The Leadership Mind Podcast
with Massimo Backus
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The Leadership Mind Podcast
Leadership, by its very definition, is a human experience. We operationalize, optimize, and codify leadership as an experience we get better at doing. This podcast is about Humans Being Leaders as much as the "doing" of leadership.
These episodes help reveal the potential of what can be to leaders who balance growing a business, leading a team, and being fully engaged and present with their families.
Recent Episodes…
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Michael Bungay Stanier, the author of seven books which between them have sold over a million copies. He’s best known for The Coaching Habit, the best-selling coaching book of the century and already recognized as a classic. His new book, How to Begin, helps people be more ambitious for themselves and for the world. Michael was a Rhodes Scholar and plays the ukulele badly. He’s Australian, and lives in Toronto, Canada. Learn more at www.MBS.works.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Finding a thrilling, important, and daunting goal - one worthy of your commitment.
Understanding what it means to be a great facilitator.
Make sure to acknowledge when you are at your best and at your worst.
There is always a cost to not pursuing your goal, even if not pursuing it is the most comfortable option.
Strive for progress over success.
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Johnathan and Melissa Nightingale, the founders of Raw Signal Group and best-selling authors of How F*cked Up Is Your Management? An Uncomfortable Conversation About Modern Leadership and Unmanageable: Leadership Lessons from an Impossible Year.
Prior to Raw Signal Group, the Nightingales worked in tech for 20 years. Between them, they’ve run every part of a start-up and learned a lot along the way about how to grow teams. They met in the early days of Mozilla and have been collaborating in one form or another ever since.
Johnathan and Melissa have worked with thousands of leaders across the globe. They also write a wildly popular biweekly newsletter about management, leadership, and work.
Highlights from today’s episode include:
Good management is often neglected and transcends industries.
Good management is about listening and implementing based on feedback.
Working out problems in groups can go a long way.
You can manage almost any person or group of people with the same fundamental principles that everyone can relate to.
Massimo is joined by Karen M. Allen, a professional speaker and mindset thought-leader who is committed to guiding people and organizations to reach their highest potential by developing their mental strength.
After the unexpected loss of her husband followed by years of transformational experiences, Karen discovered methodologies and lifestyle changes that helped her find her way back to a whole heart. Now, she shares practical advice and research-based strategies that empower audiences to overcome stress-induced burnout, pain, stress, anxiety, and other mindset challenges we all face in life and work.
Karen is the go-to mindset and success coach for high-achievers who are hungry to master their mind and establish sustainable habits that will give them the confidence, clarity and energy to achieve deep, lasting change as they reach their full potential.
Karen's client list includes AT&T, Kaiser Permanente, Travelers Insurance, NBC’s Golf Channel, Hubspot, Universal Orlando Parks & Resorts, Sprint and many more! Her work has been featured in Forbes, Parent Magazine, on Good Morning America, MSNBC, and many others!
Highlights from today’s episode include:
How consciousness is defined so that you can choose it everyday in order to live a purposeful life
Using mindfulness to make conscious decisions in your life
Identifying your guiding compass
How to claim your boundaries in the workplace
How to shorten the time that you experience overwhelm and stress
The one question to ask yourself if you are currently unhappy in your situation
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Julie Winkle Giulioni, a champion for workplace growth and development and helps executives and leaders optimize talent and potential within their organizations. One of Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 speakers, she’s the author of Promotions Are So Yesterday: Redefine Career Development. Help Employees Thrive and the co-author of the international bestseller, Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go: Career Conversations Organizations Need and Employees Want, translated into seven languages.
Julie is a regular columnist for Training Industry Magazine and SmartBrief and contributes articles on leadership, career development, and workplace trends to numerous publications including The Economist. You can keep up with Julie through her blog, LinkedIn and Twitter.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Valuable alternatives to promotions
What employees really value in their careers
How to close the gap between what employees really want and what employers can offer
How to initiate a conversation with your employer about opportunities outside of a promotion
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Matt Burns. Matt transforms organizations. As a business executive, he led a group recognized in 2018 as the Canadian HR Team of the Year - Retail / Hospitality, following-up their 2017 award for the Most Innovative Use of HR Technology.
Today as the Founder & CEO at BentoHR, Matt simplifies digital transformation; aligning strategy, technology & human capital in organizations to improve performance. And as the Host of the Thinking Inside the Box podcast, Matt interviews innovative business leaders to discuss complex issues related to work and culture.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to stave off empathy fatigue
How he knew he was on the verge of burnout and the advice he got before he completely burned out
The touching story that inspired him to create BentoHR
The advice Matt has for you if you’re currently feeling rudderless
Mistakes leaders are making that they may not be aware of
How you can make better use of your technology and data
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Geoffrey Roche. Geoffrey is currently the Senior Vice President of National Healthcare Practice and Workforce Partnerships at Core Education PBC. He speaks often on healthcare workforce topics at national conferences such as Becker's Annual Conference, HIMMS, and ViVE. In 2022, Roche was also nominated to the Forbes Business Council for his national-level work.
Roche has over nine years of hospital administration experience, including senior leadership roles in various departments at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Pocono. He also held leadership positions at Lebanon Valley College and Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, focusing on strategic partnerships, organizational strategy, and business development. Roche earned his Master of Science degree in Management and Leadership: Public Administration at East Stroudsburg University and his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science at Moravian University. He also holds several certificates, including a Mini-MBA in Healthcare from the University of Arizona’s Eller Executive Education, Innovation in Healthcare Management from Arizona State University, Healthcare Leadership from Duke Corporate Education, and Heroic Leadership from Santa Clara University.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
What it means to truly be of service to both your team and your customers
The importance of having empathy when running a business and overseeing a team of people
Treating your team members as if they are customers
How to protect yourself from the potential of being let go in a volatile work landscape
Why succession planning and mentoring for the future need to be focused on more in leadership.
Massimo’s guest is Kristen Hartley. In her coaching, Kristen brings all of her experiences to bear; these include working as a coach, organizational consultant, facilitator, trainer, and manager of many teams. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Sociology and Communications from the University of California, San Diego and an MBA from Vanderbilt University with a focus in Human and Organizational Performance. She lives in Northern California with her husband and their two young, very active sons. She is on a lifelong pursuit of balance in her own life, as someone who loves her work, being a parent, and getting more than 6 hours of sleep! Being a parent has more parallels to being a coach and leader than she ever could have imagined and is experimenting and learning every day how to be better at all of these roles. She loves working with fellow parents who are on a similar journey.
Highlights from this interview include:
How to understand the values of your team and what to do if their values don’t align with the values of the organization
How she closed the gap between longing for something different and taking action to change her life
The catch-22 of being & doing how to find the balance between the two
The struggles Kristen faced going from a manager and recipient of training to being the trainer and facilitator herself
Her advice for managers and leaders navigating uncharted waters like hybrid working and quiet quitting
How Kristen would rebrand feedback and better ways to have hard conversations than the traditional ways we are taught
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Gabby Lubin, Ed.M., a passionate wellness executive. She experienced burnout 3x before turning 30 and decided that she’d had enough. Since then, she has dedicated her life to eliminating burnout through the intentional implementation of the 8 dimensions of wellness.
Her unique expertise allows her to sit at the intersection of wellness and the future of work. Gabby has taught wellness, studied the science of wellness, and founded a business in wellness (Spark This Day). She also brings her expertise in intervention programming and Master's in Adult Development and Behavior Change from Harvard to the forefront of her work. To sink deeper into her unique intersection, Gabby hosts the podcast Capital P in People Work which interviews guests in People Work on the people, wellness, and the future of work.
Highlights from this interview include:
Her journey of being burnt out 3 times
What to do when you begin burning out (or how to start healing if you are burnt out right now)
How organizations can successfully bring wellness in and create an environment that reduces burnout
The pitfalls many organizations face in their efforts to help employees bring their best selves to the workplace
The 5 stages of burnout and how her company supports people that are in each stage
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Greg Witz. Greg’s sole mission in life is to challenge all of us to be better. MAKING HUMANS BETTER HUMANS has been at the foundation of his leadership training company, Witz Education, for over 30 years.
As an entrepreneur, thought leader, author, mentor and father, Greg creatively blends psychology and communication skills with street smarts and a no BS approach. From startups to the White House, bringing entrepreneurs and business leaders to the top of their game is Greg’s passion. His rich understanding of organizational and human development coupled with his own corporate experience allows Greg to effectively and energetically design and deliver tailor-made programs that have transformed thousands of Witz clients’ careers and personal lives.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How he got into sales and facilitation and why he hated it when he first got started
The struggles he experienced while growing a business and how he handled the hardest years
How a turbulent relationship with his father shaped how he leads and acts today
The downsides of his relentlessness and how he manages the fire within him
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Dr. Johanna Pagonis. She is the CEO and founder of Sinogap Solutions Leadership Consulting, and the author of Choose to Be a Leader Others Would Want to Follow. Dr. Pagonis launched Sinogap Solutions after recognizing many habitual workplace challenges while in her role as a manager. Her workplace experiences contributed to her attaining a Ph.D. in adult education, with a focus on uncovering how workplace managers can advance into emotionally intelligent leaders.
The discoveries she made inspired her to quit her senior management position with the Government of Alberta and launch her own business. Since the full-time establishment of Sinogap Solutions in 2020, Dr. Pagonis’ firm has worked with over 50 companies to develop customized leadership programs that have successfully equipped supervisors and managers with the skills necessary to maximize the human potential within their teams. She also hosts a podcast called Tackle Tuesdays that addresses meaningful topics that challenge us in the workplace.
Highlights from this interview include:
The necessity of trust and relationships within a team for success
Understanding and working through the systems we’re born into
The importance of safe spaces/psychological safety in the workplace
Practising self-compassion, especially in our mistakes and failures
Listening to the champion and challenger within yourself to stay motivated yet humble
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Mike Buccialia. His career has been in the travel and technology fields, and he has leveraged job opportunities as a catalyst for change and adventure. In order to explore new places and challenges, he has often taken a different path when the opportunity arose.
Since 2000, he has been a lifeguard at Disney World; worked as a call center agent in Las Cruces, NM; a Regional Director of South East Asia in Sydney and Singapore; a Sales Executive for a consulting firm; a Sales Leader for Adobe in San Francisco; and currently a Mindset Mentor and Small Business Coach.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How he began to rewire his thoughts and overcame the belief that ‘you are who you are’
The revelations Mike experienced through his silent retreat
The mind-body connection that Mike learned and carries into his life to this day
Learning to get comfortable with the impermanence of life
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Therese Huston, a cognitive scientist at Seattle University and the author of three books. Her latest book, Let’s Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower, was recently published by Penguin Random House. Therese received her BA from Carleton College and her MS and PhD in cognitive psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. She completed a prestigious post-doc in neuroscience at the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition and recently finished a post-graduate program in Organizational Leadership at the University of Oxford. In 2004, Therese founded the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Seattle University. Her last book, How Women Decide, was named a summer reading title by Oprah.com and called “required reading on Wall Street” by the New York Times. Therese leads workshops and consults internationally on how to give and solicit more actionable feedback. In addition to speaking at TEDx, Therese has talked at Microsoft, Amazon, the Cleveland Clinic, and the US State Department about how to create more inclusive workplaces.
Highlights from this interview include:
How to give hard feedback
How to ensure alignment on expectations between the manager and employee
The importance of creating psychological safety when we give feedback to our employees
Why it is so important for managers to praise the ‘superstars’ on the team as well
What you can do to be a good listener
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Simon Severino. He is the CEO of Strategy Sprints™ which is a method that doubles revenue in 90 days by getting owners out of the weeds. He also helps business owners run their companies more effectively, resulting in soaring sales! Simon is trusted by many platforms and companies, including; Google, Roche, Consilience Ventures, Amgen, and AbbVie. He is also a TEDx speaker, a Contributor to Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, and a member of the SVBS Silicon Valley Blockchain Society.
Highlights from this interview include:
Turning ideas (or assumptions) into promises
Identifying and following the natural order of business to succeed
Building habits to establish systems versus relying on discipline
Seeing your business and role as a team unit versus as individuals
How creating smaller, incremental goals boosts productivity, agility, and morale better than large, long-term goals
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Richard Lewine. He is the Founder of Executive Concierge Services and President of RSL Consulting Group. He is a grand vizier & mentor who uses his extensive life experience and wisdom to help change the lives of his clients. Richard is relentless in his approach and guides his clients to set and achieve their most important goals. His methodology results in sustainable skills that positively impact people’s careers, the bottom line of their businesses, and their personal lives. Lewine has created a series of services including; organization goals sessions and sales plus-leadership, vision building and strategy formulation, the presidents' alliance, the objective performance appraisal system, and succession planning. Richard is currently focused on preparing the next generation of Family Offices to steward the vast wealth that will be handed off to them over the next 5 years. A few of his goal-directed workshops include; Job-Matching That Works, Tapping Your Family Office Potential, and B2B Selling Success!
Highlights from this interview include:
Learning to make good judgement calls by doing due diligence for yourself
Breaking out of a hostile work environment and creating a better, safer, workspace
The importance of your own morals and interpersonal relationships in the work field
How to work based on goals versus out of fear and survival
The differences and harmony between coaching, consulting, and counselling
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Liz Kislik. She is a management consultant and executive coach, and a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review and Forbes. She also specializes in developing high-performing leaders and workforces, and for 30 years has helped many companies like American Express, Girl Scouts, Staples, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Highlights for Children solve their thorniest problems. Liz is also a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches initiative, which brings together the world’s top coaches and thinkers. She has taught at both Hofstra University and New York University; and is a frequent podcast guest. She has also received her BA from Yale University and earned an MBA in Management from NYU.
Highlights from this interview include:
Breaking down the cause, and steps to solutions of interpersonal conflicts
Learning to break down and question personal biases
Making reasonable and attainable commitments to hold oneself accountable
Dealing with bullies within organizations, and how bullies may self justify
Learning to reflect and regulate your emotions in work and personal scenarios
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Adam McGraw.
He is currently obsessed with being able to connect his inner drive to his true passions, while ensuring relationships and fulfillment are the true markers of “success”. He’s a self-admitted WIP on this inward journey to truly self-actualize and he loves inspiring and helping others realize how they can create systems and processes to do the same.
He has recently supported and coached hundreds of senior executives and their teams at some of the top fortune brands and fast growing SMEs.
Now, he’s thrilled to also be building a private, members only community curated exclusively for Senior Leaders that helps them connect, give, grow, and continue to find ways to enrich their lives and careers.
Highlights from this interview include:
How he got his career started by creating voice overs and the lessons he learned from that experience
How thinking big leads to more opportunities in your life and how to identify the external factors that act as barriers to thinking big
How leaders can be resourceful and creative when resources are limited
How to blend patience with ambition as a young leader and a hyper achiever
The one book that changed his life and how he turned it into a daily practice that allowed him to change the way he operates in the world
The unique community he and his dad created for senior executives to feel safe, courageous, and authentic.
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Andy Storch, a Consultant, Coach, Author, Speaker and Connector. He is the host of two podcasts including The Talent Development Hot Seat and the Own Your Career Podcast as well as the author of the book, Own Your Career Own Your Life. He is also the founder and host of the Talent Development Think Tank conference and community.
Most importantly, Andy is a husband, father and friend who is on a mission to get the absolute most out of life and inspire others to do the same.
Highlights from this interview include:
His biggest shifts that happened whenever he continued down the path of growth
How to start actually implementing the information you are learning instead of just consuming and forgetting it
How to discern what will be a quality use of your time and money when you are choosing how to invest in yourself and your growth
His anecdotes to getting caught in comparison
The trends he sees organizations implementing to combat uncertainty and volatility in organizations
The three pillars to success career development and growth
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Leila Towne Bulling,an executive leadership coach, and trainer. Her focus is on helping leaders make better decisions, guiding their teams, and having more difficult conversations while having more fun at work. She’s been working closely with leaders for 20+ years and has coached founders, VPs, and C-suite executives in companies all over the world.
Highlights from this interview include:
How she made daunting and mundane learning approachable
Why people struggle to set goals, provide feedback, and delegate
How to ensure you’re creating a great experience for your team using technology
How leaders can be more intentional about how they show up for their team, tough conversations, performance reviews, etc.
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by James Adams. James has been an engineer and builder all of his life. James first learned to code when he was five years old. After graduating from high school at the age of sixteen, he studied Computational Mathematics at Arizona State University. He has been in IT professionally for 22 years. James spent half of my career developing large, distributed web applications, primarily in Java. After rising through the ranks as an engineer, architect, team lead and manager, he pivoted to full-time consulting and moved his focus to cloud infrastructure. The second half of his career has been spent building cloud-focused consulting companies. James has built two Premier AWS Partners (Slalom and Caylent), and is now building his own called Ackolyte Consulting, which launched in July of this year. Ackolyte is an all-in-on-AWS Advanced Tier consulting partner which runs in a regional remote plus travel model, with 100% US-based consultants.
Highlights from this interview include:
How he learned how to let go of control and perfectionism and step into delegation and trust of his team
His strategy for hiring and why he allows his team to interview the person that will be hired to manage them
Tips for effective one on ones with team members
The surprising policy he has implemented for his consultants and how it is driving more productivity
How he has created a space that people feel comfortable asking for help
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Abigail Morgan Prout, a passionate advocate for poetry as a medium of cultivating professional leadership. Abigail has worked as a professional Co-Active coach for the last 20 years and has spent the last 8 years as faculty for the Co-Active Training Institute, leading their coaching and leadership courses. She returned with her husband Clive to Washington State to live on the small island where she grew up to raise their two children, Iona and Jax. She can be found rambling, singing, and listening in the coastal forest every morning with her silky black lab, Bella. Walk Deep is the winner of the 2021 Homebound Poetry Prize and published by Homebound Publishing October 4th, 2022.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
What inspired Abigail to write one poem per day for an entire year and what she learned from it
THe benefits of spending more time in nature and how to do it, no matter where you live
What has to be present for leadership to occur
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Entrepreneur and Co-host of the Gratitude Blooming Podcast, Omar. Omar is inspired by nature, gratitude, and web3. He co-founded the gratitude app gthx (as in “gee thanks”), facilitates Gratitude Circles for leaders across sectors, and recently launched Long Horizon to advise on and invest in web3 projects.
Previously, Omar was the founding executive director of RiverLA where he collaborated with architect Frank Gehry and local leaders to reimagine the 51-mile Los Angeles River. He has held leadership positions across the areas of finance, land use, and social impact. Wherever he is, Omar makes sure to take a beat to notice beauty and share his joy.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
The power of using a beginner's mind to find innovation and solutions
The turning point when he realized he needed to direct his focus away from changing the world and more to changing himself
How to build trust in order to drive change
How to disrupt our default habits to create long-term change
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Shannon Flanagan. Over the course of her career, by design, she has chosen to grow through different types of roles in order to develop a well-rounded perspective of how to optimize the levers that propel organizations through: first and foremost people, and connecting the dots across strategy, process and technology.
She’s particularly passionate about how to open the aperture of what it means to empower a truly diverse and inclusive environment to enable realization of individual and organizational potential. One of the most important human needs is to feel included and a part of a community. Sadly, to date, most organizations have created environments that recruit and reward like thinking and experience. For visions and missions to be realized, diversity and inclusion must be a priority in action, resulting in better decision making and happier employees who pay that energy forward to customers, colleagues and the world around them.
Leading with authenticity, empathy, enthusiasm, pragmatism and integrity is the cornerstone of her approach. At the end of the day, we all want to feel valued, productive and proud of what we do – creating the conditions for that to actualize is what fuels her fire.
Highlights from today’s episode include:
How leaders can foster an environment for others to share their mental health story
Ways that leaders/organizations, and even individuals, can create space for the tragedies in the world
How to practice radical acceptance
Overcoming the challenge of other people not accepting you
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Karl Ostroski, a global IT leader with decades of experience delivering technical solutions that solve problems and make life better. While his head is professionally in "The Cloud" focused on software delivery, he's vocationally passionate about developing culturally inclusive leaders and practicing and promoting mindfulness.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How we learned mindfulness and experienced silent retreats as an extrovert
How he learned to handle conflict based on his enneagram
His relationship with surrender and how he has learned to detach from the outcomes of events
The advice Karl gives for people who struggle asking for help
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Molly Mandelberg, the Founder of Wild Hearts Rise Up, Creator of “Magnetic Influencer Collective” and also the writer and illustrator of "The Wild Hearts Rise Up Oracle Deck". She is the host of both “Tactical Magic” Podcast and “Reveal the Game of Life” Podcast.
After spending years mastering content creation and online marketing, Molly finds her bliss in bridging the worlds of heart-centered healing and transformation, with the practical business strategies of leveraging a message into a global movement. She is a certified NLP Coach, an Access Consciousness Bars Facilitator, a Transformational Leadership Coach and a full time Nomad.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to create boundaries in your business in order to give yourself more space in your life
Energetic blocks you may have that may be holding you back from our goals
How to take your business from where it is to where you want it to be
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Martha Acosta, a sought after speaker, facilitator, and expert in Human and Organizational Learning who helps high-reliability organizations navigate the complexity of human systems in their operations. Martha is a member of the HOP HUB Consortium with other thought leaders in the Human and Organizational Performance movement. Martha also represents Harvard Business Publishing (a subsidiary of Harvard Business School) as Senior Moderator who designs and facilitates leadership development programs based on Harvard scholarship. Before joining Harvard, Martha led the Human Performance Improvement Team for the nuclear facilities at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where she helped develop a national safety initiative for the Department of Energy and won LANL's Director's Achievement Award. Martha began her career in Silicon Valley helping fast-growing technology companies build the sales and support capacity needed to commercialize their innovative solutions. Later, she led the design and delivery of global leadership programs for a division of News International in the United Kingdom.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to build capacity to be error-tolerant and respond to failure effectively
How leaders can create an environment of physiological safety and the misconceptions that come with it
The common knowledge effect and how leaders hide their expertise to feel safe in a group
How to change your relationship to your ego
Taking an appreciative approach to your dissatisfaction to understand the gap of where you are and where you want to be
What’s in a name? Well, in Aryeh Sheinbein’s case, it’s a perfect metaphor for his track record as a wealth architect; his given name derives from the Hebrew word אריה) aryé), meaning “lion.” He is every bit a lion for those he works with: passionate, courageous, protective, and willing to fight for the valuable assets his clients entrust him with and he is on the podcast this week with Massimo.
Aryeh’s bread and butter is helping successful business owners and entrepreneurs invest their money intelligently, allowing their wealth to accumulate so they can stay focused on what truly matters—their business and mission. He’s spent his entire career sharpening his operational experience with investments and valuing businesses, having worked with top private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, investment managers, and banks, as well as a wealth of success in the eCommerce and Amazon selling spaces. Aryeh is particularly skilled in managing large, complex projects and teams—a credit to his excellent executive leadership skills rooted in finance, business strategy, marketing, and operations.
When he’s not sculpting the financial futures of his clients, Aryeh loves coaching his kids' sports teams, donating his time to various non-profit organizations, and enjoying quality time with his four wonderful kids and amazing wife. He also hosts the iTunes Top 100-ranked Inside the Lions Den podcast, a show that explores the leadership skills, financial acumen, and operational improvements required for sustained entrepreneurial and financial success.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How he learned to leverage business and assets through his experience with trading baseball cards
Challenges Aryeh sees when people are adopting a new way of doing business
Life lessons from the unprecedented times in the world
How he has become more passionate with where he wants to go and who he wants to be
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Ricky Sing, leader of Software AG’s IoT business for the Americas region. Bringing together deep industry knowledge and business acumen, he is focused on developing and executing a winning strategy that aligns customer needs and market trends with the best-in-class Cumulocity IoT platform.
Ricky is a results-driven digital business leader with a track record of helping customers solve complex challenges through application of technology and design-driven thinking. He leverages his skills in corporate strategy, business development, and IoT platforms & business models to deliver meaningful outcomes across industries.
Prior to joining Software AG, Ricky served as Head of Innovation & Emerging Products at T-Mobile for Business, where he was responsible for the strategy, development, and management of IoT, Private Networks, Edge Computing and other emerging technologies. Before joining T-Mobile, Ricky spent 14+ years consulting leaders at global companies on IoT and mobility while at Accenture and through his own consultancy, which came to bear after several years of owning a business in cellular retail across multiple carriers.
Ricky holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Information Systems Operations Management from George Mason University and an Executive MBA from Quantic School of Business & Management.
In his free time, you might find Ricky attending concerts in his hometown of Falls Church, Virginia, chatting with guests at his restaurant in downtown Washington DC, cycling around town, or reading a book!
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to scale your business to a place where it can run without you being there everyday
His experience going from a CEO of a multi-million dollar business to a data analyst that was stocking coffee everyday and how he shifted his mindset around doing something new and being a beginner again
Why Ricky doesn’t allow his team to introduce themselves by their title or who they work for
The future of technology and IoT
Why we need to learn how to lead ourselves first
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Waleed Bekheet, Founder & CEO at Protagona. Waleed moved to the United State from Egypt to Dallas at 16 and became a tireless learner from his experience. He was a tenacious participant in Massimo’s leadership program a few years ago and joins us today to discuss his journey from landing in Dallas and learning a new language and getting acclimated to a new culture to being the CEO and Founder of his own company.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to align your values to your vision
Why slowing down when he realized he was not aligned with the work he was doing catapulted him into figuring out what was next for him
The journey to figuring out the depths of where his imposter syndrome came from
How he creates a people-first culture in his company
Why vulnerability is a key value with both his team and his clients
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Shawna Schuh. A lifetime adventurer, entertainer, and leadership expert, Shawna is an innovative thought-leader who can help you unpack the pesky problems you encounter when you lead people.
With a curious mind, herself, and a Master’s Certificate in Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Shawna is exceptionally skilled in the art of uncovering leadership blind spots through coaching, facilitating leadership groups and catapulting leaders out of the leadership weeds and into leading teams effectively.
Having worked with organizations like Nike and Columbia Sportswear to associations such as Fashion Group International and the National Speakers Association. Shawna shares a unique perspective so that the information and ideas she promotes stick and work.
With two TEDx talks to her credit, as well as 3 decades of experience, you will be enlightened as well as challenged while shifting from the less stellar things most leaders do to focus only on what the best leaders do.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Why asking “why” questions is not the most effective form of communication with leaders and their employees
Why affirmations are so hard and what we can do to make them successful for us
How to make the shift when you know you are not on the right path
Why pets can be our best teachers when it comes to developing leadership skills
How Shawna became an executive coach
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Michael Condren, an organizational development and leadership development practitioner and researcher.In the past Michael has worked internally and as a consultant in OD, talent management, coaching and leadership development at F250 companies in technology, healthcare, retail and marketing. His work now focuses on people and organizations that are working to create lasting, positive social change. He helps activists, social change agents and their funders design and manage their organizations in ways that sustain individual and collective engagement and effectiveness over time and through adversity.
Michael has an M.A. in positive organizational psychology from Claremont Graduate University, where he is currently finishing his doctorate on organizational characteristics that support social heroes. His research and publications include articles and book chapters on heroism, mentoring and cross-cultural intelligence.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How organizations can maintain engagement, fulfillment, and flow for their employees
What positive deviance is and why it is impactful for building organizations
How organizations can identify and foster the positive deviants in the company
A way that organizations can move away from toxic work culture
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by James Hereford who joined Fairview in 2016 bringing extensive experience in strategically guiding organizations, strengthening core operations and bringing teams together to drive cultural change. Prior to joining Fairview, James served as chief operations officer at Stanford Health Care. Previous roles included chief operations officer at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and a series of leadership roles with the Group Health Care Delivery System. James holds bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics from Montana State University. He has taught courses with Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, University of Washington’s Master of Health Administration program and The Ohio State University’s Masters of Business Operations Excellence program. He is a frequent writer and presenter on the topic of lean management systems and transformation.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Why he says he has learned every good leadership lesson there is to learn from coaching high school basketball in a small town in Montana.
How to not become emotionally hijacked
What allows James to not carry the burden of mistakes, losses, poor decisions that happen in a large company as the President and CEO
The shift in leadership skills need to make the transition from director level to CEO level
The biggest challenges James see for leaders as we come to the realization that the world is not going to back to how it was
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Matthew E. Porter, a father to three amazing kids, a husband to a phenomenal woman, a geek, a trail runner, an ultramarathoner, a sponsored athlete, an MS warrior, and an entrepreneur. He currently serves as Founder and Vice Chairman of Contegix. He is also a board member for a select group of companies - from startup to the established.
He is on a selfish mission to ensure his friend with cystic fibrosis remains healthy and in his family’s life for a long time to come. He wants to change the face of multiple sclerosis - one that acknowledges the challenges while still pursuing dreams.
Porter is most likely to be found on a trail. He began trail running in 2010 after his then 6-year-old daughter questioned whether he would make it to her far off in the future wedding. He has completed numerous ultramarathons – from 50k to 100 miles. He finished the 100 mile Leadville race in 2018. He turned this race into a fundraiser for the disease impacting him - multiple sclerosis. People wanting to see him finish pledged an amount per mile. As Porter wrote, “If you love me, please pledge an amount per mile to encourage me to finish. If you don’t like me and just want to see me suffer, pledge even more per mile.” In total, more than $50,000 was raised for Race to Erase MS. He has continued to raise money with every race since then.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
His Multiple Sclerosis story and how him and his family handled the news
How he rewrote the story of what MS is and looks like
What scares him the most about his diagnosis
How his perception of time and his relationship with saying ‘no’ changed after he was diagnosed
The way in which he shows up as a leader now vs. before his diagnosis
The challenge he is about to embark on to support those with MS and how you can support him
In today’s episode, Massimo is joined by Jess Almlie. Jess has worked in the talent development field for more than 20 years in nonprofit, for-profit, and higher education organizations. She is currently serving as Vice President of Learning Experience in the Benefits Division of WEX, a leading financial technology service provider with over 5,000 associates around the world. In this role, she is responsible for casting vision, defining effective learning strategy, developing learning leaders, and working collaboratively across the organization.
Jess has a BA in organizational communication and a Master’s in educational leadership as well as a certificate in Improving Human Performance. She volunteers as a National Advisor for Chapters within the Association for Talent Development and is a member of the Talent Development Think Tank Community.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to create impactful learning experiences that people will remember
Influencing stakeholders to implement learning and development programs
How to help managers see the value of a program if they haven’t had the experience first hand
How to know you are chartering a successful path forward with your learning programs in a company
Creating a sustainable L&D program that continues to have an impact on those involved
The 3 elements to blended learning approach and hybrid model
The challenges of scaling L&D programs
The one thing she wishes everyone knew about talent and learning
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Taryn Laakso, the founder of UnLaaking Your Potential. Taryn is passionate about igniting the spark in her audience and clients so they play a bigger game in their business. She speaks on topics such as positive mindset, mental well-being, leadership, and overcoming limiting beliefs based on the Positive Intelligence ™ model. She is a contributing author to an Amazon bestseller by Steven Samblis and Forbes Riley, 1 Habit ™ to Thrive in a Post-Covid World, and speaks to the topic of the power of a positive mindset to thrive during challenging times.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
What it means to be a ‘leader within’
Her experience of being a doormat and how she stopped the cycle
Tips to excavate your inner wisdom
The 3-step process for reframing your inner critic voices and stopping them in their tracks
How positive intelligence can positively impact your personal and business life
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Juan Cortés, a leading emotional intelligence workshop facilitator. Juan has been building and shepherding inclusive cultures for world-class brands for 25+ years. As Co-founder of MatterOfCulture, he helps organizations become exceptional places to work.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to define emotional intelligence
What people get wrong about empathy
How leaders can empathize with employee concerns
How to stay out of judgement in order to be empathetic and validate concerns
What self awareness actually is and why it is broken down into internal vs. external awareness
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Rebecca Weaver, the Founder and CEO of HRuprise, an online marketplace that flips traditional HR on its head by providing independent, unbiased HR coaching directly to employees. After 20 years in HR leadership at Fortune-50 companies and startups, she became disillusioned with her own profession in the wake of #MeToo, and realized just how much is stacked in favor of the company. Thus, HRuprise was born to help level the playing field for employees.
Rebecca advises fast-growing companies on how to build equitable HR practices from the ground up, and provides cutting-edge thought leadership on HR disruption as a public speaker, writer and host of the upcoming Problem Performers podcast.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How professionals can get support from an HR professional outside of their organization for unbiased advice full, unrestricted insight on employee concerns
Leadership challenges in entrepreneurship
How to take real action on the issue of white supremacy
What it means for an organization to be employee first vs. people first
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Kevin Campbell, who helps organizations acquire, develop and retain their most valuable asset: their people. Kevin also helps people manage an aspect of their lives that plays a key role in their happiness: their work. He’s spent the last decade of his career building leaders at every level and creating scores of engaged, high-performing, strengths-based teams.
He has driven talent strategy, employee engagement, performance management, and leadership development initiatives for clients in the professional services, medical device, banking, hospitality, consumer products, technology, healthcare and life sciences industries. He also served as a principal investigator and researcher for social science programs funded by the U.S. Federal Government.
Prior to founding Lifted Leadership, Kevin served as a Lead People Scientist for Culture Amp where he helped organizations like Airbnb, Palo Alto Networks, and ServiceNow reinvent and optimize their performance management and employee engagement initiatives.
Kevin also served as a Workplace Consultant and Executive Strengths Coach for Deloitte Human Capital and the Gallup Organization where he helped coach leaders from companies like Stryker, P.F. Chang's, US Bank, Amazon, CH2M (now Jacob's), and PayPal leverage their unique individual talents into greater performance.
As a certified coach, Kevin has logged over 1,000 hours of paid executive coaching and workshop facilitation sessions. As a coach he makes use of a variety of psychometric assessment tools and feedback techniques to identify and coach high-potential, high-performance next generation leaders.
Prior to his career in industry, Kevin received a Master’s in Organizational Psychology where he studied under Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, co-founder of Positive Psychology and the first researcher to recognize and name the mental state of flow—the optimal experience of total engagement.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Understanding your strengths and how to find a career that best suits your strongest characteristics
How to find your flow state to make your work easier
How to bridge the gap between the inherent promises that organizations have with employee engagement processes and the results that are happening
How to help your employees overcome evaluation anxiety
The coaching skills needed for managers to ensure they meet the needs of their employees
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Matthew who has a background in applied learning and behavior science with specific focus in individual, team, and organization development through process coaching and performance consulting. He has spent the last decade developing and managing workforce learning and transformation initiatives and currently works as the Head of DEI for Amazon's Student Programs organization. Additionally, he hosts the podcast “Owning It: Leading By Being Unapologetically You”, co-founded the fashion company Dawson & Deveraux, and is an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Power questions to ask in the workplace
How to set up a polarity map to build stronger teams
The intent versus impact polarity and how it can be harmful when we lose sight of our intentions
How polarities are useful in DEI right now
An exercise you can use to figure out your interdependent polarities
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Mike, a men's transformation coach, founder of the Living Fearless coaching programs, and host of the Living Fearless Today podcast. His decades of experience with overcoming failures, setbacks, and struggles, fuels his clients to overcome their own self-doubt. With his personal journey through overcoming childhood trauma, dyslexia and loss of loved ones, Mike is determined to set the example to not allow excuses to derail you. His podcast, Living Fearless Today, focuses on helping men overcome fear, anxiety and depression by highlighting success stories of those who have lived through it. His insights, methods, and stories of building Post Traumatic Growth have been featured on various podcasts, including Hanging Onto Hope, Extreme Health and April Garcia's PivotMe.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to handle the “I am not enough” thoughts
The specific steps he took to gain courage and overcome his fears
How his dyslexia diagnosis impacted him and his family
How to play into your own strengths
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Tim, a consultant at RAC Leadership that specializes in leadership assessment and development, especially within large multi-national organizations. Leveraging his experiences with different leadership challenges and successes, he has become a valued contributor at RAC while offering insight on assessment, coaching, and client relations. Tim has a specific passion for working with high potential candidates as they form and articulate their leadership styles. Tim holds a Master’s degree in Organizational Development and Change from Fielding Graduate University, and has completed all coursework as a Doctoral candidate, expecting to complete his Ph.D. in early 2022.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Explanation of the social identity theory
Why people fail in the manager role
How people behave and think about themselves determines how successful they will be
The conflict of diversity and inclusion trainings
How to relate to people who are different than to you to ensure they feel included
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Greg, a 25 year self-proclaimed "healthcare nerd" who has spent a career making healthcare more impactful for the patient. Recent experience includes helping launch the telemedicine provider Doctor on Demand and he is currently the head of strategy and growth for Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Greg has also recently launched a new company, Rhythm Design, in order to help companies transform and innovate better from within and he is in the process of writing a book that is a collection of stories and lessons learned along his 25 year career. Greg is a Native Texan and lives in Dallas with his wife of 23 years and 2 of his three children (the other is a freshman at Texas A&M).
Highlights from today's podcast include:
The best ideas often come from the quietest voice in the room
Leadership lessons from early in his career that have shaped his philosophy
The simple power of following through on small things
Looking at challenges as opportunities to grow instead of tests to pass
How to say ‘no’ more often
The fallacy of certainty in leadership
Critical failure when executive sponsorship and alignment are not ensured from beginning to end of project
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Valarie, the Founder and CEO of Valiant Coaching. Her coaching practice includes supporting chief counsels, university deans, as well as senior technology leaders in the hi-tech industry. Valarie seeks to empower her clients to be both resilient and confident, helping them to develop leadership and communication skills that build high performing diverse teams that are deliberately inclusive. Prior to starting Valiant Coaching, Valarie held VP positions at Marriott International, S&P Global, Slalom Build and leadership roles at Cisco Systems, Dell EMC and AT&T Bell Labs. She has managed projects ranging from the development of Marriott’s Bonvoy mobile application to Cisco Systems’ use of machine translation to deliver multilingual support sites. Valarie holds a Masters in Mechanical & Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and a Bachelors from Carnegie Mellon University. She serves on a number of advisory boards that focus on the empowerment of young women and people of color; Girl Scouts, Nerdy Girl Success and TY-Education. She is gleefully married for 35 years and the mother of two amazing women; an attorney and UX designer.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Her experience being the first African American female to graduate in metallurgical and mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University
Where her drive came from to keep going when she could have given up and what it means to be resilient
The challenge in accepting compliments and the impact that has on owning one's role as a leader
The missteps in diversity and inclusion efforts where we undermine the unique needs of each group.
How people can define success and be proactive about their career
Valarie’s mission for her coaching company and how she supports minorities
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Chris Sallquist, an artist and consultant based in Seattle, Washington. His professional experience spans over 25 years in professional services leading teams and businesses, with a focus on curating ideas and experiences that connect people to themselves, others, and the universe.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
The importance of the maxim, "Know thy self," and how to understand your values and what is meaningful to you allows you to live a full life.
When defined by external validation, success can lead to a miss alignment of values and take you off the course of a purpose-driven life.
We talked about how Non-Violent Communication was a turning point for Chris and his relationships with himself and other people.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Loree Draude, an ICF-certified executive coach, leadership consultant and professional speaker. She is the host of the Supersonic Leaders & Teams podcast, in which she interviews inspirational leaders.
Loree has spent the past twenty years in Silicon Valley, most recently leading a team of content designers at Facebook. Prior to Facebook, she led the online advertisers communities and social media business support teams at Google, where she facilitated training and coaching for diversity efforts focused on women, veterans and underrepresented Googlers. Prior to joining Google, she co-founded a mobile app company, created leadership video case studies for Stanford's Graduate School of Business and led marketing at PayNearMe and Military.com. Previously, she was a management consultant for Bain & Company.
Prior to her business career, Loree served in the US Navy for 10 years and left active duty as a Lieutenant Commander. She was one of the first female aviators to fly in a combat jet squadron in the Navy. Loree completed two deployments to the Persian Gulf and a tour as an instructor pilot, accumulating over 1600 flight hours and 300 carrier landings. She wrote about her experiences flying the F/A-18 Hornet and the S-3B Viking in the book She's Just Another Navy Pilot.
She earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of San Diego and an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She lives with her two teenagers and two cats in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Her career as one of the first female Navy pilots to fly combat missions and the thrill of launching off an aircraft carrier.
Her passion for creativity and inspiring others led her to write and perform in a one-women show off-broadway.
The relationship fear plays in limiting our ability to innovate, create change, and reach from what we really want to achieve.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Adam Piandes, the founder of The Art of Masterful Communication, a leadership coach and mentor, consultant, and Forbes columnist, as well as an avid surfer, world traveler, and huge fan and supporter of the Girls Athletic Leadership School.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
The power of connection and community during rudderless times
What happened for Adam when he made the shift from viewing his cancer as something he has, to some he has been diagnosed with.
How leadership starts by taking ownership for our own stories, emotions, needs, and actions
Why vulnerability is a precursor to true curiosity, as curiosity is an inherently vulnerable act.
How finally listening to his truth led Adam to live more aligned to his values, with greater integrity, and build a successful purpose-driven company.
And we both went deep on the universal power of self-compassion as the bridge our internal leadership to that of leadership in our relationships and organizations.
In this solo podcast episode, host Massimo Backus gets vulnerable to share more about himself and his story with the audience. Get to know him better in this episode and how we got to where he is today.
He opens up about:
His fundamental philosophy of surrender and abundance
How he overcame his struggle with dyslexia
How being a college drop out led him to find his passion
How he was humbled in the L&D world and how he came to realize that he sucked as a manager
How he coaches others today
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Alex Yates, a high-energy, high-impact neuroscience-infused business leader bringing inspirational approaches for transformational work with over 25 years of experience --which means he graduated college before he sent his first email #GenX. He's grew up in San Diego where he started his career doing market research for a top 40 radio station, sales training for the San Diego Padres, recruiting for a University, moved to Chicago and re-invented himself as the Marketing Mad Man, before roles in leadership consulting for Humana, change management for Kraft Foods, and now leads work around Change Agility for organizational transformations. A lifelong learner with a creative approach to most everything, Alex is the king of metaphors & analogies who applies 21st century research of neuroscience and human-centered design to shift mindsets to help people choose the change.
Alex moved from sunny San Diego to seasonal Chicago in the middle of a January snowstorm, so he’s personally experienced transformational change. He happily lives in Chicago with his Instagram-influencer wife and two kids where Alex has been voted “Dad of the Year” for 9 consecutive years, in his household.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How Alex's chance encounter with a classmate introduced him to public speaking and discovering his gifts in persuasion and debate.
The power of 'Name it, to tame it" when communicating in emails and chat to let the person know that you want to talk and the why behind it.
The 5 types of evidence for persuasion and communicating effectively.
Why the TED Talk cap is 18 minutes in duration
The power of TikTok for microlearning beyond trendy dance moves.
How research shows that we learn far more effectively by sharing our struggles than we do our successes.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Sarah Cannistra, an L&D Career and Executive Coach, and founder of The Overnight Trainer, specializing in helping aspiring and existing L&D professionals create and built the L&D career of their dreams. Since beginning her career in L&D over a decade ago, Sarah has created hundreds of learning and development programs for over 5,000 learners, led the learning function for 4 different organizations, and hired and trained dozens of L&D professionals. She now uses what she has learned in her career to develop the L&D careers of others.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How a bounced rent check led to a dream career.
The challenges with equitability and access to higher education and how work experience surpasses the value of formal education.
The importance of knowing your "why" and applying it to work of service.
The gift in saying not to things that don't energize you, even if you are good at them.
How understanding your strengths can guide your work and inform career decisions.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Horst Govin, who specializes in helping accomplished professionals take the next step in their careers. He runs a coaching program called Job Hunt Bootcamp designed to help people get their next job in 90 days. He has helped his clients get job offers from large Bay Area tech companies as well as startups and small/mid-sized companies.
Horst is a Silicon Valley veteran and spent two decades working in product management, partnerships, business development, and everything in between. He left his job at Apple in 2015 and became a career coach. He holds an engineering degree from MIT.
He feels privileged to be able to use his coaching skills, leadership experience, perspective, and empathy to help others. When he’s not working, he enjoys playing drums in his band, practicing yoga, getting outside in nature, and volunteering.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How his self-image and expectation in high school sent him down a path of an unfulfilling career.
How a chance encounter with a career coach changed his world and ultimately help him realize who he really was meant to be. This work led him to become a carer coach himself.
His work today focuses on helping people find their dream job in 90 days by helping them understand their values, what they truly enjoy doing, and combat imposture syndrome.
We talk about how the ability to believe in yourself and own the incredible story that each of our lives has to tell is the path to a fulfilling life and career.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Sabina Sulat, an accomplished Talent Management/HR professional. She has spent the better part of the past two decades studying how organizations function and how people work.
In 2020, Sabina recognized the impact COVID-19 would have on the American worker, forcing millions of people to lose their jobs in the wake of the pandemic. Inspired by her own prior experience of having been out of work, she began writing a book to help others navigate the path of being unemployed. As a result, her organization Re: Working was born.
Through Re: Working Sabina now dedicates herself and her business to helping others rethink and rework being unemployed as an opportunity for growth and learning. Her aim is to help people come out of the adversity of being unemployed more self-reliant and confident, prepared for the next phase of their career journey.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
The freedom of acknowledging that where you are supposed to be finds you.
How losing her dream job turned out to be the catalyst for greater impact and more fulfilling work.
The concept of enmeshment and how our identity at work can restrict our creative thinking and exposes us to the possible.
The value in disconnect employment in a job to the connection to your career.
Best practices for being purpose-driven and disciplined with the gift of time when in between jobs.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Laura Weiss, CPCC, PCC, a certified leadership coach, mediator, and consultant. She partners with her clients to expand their influence and impact as they pursue meaningful transitions in their personal and professional lives.
Weiss helps her clients change the conversation they are having with themselves, their colleagues or clients by combining everything she’s learned through her own unique professional journey as a former architect, design strategist, and management consultant. Her areas of expertise include design thinking philosophies, inclusive facilitation techniques, conflict resolution processes and co-active coaching methods.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Why having the trust to listen to your gut and the faith to take giant leaps in your life, are two essential elements of radical growth.
We explore the meaning of effective coaching, and accessing our innate skills and inner wisdom to get where we want to be.
How to transform how you communicate, collaborate, and lead others based on how you show up and lead yourself.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by, Keith Hildesheim, a strategic Learning and Development leader focused on developing a culture of learning and teaching with the organizations he serves. He’s an expert in building L&D teams and experiences – most recently he’s been leading the core learning and development team at Slalom focused on learning programs for consultants, sellers, recruiters, and business operations leaders, and more.
Listen in as we discuss how Keith passionately brings his knowledge and experience in human psychology to improve workplace wellbeing and inclusivity.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
We deconstruct the sales process, and apply behavior analysis to scale and make great gains.
Dive into the growth mindset, and reframing our approach to avoid burn out and unlock our greatest potential.
Why building resilience is a key to personal growth, how you contribute to a team, and how you can move forward together.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by, Jess Feldt, a Professional Life and Leadership Coach, with a specific focus on high-achieving working moms. She believes everyone deserves and wants to live a meaningful life, but we often get caught up in society's definition of success and having it all.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
We discuss the importance of releasing self-limiting talk in order to grasp true fulfillment and empowerment.
Break down how to bring awareness to practices that serve us; establishing values, priorities and what adds meaning to our lives.
Take a deep dive into the power of self compassion, and wholly accepting our authentic selves.
Today, Massimo and his guest, Alex Runyan, take a deep dive into the importance of being a part of a team, stepping into our grit, and why smiling through the uncertainty sets us up for success in all aspects of our lives.
A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Alex served 10 years active duty as a Marine Corps Huey pilot, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Southeast Asia. Following this, Alex grew his leadership credentials with Slalom Consulting, and most recently as the Director of Organizational Development for the Defense Innovation Unit.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
The importance of challenging yourself throughout your life, and how to recognize the value you provide with your experiences and your character.
Why "new and scary" experiences create opportunity to reveal who we are, and the importance of resilience when faced these extraordinary obstacles.
We reframe the ideas of success and the importance of team before self, and understanding the value that you can't get to, by yourself alone.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Ryan Sousa, a senior leader with over 25 years of broad industry experience leading the creation and commercialization of transformative strategies that leverage analytics/AI at scale to enrich lives, streamline operations and capitalize on a rapidly evolving business landscape.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
We talk about the importance of failing upwards, and the lesson that we're taught along the way.
The power of assisting companies to define and implement their analytic strategy to streamline operations and personalize the customer experience.
We dive into how support within an organization is crucial to the overall success and health of a company.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Dan Edds, MBA, management consultant and the author of Leveraging the Genetics of Leadership: Cracking the Code of Sustainable Team Performance. Dan helps senior leaders design high-impact cultures of courageous and engaged employees, with his mission being to help organizations bridge the gap between strategy and execution.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to empower your staff, and how the organization is best served if there is a common idea of leadership.
Designing a system of leadership that transforms the workplace, and a unique culture that produces high employee engagement.
We break down overcoming conflicts and how to develop a healthy regimen when it comes to problem solving and how to keep respect at the forefront.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Scott Millward, Ph. D., a senior HR executive and academic researcher who has held leadership roles at several Fortune 500 companies across the finance, entertainment and hospitality industries. Listen in as we discuss entrepreneurial driving factors, and the importance of different perspectives that lead to success.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
We discuss the importance of embracing the magic that lives between the to-do's and the what is on the agenda.
Creating better origin stories that facilitate growth, and the importance of the self awareness of where we begin to where we want to end up.
Break down how to create a system that facilitates growth, and the longterm success of each individual.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Donnell Green, a partner to C-level executives designing and executing human capital+ engagement strategies and bringing them to life in their organizations. Known for her expertise in implementing leadership development cultures, designing sustainable, diverse, leadership pipelines for succession, and high-performance cultures. She has worked with CEO’s, executives and boards to strengthen leadership, diversify succession plans, and improve performance.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
Why having self awareness and the ability to change old patterns and create new ones, leads to empowerment and true growth.
How humility and going back to the beginner mindset is instrumental in the growth and success cycle.
We explore what it means to have the courage to question the status quo and how to make profound shifts within you to better the whole.
Today, Massimo and his guest, Martina Stone McGaw, take a deep dive into effective coaching, leadership development, and team alignment.
Martina Stone McGaw, principal of Martina Stone Consulting, is an organizational effectiveness consultant and executive coach. After a career in research-based consulting and a tech start up, she now spends her time working with teams and individuals finding the key areas where improvement will make the biggest impact on the organization and individual.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How to recognize your value and lean into your natural tendencies and zone of genius, to create a career and make a true impact.
Why taking leaps of faith and trusting your abilities leads to productivity, grit and deep success.
We're reframing the mindset of investing in people and why fully committing to coaching is a important, and urgent. How the transformation that you so hope, for is directly correlated with your commitment to your employees.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Megan Bickle, Strategic Talent Management Leader, a global leader with consistent track record of strategizing and executing organization & talent development programs for organizations ranging from 2k to 30k. She’s an expert in seeing the opportunity among challenges and inspiring teams to achieve innovative solutions. Listen in as we discuss the power of pivoting, how organizations can continue to be successful during the pandemic, and why all of us are born leaders.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
We explain embracing change and how effectively letting go of old norms and adapting to new challenges creates opportunity for success.
Understand why you are more than just the scope of work that you do, and how reflection leads to growth and reaching your own definition of success.
The importance of embracing this hybrid of a work atmosphere during, and after the pandemic.
In today's episode, Massimo is joined by Thane Bellomo, career Organizational Developer and Talent Management practitioner, expert in creating remote work solutions that foster engagement, cultural alignment and effective performance management. We're diving in to discuss culture, process and systems, and innovating unique solutions and why he stands by the quote, "If you want team work, then give the team important work".
Highlights from today's podcast include:
How focusing on self awareness and the way that you lead, directly impacts your opportunity for success.
We explore reframing your organization of motivation, and why engaging in important work, leads to high performing teams, organic engagement and essentially, more profit.
Understand how work culture is one of the main driving factors for success and momentum within an organization.
Join Massimo and Phil Del Vecchio III, Director of Talent Management & Culture at JBS, expert in positive psychology, performance psychology, and flow theory, to discuss how leaders can help their teams flourish while producing their best work.
Highlights from today's podcast include:
What is Flow Theory and how to leverage it to help your team do their highest & best work, avoiding burnout, and high performance modes of thinking.
Listen in as Massimo and Phil share tactics to help your team achieve flow, tools to help your team members determine what they enjoy most about their work, and understanding how optimism and generosity are a lucrative and necessary approach to life and business.
Understand how to use the Broaden & Build Theory in your business; how abundance and sufficiency partnered with a like-minded network of people is central to high performing leaders