If there is one skill to master in life, it is selling. Why? Because no matter what you do, whether you are a product designer, an executive, an entrepreneur, or a preacher, if you develop the ability to sell your idea, your vision, your strategy, or your product/service, the sky is the limit. And more than merely selling, ultimately, mastery of se…

What will it take to lead effectively over the next decade? How can you prepare yourself for what will likely be called for as we navigate times ahead? Well, according to the author of Future Leader Jacob Morgan, who interviewed 140 global CEOs (of companies like Audi, Mastercard, Unilever, Oracle, and SAP) and surveyed over 14,000 employees, there…

What role does trust play, within your company, when it comes to your individual and team performance? Well, it turns out a lot. As Joel Peterson — Chairman of JetBlue, Consulting Stanford Professor, Author, and Founder of Peterson Partners which is part Private Equity and Venture Capital firm with over $1 billion under management– puts it: “Trust …

How many women do you know want it all and try their best to have it? Work full-time, be there for the kids, volunteer for Parent Association at the kids’ school, run the household (which is a full-time job in itself) and have somewhat of a life? There’s a lot, right? As Romi Neustadt — author, entrepreneur and mom — puts it: You Can Have It All: J…

To put this female versus male diversity deficiency into perspective at senior levels in Corporate America, among chief executives of S&P. 1500 firms, for each woman, there are four men named John, Robert, William or James according to the New York Times. There’s been a lot of talk these past years about the need to have more women in leadership ro…

If there is one organization that is highly effective in aligning their troops, it’s the army. But ever wonder how they do it? Or if their strategy is replicable in business or with your team? Rach Ranton is a TED speaker, corporate leader, author, and motivational consultant who served in the Australian Army for 11 years. Her TED Talk titled “Wher…

Dr. Stephen Trzeciak is a Physician-Scientist, TED speaker, and Professor of Medicine at the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, who’s dedicated a large portion of his career to helping patients in the intensive care unit. More recently, he authored the book Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence that Caring Makes a Differenc…

Leadership as a keyword has over 4.4 billion search results on Google. The corporate leadership training industry is big too. Organizations in the US alone spend upwards of $14 billion annually on training their employees to be leaders and leadership development is ranked as one of the top three things senior executives (and business leaders) are m…

Most of us like to think that we use data to inform our decision-making process and path forward, but there’s one challenge. It’s possible and quite common that we seek out data to validate what we already believe. That’s called confirmation bias. In speaking with Alex Edmans, a TED and Davos speaker, rigorous academic researcher and Professor of F…

Innovation and critical thinking are key skillsets in business, but have you ever wondered what makes them possible? The answer is creativity. In speaking with the co-founder of acclaimed off-broadway show Blue Man Group, which was acquired in 2017 by one of the most renowned entertainment companies out there — Cirque du Soleil — whose shows have b…

Did you ever react to someone or something and know it was not going to end well? Have you ever been triggered by a boss or colleague and behaved in a way that you knew was not going to be effective? Sure, we all have. But did you ever stop to think why that happens? Here’s the short answer: brain patterns. More specifically, the cause of these kne…

How amazing would it be to regrow diseased or missing body parts? I am hopeful it will happen someday, but science is not quite there yet. What is more realistic short-term is to teach your body how to heal faster, and that’s precisely what Dr. Kaitlyn Sadtler– an immunologist by trade and former postdoctoral fellow at MIT who’s been selected as on…

Dr. Frans de Waal, a two-time TED Speaker, twelve-time author, biologist, and ethologist spent the majority of his life studying primate behavior and social interactions. In our oddly fascinating conversation, he debunks commonly held beliefs we hold about our closest relatives and draws interesting parallels in our leadership practices. Who knew w…

Have you ever heard the expression when life gives you lemons, make lemonade? Few people truly embody this concept like Lizzie Velasquez does, who is an ordinary woman standing for something extraordinary: love, acceptance, and peace. Lizzie is a uniquely petite powerhouse that weighs in at 65 pounds because she, and only 2 other people in the worl…

Tammy Lally — a certified money coach, author of Money Detox and TED Speaker — works with her clients on the one thing that prevents people from reaching financial freedom, and that is our relationship with money. Financial planning is not a mysterious thing that only certain people understand and get access to. It’s actually straight forward (and …

In this episode, Dr. Jennifer Wilcox, who is the James H. Manning Chaired Professor of Chemical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, a former Stanford Professor and acclaimed TED speaker shares her research findings on how we could remove CO2 from the air to help fight against the global climate crisis. “We have the capability to build s…

Does your full schedule eat into how much you sleep at night? Are you frequently in noisy areas? Have you ever thought that maybe your sleep deprivation and surroundings (even if you can function well) are impacting your short-term performance and long-term health? Well, it is. And science can prove it. Dr. Mathias Basner — an associate professor i…

The state of our climate and the advancement of global warming is top of mind these days. It’s in the news. Just this week, crowds in the millions, around the world united (#strikeforclimate) to show our political leaders the urgency and importance of the issue. Teenage activist, Greta Thunberg addressed the United Nations in an impassioned speech …

Dr. Paula Williams spent 13 years as the host of a national television show (viewed by millions) and served as the Chairman and CEO of The Orchard Group — a non-profit organization that starts new churches in the US– for 34 years. Then her name was Paul. From a very young age, Paula knew she was transgender, but given her upbringing in a conservati…

If you are like most people and know something bad is happening with global warming but are not sure how it will impact you, and more importantly, how to help slow it down, this podcast episode is for you. Retired Rear Admiral David Titley, and former Naval Meteorologist and Oceanographer was tasked with assessing and planning for security risks ou…

Dr. Amy Edmondson is a seven-time author who got her PhD in Organizational Behavior from Harvard, then went on to teach Leadership at Harvard Business School (for the past 23 years and counting) as the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management, where she has tenure. In this episode, Amy discusses some of the groundbreaking principles she outl…

Dr.Erika Hamden is a TED fellow, Ph.D. Astrophysicist, and Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona who has been nominated by NASA for the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2019. Erika leads the team building FIREBALL, a project funded by NASA which is a large telescope that hangs from a giant balloon at the ve…

Dr. Andrew Newberg, is a ten-time author, TEDx speaker, leading researcher, and neuroscientist who studies the relationship between brain function and various mental states. He’s appeared on Dr. Oz and a Netflix documentary hosted by Morgan Freeman called God, and his work referenced in countless media publications including The New York Times, O M…

Manny Medina grew up in Ecuador and spent most of his summers on his stepmother’s shrimp farm helping during harvest. In addition to working on the shrimp farm, Manny was obliged to read a number of books during his summer vacation. A little unusual, but it served Manny well in developing a curiosity for learning. The first time Manny set foot in t…

Heini Zachariassen grew up on a little island logged between Iceland and Norway where the total population hovers around 49,000 habitants. While Heini thinks it’s the most beautiful place on earth, the weather is not always great. He stayed there until the age of 22 years old, then moved to Denmark. From a young age, Heini tinkered with computers a…

As an insatiable kid, Ander Michelena, originally born in Spain, intuitively knew he was destined for the entrepreneurial journey. Although he kicked off his career in finance at Morgan Stanley in London, specifically focused on merger, acquisitions and IPOs of European financial institutions, his vision was always to create a high-growth business.…

Coming off the heels of a successful 24 year Wall Street career, Mark Tercek, who rose to Managing Director at Goldman Sachs and led the Environmental Markets Group, shifted gears in 2008 to become the CEO of The Nature Conservancy, the world’s largest nonprofit environmental organization (TNC). TNC tackles key environmental issues and protects 119…

As a serial entrepreneur, Alex Mashinsky raised over $1 Billion in financing across his eight startups, generating over $3 Billion in exits and authored over 35 patents that cover aspects of Smart Grid, Ad Exchanges, Twitter, Skype, and Netflix. But his journey was everything but easy. Raised in the USSR — Ukraine, a communist country at the time, …

First-time founder and Harvard grad Carlos Reines, who was nominated by the World Economic Forum as Young Global Leader opens up about his tragic childhood accident and how that shaped his life-work today through RubiconMD — an eConsult platform that connects clinicians to top specialists. Now serving over 5,000 primary care physicians in 37 States…

Serial entrepreneur and venture investor, Duke Rohlen grew up in Marin County, California where he dedicated a significant portion of his time to competitive sports. Duke’s dream was to be a world class tennis player, but after his knees gave out at the age of fourteen which forced him to get a number of surgeries, he had no other option but to piv…

Born in Bangalore, India, Eswar dedicated ninety-five percent of his time growing up playing cricket, and didn’t apply himself much to school. His parents, both English professors weren’t overly concerned because he did one thing consistently: read. Eswar was fascinated with military history books and read vivaciously about the topic. In many ways,…

Born to a Greek father, but British mother, Anthemos had a pretty normal childhood, where his natural tendency was to be introverted, but with time, trained himself to be more extraverted. He loved to read or play video games, and despite his inclination to keep to himself, he had lots of friends. At 18 years old, however, something devastating hap…

Former school teacher, Julie Clark hit the jackpot when she created enriching entertainment videos for her kids, in her basement. It turned out, other babies loved it too. Within five years, what was a fun side project grew into a $23 Million dollar generating business which had only five employees, that Disney acquired for $25 Million. Within a fe…

Serial entrepreneur and author, Will Herman founded and scaled five companies, two of which IPO’ed, for a combined shareholder value of $4 Billion. Along the way, he made a bunch of mistakes, but this one tool, in particular, helped him gain perspective and surface insights, real time, which enabled deep leadership growth. Although he naturally fel…

Ron Palmeri, serial entrepreneur who turned to venture investing with a special twist, scored some lucky wins early on at Minor Ventures. The fund would incubate and build the businesses itself while Ron was actively involved from a strategy perspective. Included in some of the companies they launched was OpenDNS which was acquired by Cisco for $63…

Dane Madsen grew up in a small farm town in Idaho, on the lower income side of the equation, but was trained to problem solve and fix things from a young age. His upbringing forced him to be nimble and creative in the solutions he brought forward and this core way of being was at the source of his ability to uncover a huge opportunity in the market…

Mike Teng, following in his father’s footsteps, became a software engineer and worked in the area of education where he noticed a big problem- there wasn’t a good way to find and schedule substitute teachers, and practically every school experienced the same challenge. With two college friends, he built Swing Education, raised $23 Million from Vent…