necessarily tell just by looking” (10:35).
“I want the meaning. I crave something deeper” (13:15).
“We’re all always finding ourselves” (14:40).
“The second that you think you know who you are, don’t close the book. We’re always growing” (14:55).
“More important than ‘Who am I?’ is “What do you value and what are you doing about it?’” (15:00).
“As I self-identify, I do it from a place of experience” (18:40).
“There’s a part of you that needs to be obsessed to be great at anything” (19:20).
“Different people need different things to be successful” (20:20).
“I thought leadership was about the leader. I thought it was about being the boss. That’s very much not it. Leadership is about the people you lead” (25:55).
“The platinum rule says treat other people the way they want to be treated” (27:00).
“I loved the service aspect of [being a catcher]” (29:40).
“You can’t measure leadership yet” (31:00).
“Baseball’s a game of failure” (36:00).
“You have to accept that you’re not going to be successful all of the time” (36:25).
“You have to make practice difficult” (36:35).
“I’m trying to find a way to be aggressively selective, not selectively aggressive” (37:25).
“Whatever the genius for you is and however it’s going to come out requires time and space for creativity” (45:00).
“It’s really tough to be a good self-evaluator in [the game of baseball]” (49:50).
“I think it’s important for people to have an example of someone else that didn’t understand right away and learned later” (56:05).
“There’s more than one way to make a decision” (56:30).
Additionally, you can check out Ryan’s website here and follow him on Twitter and Instagram. I’d also encourage you to check out Ryan’s podcast Finding the Way with Ryan Lavarnway, which is available on all major podcast platforms. Ryan also has a children’s book which will be coming out, titled Baseball and Belonging. Lastly, you can find the website for the Spark Brilliance Leadership Accelerator here, with whom Ryan is partnering with as a facilitator.
Thank you so much to Ryan 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.
Wednesday Mar 01, 2023
Wednesday Mar 01, 2023
Lauren Fleshman is best known for running fast. But she’s also an entrepreneur, coach, teacher, facilitator, and a heck of a writer. She has an amazing blog which has gained a lot of traction and popularity over the years, and she’s just finished her book, Good for a Girl. That book is really at the core and the center of today’s conversation. In the middle of our conversation today, I actually introduce her bio to her because I was curious to get her perspective on it.
If you’re in the running community, you’re probably familiar with Lauren’s work. She’s one of the most decorated American distance runners of all time. She also is a brand strategy advisory for Oiselle, which is a fitness apparel company for women. She was sponsored by Nike for many years, which she talks about at length in the book. She’s also the co-founder (with her husband) of Picky Bars, which is a natural food company. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Runner’s World, and many other places. She currently lives in Bend, Oregon and is a mother. She is someone who has multiple identities, like many of us. And yet, a lot of her life has been focused on her identity as a runner.
This is a wide-ranging conversation that gets into mental health, depression, suicidal thoughts, and more. It’s a heavy conversation, but you’ll find Lauren to be engaging, open, vulnerable, and someone that I am grateful that I got to learn with.
Lauren had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“The price that you have to pay to make it work for you can sometimes be a very high cost” (7:00).
“Even though I was winning in that system, it made me uncomfortable that so many people in that system were losing and experiencing harm” (7:15).
“I don’t assume that things are the way they are for any good reason” (7:30).
“Brilliant perspectives can come from outside the scientific community” (7:50).
“A lot of the contributions of women in society [are invisible]” (9:00).
“There are ways to be successful that minimize harm” (15:25).
“It’s okay to want to succeed. It’s not okay to put the blinders on and not look at the harm caused” (15:35).
“Being on the same team is how you survive” (19:10).
“I want to make something useful out of things I’ve learned that could be picked up by other people and create shifts inside them” (21:10).
“I never underestimate the power of a subtle shift in someone” (21:20).
“You write for the reader and you write for yourself” (22:20).
“Move your body no matter what, and lower the bar of what that means, when you’re having a bad time” (34:30).
“Make sure you have people who are available to you who you can be vulnerable with” (34:50).
“It’s a hard time to start being vulnerable with someone when you’re feeling super blue. Let people in” (35:10).
“Accept that {anxiety} is part of hard things” (37:10).
“Lower the stakes. It’s a game” (38:45).
“Our ignorance is so collectively great on the female athlete experience, the female body experience, that we are making young people make conclusions about their future in sport or what they’re capable of based on a very short window of their life when their body is changing, and we’re making them afraid of those changes” (43:30).
“I’m a very present-focused person” (54:15).
“I think [loyalty] is overrated” (55:55).
“Agitation is the opposite of calmness” (1:00:00).
“Mantras were a way to ground myself in running with predetermined sayings and sentences” (1:00:20).
“People call it a mid-life crisis. I call it a mid-life opportunity” (1:07:30).
“We’ve got to show our mistakes and our vulnerability in order to encourage other people to look at their own” (1:10:50).
Additionally, you can check out Lauren’s website here. You can also follow Lauren on Instagram.
Thank you so much to Lauren 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.
Wednesday Feb 22, 2023
Wednesday Feb 22, 2023
Michelle Curran has led an impressive career as a Fighter Pilot during her 13 years in the United States Air Force. From 2019-2021, she flew as the only female pilot for the Air Force Thunderbirds and performed for millions across the country and internationally. Before joining the Thunderbirds, Michelle was a combat-proven fighter pilot completing missions across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. She has a passion for pushing her limits, inspiring others, and changing lives.
As the Lead Solo for the Thunderbirds, Michelle realized the flying was cool, but the best part was inspiring others to overcome their fears and pursue their dreams. Since transitioning out of the military, she has founded her company, Upside Down Dreams, and is committed to empowering men and women of all ages to overcome obstacles and the fear of failure. She has inspired thousands through her passion for breaking barriers and setting the example of what can be accomplished through handwork.
Michelle had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“A big part of what I got to do in that job was inspire people” (6:55).
“Most of my career I didn’t think I was a good enough pilot to fly in that position” (9:30).
“The pandemic acted as a catalyst for me to really reflect on what I wanted” (12:25).
“I miss the really unique perspective you get on the world from a cockpit” (15:15).
“It’s accepted that mistakes are going to happen. You learn from them. You grow from them. It creates the psychological safety where you build that trust” (25:00).
“What you though was a big mistake, to the visual naked eye… you couldn’t tell” (25:40).
“Chair flying is our version of visualization… It’s the only way to get to the level of proficiency that you need” (26:30).
“You want to put in all the preparation you can so you get as close to perfect as possible. You’re striving for perfect. That’s your target. But we would always say we never have a perfect flight” (30:35).
“The whole mission is to recruit, retain, and inspire” (38:20).
“I always enjoyed being creative, and there’s not always a ton of space in the military for creativity” (40:30).
“Having gender diversity on the team 100% was making the Thunderbirds better able to do their overall mission” (42:05).
“There’s some risk that comes to sticking out” (43:20).
“My identity as a young pilot was totally wrapped up in my achievements” (48:20).
“There’s a lot more to a person than just what they accomplish” (49:05).
“My biggest fear was failure for the longest time” (49:15).
“Society really condemns quitters” (58:00).
“Something you thought would be the ultimate outcome might not take shape like you imagined” (58:30).
“Quitting that opened up space for all of these other amazing things that ended up being much more fulfilling and much more of a better fit that would have never been options had I not quit” (59:50).
Additionally, you can check out Michelle’s website here. I’d also encourage you to connect with her on Instagram and LinkedIn. Lastly, you can pre-order Michelle’s children’s book, Upside Down Dreams, here.
Thank you so much to Michelle 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.
Wednesday Feb 15, 2023
Wednesday Feb 15, 2023
Clint Hurdle has been involved with professional baseball for a long time. He played in the league for 10 years, where he played for the Kansas City Royals, the Cincinnati Reds, the New York Mets, and the St. Louis Cardinals. And yet, in this conversation, we don’t even discuss his playing career. Instead, we focus more on what life was like for him as a manager. Clint was the manager of the Colorado Rockies from 2002-2009, where he helped them go to the World Series, and then he went to the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he helped them go to 3 straight playoff appearances from 2013-2015. He was with the Pirates from 2011-2019.
In this conversation, we talk about transitions, and what it was like for him to go from the Rockies to the Pirates. We talk about what it’s like to be fired. We talk about divorce and his personal life. We talk about trials and tribulations. All along the way, it will become apparent to you that Clint loves to love. He loves to lead, and he loves to lead with love in mind. He considers himself to be a transformational leader. He builds his managerial process and philosophy around leading with relationships in mind, and it’s really at the core of his essence and his being. Clint also is humble enough to talk about some of his imperfections and some of the mistakes that he’s made along the way. You’re going to find Clint to be authentic, and genuine, to be someone you want to sit down next to and just have a conversation with. At the end of this conversation, I hope you have a better sense of who you are and how you might be able to lead with love going forward.
Clint had a number of incredible insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“There’s a time to learn and there’s a time to manage” (5:55).
“When I got to the park, that’s when it was time to learn” (6:50).
“Once the game started, I would implore my players to go play. That’s why they call it a game” (7:50).
“You prioritize before, you prepare before, and once you get to the game, it’s time for me to play. It’s time for me to step back. Watch. Observe.” (8:15).
“I was always infatuated with learning” (10:35).
“To hold onto anything purely for the sake of tradition probably isn’t the smartest move you can make” (12:10).
“Tradition can be a vision killer” (12:20).
“Once we’ve made a tactical error, more often than not we overcorrect” (14:30).
“The definition of a coach is to get the player better” (16:00).
“When you can let people know that you love them unconditionally, you don’t want anything from it, it’s not transactional, it’s transformational, there’s no telling where that relationship can go” (21:05).
“How do you earn trust? You show people that you’re there for them” (21:30).
“There’s winning, and there’s learning. You only lose when you don’t learn” (28:45).
“Play with emotion, don’t play emotionally” (30:00).
“We can’t always dictate the circumstances. We always have the opportunity to have ownership of our reactions to the circumstances” (30:20).
“There’s times when you need to be a thermometer and just report the temperature, and there’s times when you need to be a thermostat and set the climate” (32:30).
“I establish priorities and I set boundaries” (40:45).
“Perception is important” (42:50).
“How boring would it be to have ten of me on a staff?” (44:00).
“When it all becomes about the ring, it doesn’t work well for me” (45:50).
“I’m a man of addictions. I have to set boundaries” (50:00).
“Other than a dugout, an AA meeting is the most comfortable place I go” (53:05).
“Be where your feet are” (55:10).
“When you’re home, be home” (55:25).
“You’re never as good as you think you are, you’re never as bad as you think you are” (1:00:40).
Additionally, you can check out Clint’s website and sign up for his devotionals here. You can also learn more about Bat Around here. Lastly, you can search Prader-Willi syndrome if that is something you’d be interested in learning more about.
Thank you so much to Clint 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.
Wednesday Feb 08, 2023
Wednesday Feb 08, 2023
Safi Bahcall is going to come across pretty quickly as someone who is bright. Sharp. Smart. Intelligent. He went to Harvard for undergrad and then went on to get a PhD in Physics from Stanford. He’s an academic, a researcher; someone who loves studying science. After he finished up his education, he went on to work for 3 years as a consultant for McKinsey. He then co-founded a bio-technology company where they develop new drugs for cancer treatment. He led their IPO and served as their CEO for many years. In 2008 he was named Ernst & Young New England Bio-Technology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he worked with President Obama’s Council of Science Advisors on the Future of National Research. In other words, it’s not just you or me that’s going to notice Safi’s intelligence. His book, Loonshots, which is his first book, has been translated into 21 languages and was selected as a Best Business Book of the Year by Amazon, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, The Washington Post, and more. Today, Safi advises CEO’s and leadership teams on strategy and innovation, and has delivered keynote presentations at industry conferences, investor events, leadership retreats, medical meetings, and leading academic institutions around the world.
Today’s conversation we dive into his work, but we also get into his mindset and how he thinks about leadership and how he thinks about invention and innovation. And certainly, he admires people that have come before him, but Safi himself is often thinking about new ways of innovating, new ways of thinking. He loves to try to think about not just how he sees the world, but how people around him see the world and how we can make teams and organizations and groups better instead of just thinking about what’s convenient for ourselves. This is an idea that is at the core of his book Loonshots. The book is a lot about learning empathy, learning how to listen, learning how to read a room and read an organization, and then figure out how you can collaborate and work together to make really big things happen.
Safi had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“You need to be trying a lot of things and failing” (8:30).
“Artists are the people who we want to take risks and explore the unknown” (10:55).
“The confusion is when you assume artists and innovators are the same” (12:30).
“If you’re in the managing or leadership position, the number one thing you have to remember is that you’re always signaling. Everybody is watching your face constantly” (21:05).
“If you favor one side over the other, you’re going to sink the ship” (21:30).
“You’ve got to respect both your creative artist scientist-types, your innovators, and your soldiers. And you’ve got to manage them differently” (26:50).
“When you’re in artist mode, if you’re not failing, if you’re not trying and things don’t work, you’re not pushing yourself enough” (28:10).
“Art and science are connected by purpose. The purpose of art is the pursuit of beauty, the purpose of science is the pursuit of truth, and they’re very close. There’s beauty in truth and there’s truth in beauty” (30:15).
“[To cultivate curiosity in people], just keep asking why” (32:30).
“I don’t focus on what did you learn. I focus on what did you ask” (33:20).
“What you want to cultivate in yourself and in your kids, if you’re raising kids, is asking good questions” (33:30).
“The guy with the initial idea is the guy getting the ball from his own goal line to his own five-yard line” (43:00).
“What separates the real innovators is how they go about it. Do they keep asking why?” (45:30).
“They have courage, curiosity, and commitment. Those are the 3 C’s that I’ve seen across people who are really good at innovating” (46:15).
“I had very little idea what I was going to be writing about when I started writing Loonshots” (52:30).
“Commit to running an experiment a day” (54:30).
“Just using the word ‘experiment’ gives you permission to fail” (54:45).
“Write FBR early on. Fast, bad, and wrong” (55:45).
“That’s the key: if and when you’re stuck, it’s to develop a personal cookie jar… your cookie jar is where you reach into when you’re struggling” (1:03:05).
Additionally, you can find Safi’s website here and connect with him on LinkedIn.
Thank you so much to Safi 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.
Wednesday Feb 01, 2023
Wednesday Feb 01, 2023
Alex Auerbach is a Licensed Counseling and Sport Psychologist, he’s a Certified Mental Performance Consultant and Board-Certified Coach working in professional sports. He’s worked with elite teams and performers from a range of domains, including the NBA and the NFL, Olympians, Army Special Forces, Fortune 5 companies, and venture-backed start-ups. Currently, he is the Senior Director of Wellness and Development for the Toronto Raptors.
In this conversation, we do a deep dive into the world of Sport Psychology, we talk a lot about leadership and culture, and how individuals in teams need to work from the inside out and develop the mindset they need to be at their best, and how environments can impact us from the outside in. Alex is my kind of thinker. He loves to think about and research and study science and best practices that exist in psychology. We both are extremely curious and passionate about what makes teams great and how do we create environments for individuals to unlock their potential.
Alex had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“We need to position the people around athletes and peak performers to facilitate the performance, to be enhancing of performance” (5:45).
“Athletes report the single biggest thing stopping them from peak performance is the organizational stuff” (6:30).
“The environment is responsible for developing talent” (6:55).
“I wish I could say there was one right way to do it, but this is just the way that it works for me” (11:00).
“My role is to make sure everyone has what they need from a mental health standpoint and a mental performance standpoint. That also means that I’m not all things to all people; I can’t be all things to all people” (13:15).
“To be an elite athlete requires a really really high degree of self-regulation” (17:30).
“Mental health is the foundation of peak performance” (20:30).
“Taking care of your mental health is about leaving more room for you to be a peak performer” (21:40).
“We’re all feeling something all the time” (24:15).
“[Emotion] is a part of the human experience. We’re not going to get rid of it, we’re not going to fight it” (24:25).
“Acceptance is if in fact there is nothing you can do to change the situation, then it is being willing to sit with the discomfort as long as you’re moving towards something that you care about” (27:10).
“Making the main thing the main thing is really important” (31:20).
“The people who are happiest are the people whose experience matches their expectations” (33:50).
“Norms are what you accept” (38:45).
“A leader is a person who’s willing to use themselves to help others get better” (52:05).
“The best teammates are the ones who are [leading] behind the scenes, under the radar, who know what buttons to push and levers to pull to get the most out of their teammates” (53:30).
“You can win a championship one year without leadership. I’m not sure you can build a dynasty without leadership” (53:45).
“My [unfair advantage] is being able to see a system and break it down in parts and see how things fit together and identify what levers to pull and things to move that can make a big change and do it in a behind the scenes way” (59:50).
“Adversity does tend to bring out people’s real strengths” (1:03:10).
“The people who have the best time at work are the people who get to use a strength every day and people who generally feel energized by what they’re getting to do, and the two go hand-in-hand” (1:05:30).
Additionally, you can follow Alex on Twitter and LinkedIn. You can also find the Unfair Advantage website here
Thank you so much to Alex 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.
Wednesday Jan 25, 2023
Wednesday Jan 25, 2023
Admiral John Richardson served 37 years in the US Navy, completing his service as the Chief of Naval Operations where he was the top officer in the Navy and responsible for 600,000 people under his watch. Before that, he served as the Director of Naval Reactors from 2012-2015. He was at the forefront of our military and our naval fleet and our submarines, both from a nuclear standpoint and from a people standpoint. Since his retirement, he’s continued to serve. He’s on the board of directors of the Boeing Company, Constellation Energy Corporation, and BMX Technologies. He’s also served on the boards of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, The Center for New American Security, and the Navy League of the United States. While in the Navy, he served in the submarine force and he commanded the attack submarine USS Honolulu in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for which he was awarded the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Inspirational Leadership Award. While he was in the Navy, he commanded at every level.
Admiral Richardson had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“There are those times when the leader has to lead the people, sometimes very subtly, and draw them into the right answer, draw them into a shared answer across the organization” (9:15).
“If you’re authentic with your team and you trust them and you have high expectations for them, they’re going to feel that and they’re going to rise to them and almost every time exceed those expectations” (9:45).
“It’s very tempting to try and become that leader who everybody loves” (10:20).
“It’s very hard to develop trust overnight, but you can lose it in the blink of an eye” (10:55).
“A climate of a really healthy organization in my mind is one that is founded on trust, but is also eager and willing to have that trust verified” (12:25).
“Your gut is a finely calibrated instrument that has been formed and shaped by your experience” (14:10).
“Not [making a] decision is a decision” (17:00).
“There are a lot of right paths to get to the objective” (18:25).
“The leader that is ready to become invisible is a very humble leader, mindful of their limitations” (20:25).
“I didn’t want to be the leader who was feared by my own team” (27:00).
“You have to learn to lead from a little bit of a distance” (35:30).
“The Navy is a leadership factory” (38:00).
“Sometimes you don’t know a person’s true stripes until you put them in charge” (39:20).
“Your example, your behavior is the thing that communicates most powerfully to everybody around you” (49:15).
“Teamwork at that level is something really magical” (58:40).
“Make it a deliberate effort every day to connect personally with somebody” (1:12:45).
“The best ideas can come from anywhere in the team, you’ve just got to be open to it” (1:17:05).
Additionally, if you want to connect to Admiral Richardson, you can reach out to Brain via email (Brian@StrongSkills.co).
Thank you so much to Admiral John Richardson 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.
Wednesday Jan 18, 2023
Wednesday Jan 18, 2023
Sherri Coale is a native Oklahoman. She grew up about thirty miles to the right side of the Red River in a small rural town where she fell in love with reading, writing, and basketball, not necessarily in that order. In 1987 after a highly successful collegiate career at Oklahoma Christian, she hung up her high tops, moving from the court to the sideline as she began what would become a Hall of Fame career as a Women’s Basketball Coach.
For 25 years, Sherri Coale served as the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma where she is the winningest women’s basketball coach in OU history. She built a powerhouse program in Norman that appeared in 19 straight NCAA tournaments and competed in three Final Fours.
Sherri Coale is a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Christian Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma FCA Hall of Fame, the Norman High School Wall of Fame, and has “Home of” signs that flank both entrances to the small town of Healdton where she was born and raised and will be eternally indebted.
During her illustrious career at the University of Oklahoma, in addition to coaching the Sooners, Coale participated in USA Basketball as an assistant coach in 2001 where the squad won a bronze medal, and a head coach in the World University Games in 2013 where her USA squad defeated Russia on their home court to bring home the gold. In addition to competitive excellence inside the lines both nationally and internationally, Sherri Coale has received numerous accolades and recognitions for her players’ performance academically as well as their team community service through the years. Maximizing her players’ skills both on and off the court has always been her goal.
Sherri Coale is an author, a master motivator, an engaging speaker, a gifted writer, and a keen observer of everyday life. She and her husband, Dane, have been married for 35 years. They have two children, one daughter-in-law, and one adorable granddaughter around which their universe currently spins. You can find her weekly blog, “A Weigh of Life” at sherricoale.com. Rooted to Rise, an Amazon bestseller, is her first book.
Coach had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“’Coach’ is a term of an endearment. It’s one of the most kind and respectful things someone can say about you” (5:00).
“My job [as a coach and a parent] is to help you think and grow, and that means we’re not always going to be friends” (8:50).
“I would be most comfortable being a little bit different than the athletes that I coach” (12:00).
“Regardless of whether you have a faith or not, if you can stop for 15 minutes and sing some hymns and spend some time together, your day would be better” (15:10).
“We have to take care of each other” (21:20).
“Who are you really bound to, what are you really tied to, that gives you sturdiness, that anchors you, if everything you do is on a whim or is based on how you feel or what you want?” (21:55).
“I want to do things that matter. I want to do things that move me. I want to do things that impact other people” (24:35).
“There is more to life than the outcome of games” (29:15).
“Coaches are choosing to do other things before they find themselves in a place where they resent what they love” (29:55).
“It’s so easy for high level coaches to get caught up in this world that is make believe” (32:10).
“[Coaching] is just something that I did. What I [am is my kids’] mom and Sherri” (35:20).
“None of us have only one side. We have to have a lot of different sides to accomplish all the different things we want to accomplish” (37:25).
“[Coaching and writing] are very similar as professions. You can’t do either one of them by putting your heart on the shelf. You have to just go at it. Full throttle.” (40:20).
“You don’t want to put everything in the spice cabinet into your recipe” (49:20).
“We have so many opportunities every single day to set people up for something great” (55:25).
“I don’t know if a piece of writing ever really gets to completion” (57:40).
“When the coaching world was getting a little bit heavy and I needed to escape, I would get lost in a bookstore” (58:20).
“What you learn as you get older and more experienced in the business of coaching is that you have to detach enough to be able to see everything as information” (1:02:30).
“I wrote it because it was true to me and I thought it might help people” (1:04:15).
Additionally, you can follow coach on Twitter and purchase her book, Rooted to Rise: The Redwood Legacies of Life Anchoring People, at either Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Thank you so much to Sherri 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.
Wednesday Jan 11, 2023
Wednesday Jan 11, 2023
Patty McCord is the author of the best-selling book "Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility," which was published in 2018 and translated into 12 languages.
She served as chief talent officer of Netflix for fourteen years and helped create the Netflix Culture Deck. Since it was first posted on the web, the Culture Deck has been viewed more than 15 million times, and Sheryl Sandberg has said that it "may be the most important document ever to come out of Silicon Valley.”
Currently, Patty coaches and advises a small group of companies and entrepreneurs on culture and leadership. She also speaks to groups and teams around the world.
Patty had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“I’ve got something important to say and you have to hear me” (7:50).
“I had to be able to start to learn which audiences could hear me and which audiences I was entertainment for” (8:20).
“You just have to stop doing stupid stuff that doesn’t matter anymore” (9:30).
“I’m a shameless copier” (10:35).
“One of these days the right people are going to be in the room, and this is going to happen. Why not me?” (12:50).
“Your job as a manager is to create an amazing team that does fabulous work on behalf of the customer on time and with quality” (14:30).
“We get so left-brained that we forget about creativity” (18:40).
“I’m curious about creating space for people to think differently” (16:50).
“We especially get stuck when we get scared” (17:00).
“I hate the phrase ‘best practices.’ It just means what everybody else does” (20:55).
“You can draw ideas and inspiration from everybody, and everybody should” (24:55).
“Leaders are people who other people want to follow. A manager is somebody who builds the work and organizes the team to build great stuff” (26:20).
“If you want them to follow, then god dammit lead” (28:55).
“You want to know why I make so much money? Because my decisions are consistently right” (33:00).
“Beginning with the end in mind [is key to making good decisions]” (34:00).
“I think that the word loyalty is old fashioned, and I think that it’s not critical, but I think it’s important when times are tough” (41:50).
“The mark I want to make in my life is about creating environments where people can do their best work” (48:30).
“The relationship between work and family is a never-ending one” (53:10).
“My life work is a really different thing than it used to be, and that’s perfectly fine with me” (58:50).
Additionally, you can find Patty’s website here, and can also follow her on social media @pattymccord1. I’d also encourage you to purchase Patty’s book, Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility, anywhere books are sold. Lastly, you can find the Black Sheep website that Patty mentioned here.
Thank you so much to Patty 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.
Wednesday Dec 21, 2022
Wednesday Dec 21, 2022
Today’s episode of the podcast is a little bit different. Today, I’m going to be interviewed by Joe Ferraro. If you’re unfamiliar with Joe, he has an incredible podcast called One Percent Better, he is someone who practices what he preaches, and he has had over 200 episodes where he’s interviewed best-selling authors, CEO’s, and all kinds of different people and leaders, to try and figure out how they’re getting one percent better every single day. Joe is way more than simply a host, though. He’s a high school teacher, he has a history coaching baseball, and he coaches people today on how they can communicate better. He is someone who thinks deeply about how to have, what he calls, damn good conversations. Currently, he’s working one-on-one with a variety of people to help them with different projects that they’re doing, whether it’s their podcast, or a TED Talk, or helping them become a better public speaker, Joe is my go-to person for whenever I’m looking for advice, expertise, and coaching when it comes to my ability to communicate. He thinks about conversations all the time, he thinks about how we can improve them, and how there’s great value in the power of conversations.
In Joe’s interview of me today, we talk about things like boundaries, business, how I see and think about things, and we even talk about art and creativity.
Here are some insights of mine from Joe’s interview of me:
“We sometimes forget how appreciative people are for receiving gifts” (8:55).
“Gratitude, appreciation, and acknowledging when someone did a good job is just so underrated” (9:45).
“The more grateful I am for something, the more ambitious I tend to be” (10:45).
“Satisfaction and complacency are opposites” (11:00)
“Satisfaction fuels success” (11:20).
“Just because a conversation doesn’t land with me doesn’t mean it won’t land with someone else” (13:10).
“I have personal values and professional values” (14:40).
“I don’t believe in true altruism” (15:15).
“Humans need to fill our cup if we’re going to pour into other’s” (15:30).
“You should never give out of notoriety” (16:05).
“There’s a time to be public and a time to be private” (16:20).
“Thoughts come in; thinking is what we do with them” (18:10).
“Most of us believe in polarity, we just stifle it with our own convictions” (19:00).
“I want to love people and I want to love them deeply” (21:00).
“Boundaries are so underrated” (21:55).
“If I’m going to love the stuff that I do, I need boundaries” (22:05).
“I love bringing people together. It’s one of my favorite things to do” (23:10).
“I’m a connector” (24:40).
“If you can find a place that has no cell service and WIFI, that in itself is magical” (29:10).
“Things are way easier if you do it with a partner” (33:20).
“It’s scary [to ask somebody for something]” (34:55).
“Coaching is less about expertise and more about asking damn good questions and being highly curious” (36:00).
“You have to have an offering. How do you have an ask without an offering?” (36:40).
“Give me the person that is good and wants to be great” (38:50).
“I don’t need to shortcut and I don’t need to hack. It’s not going to be as fulfilling for me” (43:30).
“I’ve gotten better at listening to my thoughts and understanding they might not be true” (46:00).
“When I’m curious, I can get anything out of someone” (46:40).
“Podcasting is one of the few things that you can overprepare for” (50:30).
“I’ve perfected my preparation and then I try to be highly adaptable” (50:45).
“I think sometimes we underestimate what we’re actually doing” (58:00).
“A lot of people are afraid to just turn on the mic” (58:10).
“Things aren’t as scary as we make them out to be in our head” (58:40).
“We limit what art is or what creativity is to what we can see with our eyes” (1:00:15).
“We are all artists; it’s just how we choose to use the brush” (1:01:05).
“When we label young people, we limit their possibilities” (1:02:00).
“My clients have become my friends” (1:05:00).
If you’re interested in learning more about what Joe does, I highly recommend you reach out to him via email (joe@onepercentbetterproject.com). You can check out the website for the One Percent Better Podcast here. Also, I strongly encourage following Joe on Twitter.
Thank you so much to Joe for interviewing me!
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.
Wednesday Dec 14, 2022
Wednesday Dec 14, 2022
Dr. Steve Gladis is an executive coach, author, speaker, and professor at George Mason University. He’s published 26 books on leadership and thinks a lot about culture and the elements of a great leader. He’s also a former faculty member at the University of Virginia, served as an FBI special agent, and was a decorated officer in the US Marine Corps. He has a company, Steve Gladis Leadership Partners, that donates a significant portion of corporate profits back to the community. Steve is a giver, somebody who really cares about society and humanity.
Steve had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“The best partner I’ve ever had, and I’ve had her for over 50 years, is my wife” (6:15).
“We all need our yin to our yang” (6:50).
“I never send anything out unless someone else has looked at it” (7:00).
“You should be looking for people not like you because they bring the other piece of the puzzle together” (9:10).
“The key is to have a mechanism in place before you get in trouble, not when you get in trouble” (12:15).
“The best gift that anybody could give anybody else would be get yourself an executive coach in the beginning who can help you work together in this partnership” (13:15).
“I write every day” (22:00).
“In a way, {dyslexia] is the best thing that ever happened to me… It’s given me this creative workaround mentality… it’s taught me how to be resilient” (26:10).
“If you’re always the smartest guy in the room, you’re in the wrong room” (27:50).
“Anything can be an opportunity” (31:30).
“[The biggest mistakes leaders make] is not telling or showing people how much they care” (33:40).
“Trust is at the center of all relationships” (34:00).
“Head, heart, and hands is compassion… it’s an active thing” (40:20).
“You can tell when somebody really cares about you” (40:50).
“If you like what you’re doing, you’re making a decent living at it, and you’re having fun at it, why wouldn’t you want to keep doing it?” (47:50).
“Some of the most miserable people I know are some of the richest people I know” (48:00).
“You can’t hit a target you can’t see” (51:15).
“Until people know what they want, it’s really hard to get them to where they want to go” (52:10).
“Teams head towards entropy all the time” (54:40).
“Nothing stays level, especially in the relationship world” (55:00).
“Stuff happens. You have to be ready for that” (1:02:45).
“Experiments fail. That’s why they call them experiments” (1:03:45).
“I’m a teacher at heart, so when people want to know I’m happy to talk” (1:05:15).
Additionally, you can find Steve’s website here, and I also encourage you to connect with him 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.
Wednesday Dec 07, 2022
Wednesday Dec 07, 2022
Tim Urban is a writer and the creative force behind the extremely popular Wait But Why blog and newsletter, which has over 600,000 subscribers. He has a book coming out in February of 2023 and has authored dozens of viral articles on subjects such as why we procrastinate, which is what we talk a lot about in today’s conversation. He writes about things in psychology and politics, and he even writes about why we haven’t encountered alien life forms. To say Tim has range is an understatement. He doesn’t consider himself to be an expert or a guru at one thing, but he lets his curiosity wander and it takes him to all kinds of different places where he researches and writes, really in long form, articles. His email list has people like Elon Musk as subscribers, and TED Curator Chris Anderson and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. Tim also is a speaker; he’s got an incredible TED Talk that I highly recommend you check out. And, he’s also known for drawing quirky graphics and stick figures, and we talk about what it’s like for him to be an artist as well. So, this conversation focuses mainly on procrastination, and if you’re someone who struggles with that, I know many of us do, then you’re going to enjoy it.
Tim had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“I like to frame things we all experience in a way that can help clarify what’s going on” (6:20).
“Without being able to see the big picture, you don’t realize that the best way to achieve maximum happiness this week is to do this stuff now and be miserable temporarily and then much better later” (8:40).
“We get older, our bodies get older, but it’s an uneven distribution of growth” (12:00).
“The inner child in us is one of the best parts of grown-ups. It’s what a lot of times allows us to be creative and to have fun and to be open-minded” (13:00).
“The goal is to grow up in all the right ways and stay young in all the wrong ways” (13:10).
“Carving out high-quality, guilt-free leisure time is very important. It recharges your willpower. It creates this healthy balance in your head” (16:15).
“What I’ve done when I’ve succeeded more is often, I will do something in that moment to force future Tim’s hand” (21:45).
“Procrastinators get in the biggest trouble when they don’t take their problem seriously” (24:00).
“I had macro motivation with micro help” (27:10).
“I thought I hated writing because I was doing mostly papers, and then I started blogging in 2005 as a complete procrastination side activity, just me having fun. And that’s when I realized that me having fun in the form of writing was catching on” (31:40).
“You need to overpower your emotions with rationality when you’re looking at comments” (34:30).
“If you let all of the negative comments get to you, you’re going to be too scared to write anything. If you ignore all of the negative comments and say that all negative comments are just haters, now you’re not going to grow or learn anything” (37:35).
“I don’t think the things that I produce require beautiful writing; they require good communication and authenticity” (42:15).
“Keep messing around with different mediums and different things until you find areas that you’re strong in, because everyone is strong in some areas” (48:15).
“The best things I’ve written have been when I was in a mood where I felt like I was playing as I wrote it” (50:30).
“If I’m having fun, it’s going to produce something good” (50:45).
Additionally, you can access the Wait But Why website here, where you can find all of Tim’s writing. You can also subscribe to Tim’s email list on the site and follow him on Twitter.
Thank you so much to Tim 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.
Wednesday Nov 30, 2022
Wednesday Nov 30, 2022
Nicholas Thompson is the CEO of The Atlantic and the former editor-in-chief of WIRED. Under his leadership, WIRED won numerous awards for design and reporting and launched a highly successful paywall. Thompson also wrote many features for the publication, including two cover stories on Facebook that have been cited multiple times in Congress.
Thompson is a former contributor to CBS News, where he regularly appeared on CBS This Morning and CBS Sunday Morning. He is a cofounder of The Atavist, a National Magazine Award–winning digital publication and multimedia content management system that was sold to WordPress in 2018.
Thompson previously served as editor of NewYorker.com. Before The New Yorker, Thompson was a senior editor at WIRED, where he assigned and edited the story that was the basis for the Oscar-winning film Argo. In 2009, his book “The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War” was published to critical acclaim. Thompson has long been a competitive runner; in 2021, he set the American record for men 45+ in the 50K race and is currently ranked as one of the top 10 masters marathoners in the world.
Nick had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“I try to do my best within all the limitations of how darn hard it is to be a good parent” (10:30).
“In some ways, [being a CEO and being a parent] are the opposite” (10:50).
“My job as a CEO is to try to drive the organization in the best direction based on our most important values” (10:50).
“I’m driving things more as a CEO, and as a father I’m supporting more and trying to help them find their way” (11:30).
“My job is to make the business as successful as possible, as innovative as possible, as future-proofed as possible, so that we can sustain that mission of the magazine that’s existed since 1857” (13:35).
“We are open to a much broader range of opinions than our peer publications” (15:40).
“I’m trying to develop a new platform for conversations that will allow people… to increase empathy” (18:20).
“You start with the assumption you’re going to do the absolute best content. You’re going to do the best content you’re capable of, and then you build the business model around that. You don’t do that the other way around” (31:35).
“Journalism is not a profession for people who are economically motivated” (32:15).
“I got into journalism kind of by accident… I fell into it” (33:40).
“You can come to something thinking about the right things, and then propose a solution that doesn’t actually make things better” (37:55).
“I look at every piece of data on every story” (43:15).
“There’s a period in the process of the creation of a story that is sacred and should not be touched by the people who care about the analytics, and that is the process from when the story is assigned to when the words in the story are finished” (43:40).
“Being a good editor requires being able to juggle a whole bunch of things at the same time” (45:30).
“The adrenaline flow of being a CEO is very different than the adrenaline flow of being a writer or being an editor” (47:00).
“I’ve always been hyper-curious, which is something that’s good for a writer. I meet someone new and I’m curious about who they are and what they do” (48:40).
“[As a CEO], you have to be curious about how everything in your business works because you have to master it” (49:20).
“I’m learning a lot, but am I getting smarter?” (50:15).
“Running gives me a connection to the outside world, to the natural world” (54:20).
“The discipline it takes to be a good runner rubs off on the discipline it takes to do well at work” (55:00).
“You learn lessons while you’re running” (55:05).
“[Running and playing the guitar] are the two things I do in my life that are the most meditative” (57:00).
“Making sure you’re balancing the needs of the moment with the needs of the future is one of the great challenges of being a CEO” (1:01:10).
Additionally, you can find Nick’s website here, and you can also follow him on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. I’d also encourage you to check out Nick’s book, The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War, which you can purchase anywhere books are sold.
Thank you so much to Nick 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.
Wednesday Nov 23, 2022
Wednesday Nov 23, 2022
Nate Boyer is a bit of a renaissance man; he has worn many different hats. He’s a former active-duty Green Beret, he’s a world traveler, he’s involved with philanthropy and started his own non-profit, he’s a community leader, and he played in the NFL as a professional athlete with the Seattle Seahawks. Nate joined the US Army in 2005, where he earned the coveted Green Beret in December of 2006. What he did in the military is certainly enough for a podcast on its own, but what he did afterwards is also just as interesting. He finished up his tours in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and then decided that he wanted to become a long snapper. He had a five-year career with the Texas Longhorns, learning and teaching himself how to become a long snapper by watching YouTube clips; he didn’t even play football in high school. At his core, Nate is a dreamer. He is someone who puts his eyes on a vision and gets after it. It’s this facet of him that led him to have an incredibly successful college career, winning numerous accolades and becoming an Academic All-American. He was also named the Big 12 Sportsman of the Year in 2012. This all led to him getting a shot to play in the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks. With all of this amazing stuff in mind, what Nate is doing today is probably just as inspiring as his past. He has a new movie out called MVP that I highly recommend you check out, he has a non-profit that brings together vets and athletes as well, and he really loves to play at the intersection of different identities and different people. He is an adventurer as well, being someone who has accomplished such feats as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and going fly-fishing in Russia. He’s also worked as a big brother mentor for children diagnosed with Autism.
Nate had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“Time is the most valuable asset” (7:25).
“Imposter syndrome is actually very common in people who are quite accomplished [and] very hard working” (9:50).
“I was always going upstream against the grain” (19:05).
“I still feel lost sometimes today. We all do” (20:35).
“Life is that constant battle of feeling like we belong and feeling like we matter” (22:10).
“Forget all this noise and people telling you this is not the way; this is not the normal path. It doesn’t matter. Carve your own path. Just go” (24:10).
“If you just try and put yourself out there, that’s more than most people will ever do” (24:30).
“People want to help those who are willing to help” (25:00).
“Having some structure in my life was a thing I didn’t know I needed until it was happening, until it was instilled in me” (27:45).
“I still resist conformity at all costs” (30:10).
“The best leaders were [often] the ones that didn’t want to be leaders”
“As a leader, something I struggle with, and struggled with on this film, is trusting people to do their job and letting go of not only the result, but letting go of this constant fear that you’re screwing it up, you’re not doing the story justice…” (34:15).
“If you’re a creative person and you’re not being allowed to create anything on your own [because you’re being micromanaged], that’s frustrating” (37:20).
“I love intersections. And what I love even more than intersections are juxtapositions” (45:20).
“That’s the biggest takeaway I want for people walking away from the movie: at the end of the day, we are all human beings” (57:30).
“We wear certain uniforms that often group us and label us in certain ways, and sometimes we adopt that label ourselves and we feel that that is our identity and who we are, but we’re human beings just like you. All we want to do is feel like we belong back here at home” (57:45).
“My identity is I’m a human being” (1:01:45).
“I’m full of fault and I’ve failed way more than I’ve succeeded, and I’m going to keep failing forward” (1:03:00).
“I want to be remembered as someone who just tried” (1:03:30).
“We all dream at night, but I dream during the day more than most” (1:05:35).
Additionally, you can find the MVP (Merging Vets and Players) Organization website here. You can also find Nate on social media @NateBoyer37. Lastly, you can check out Nate’s movie, MVP, on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and Video on Demand.
Thank you so much to Nate 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.
Wednesday Nov 16, 2022
Wednesday Nov 16, 2022
Annie Duke is the bestselling author of Thinking in Bets and How to Decide. Her new book, Quit, is going to be the subject of a lot of our conversation today. Annie is a corporate speaker and consultant in the decision-making space. She’s also a former professional poker player, where she won more than $4 million in tournament poker before retiring from the game in 2012. We’ll talk about all of the quitting that Annie has done in her life, and a lot of the origins of this book come from learning poker and learning how important it is to know “when to fold ‘em.” She’s also the co-founder of the Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission it is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skill education. At her core, Annie really loves research, education, and not just learning, but also teaching.
Annie had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“I think sabbaticals are actually really helpful” (13:35).
“It’s very hard to make decisions when you’re in it, when you’re actually facing down the decision” (13:45).
“We equate quitting with giving up or failing” (14:45).
“That’s the hardest thing to quit. ‘If I quit this, then who am I?’” (16:15).
“When we’re actually engaged in something, when we’re pursuing a particular goal, it’s very hard for us to see very clearly what the other opportunities are that might be available to us” (16:55).
“We tend not to do a lot of reevaluation of why we’re doing what we’re doing or whether we really enjoy it or whether it aligns with our values when we’re in it once we’ve already started it” (17:15).
“The pandemic involuntarily created sabbaticals for people” (18:40).
“Pivoting is quitting” (19:10).
“The word ‘quit’ is so odious to us that we really like to bubble wrap it” (19:35).
“The definition of quit is ‘stopping something that you have started’” (20:00).
“It’s a good thing to quit things when you discover that they’re not working for you anymore” (20:40).
“Just like any decision you make, [quitting] is not permanent” (21:20).
“If you discover something that you do isn’t working, why are you afraid to say that you’re quitting?” (23:00).
“The fear of regret… stops us from quitting” (26:00).
“I’ve quit a lot of stuff, but I’m also very gritty” (31:45).
“I stopped tying my identity so closely to what I did” (33:00).
“I’ve spent my whole life thinking about decision making under uncertainty. It’s the thing I’m most curious about” (34:00).
“Famous women are treated different than famous men” (41:45).
“I’m very good at quitting things that I’ve written in a lot better way than I was when I wrote [my first book]” (1:00:25).
“I’ve really embraced the power of narrative to bring to life academic concepts” (1:00:40).
“Talks are just teaching. Consulting is teaching” (1:03:45).
“I come to life when I’m teaching people” (1:04:00).
“I often discover through teaching that I’m totally full of sh*t, which is the best thing ever” (1:04:30).
“I wish that idea of don’t have a plan B would go away” (1:20:45).
Additionally, for all of the information you need on Annie, including links to her books and newsletter, you can check out her website here.
Thank you so much to Annie 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.
Wednesday Nov 09, 2022
Wednesday Nov 09, 2022
Tom Rath is an author and researcher who has spent the past two decades studying how work can improve human health and well-being. Tom has 10 books, which have sold more than 10 million copies. He has made hundreds of appearances on global best-selling lists. What you’re going to find out form this conversation is that even though Tom’s resume is loaded and quite remarkable, he really thinks about contribution quite a bit. His first book, How Full is your Bucket, speaks to meaning and purpose mean to us. That book was an instant New York Times Bestseller and led to a series of books that are used in classrooms around the world. His book StrengthsFinder 2.0 is how I learned about Tom. It’s Amazon’s top-selling non-fiction book of all-time. Tom’s other bestsellers include Strengths-Based Leadership; Wellbeing; Eat Move Sleep, and Are You Fully Charged? He’s also co-authored two illustrated books for children, How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids, and The Rechargeables. His most recent books are Life’s Great Question: Discover how you Contribute to the World, and It’s Not About You: A Brief Guide to a Meaningful Life, published in partnership with Amazon Original Series. Tom also spent 13 years at Gallup, where he led the organization’s strengths, employee engagement, well-being and leadership consulting worldwide. He has served for the past 5 years as an external advisor in Gallup Senior Scientist. At his core, Tom really is a researcher. He’s somebody who loves to get in the weeds and find out what the science says about wellbeing and how we can be our best selves. He’s also served as the vice-chair of the VHL Cancer Research Organization and has been a regular lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, Tom co-founded a publishing company, and he’s also an advisor, investor, and partner in several startups. This conversation is wide-ranging. It’s not just about Tom’s accomplishments, it’s also about how he sees the world, what it’s like for him to be a father and a husband, and just a great overall citizen.
Tom had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“I am most comfortable when I am alone, thinking to myself or reading about new research each morning, which I still do meticulously” (7:00).
“It’s a huge waste that we wait to eulogize people until after they’re gone” (8:50).
“When I either learn something new in a day or when something I’ve believed in especially strongly is proven wrong, nothing makes me happier than to be that wrong, because it means I’ve learned something new and I’m being open-minded” (12:50).
“Learning is a great way to fill your own bucket” (13:15).
“I don’t think anything is more important from a leadership standpoint than to really think about a good question you could ask to someone who looks to you for guidance and keep all your devices stowed away and genuinely close your mouth for a while and listen and process that” (14:20).
“Ask a question and then don’t follow-up or push or prod for at least 30-60 seconds” (15:45).
“It’s in the free time and the play time that we act like our true selves a little bit more” (16:20).
“Sleep is the most underestimated need” (16:50).
“I see everything through the eulogy values of what I’m doing that’s meaningful for people versus some of the accomplishment stuff that might have been more relevant to me ten or twenty years ago” (25:00).
“Most of us are dealing with some real challenge and most people we interact with never know that, so I always have to remind myself to presume that someone else is dealing with the same stuff” (27:45).
“The way that we’ve built the expectation of what work is and what it should be just needs to be blown up” (34:40).
“We’ve got to question how we can make work a better experience” (35:50).
“On average, work is harming people” (36:20).
“We’ve got to find ways to infuse more movement into our work routine” (44:05).
“Observing kids has been a gift during the pandemic” (45:25).
“I have more fun working on other author’s projects than writing my own books” (46:30).
“The biggest contribution for me is having a family that I’m really proud of” (51:40).
“We need to start talking about our lives from more of a contribution standpoint than a resume and accomplishment standpoint” (58:05).
Additionally, you can find more about all of the books Tom has been involved with publishing here! I’d also encourage you to check out the Contribify website here. You can also connect with Tom on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Thank you so much to Tom 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.
Wednesday Nov 02, 2022
Wednesday Nov 02, 2022
Bronco Mendenhall is one of the more interesting sports coaches I’ve interviewed on this podcast. What makes Bronco interesting is not that he was the Head Coach of Brigham Young University’s football program from 2005-2015, and not that he was the Head Coach of the University of Virginia’s football program form 2016-2021. It’s not that he went 135-81 and appeared in multiple bowl games with those programs. It’s not even that he turned those programs around from losing seasons to winning seasons and has helped multiple players play in the National Football League. What makes Bronco so interesting is that he intentionally walked away from the University of Virginia football program to take a year off. He essentially has gone on sabbatical this past year. And he did it in the prime of his career. He was 55 years-old when he stepped away and things were really going well at the University of Virginia from certainly the outside looking in. But Bronco’s going to share why he walked away in our conversation today and what he’s learned from taking a year off from football. A lot of people walk away from football and then they retire. But Bronco’s not done yet. He still has a masterpiece that he’s working on and hoping to craft as early as next football season. Bronco is someone who cares deeply about developing young people, and he’s leveraging football as the best vehicle that he’s found to be able to do that. At his core, Bronco is a learner. He’s someone that is constantly growing and is super curious to learn from others. And so, he’s taken this time off to really dive deep into what he wants to create when it comes to a college football culture and how he can impact young people.
Bronco had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“There was success from an outcome perspective, but there wasn’t impact of lasting value… that was resonating with me” (7:50).
“I started thinking that the game can’t be played without the people. And then the people became everything” (8:20).
“Having a fierce passion for performance and intentionally becoming is amazing, and it’s facilitated by outcome” (10:25).
“If all of identity is measured only by outcome, that becomes a dangerous space to live” (10:35).
“I love programs that value something in addition to football” (11:30).
“It was my intent from the moment I woke up to the time I went to bed every single day to try to provide a model that demonstrated ‘and’” (14:30).
“I’m not only an optimist but I’m a realist at the same time” (20:20).
“When I go back [to coaching], I wanted it to be with the perspective and the learning and the renewal and a relaunch that might even be more intentional” (26:15)
“Driving the individual relationship one-on-one is really what these kids have remembered. It wasn’t the outcomes, it was the relations” (29:00).
“You only get to do your job if you’re successful at it” (29:45).
“After 17 years of being a head coach, the feedback from the guys that I’ve coached, the players, are all about the relational moments” (30:00).
“I never feel as good as when I’m serving, when I’m actually helping others” (31:00).
“You manage energy, not time” (32:20).
“The singular, most powerful piece [of coaching college football for me] is the daily interaction, development, and inclusion in the lives of young people to help make a difference” (37:00).
“I’m not sure there’s a more powerful platform to develop motivative learners and young people than the world of college athletics” (38:00).
“I love, and will let them, fail” (41:00).
“What I promise my team is I won’t save you, unless necessary” (46:15).
“I worry that we might be prolonging adolescence” (47:30).
“I worry that with the structure we’re providing, we could be limiting growth” (49:50).
“I’m a research driven individual. I don’t like presenting anything to my team that I don’t have at least 3 sources of” (50:20).
“Work expands the boundaries you set” (51:15).
“Organizations are perfectly designed for the results they get” (52:50).
“I love trust” (53:45).
“The more homogeneous the staff was, the more average performing the group was” (56:35).
“Those are the kind of people I want to be around, that are open-minded to listening and seeing value in a different way” (1:00:20).
“I do believe there’s a shelf-life at each place” (1:12:15).
“I don’t believe that I’m the only one who can make a difference” (1:15:55).
“I’m craving to impact lives of young people” (1:16:30).
“So many times we get defined by what we do” (1:17:20).
Additionally, you can check out the podcast Head Coach University, which Bronco is a co-host of.
Thank you so much to Bronco 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.
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Tara VanDerveer is an absolute legend in the world of basketball. She’s a hall-of-famer, she’s a 5X National Coach of the Year in College Basketball, she’s won 3 NCAA Division I titles, she’s been to 13 Final Fours, and she’s won a gold medal with USA Basketball. Her awards and accolades are up there with just about any college coach, and she’s the all-time leader in wins in women’s basketball. However, you’re going to find out pretty quickly that Tara does not really enjoy talking about herself and her accolades. She loves talking about her teams. She loves talking about the athletes that she’s had the privilege of coaching. She loves talking about Stanford University, where she is currently the Head Women’s Basketball Coach. But Tara is the real deal when it comes to humility. She’s authentic. She’s somebody who cares deeply about the world and basketball. She genuinely cares about the people she serves, and she really makes it about them.
Tara had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“It really helps my energy during the year, that I can be all-in during the season, when I’ve had that great time on the lake in the summer” (7:55).
“When you die, no one’s going to say, ‘Do you wish you worked more?’ I want to wish I’d played more” (10:05).
“Work will always be there. You can always come back to it” (12:00).
“Sometimes I think less is better” (13:00).
“I have to pace myself. You only have so much tread on the tire” (13:30).
“I want to really pick my spots of what I’m going to do, how I’m going to do it, and how well I want to do it” (14:30).
“I just like being in the gym with our team” (16:30).
“The things that keep me grounded are what’s really fun” (16:40).
“If I were in junior high right now, with all the basketball on TV, I’d probably flunk out. I just love basketball” (17:40).
“I work hard at taking care of myself” (17:55).
“I try to do things that are nurturing to me so that I can be effective with our team” (18:15).
“I don’t really think about [legacy] at all” (18:45).
“The energy at Stanford and the people I meet there, that gives me a lot of juice” (20:25).
“A college degree is a very valuable thing for women” (21:45).
“I love coaching the quintessential Stanford student” (22:10).
“I love the challenge of working at Stanford” (25:00).
“The court is our classroom” (29:00).
“I want to enjoy today” (31:10).
“I’m not going to stare in the rearview mirror as I’m going forwards” (31:45).
“Parenting and coaching are very similar, and they’re both very similar to gardening. You don’t just sit there and look at the garden. You water the garden, you weed the garden, you fertilize the garden” (38:00).
“The world is bigger than just you” (39:20).
“The thing that can really destroy us is greed” (42:00).
“I like it when our team is happy for other people’s success” (42:05).
“I want our players to love playing at Stanford and love playing for me” (55:00).
“I can look in the mirror and be happy with being myself… I can’t try to be someone else” (56:35).
“I’m a copier by nature, which I’m proud of” (56:55).
“Being a person takes work” (1:00:10).
“My job is to help them be the best they can be” (1:02:30).
Thank you so much to Tara 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 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.