20 Minutes with Bronwyn

In the last episode, I gave you three questions to close out 2020. And here’s the thing: 2020 served up a million reasons to feel victimized, and the three questions I posed were part ONE of a two part meditation on moving *out of* feeling victimized by circumstance, and *into* feeling the power of our own agency. One of the only true sources of power we possess. 2021 is our opportunity to flip the script ... without burning ourselves out in the process. It's an opportunity to reclaim our imagination, and our will to thrive. Grab a journal and a hot beverage, and let's do this.

You know what is adorable? My New Years resolutions for 2020. And here we are again on the edge of an ending year, peering hopefully around the corner to 2021.   But this time, the phrase “New Year’s Resolution” seems hopelessly naive.   Quaint. A throwback to a simpler time. I get it. We all got our asses handed to us this year. It gave new meaning to the old saying, “Want to make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.”   But here’s what I know: Resolution and plans and dreams need to be build on the solid ground of introspection. Before we dreamscape 2021, we need to tend to the wounds of 2020. This episode is part one of a two-part series designed to prime us for excellence in the coming year. Grab your journal, and join me!

This episode is for all the solopreneurs and entrepreneurs out there, trying to raise their visibility in this crazy, noisy world.   My guest today is someone I’ve been observing from a far for a while now. Keenya Kelly is a branding and business coach who has been blowing up on … wait for it … TikTok.   If you’re like me, you probably associate TikTok with your kids, or with impossible choreography. But friends, TikTok actually represents one of the biggest public relations and branding opportunities we’ve had in a good long time.   Get your coffee, and get ready to meet the delightful, bright light that is Keenya Kelly.

In 1944, Ingrid Bergman starred in a film called Gaslight, for which she later won an Oscar. In case you've never seen it, Gaslight is a film about psychological abuse in the Edwardian age, but the behavior is so archetypal, so familiar, that the term has endured and is popular even NOW in 2020. Maybe even MORE so in 2020 than ever before. I myself have been the target of gaslighting, but I’ve learned how to spot it, how to stop it, and how to fortify my own mind so that I’m not quite so vulnerable to it. Today’s episode is focused on helping you to become Gaslight resistant … literate … averse.

I recently saw a Netflix documentary that rocked my world, and I'm guessing you've seen it too. It’s called The Social Dilemma. Netflix describes it as a “documentary-drama hybrid” that explores “the dangerous human impact of social networking, with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations.” What makes this film extraordinary is that it’s forcing us to face what we already know to be true about social media … That our mental health, our democracy, and our humanity are in the balance. My guest today is Dr. Anna Lembke who you will recognize from the film, as she offered her wisdom on the addictive nature of social media. Dr. Lembke is an Associate Professor and Medical Director of Addiction Medicine, Stanford’s School of Medicine. She is also Program Director of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. In 2016, she published a best-selling book on the prescription drug epidemic, Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop and is currently at work on a new book, out next year. Without a doubt, my favorite part of this interview is when she discloses her own personal form of addictive behavior. You’re not gonna believe it. And I BLESS her for her vulnerability and openness. Get ready. You’re gonna LOVE this conversation.

I am thrilled for you to meet Keita Williams, professional butt-kicker and founder of Success Bully—an elite accountability practice dedicated to supporting high performing “Type A”s who are looking to take their great to GREATER.  I talk to lots of performance coaches, but what interested me about Keita's work is the focus on systems of accountability. Research shows that if we set specific accountability appointments, goal accomplishment goes up to 95%. Success Bully merges this powerful combination of strategic goal setting and accountability for real action, and I am VERY interested in real action. The Success Bully team has facilitated workshops for notable brands like: Amazon, Alley to the Valley, Apptio, DomainTools, Facebook’, Ladies Get Paid, Microsoft, Meredith Corp., PartnerTap, O’Reilly Media, and WeWork Labs. So get ready and gird your loins. Because she’s about to kick butt, in the best possible way.

If you’re like me, and so many people I work with, people are relying on you to bring your A game every single day. To the sales pitch. To the team meeting. To your family. To your community. The problem is that these days—unlike our pre-Covid lives—there are no natural transitions and breaks in the day. We don’t have the car ride to work. The subway ride home. The shutting down of the laptop so we can pack up our bags and head home to sort out dinner. It's the perfect storm for burnout, friends. In this episode, I share one of the most powerful practices for avoiding burnout, and why I think it's time each of us cultivated a proper Transition Ritual.

“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” That is a quote from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and it speaks to something that has become quite top-of-mind for us these days: empathy. The concept of empathy is finally enjoying some well-deserved attention in the zeitgeist right now. We are seeing the limits of a black/white, right/wrong view of the world. We crave connection and understanding not through judgement and confrontation, but through the lens of understanding … through the lens of empathy. My guest today is Maria Ross, author of The Empathy Edge: Harnessing the Value of Compassion as an Engine for Success, a Playbook for Brands, Leaders and Teams. In it, Maria shares some fantastic stories from executives, changemakers, and leaders of all stripes proving that empathy is not only good for us at a personal level, but that it is also great for business. The Empathy Edge is full of practical tips, insights, and opportunities to exercise empathy, and I am thrilled to bring you this conversation with Maria Ross.

Have you ever met someone and just known you were going to become friends? That’s exactly what happened to me when I met my guest today, the amazing JD Schramm. JD and I met when I was doing the speaker coaching for the TEDxStanford program, and immediately connected. JD founded the Mastery in Communication Initiative at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, where he’s served as a lecturer in Organizational Behavior for 13 years. JD has given not one but TWO TED Talks, which have nearly 2 million views. And earlier this year, before Covid hit, he launched a new book into the world called Communicate with Mastery: Speak with Conviction and Write for Impact. The book is so helpful, so practical, and so filled with great stories, I wanted to bring him on to talk about it.

A few years ago, I was in a 1:1 coaching session with a very bright young woman who came to our session with a very specific communication problem: She felt she lacked “presence” in the room. Jane and I worked on lots of different ways to show up in the room … ways to signal her power, her strength, her intelligence. Ways of replacing the negative thought patterns she was telling herself about herself and about the people with whom she was meeting. But one of the pieces of advice I gave her made her do a double take. I asked her: what do you to bring pleasure and joy into your life? In this episode, I make my case for the connection between "presence" and our commitment to cultivating pleasure and joy in our lives.