GRACE under Pressure John Baldoni

Sally Helgesen, cited in Forbes as the world’s premier expert on women’s leadership, is an internationally best-selling author, speaker and leadership coach. This week she is being inducted into the Thinkers 50 Hall of Fame, which honors those whose thinking has shaped the field of leadership worldwide. She also ranked number 5 among the world’s thought leaders by Global Gurus. Sally’s newest book is Rising Together: How We Can Bridge Divides and Create a More Inclusive Workplace. Sally’s book, How Women Rise, co-authored with Marshall Goldsmith, examines the behaviors most likely to get in the way of successful women. Rights have been sold in 22 languages. Previous books include The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership, hailed as the classic in its field and continuously in print since 1990, and The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work, which explores how women’s strategic insights can strengthen their careers. The Web of Inclusion: A New Architecture for Building Great Organizations, was cited in The Wall Street Journal as one of the best books on leadership of all time and is credited with bringing the language of inclusion into business. www.sallyhelgesen.com

Jason Davis has spent his entire two decade career in the music industry and worked with many worldwide stars, including Boyz ll Men, Sugar Ray, P. Diddy, Alabama, Lonestar, Dolly Parton, among many others before working in Christian music.     Davis is an entertainment industry executive with a broad range of titles including award winning songwriter, award winning author, independent record label president, executive TV producer, entertainment consultant, former Senior VP of A&R for Dolly Parton's management company CTK management and a serial entrepreneur. He also is the author of two books, “Your Love Pursues” and “Business Backwards.”    He has also secured record deal offers with CEO's from the largest music companies in the world, including Capitol Records, Sony, Interscope, Island / Def Jam, Epic, Atlantic, RCA, and J Records.     Traveling between New York, London, Los Angeles, Miami and Nashville, he built a reputation working with the top songwriters, producers, and recording artists in the entertainment industry on a global level.     Over the span of his career, he has not only pioneered new approaches to the signing and development of some of the world most successful recording artists and songwriters such as Anne Wilson, who recently was nominated for a Billboard Award. He has consistently championed innovative business models and partnerships with a wide range of companies around the world.     His career began as a songwriter when he was discovered by Grant Cunningham, the former VP of A&R for Sparrow Records. Davis went on to write a #1 Billboard hit, received several ASCAP songwriting and publishing awards, and was nominated for a Latin music award.  Davis has also co-founded other cutting edge entertainment companies such as: One One 7, Noble Management, and Awaken Records. He is also co-president and partner of booking agency Higher Level Agency. https://oneone7.com/  http://www.noble-management.com/ 

Joel Garfinkle is recognized as one of the top 50 executive coaches in America. Global Gurus named Joel #14 on its list of the top 30 global coaching experts. He is also a Master Certified Coach (MCC) — the highest level of achievement in coaching — and author of 11 books and over 300 articles on leadership. Joel has been an interviewed expert for the following publications:HBR, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, USA Today, Forbes, CNN, NYT, and NPR. His client list for executive coaching and corporate training includes Google, Amazon, Starbucks, Bank of America, Microsoft, Oracle, Deloitte, Ritz-Carlton, Genentech, NBC, the NBA, and many other prestigious companies. His newest book is “Executive Presence.”  https://garfinkleexecutivecoaching.com/

Ed Batista has been an executive coach since 2006, working with senior leaders who are facing a challenge or would like to be more effective or fulfilled in their roles. He also spent more than a decade as a Lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Most of Ed’s clients are technology company CEOs, but he works with leaders in fields from investing to biotech. Issues he addresses with clients include managing relationships with key employees, improving leadership team dynamics, transitioning from technical expert to leader, evolving company culture, and better self-care. Ed’s work as a coach began after a 15-year career in management, during which he took two years off to earn an MBA at Stanford and helped launch three new organizations. is married to Amy Wright, and they lived in San Francisco from 1990 to 2020, when they relocated to a farm 40 miles north of the city. In addition to his MBA, Ed earned a BA in History, magna cum laude, from Brown University. He writes about coaching and related issues at www.edbatista.com.

Ayse (pronounced Eye-Shay) Birsel is one of the world’s leading industrial designers. She has designed hundreds of products, from toilet seats to office systems to potato peelers to concept cars. Her newest book, Design the LONG Life You Love. You’ve probably held or sat on something she has designed for Herman Miller Knoll, Target or Toyota, among many others. Her work has earned her several nicknames—Queen of Toilets, Queen Bee (for offices), Design Evangelista. Interior Design Magazine awarded her Best Of Year Product Designer of 2020. She is one of the Most Creative People In Business according to Fast Company. She was shortlisted among the world’s top 8 coaches by Thinkers50 for Marshall Goldsmith Distinguished Achievement Award for Coaching and Mentoring. She is the author of Design the Life You Love and is recognized as "The #1 Coach for Life Design.” Her design process, Deconstruction:ReconstructionTM, is the red thread across all her work, including this book. Her work can be found in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Ayse was born in Turkey and came to New York City with a Fulbright scholarship, where she now lives and works.  www.aysebirsel.com/newsletter www.designthelonglifeyoulove.com

Tom Peters is coauthor of “In Search of Excellence”—the book that changed the way the world does business and is often tagged as the best business book ever. Twenty books and forty years later, Tom is still at the forefront of the “management guru industry” he single-handedly invented. What’s new? A lot. As CNN said, “While most business gurus milk the same mantra for all it’s worth, the one-man brand called Tom Peters is still reinventing himself.” His most recent effort with coauthor Nancye Green is “Tom Peters’ Compact Guide to Excellence.” (Ideapress Publishing). Tom’s tireless focus is on putting people first and developing leaders who stay in intimate touch with the front-liners who do the real work. In November 2017, Tom received the Thinkers50 Lifetime Achievement Award. Effectively, all of Tom’s written and speech material covering the last 20+ years is available— free to download at tompeters.com and excellencenow.com.  www.tompeters.com

  SRIKUMAR RAO is an elite coach who works with a select group of entrepreneurs, professionals, and senior executives who are already successful and are now ready to make a dent in the universe. They recognize that life is a spiritual journey and wish to imbue that understanding into every facet of their lives. Millions of people have listened to Dr. Rao’s TED Talk and other recordings and attended his programs and workshops. He leads you into a rabbit hole, and you determine how far you want to go. You may wish to travel only a short distance and settle for a life in which you are much more successful, have better relationships, and enjoy more peace. Or you may wish to go all the way and reach what sages have called by many names, such as enlightenment, Nirvana, and awakening. Be aware that if you get there, there will be no you left to celebrate this. The reason Dr. Rao’s approach is so effective is that he draws from the world’s greatest masters. They understood human dilemmas and came up with solutions that have been tested over millennia and proven to work. Dr. Rao is unique in his ability to convert these powerful teachings into exercises acceptable to intelligent people in a postindustrial society. This is why clients seek his sage counsel on both personal and professional matters. Coaching with Dr. Rao will make you exponentially more successful if you are diligent in your practice. Dr. Rao holds a PhD from Columbia Business School, and his courses have been among the most popular and highest rated at many of the world’s top business schools. His work has been covered extensively by major media worldwide. He is the author of Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots: The Movers and Shakers’ Guide to Unstoppable Success; Are You Ready to Succeed? Unconventional Strategies for Achieving Personal Mastery in Business and Life and Happiness at Work: Be Resilient, Motivated, and Successful—No Matter What. He is also the creator and narrator of the audio learning course The Personal Mastery Program: Discovering Passion and Purpose in Your Life and Work. Learn more about Dr. Rao’s work at https://theraoinstitute.com. You can reach him at srikumar.rao@theraoinstitute.com.  You can find his book “Modern Wisdom, Ancient Roots” on amazon.

Chad Lawson, a Steinway Artist and composer, has released numerous number one recordings including his most recent release, “You Finally Knew” (Decca Records/Universal), recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London. He has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR's All Things Considered and is usually found on concert stages around the world (at least...until Covid hit the playbill). He began the podcast, Calm it Down, after receiving countless emails from listeners detailing how his music is helping them calm their anxieties and emotional struggles. “I simply had to do something.” he states. “I wanted to go deeper in trying to help others in their most difficult times of life.” During the pandemic, Lawson widened his reach with the launch of “Calm It Down” in September 2020, a turn of events that’s further heightened his sense of purpose. A fully independent one-man show, “Calm It Down” finds Lawson expounding on an inspired range of topics (forgiveness and anxiety, butterflies and Snoopy), setting his insightful yet charmingly candid ruminations against a tranquil backdrop of his own solo piano music. Referring to himself as “an extreme empath by nature,” Lawson began classical training in piano as a child and later developed a thriving career as a jazz pianist, but eventually felt compelled to follow an entirely new direction in his music. “The reason I stopped playing jazz is that I didn’t feel it connected on an emotional level,” he says. “When I made my first solo piano album, I was incredibly sick with ulcerative colitis and found that creating this music was very healing to me. Then after I put it out, I started hearing from listeners who’d say things like ‘I just lost a loved one and felt like you were holding my hand through the most difficult time in my life.’ That’s when things started making sense for me, in terms of making emotion the core of everything I do.” As his audience grew exponentially, Lawson soon found himself featured on the likes of “CBS Sunday Morning” and NPR’s “All Things Considered,” in addition to turning out a series of #1 releases and landing high-profile sync placements with such shows as “The Walking Dead” and “Viceland.” www.chadlawson.com calmitdownpodcast.com    

Julia Boorstin is CNBC’s Senior Media & Tech Correspondent and has been an on-air reporter for the network since 2006. She also plays a central role on CNBC’s bicoastal tech-focused program “TechCheck” delivering reporting, analysis, and CEO interviews with a focus on social media and the intersection of media and technology. In 2013, Boorstin created and launched the CNBC Disruptor 50, an annual list she oversees, highlighting private companies transforming the economy and challenging companies in established industries. She also helped launch the network’s ‘Closing the Gap’ initiative covering the people and companies closing gender and diversity gaps. A graduate of Princeton University, she has been a reporter for Fortune magazine, as well as a contributor to CNN and CNN Headline News. She was also an intern for Vice President Gore’s domestic policy office. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two sons. www.juliaboorstin.com

Carol Hutchins wrapped up her 38th season at the helm of the University of Michigan softball program in 2022. The winningest coach in NCAA softball history, Hutchins has guided the Wolverines to an NCAA title and 22 Big Ten Conference titles and solidified Michigan among the top softball programs in the country. She was inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2006. With a career record of 1,707-551-5 over her 39 total seasons as a NCAA head coach, Hutchins is the winningest coach in NCAA softball history. "Hutch" has been a part of the Michigan softball program since 1983 when she joined the staff as an assistant coach under Bob DeCarolis. She moved into the head coach position in 1985 and, in each of her 38 head coaching seasons, has continued Michigan's tradition of softball success. Michigan has never suffered a losing season in program history. Hutchins has led the Wolverines to the Women's College World Series on 12 occasions, and, in 2005, the Maize and Blue became the first program east of the Mississippi River to claim the NCAA national championship when it defeated UCLA in the championship series. Michigan's record-setting 2005 season was the culmination of two decades of dedication for Hutchins and her current and former players and coaches. In that magical season, Michigan set records in a number of categories, including: First softball national championship • A program-best 65 wins • A program-best 32 consecutive victories (spanning 47 days, from Feb. 13 to March 30) • First No. 1 ranking (March 22) • First No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament • First victory over a top-ranked opponent (6-2 win over No. 1 Arizona) Before becoming Michigan's third softball coach, Hutchins spent one year as the head coach at Ferris State University (1982). While at Ferris, she led the Bulldogs to the NCAA Division II National Tournament and was selected Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Coach of the Year. Hutchins was an assistant coach at Indiana University (1981) -- under legendary coach Gayle Blevins -- and at Michigan (1983-84). Hutchins founded the Michigan Softball Academy in 2010 in conjunction with the program's annual "Pink Game." The academy is a one-night on-field clinic for adults that raises funds for the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer organization. Hutchins and the Michigan softball program initially formed an affiliation with Making Strides Against Breast Cancer for its annual walk in 2007. Since then, the Wolverines have raised more than $1,000,000 for the American Cancer Society. https://mgoblue.com/sports/softball/roster/coaches/carol-hutchins/5645