Purpose & Principles Podcast

In this episode, I chat with another young entrepreneur, Levi Lindsay -- Co-Founder of VidArmy. Levi has learned a lot about leadership and business in a few short years. He found good mentors and people who were willing to share and help along the way as well. The business is growing and the team is working hard and producing results.

In Levi's words: "I have been a part of creating businesses from the ground up. I have learned how to make a business fun to work for, grow like crazy, and be sustainable. I have the ability to speak with people, and verbally articulate a message, and teach new concepts."

Levi has a wife of 5 years from Pleasant Grove, UT. They have a 1 1/2 year old daughter that has Levi wrapped around her little finger. He loves to take his dirt bike up in the mountains any chance he gets. Levi served a two year mission for his church in Los Angeles. He has started a few small businesses, but considers VidArmy his greatest accomplishment. They have goals to revolutionize the video production industry, making it affordable and easy. 

McKenzie Bauer is the co-founder and CMO of the successful start-up called Thread Wallets. This conversation is all full of insights about the startup and leadership journey. Listen in!

McKenzie describes her journey this way,

"In 2015 my husband, Colby, and I founded Thread Wallets. Through our venture, we have found an irreplaceable sense of freedom and happiness as we see our vision unfold. I love coming up with creative ways to market a product or idea and I enjoy brainstorming ways to build long-lasting brands. I believe in the power of surrounding yourself with smart and talented people who are dedicated to creating and building. I love helping others achieve success for themselves and I feel passionate about helping them find the same freedom I have found in my entrepreneurial and creative pursuits."

Steve Gutzler is the founder and president of Leadership Quest, a Seattle based leadership development company, dedicated to growing leaders at every level of the organization. Join us here as we talk about his new book, "Lead with No Fear."  He is an executive coach with over 25 leadership clients including 6 CEO's, leading entrepreneurs and executive leaders from around the country. Top Leadership/Performance coach focusing on leadership development, life and sales mastery, time maximization, health and life balance, success, significance, and creating a living legacy.

Today, I'm talking with Alessandro about the increase in freelancing, remote workers and culture!

Alessandro Di Fiore is the Founder and CEO at ECSI (European Centre for Strategic Innovation) and ECSI Consulting. He is also the Chairman of the Board at Harvard Business Review Italia and member of the HBR global editorial team.

He has 25 years of experience in management consulting. In his consulting career he has advised more than 25 Fortune 500 companies in several regions (USA, Europe) on strategy and organizational change matters.

I look forward to your thoughts on this show, I'm very happy Alessandro and I were able to connect.

I'm grateful to introduce Hitendra Wadhwa to the Purpose & Principles community. His writing and ideas are thought provoking and needed in the world today. Indeed, his essay on "How Would Lincoln Guide Our Nation Today?" really caught my attention and the conversation took off from there. Take a listen as Hitendra and I talk about his take on excellence in life and leadership.

Hitendra Wadhwa is Professor of Practice at Columbia Business School and founder of the Mentora Institute. He teaches Columbia's most popular MBA leadership class on Personal Leadership & Success. He also teaches MBA and Executive Education programs on Driving Strategic Impact and Leading from the Inside Out, and has received the Executive-MBA Commitment to Excellence Award, the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence, the Lear Award for Service to Students, and the Columbia Marketing Association Award for the Most Dynamic and Engaging Professor.

Hitendra’s mission is to codify and teach scientific principles of success in life and leadership. With a Ph.D. in Management Science from MIT and a lifelong study of the world’s mystic traditions, Hitendra brings a mathematician’s rigor and a truth-seeker’s spirit to some of today’s most vexing questions about authenticity, success, leadership, human potential, and more. His widely acclaimed research and teaching on leadership have been covered by Inc., Forbes, Fortune, CNN, Psychology Today, BBC World Service, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal. His weekly webcast, Intersections, features acclaimed thought leaders and practitioners in the craft of leadership.

Hitendra’s Mentora Institute is at the forefront of creating a new model of leadership for the 21st century where executives achieve ever-growing Outer Impact through ever-deepening Inner Mastery. Through its digital learning platform, Mentora has created a pocket “flight simulator” for leadership that helps learners gain mastery in a wide range of leadership skills through MicroPracticeTM. His clients include Accenture, SAP, Pfizer, Tata Group, Ericsson, GE, Kraft Heinz, Siemens, a Big-4 Accounting Firm and Morgan Stanley.

In the past, Hitendra was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company and the CEO/founder of a Silicon Valley start-up, Paramark, which was twice recognized as a Top-100 Internet technology company by Technologic Partners/Venture Wire.

As I've shared for over a decade now: the way we treat each other matters. I'm grateful to share the story of Kenny Sacht and his family's work to change the world -- one person at a time. Human trafficking is nearly impossible to comprehend, but it is pervasive and global. While it is hard to discuss, these are topics we must address. We need people to courageously work to stop the slave trade and to help those who have been enslaved. Thank you, Kenny. While I'm sad such a conversation is relevant today, it is good to know that people like you are working to do something about it.

Wipe Every Tear started in a high school teacher’s classroom. As a basketball coach and father, Kenny Sacht’s heart broke during a 2007 summer mission trip with his students during a basketball outreach held in the Philippines. Afterward, he and his wife decided to help one impoverished girl he’d met during that time. Helping one girl quickly became four. In 2012, Kenny quit his teaching job to dedicate all of his time to the formation of Wipe Every Tear. Their first safe house, called Hope House, was purchased and they hired a local director. They are on the front lines of human trafficking and the sex slave trade -- working to help women escape the imprisonment and exploitation.

Since then, many more women have been welcomed into Hope House (and other safe homes) where they experience freedom, security, warm meals, education, and discipleship. Through this simple act of providing a loving home, women’s lives are continuing to be restored to this day. In the eight years of operation, their organization has transformed dozens of young girl’s and women’s lives to bring hope, freedom, and a real future. Prior to Wipe Every Tear, Kenny taught high school US History, and coached basketball for 17 years. Kenny has six daughters, one son, and twelve granddaughters and three grandsons.

For more information, go to www.WipeEveryTear.org

Reconnecting with a my former graduate school professor and friend, Dr. Tojo Thatchenkerry, to discuss Appreciative Intelligence was fantastic! To find out that some of the work a few of us did 15 years ago has become a foundation for training firemen and front line responders around the greater Washington DC was not only a surprise to me, but it was heartwarming to hear as well. Listen in and enjoy this conversation on actionable things that make a meaningful difference.

Tojo Thatchenkery (Ph.D. Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University) is professor & director of the Organization Development and Knowledge Management program at George Mason University, Arlington, Virginia. He has extensive consulting experience in change management, leadership development, organization design and strategy, and knowledge management. 

          Tojo is on the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences and the Journal of Organizational Change Management and is the past Program Chair of the Research Methods Division of the Academy of Management.  He has published in journals such as Harvard Business Review. For more information about Tojo Thatchenkery, please visit www.appreciativeintelligence.com 

Mike Myatt is a leadership advisor to Fortune 500 CEOs and their Boards of Directors. Widely regarded as America’s Top CEO Coach, he is recognized by Thinkers50 as a global authority on leadership. He is the bestselling author of Hacking Leadership (Wiley) and Leadership Matters… (OP), a Forbes leadership columnist, and is the Founder and Chairman at N2Growth. Take a listen as Mike and I talk leadership and coaching to compete today!

While his biography is included here, let me just say how much I enjoyed getting to know the man behind this conversation! Hal Gregersen, I'm so grateful we're connected. Hal Gregersen, PhD, is a senior lecturer in leadership and innovation at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, former executive director of the MIT Leadership Center, and a renowned expert on leadership, innovation and creative culture–– dedicating his career to helping companies stay ahead in an accelerating world by teaching them how to implement a culture of inquiry and transform themselves into innovative powerhouses.

Gregersen created a repeatable three-step methodology, the Question Burst, by which companies can build better problem solvers and enhance creative impact at all levels. The crux of Gregersen’s argument is spelled out in his Nautilus award-winning book (based on 200+ interviews with catalytic questioners like Elon Musk and Orit Gadiesh),“Questions Are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life” (Harper Collins, 2018). While people are programmed to look for answers, the real catalyst for disruptive change is questioning. Gregersen argues that leaders can deliberately overhaul and transform cultures to habitually produce pioneering breakthroughs. His Question Burst method, along with other habits of productive inquiry, have helped redesign company cultures at Chanel, Daimler, Danone, Disney·Pixar, Fidelity, Genentech, Patagonia, Salesforce, and the World Economic Forum, among others.

Gregersen also co-authored, with Clay Christensen and Jeff Dyer, “The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019), a guide to cultivating the discovery skills that CEOs and entrepreneurs rely on to build the most innovative companies in the world. Having interviewed 100+ ground-breaking leaders at the world’s most innovative companies, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, Gregersen draws on rigorous research (based on a database of +15,000 leaders) to successfully advise the world’s largest corporations on transformation challenges.

Ranked as one of the world’s 20 most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50 and winner of the 2017 Distinguished Achievement Award for leadership, Gregersen regularly delivers thought-provoking, interactive keynotes and workshops and transformational coaching experiences. Along with ten books, Gregersen is the author of over fifty articles, book chapters, and cases on leading innovation and change (with over 10,000 citations by other scholars). His research has been highlighted in media such as BBC, CNN, The Economist, Fast Company, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. In 2020, Gregersen was named a Top 30 Global Guru.

Dave Balter's new book, "The Humility Imperative," was a great read for me for many reasons. First, Dave is a successful leader who has started and exited several business start-ups. Second, I first met him during one of his previous acquisitions and found him to be entirely grounded and fun to be around -- despite his success. Third, his candor and vulnerability are helpful in a leadership book that dispenses advice to others. 

Dave is the CEO of Flipside Crypto, which provides business intelligence to crypto organizations. Dave is Venture Partner Emeritus at Boston Seed Capital; personally, he is an investor or advisor to more than fifty technology organizations.

Wise leaders (yes, even the successful ones), can learn from the lessons shared here. I hope you will enjoy both this conversation and the book!