Getting Unstuck – Cultivating Curiosity

Who is the best leader with whom you have ever worked? What made them so? Was it their technical knowledge and the application of their experience? Was it how they worked with staff? A combination of these qualities? In this episode, we hear from Pat McHugh, a highly inspirational and successful leader who epitomizes the idea of the "servant leader" – the leader who leads from the "other," and not the self, perspective.

What do we mean by "soft" or "interpersonal" skills? Where do you see them – or the absence of them – in the workplace? Which ones do you consistently demonstrate? In this episode, we're joined by Mary Schaefer, an HR specialist who now works with organizations and leaders on how to bring humanity back to the workplace through interpersonal skills.

What are your experiences with performance appraisals? Useful? A waste of time? Somewhere in the middle? In this episode, Steve Paul, former owner of a construction service company and now a business consultant, offers a proven way to boost their usefulness: "acceleration meetings." Listen for how frequent, but time-limited conversations can bring you closer in tune with your staff's needs and idea, and establish deeper trust in the process.

Do you find yourself living your life, or someone else's? Do you routinely invest in yourself to carve out your own identity and solidify your life? Or are you lost in someone else's flashlight beam, a light that is gradually dimming as the batteries fade? Today we meet Hannah Bratterud, now a fulfilled individual, and successful consultant and coach for small business owners. But it wasn't always that way. Listen in as Hannah tells her story of transformation.

How can organizations best engage their employees to create real loyalty? What impact does leadership have on employee loyalty and engagement? What do we need to know about employee retention today? In this episode, we get some answers from Heather Younger, best-selling author of The 7 Intuitive Laws of Employee Loyalty. Heather is also a workshop facilitator, motivational speaker, and host of the very popular podcast, "Leadership with Heart."

Your life's clock is ticking. What's the trip you can't afford not to take? What's the activity you can't afford not to do? Who is the person you can't afford not to meet? In this episode, we meet septuagenarian Jane Trombley, who manages 3scoreandmore.com, a unique website, which was first intended to support women interested in solo travel. The site has since grown to include people of all ages and genders. Jane also writes extensively on the "Medium" platform for those approaching retirement.

What is the goal of U.S. education in an ever-changing world? What do we want for our students when they walk across the stage to receive their high school diplomas? How do we need to look at developing new and current teachers differently? To help answer these questions, we welcome educator Peter McWain. Here, Peter reviews the lack of agreement among key stakeholders on answers to these questions and notes the obstacles standing in the way of more systemic change in K12 education.

In this episode, we interview Joe Kwon who, as he says, "pulls back the curtain" on life in his entertaining and informative "Why it Works" podcast. There he interviews a diverse cohort of guests who speak to the universal principles behind what they do. Joe's other love is Aikido, the Japanese martial art. After gaining a basic understanding of some of the principles underlying it, we asked Joe to use Aikido principles to diagnose two situations where individuals needed to get out of their own way.

Our lives are rarely linear. Most of start out "here" and then make a series of twists and turns. In this "Transformation Story," we talk with Shelley Brown. Shelley's life took a dramatic turn due to a physical ailment, but that physical challenge soon pushed her into the emotional grip of deep anxiety and fear. She tried numerous ways to get back on a level emotional plain, but nothing seemed to work — until she made a major discovery. As she relates in her story, it was the only solution left to her.

How do you view life's changes? As a series of one-off events that are largely disconnected from each other? Or as an ongoing transition? To get a perspective on those question, we listen in on an interview our friend, Sarah Elkins, conducted with Kris Macchiarola on her podcast, "Your Stories Don't Define You, How You Tell Them Will." Kris is a consultant, speaker, leader, coach, and author of #NoApprovalNeeded. She helps organizations create a culture where employees feel energized, enabled, and engaged.