What's the Big Idea with Andrew Horn

Jim McCann is the business leader, author, and philanthropist who founded 1-800-Flowers.com and grew the business from its roots as a single flower shop in Manhattan into the world's largest florist. With a passion for helping people deliver smiles, Jim transformed the flower and gift marketplace to help customers express themselves and connect with the important people in their lives.    Devoted to helping others, Jim founded the nonprofit organization Smile Farms to provide meaningful jobs to young adults and people with developmental disabilities. Jim also started the Connectivity Council, which brings together therapists, researchers, and thought leaders to share ideas and trends around human connection and community.

How have your friendships changed since COVID began?    How did your community shrink or expand?    Do you have more depth with less people?    If you want some help exploring these types of questions and the power of friendship in the age of loneliness, this is a great one.    - We explore the stats that break down the loneliness epidemic we are currently facing in America. - Tangible strategies for building friendships and community - Intro to facilitation and meaningful gathering - Two friends talking about the power of human connection

Michael Hebb is an innovative and influential cultural figure, entrepreneur and activist, described by the New York Times as an “underground restaurateur, impresario and provocateur.” He believes that the dinner table is one of the most effective (and overlooked) vehicles for changing the world. After teaching a University of Washington graduate course titled Let’s Have Dinner and Talk About Death, Michael started Death Over Dinner. This project was created as a gift, an invitation and a simple set of tools to help families and friends address the basic human fact that we are all, at some point, going to die. We suffer more when we don’t communicate our wishes, we suffer less when we know how to honor the wishes of our loved ones.  -- Michael is a partner at RoundGlass and the Founder of Deathoverdinner.org, Drugsoverdinner.org, EarthtoDinner.org, WomenTeachMen.org and The Living Wake. He currently serves as a Board Advisor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts; and in the recent past as Senior Advisor to Summit Series, Theo Chocolate, Learnist, Caffe Vita, CreativeLive, Architecture For Humanity, and Mosaic Voices Foundation .  In 1997 Hebb co-founded City Repair and Communitecture with architect Mark Lakeman, winning the AIA People's Choice Award for the Intersection Repair Project. In 1999 Michael and Naomi Pomeroy co-founded Family Supper in Portland, a supper club that is credited with starting the pop-up restaurant movement. In the years following they opened the restaurants clarklewis and Gotham Bldg Tavern, garnering international acclaim.  After leaving Portland, Hebb built Convivium/One Pot, a creative agency that specialized in the ability to shift culture through the use of thoughtful food and discourse based gatherings. Convivium's client list includes: The Obama Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, TEDMED, The World Economic Forum, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, X Prize Foundation, The Nature Conservancy. Michael is the founding Creative Director of The City Arts Festival, the founder of Night School @ The Sorrento Hotel, the founder of www.seder.today and the founding Creative Director at the Cloud Room. He served as a Teaching Fellow at the Graduate School of Communication at University of Washington. His writings have appeared in USA TODAY, GQ, Food and Wine and numerous other publications. Michael can often be found speaking at universities and conferences, here is his TEDMED talk. 

The Art of Charm Podcast is one of the most popular lifestyle podcasts on the planet with nearly 2.5M monthly downloads. You'll learn our top strategies to improve your career, confidence, lifestyle, and love-life from top experts like life and business-hackers. Andrew has always loved the AOC podcast because of their focus on communication, confidence and relational dynamics. On this episode he focused on emotional mastery techniques from his men's work facilitation, as well as his proprietary social flow framework for clear communication and unshakable confidence. 

Thom Bond is a thought leader, author, peace educator and mediation consultant. He is best known as the creator and leader of The Compassion Course, a comprehensive online training, that has served over 20,000 participants in over 130 countries, in four languages. Thom is a founder and the Director of Education for NYCNVC, The New York Center for Nonviolent Communication (a United Nations Civil Society Organization). He is the author of The Compassion Book, the founder of The Engineering Peace Project, and a former member of the Advisory Board for the Communications Coordination Committee for the United Nations (CCCUN). He is the author of "Shifting Toward Compassion" (theexercise.org), and "64 Days for Peace" an open source, online, self-led small-group curriculum.

Eldra Jackson III is a spiritual warrior who lives a passion of "saving lives one circle at a time." After living most of his life devoid of emotions and coming face-to-face with the reality of dying behind bars, he came to a point of self-inquiry, seeking answers as to how his life had spiraled into a mass of destruction set upon self and others. From this point, the space was made to save his life. Today, Jackson works to bring his spiritual medicine into the world while simultaneously guiding others to tap into their own internal salve and help identify wounds. Through his intensive awareness work, he is on a mission to show the world what's possible as each person does their own internal examination to begin the path towards emotional and psychic health.

Jackie Knechtel, M.A., is an executive coach/consultant, behavioral therapist, international speaker and pioneer in the area of flow. She is the co-founder of the Flow Consciousness Institute which holds cutting edge trainings, retreats, leads workshops and delivers transformational experiences worldwide. Jackie is also the co-author of the forthcoming book Flow: The Art of Effortless Living and is actively shifting consciousness on a global scale through her speaking, coaching practice and by blending science and spirituality into practical tools for living an enlightened life. Jackie has a background as an autism specialist with clients in NYC, Beverly Hills, Dubai and Saudi Arabia. She serves as an advisor for the Eve Branson Foundation, NomadX and AutismCodes and is currently working to revolutionize the therapy delivery model for special needs children and their caregivers with her vision, Spectra. Justin Faerman is an international speaker, serial entrepreneur and consciousness researcher working to create large-scale shifts in human consciousness, integrate high-level intuitional skills more deeply into the business world and everyday life and deliver solutions-focused media to a global audience. He is the co-founder of Conscious Lifestyle Magazine and the Flow Consciousness Institute and a sought after teacher, known for his pioneering work in the area of flow and the mechanics of consciousness. He has a diverse entrepreneurial background that includes pioneering exponential growth at green tech companies and building some of the world’s top conscious media publishing platforms and he currently serves as an advisor to a number of social-impact driven growth stage companies and is actively involved in multiple large-scale projects to re-imagine and re-engineer human sociocultural systems to create a sustainable, enlightened future for all life. 

Co-Founder of Evryman, Dan works with men to help them connect with those in their lives and help them lead more successful, fulfilling lives. Dan’s career has been wide ranging, but his core of adventure and human growth has always held steady. After college, Dan spent over 600 days as a wilderness therapy guide and led groups of struggling young men up mountains, down rivers, and across frozen lakes.  Along the way he absorbed and learned a ton about the process of mentoring and what it means to be a man in our culture today. Following Montana, Dan moved to New York City where he started teaching public high school in the Bronx while completing his masters degree, further strengthening his drive to help guide young men. From writing novels to assisting in the production of Netflix’s MeatEater, Dan is as his core a guide looking to assist men in becoming more emotionally honest. 

Houston Kraft is a professional speaker, leadership consultant, and kindness advocate who speaks at schools, conferences, and events internationally. He has spoken to nearly a half a million people at 500 engagements and counting. He is the co-founder of CharacterStrong - trainings and curriculums that create more compassionate cultures in schools and communities. He has been featured on the Huffington Post and highlighted by the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. His messages about character, leadership, compassion, and kindness resonate with audiences age 5-95.

Justin McLeod is Founder and CEO at Hinge, the immensely popular dating app  that is designed to be deleted. He grew up in Louisville, KY and studied at Colgate University. After a few years in management consulting, he attended Harvard Business School and decided to follow his passion for connecting people. Justin founded Hinge in February 2011 with a mission to create real-life connections. As a romantic and the protagonist of a real-life love story, he was upset by the negative hookup culture dating apps had created so in October 2016, he relaunched Hinge to create a culture of thoughtful dating. Justin’s vision for a more thoughtful experience resonated with millennials and led to the company's user base growing 400% in the last year.