Back2Different

Wow. So Tony and I go on a tear through our shared history and abiding love of music. He's from Manchester, UK, and he was intricately involved with the music scene there, starting with selling records out os his van, going upstairs at Virgin Rags (an early precursor to the Virgin records empire), following local acts like U2 and wrapped in the David Bowie phenomenon early on. 
We both see the possibility of a return to more local music, a move away from the domination of accounting and the blossoming of community-through-music, a landscape that encourages and provides venues for original artists who actually create music rather than layer lyrics on top of other people's samples. 
Along the way, we have quite a time, as both of us have developed intimately within the company of music.

Melissa is a delight. We've shared many conversations, always building on each other's ideas and energy. She brings an analytical approach to experience that fills in the gaps my loosely and widely ranging curiosity sometimes skips past.

So we spend about an hour exploring how the brain works (or not), how much we overestimate our (illusion of) rationality, why facts don't matter in most conversations, how we can be self-skeptical and let go of shame, punching back, and much, much more. Mixing this podcast made me go back and listen to portions again and again. You can also sign up for Melissa's Neuronuggets, which are great fun and will make your brain explode. In a nice way.

Sit back and enjoy Neuroscience, my guilty pleasure.

Jon and I share a passion for music. We both also have itchy feet. He has been in sales, marketing, training design, graphics, and more. Since 2013, he has been developing TBAIMS - Connecting through Music. He loves discovering musicians and performers who are distinctive, creative and willing to fight the good fight to be seen and heard. It's a tough business, and Jon provides all kinds of support and feedback to fuel their development.

We travel together through the performing arts, rock and roll, Woodstock, the music industry, politics and greed in our conversation. Please join us and meet Jon, who holds nothing back as we realize that music abides.

Jag and I went round and round . . . and round for 6 weeks for a bunch of reasons before we sat down for a wonderful trip together. She is not to be trifled with, and we fed off each others' energy on our wild ride. Her story, her courage, her uninhibited version of life and its lessons will grab you. 

Please join us, buckle your seatbelts, and listen while she helps me - and all of us - get why it's easier for us to expel than inhale. Love and life, that is.

Catherine Fitzgerald is one of the contributors to back2different who had a 'straight' career - linear, climbing the corporate ladder, that kind of thing, and then realized it wasn't working. So off she went, fear, courage, determination and possibilities in hand and made her own thing.

She's business-focused, and she has discovered that we can re-define 'profit' to exclude 'dehumanization.'

She helps people find their own, and others around them, paths that tie value to humanity, and she understands that "leaders are not doers, they're the developers of doers." Bravo.
We have a great romp that explores lots of byways and side ways, as we agree that my humanity does not diminish my value. 

Enjoy!

The beat goes on, doesn't it? My friend Shara suggested I get in touch with Kristina Holle. Here's what happened next: I discovered Kristina was following an expected path in the realms of the corporate world and suddenly veered off when that path grew narrower and narrower. Instead, she has chosen to explore and discover. Someone after my own heart.

She recently published The Authentic You ,  and she astonished herself with the energy and focus that appeared during that project - it reinforced her faith in taking off on her own.

Kristina is absolutely candid and courageous, and we fly through a conversation about possibilities and leaving fear behind, lighting up our own lives. As she suggests, Why wait for the end of the tunnel?

This is the first episode focused on Humanity@work. I'll be hosting a series of conversations based on a simple premise: setting aside the issue of pay (not to ignore the idea, but to set that apart), what do you want your job to provide for you and what do you want work not to do to you.?
Join me with Shara, Andrew, Alex and Brett as we find that I can work better when I know where I am and I have my team around me.

Lots of change, lots of discomfort, lots of growth - Eileen Bild is living a no-holds-barred kind of life that many of us might find scary. Not that she is a spinning target for a knife-throwing act at the carnival, but because she embraces everything that comes her way. We bounce around and laugh as we explore pretty nearly everything in our time together, both of us engaging a time in our lives that is not the beginning and not the end, but that in-between state. Buckle your seat belts.

Last September, Shara Lewis-Campbell. Andrew Foster and I all came together and had an idea: How about if work felt more like purpose and less like a sentence?

Last week, this idea was published: Humanity@Work, an ebook, paperback and hard copy that brought together over 35 people from around the world to contribute their insight about work. And life. And humanity.

So join us for a little while as we laugh and talk and laugh about how all this came together and where we hope it goes. The project is completely pro bono, btw, all proceeds going to Doctors Without Borders.

So Sybil Cummin is the friend of a friend. She lives in Colorado, and she has quite a story. “Knock on any door” as people say. She is a very accomplished gymnast, outstanding student, and a recovering perfectionist. She takes herself not-too-seriously. Which is very important because her field is domestic violence and narcissistic abuse. Part of how she opened my eyes was when she focused on how much domestic abuse has risen during COVID, and especially how it has been underreported. It didn’t occur to me that someone who is a victim of abuse cannot call for help if s/he is in lockdown with the abuser.

She also works with little ones, who seem to be doing much better than teenagers under the cloud of the virus. We have a wonderful and very moving conversation as we explore I might be a couple drops in the bucket.

Having run into Mike Vacanti more than once at Our Friendship Bench (I promise, only one more link!), I did one of those two kinds of people things we all can fall into. In this case, it’s ‘people I could be trapped in a lifeboat with’ and ‘people I would throw myself overboard if I were trapped in a lifeboat with.’ Mike is in category a.

We run amok together as we explore boyhood, school (we both knew our high school principals very well indeed), the value of commitment over command in the workplace, the beauty of possibility, the scars we all carry and that sometimes itch, ‘deep matters of the heart and soul,’ and love. OMG, not Love! Much alike, I was, like Mike, known as the rambunctious kid.

BTW, Mike is a featured contributor for Humanity@Work. 

I’ve run across (or into!) Mark O’Brien (mark@obriencg.com) in several online conversations. From the first, I knew we’d be friends, for two reasons. First, Mark and I both love to write and love to explore and discover, even if we ruffle a few feathers—or entire flocks—in the process. Second, after Mark says something, I never need to stop and consider, “I wonder what’s really on his mind?”

So we got together to talk. No surprise, we followed a jogging meander through writing, childhood, parents, courage, writing, literature, marriage, thinking, expectations, the nature of nature, and life bumps small and mammoth. Oh, did I mention writing? 

There is nothing like doing a podcast with someone to establish a friendship, btw. Little did I know . . . . 

Join us and find out how “There is a bee on the bridge” shines a bright light on our capacity for courage and love.

Competitive skier, off to college to play baseball, golfer, professor, experienced in mergers and acquisitions, and now Brian Sommer (briansommercoaching.com) carries a passion for leadership and learning into his coaching work. We both love sports, through Brian is good at them. We both abide in a skeptical place, “separating what happens from what we say happens.” And we both discovered during our journey toward this meeting that teaching is both less and more than we thought.

Throughout this conversation, we ask more questions than give each other answers, e.g. “Imagine if all the books throughout history were kept?” Our deep passion and excitement about learning brings us together, and we agree that the genius resides in the person in front of you.

I see podcasting as the discovery of surprises. I’m not in charge, just a part of. My conversation with Barry Schwartz (bschwar1@swarthmore.edu) is a luge ride, full speed and switching the role of top slider (the one who signals the turn) and the bottom driver (the one who makes the turn) throughout. Here’s some of where we went: 

                                                                       dogged attachment 

                                                            uncertainty and probability 

                                                                the curse of knowledge 

                                               vaccinations and shopping for groceries

                                                  organ donations and social altruism

                                               drunk driving, smoking, and MADD

                                                                freedom and security 

                                                                  confidence intervals 

                                                                           cynicism

Barry’s book, Why We Work, is a great read. His TED talk, https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_way_we_think_about_work_is_broken, a luge ride you’ll not forget. Grab some water, dress warmly, and join us for The Store Does Not Take Care of Itself. 

 Thank you, Barry.

We find our common territory much more easily than most may think. John Dunia (shamedoctor.com) is the 46th visitor to record on back2different. I’ve added layers of understanding and connection to my life since this podcast journey started, its birth parallel to the generation of the virus. 

I’d like to suggest that we don’t need to experience this time as a separation but as an acknowledgment of the absolute nourishment of connection. I have dozens of close friends I have never met ftf because of this venture. We simply drop our shields, open up, and care about each other. I am so very grateful. This is not farewell, btw!

John and I charge through healing, self-forgiveness, shame and guilt, scars, arrogance and pride, all in an atmosphere of trust, what my friend and teacher Michael Goldfaden told me means ‘unconditional positive regard.’ 

Maybe that’s all we need to move together, to declare Independence Day and leave shame in the dirt.

We pick up a lot of ‘stuff’ as we grow up. If you’re familiar with George Carlin, you know what ‘stuff’ means. Joanna Bennett (joanna@obriencg.com) shares her story, no holds barred, about finding her way through situations and assumptions that stood in the way of what she now knows and loves. She and her children have grown closer during the pandemic, and she lives by a very clear credo: I value peace more than happiness. Join us for a verbal romp.

Laura Gray (lgray@maloneynovotny.com) has no lack of credentials. Corporate, academic, sales and training. And trauma. Her journey toward emotional rejuvenation and spirit included opening up some scabs and scars that were scary and necessary. In this courageous conversation, she tells her story to deliver a deep appreciation of how resilient we can become if we can barter shame for clarity. She helped me understand her journey and my own. Let her help you with that same understanding, that broken crayons still color.

As Andrew Foster led me through his story, he focused on writing. He has taken this advice from one of his professors and holds it close to his heart: “Stop! Write about it!”  We share a love of writing, especially of the most demanding love, poetry. 

I believe we are all in need of spiritual nutrition, the emotional body-building that comes from community. Especially now, as we are all bound up in viral incarceration, some of us are growing through this imprisonment, some of us less so. Andrew has been in prison for 17 years. Listen in as we explore the path we started with Andrew’s insight that the whole world is sitting down.

When I first met Roger Martin (roger@themindsetdifference.com), I realized he was someone who spoke with marked purpose—what he was about to say would be focused, clear, and memorable. I found myself hoping he would be the next person to speak in our group.

Roger, who is Co-Founder of The Mindset Difference, working with Sarah Matthew, Founder of The Vibrant Company and Barry Holmes, Founder of Zoom Creates, is working on a new book: If Not This, Then What?  He will be contributing to Humanity at Work as well. More on that in the next podcast.  2022 will see both projects available.

In this episode, Roger and I  take a wonderful hike together through the pandemic, organizational culture, quitting smoking, neuroscience and human capacity. You will find his voice and his insight a pleasure and a treasure as we explore what he calls The Great Pause.

Nicola Lipscombe (nicola@nicolalipscombe.com) lives in Kent Town, South Australia. Heartwise Leadership—her words for her focus— captures her journey and her work. She has wandered the planet, worked in business and the academic world, found herself not quite sure who she was seeing in the mirror, then stopped ‘following the guard rails’ and went hell-for-leather forward into finding Nicola rather than being told who she should be. 

“A bit of a wildling, somewhat of an introvert, quirky, playful” she says of herself. We had a delightful romp through bunches of topics and ideas as we arrived at that central point within.