PITY PARTY OVER

Our guest today is Dr. Marcia Reynolds, one of the most influential figures in the coaching world. She has contributed to the industry through groundbreaking books Breakthrough Coaching and Coach the Person, Not the Problem. How do you make time for learning and growth with a jam-packed schedule? When we stop learning, challenges feel like giant puzzles. To succeed in the many facets of life, Dr. Reynolds encourages us to make learning a core value. Lifelong learning is not about seeking perfection but the journey of a lifetime. Dr. Marcia Reynolds suggests “wandering” as the mindset of curiosity where we ask questions, challenge assumptions, and remain open to learning from others. Despite years of experience or expertise, it’s vital to maintain a humble attitude and acknowledge that mastery is an ongoing journey that unlocks endless potential. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or your favorite pocast platform. Please check Dr. Marcia Reynolds' groundbreaking books Breakthrough Coaching and Coach the Person, Not the Problem and use the affiliate links to support Pity Party Over at no additional cost to you. How have you carved time for learning in your busy schedule? Leave your comments, thank you! Subscribe to Pity Party Over for more insightful episodes. Questions? Email Stephen or send him a message on LinkedIn. #MarciaReynolds #Covisioning #Coaching #Curiosity #GrowthMindset #Learning #PityPartyOver #Podcast #Alygn #StephenMatini TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Have you always been this way? Has it gotten easier to be a learner as you mature? Are you more of a wanderer today compared to the way it used to be? I mean, how does this work? Marcia Reynolds: Those are kind of two separate questions and as you ask the question about learning, it's almost like for different purposes at different times in my life. But I do have a value for learning and I don't know if that's an inherent value or inherited value you because it was, you know, a very important part of my culture that we get educated and we learn things and we question, which I really love that I was taught very young to question not just accept always. I can remember that wanting to just hunger to learn more about this. If I hear something I wanna know more. I don't wanna just take it at face value. But the look of learning, you know, has changed over the years. I mean younger, you know, is pursuing lots of degrees and I think if I was independently wealthy, I would continue to do that. I was blessed with liking school, not all the teachers, but, liking to be there and have access to things that I wouldn't normally have for myself for learning now, you know, it's very focused because I really want to, I'm so focused on coaching and understanding how coaching works so we can do it better and better that the learning is down a lane, but it's still there. I'm still like hungry to learn, but just for different purposes. I think though the, the important thing is that it is a true value, not just something I have to do, I need to do. I like it. So to really commit to learning, even if you don't quite like researching, what is it that would be most fascinating to you that you'd just like to know a little bit more? You know? So go down a path like I've now narrowed my path. It's not learning in general, but learning for purpose. Stephen Matini: When people, sometimes that happens to me. When people tell you, I don't have time to learn, I'm so busy, what would you tell them? Marcia Reynolds: Well, first I would ask them, so what does learning mean to you? You know, because obviously you have a picture in your head of what learning is, is maybe like sitting somewhere and reading books and maybe you don't have time for that or going to school. But if learning is just going places and listening, like last night I went to just an hour class, you know, that I wouldn't normally do. I usually would sit and watch TV. But I went to this and it was fascinating. It was an area that I would not even have normally thought about, but it sounded interesting. Last week I attended a discussion group. It was a dinner meetup discussion group, and we ate and, and talked about certain topics and I got to meet people. So you can combine learning with networking, even in a meeting at work to sit there and to question what has led them to believe that help me to understand and maybe ask to meet with them later. Could you tell me what were the things that led for you to believe that that decision was most correct? I'm just really interested in your perspective. So being interested in a perspective is even learning. So what is it that would be useful for you to know a little bit more about and you know, how could you then engage people in a way that you could learn without, you know, having to go somewhere to get it? Stephen Matini: Have you noticed over the years a change in the way people approach learning? Marcia Reynolds: Well, as you were saying that it, it sounds to me there's a connection with, I think I don't have time, so whatever it is you give me make sure that I can use it right away. Although I'm not so sure that's new. Being that I was, you know, used to run training departments and my second master's is an instructional design, it was always how can you make this applicable? That's nice if they enjoy just sitting and listening to you talk. But if it doesn't change what they do is there an ROI? But I know that over the years, like even yesterday, coaching.com is changing their summits and she says, we decided we need to do it more workshop. You know, where people are engaged and they're doing things and they know then how to use it when they leave. I think there's more of a demand to interact. We've always known that was important to learning, but I think there's more of a demand for interaction so I can apply it now. So it's just an evolution. I don't see it as a change. Even my book that's coming out in a few weeks, it's kind of like the next version of coach the person, but there's far more resource tools and exercises and you know, it's an interactive guide. It's something that you work with. That's how people get the concepts of what I'm trying to teach, you know? So even I went that way with writing the book to make sure that there was more things that they could actually engage in and do mostly with others, but even with themselves. And there's questions all through it. Not just to ask when you're coaching, but to ask yourself, am I willing to give up being the expert in this situation in order to engage and coach people in a different way no matter what. Whether it's, you know, being a leader or part of a family, I think the who are you is really important. So I do see engaging people's minds and their doing as becoming more and more forefront in how we teach. Stephen Matini: Because you've been around coaching for such a long time and you're still so deeply passionate about it. What is coaching to you today compared to, I don't know, maybe five, 10 or 15 years ago? Marcia Reynolds: I signed up for a coaching school in 1995. And so I've been learning and coaching for quite some time. In working with coaching.com or taking my foundational breakthrough coaching program and making it self-study, I had to sit and watch 32 coaching demos that I did since 2020. It was torture. But what was fascinating to me to see even my evolution from 2020 to now, so, you know, and I've been coaching over two decades that I'm still, you know, learning and growing and that I went from coaching 40 minutes to now I 15 minutes and we're like, breakthrough and done, you know? But I found that the real shift was when I really stepped into that being that I'm totally curious about this person's way of seeing and the questions that come from me is, is my being of being with them as a thinking partner of fully stepping into that and not being the expert and not being the person who needs to lead them in any direction, but really, really, really, I'm gonna help you think. And so every reflection and question I use comes out of this interaction. We have to explore their thinking and as they explore their thinking, it expands. You know? And the more that I believed in that and, and was just that, you know, just blended into that being the more profound the coaching was, you know, it went deeper faster and it created insights that changed their minds and how they were gonna do things in a much quicker, memorable, sustainable way. You know? And so I think as in anything we learn, you know, the foundational skills you have to do that. And then we're much more deliberate and conscious, consciously aware of what we're doing. And as we get better at it, it starts to sink in and we don't have to think about it. And to the point where I can finally create a collective space with this person, that what shows up in between us in our conversation is what's incredible to both of us. It takes belief, it takes trust, and it takes practice. And I fortunately have been around long enough that I've been able to really get that into my bones. But I in the process, continue to learn what that means. You know, what exactly is am I doing? I'm not sure, but let me see if I can parse it out so I can then write about it and share it with other coaches so they get it, you know, in service of what, it's been a an incredible journey and I'm, I can't wait to see three years from now how different I'm coaching than even now. Stephen Matini: When you look back to your career as a coach, is there one specific contribution or client or something that you are super, super proud of? Marcia Reynolds: There's always this one woman that comes to mind that she was tough. You know, she was resistant. She'd get angry with me, but I just stayed in in that what I did was just ask her a question. And I knew that the question I was asking, I wasn't leading, but I knew it would challenge, but

Episode 1 focuses on building greater organizational synergy, what creates synergy, typical symptoms when synergy is lacking, and the importance of communication and leadership when transitioning through change to build synergy. Listen to the episode: Spotify Apple Podcasts Podbean Google Podcasts Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini Leadership & Management Development   Transcript Welcome to Pity Party Over over the podcast for people, teams and organizations seeking practical ideas for results in greater happiness. I'm your host, Steven Matini. Let's pause, learn and move on. Pity Party Over over is brought to you by ALYGN, A L Y G N.company. Hi everyone. I'm Stephen. Thank you so much for checking this episode of Pity Party Over wherever you are in the world, I hope you're doing great. So why this podcast is called Pity Party Over? Pity Party Over is an expression that I started using years ago. I was talking to a couple of friends of mine and, essentially means a couple of things. Pity Party Over is that moment when you feel so utterly fed up with an issue that you may have tried to tackle in many different ways, but it's still here in your life, it is still annoying and you haven't been able to find a way out. And so Pity Party Over over is when you're really ready to take the last leap in order to overcome it. And then Pity Party Over over also means what you have learned from a situation. So after all said and done, when a problem, a struggle becomes part of your past, as you look behind, what is that you learn from that situation? Today's episode is going to focus on organizations. One of the most frequently asked questions that I receive from clients is how do I build a stronger synergy? And what they mean is how do I make sure that my organization, that comprises all kinds of different people, departments, systems, and processes, all this incredible complex machine, how can I make sure that works nicely all together? The reason why synergy is such an important and predominant feature in organizations is because reality is changing at a speed that is absolutely unprecedented. Organizations are faced on a daily basis in front of the scenario that mutates based on really ... someone's tweet. And so what we have seen for these past 20 years are huge technological changes that have revolutionized the way we operate, the way we do business, the way we compete in markets. And yet the ability of humans to adapt to those changes is still the same. Meaning our brains have not evolved as rapidly as our technology. So now more than ever, it is really important that the organizational machine needs to be really functional. It is imperative that all its components are able to work together seamlessly, are able to interpret such a complex reality and to respond to it in a way that is efficient. So in order to achieve, um, a greater organizational synergy, there are so many ingredients that we need to consider. It's not just a one thing, but synergy comprises the ability to navigate change. So first thing is change, and change is such a big topic that we're going to explore a little bit more in this episode. Communication, communication is an incredible, super important ingredient to guarantee greater organizational synergy. Also, another component to consider is engagement, how motivated people are what's happening to them, why they seem to be into the organization or why there can be be some mismatch or some, uh, misalignment. Also another super important component is leadership, you know, leadership provides the example leadership helps people transitioning in a moment of change. So that's also another very important ingredient. Anything that goes into organizational design, meaning how the organization itself is structured, how, who does what roles and responsibilities, how functions are organized. That's also something really important. Teamwork, you know, teams are such an important component these days. They do represent the main cells that allow any organization to move, seamlessly, nicely throughout change. So that's also another component only that we need to consider and then so much more organizational culture and, um, many, many other components. So first thing, first symptoms, what are you going to see when synergy is not there? One of the observation that I make very often to clients is ... gossips. When you hear a lot of people complaining and, um, a lot of negativity, lot of remarks that tend to be more on the heavy side. That usually is an indicator there is something is not quite flowing within the organization. So complaints often times may indicate that something important to people, some needs are not fully addressed, maybe even something more fundamental and as values that drive their lives are not fully expressed within the organization where they work. So, a pasty, negative, dark type of conversation moving around the organization is a symptom that shows that there's really not great synergy. Another clear symptom, in my opinion, of lack of organizational synergy is when roles and responsibilities are not clear, meaning it's not quite clear to everyone who does what, and this is something really common to happen as organizations react to make changes. And, after a while, the whole structure becomes so complicated that know-how knowledge gets stored in silos, different parts of the organization and not properly shared. And, people are quite unsure exactly are what every single function, every single component does within the organization. So unclear roles and responsibility is another sign of lack of synergy. One thing that I see very frequently working with different clients is this notion that the people on top, top management, the ones who are supposed to provide the strategy for the organization are the ones that should provide all the answers, you know, because of their role, because they are highly paid because of their experience, they should have the answers. And the thing is when we try to increase organizational synergy, the best starting point is actually to put ourselves in a position of listening, listening to everyone within the organization at different levels. And listening means to see from their point of view, what they observe, what is they see from the specific angle of the function, in which they work or the specific role where they work? So, in my opinion, when you collect a lot of data, a lot of quantitative data, a lot of qualitative data that gives you a tremendous amount of information to get the pulse of the organization and understanding what is really happening. So that's really the point in which I always recommend to start a point of listening, a point of non-judgment in which everyone has the ability to voice out what is it? They see the great thing about listening to people is the creation of a space in which everyone finally has a moment to say what's in their heart, what bugs them, what they would like to suggest in order to create improvement in order to be more efficient. Also, the wonderful thing about listening to people is that you finally understand exactly what can be done in order to create that stronger organizational synergy. There's a lot that can be said about change, but essentially every time we want the organization to perform better, we are going through some sort of change. We are asking people, we are asking teams and the organization to actually operate in a way that is more efficient. And so it's really important to understand how change works and also how that affects people. And, um, as a general, I would say almost rule of thumb, something that I've seen is that a lot of information and the fear of unknown are often responsible for the resistance to change when people are requested to change and they do not fully understand why that is needed, how that is going to benefit them. Usually that's when they start putting their foot down, they become really, really resistant because simply they don't understand it. You may be observing quite a bit of, um, anxiety, fear, blame, a type of attitude that tends to be more skeptical, even anxious. You know, it mostly results from not fully understanding what is happening. People actually transition through change through small patient efforts. So when they understand clearly what's in that for them, when they understand the benefits of change, that's when slowly and patiently people start transitioning. It's generally a very, very, very slow process that requires a tremendous amount of patience. And, you know, probably I'm one of the least patient people that I know in my life. And, um, but I have learned throughout living really, personal and professional experiences, that patience is such a key, you know, great things, amazing things require tremendous amount of efforts, consistency, persistence. My mom used to tell me all the time, you know, you're not patient, but you'll see one day you'll learn. And she was right. She was absolutely right. If you are the person in the organization initiating change, you can be for instance, working for human resources, or you could be the head of a department. And over time, you may have noticed the same issue coming up again and again and again. And so the need of doing something about it. There are some questions that in my experience will be very important for you to clarify. And the best place to clarify them is probably to consult with someone who is not part of your organization. It is very difficult to have the objectivity, to have the emotional distance from an issue and to see it with a clear mind. And so some question you would like to clarify are how do I help others during change? So it has to be very clear what to expect from the change process, how I'm going to deal with resistance to change, how much time should I give to people in order to change, and then

Our guest is Prof. Peter Hawkins, a well-known figure recognized for his work in systemic coaching and developing coaching cultures in organizations. Professor Hawkins presents beauty as a transformative force, urging individuals and organizations to align with their core values for a sustainable and harmonious future. Beauty is found in authentic, vulnerable moments and genuine connections between people, emerging through acts of kindness, compassion, and service. Advocating for a move away from transactional leadership, Professor Hawkins calls for a model that recognizes each person's inherent beauty, fostering belonging and mutual respect. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Contact Prof. Peter Hawkins Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #PeterHawkins #BeautyinLeadershipandCoaching #SystemicCoaching #Purpose #Beauty #SustainableFuture #PityPartyOver #Alygn #StephenMatini TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: You are such a prolific author, how did you end up writing so many books? Prof. Peter Hawkins: I started off by writing chapters for books where people said that, well, I write a chapter on this one, the other. And then since then, each of the books that, that I've written is because a real need for a new approach. So my first book, which was around supervision, was because, you know, I'd become a supervisor and discovered there was no real guidance for supervisors and that every supervisor did something different. Thought, well, you know, we need something that kind of puts this together. And then, you know, when I got on to writing about, uh, coaching and systemic team coaching and leadership, it's always because I got to the edge and can't find what I want to learn next. So end up writing it, and by writing I discover what I know, but also I discover what I don't yet know. Writing is a just a lovely practice, as always, discovering. And, and I suppose I've always been an integrationist, wanted to work across disciplines. And so by writing I'm, I'm able to kind of integrate stuff that has come from very different traditions. Stephen Matini: And it's interesting because you are such a big, big, big name in coaching, but your books are infused with, um, so many different ingredients. So they're not just your typical coaching book. And then, um, I remember last time when we talked about your latest book, which I think is, is still has to come out, right? The beauty in leadership and coaching, the way you explain it to me, it seems to be the last discovery in your journey and somehow it puts together all the ingredients that you have found along the way. Prof. Peter Hawkins: Well, it kind of tries to set coaching, leadership, organizational development in, in a larger context, where in that larger context is both on the one hand about evolution and about epistemology, and it's another level about spirituality and ecology. Basically, in that book, I am very much looking at the great challenges that we face as a civilization and saying at root, they are all interconnected and at root, they are all symptoms of the fact that we haven't been able to evolve human consciousness at the speed of which we have changed the earth. So beauty, I am using as energetic force as a guide to help us on the return journey from how we've shrunken our, our consciousness, our way of engaging with the world, from participatory consciousness to collective consciousness. And then the white European world, we, we, in American world, we've, we treated further into from the embodied consciousness to brain consciousness. And then we've retreated even further into left hemisphere. And I'm seeing beauty as a force that awakens us to that which is beyond us, that which comes knocking our door and takes us by surprise. And so the notion of following beauty is awakening, if you like the taking us out of our left hemisphere into our whole brain and add our brain into our, our hearts and our guts and our embodied knowing and back into relationship. Stephen Matini: One thing that I often see particularly business people doing, they tend to focus on business. You know, they're just business. And instead of most of my motivation, most of my creativity, I get it from stepping out the whole realm of, uh, business. And my background is in humanities. So for me, humanities, literature, theater, music, steel, is a huge, huge source of inspiration. And I believe that you and I share some people that are really dear to our hearts. You talked to me about William Blake, you talked about Dante, uh, Rumi. Why are these people so important to you? Prof. Peter Hawkins: First of all, I'm fascinated by you saying about business or busyness. What is business? I'm just interested, what what do we mean by business or what do we mean by organizations? An organization exists because there is a purpose or something that needs doing that requires collaboration. And that collaboration requires organizing. Actually we could say that business is a mode of responding to what's needed and necessary, but it's become an end in itself. So the purpose of the organization is to feed the organization so it can feed the organization so it can feed the shareholders so it can, so there's something wrong with business. We've all got business to do, but the business should never be an end in itself, which is why I also in my books around teams say we shouldn't talk about high performing teams. The goal is not to be a, a successful organization or a high performing team. Prof. Peter Hawkins: Those are a means to an end. And the end is to create beneficial value for all the people your work serves. So trying to get us away from means to purpose is important. And we don't create our purpose. We discover it. And I think that people, you mentioned Dante Mena Ian, Rumi ha real, William Blake Ridge, Shakespeare, , let's bring in some of the great, uh, w Wang Wei, the Great Tang Chinese per they go to Essence, they go to the heart of purpose, and they go beyond the restrictive separating individualism of the modernist western world. They reconnect us. Nna Jin Rumi says, why in the plenitude of God's universe have you chosen to fall asleep in such a small dark prison? And beauty is, if you like, what are the keys to unlock the prison? Stephen Matini: Do you find it hard, easy possible when you work with um, clients, let them enter beauty. Prof. Peter Hawkins: I put it the way around that my job isn't to let them into beauty. My job is to discover the beauty and what they are in them and what they're doing to uncover the beauty. This is there rather than believe that I know where I need to take them. Stephen Matini: It is true when the organization tap into the purpose, the soul, the beauty, that's when magic happens. But in my personal experience, it's not always possible, you know, to unveil it with clients. So when you experience that resistance to change, whichever you want to call it, what do you do? Prof. Peter Hawkins: If a client says to me, uh, but what matters is the bottom line, I would say, so Steven, what is the bottom line? Tell me about the bottom line. If they say, well, it's the, the amount of profit we make at the bottom of the page, I'd say, and, and what is the purpose of that profit? So we can reinvest and what's the purpose of re well so we can make more? They've stopped. At a full bottom, my job is just to Dr. Open the windows to what is beneath that bottom Stephen Matini: With this latest book, what do you hope that readers will take away? Prof. Peter Hawkins: I just received an amazing email this morning from a beautiful black woman in, in in America who just talked about how just reading the first chapter, 'cause I'd used it as a handout on the program, had let her whole body shaking and just brought up so much for her and inspired her to write a poem that she sent me. And honestly, it, it brought me to tears. I just thought if more people have that reaction, it just opened up so much for her in terms of what was buried within her that needed to surface. And if I can help people just open a window to a, to, to a wider perspective, I can help them see beyond our own imprisonment and break out some of the constriction. 'cause if it helps them, then they can help others. If it helps the coaching profession move from being expensive, personal development for the already highly privileged. And it's not about self-improvement, but it's about what is the world knocking on our door asking us to step up to. It can move us from a, a individualistic self-orientation to a service orientation. And not just service of humanity, but service of the more than human world than, than I feel I will have achieved a small part of my business, of the work I'm being asked to do. Stephen Matini: You will have to stay on this planet forever because , there's a terrible need. Prof. Peter Hawkins: All, all our job to do is to do what is responsibility of our generation then to pass the torch on. But you know, the reality is that my generation is passing on a much more depleted and challenged world than we inherited. And that weighs quite large. And I wasn't say on my shoulders, it weighs large in front of me. What is our responsibility in terms of at least doing what we can, what little we can to help the generations that come after us face the bigger challenges that come after us? You know, I spend a lot of time saying to leaders, you know, what are your major jobs as leaders? I I was in South Africa in a very big gathering of MBA alumni from across Southern Africa. And I started my talk 'cause I'd followed a very inspirational South African politician. I just stood up and I said, please stand up. Prof. Peter Hawkins: All those of you in the audience who are responsible for developing the next generation of

Financial advisors, attorneys, doctors, and fiscal consultants are essential professionals who help us navigate an ocean of information to make sound decisions. How do you choose a good one when the language they speak is a nebulous lingo few people fully understand? Riccardo Grabbio is a seasoned financial consultant known for his pragmatic approach and extensive experience as Chief Financial Officer. In this episode, Riccardo helps clarify some common financial lingo so you can build trustworthy and clear communication with your financial advisor or find the perfect one you understand. Listen to how to keep financial strategies simple on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Connect with Stephen #RiccardoGrabbio ##WealthBuilding #Investing #Savings #FinancialEducation #MoneyManagement #FinancialWellness #PityPartyOver #Podcast #Alygn #StephenMatini   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: So I represent your typical moron who doesn't know anything about finance. And let's say that I'm seeking for a financial advisor, where should I start? Riccardo Grabbio: When we take a look at finance actually is not something very small, very narrow, something. There are thousands of aspects that we need to take a look at. So first question to me is asking yourself, what do I need? Because when you talk at about finance, it might be have your own personal budget, for instance, because your expenses are not under control. Can be or maybe can be having a finance advisor because my company must improve, must improve for whatever reason because the balance between revenues are and cost are not enough or simply because I'm not managing well enough, my working capital for instance, or maybe because my cash flow is not coming, even though I'm making revenues, I, I do not understand why this is the second one. Or maybe it can be for instance because I have a lot of cash, but I'm not capable of leverage that cash well enough to make my company grow better or how it should, or maybe simply because I have a personal heritage that I want to have a battery yield. Riccardo Grabbio: And at the moment I don't have this is let me say very typical situation that Italian families has. For instance, just to give an idea because you need to know that the GDP of Italy is not satisfactory, is not a country that is growing a lot for several reasons. We are not efficient enough. Our industries are weak, must improve, we have tax issues and all those stuff. But you need to know that Italian families are rather rich and what they have, they have a lot of cash because of generation and so on. And they have a lot of properties. And the big issues that I have seen, for instance in Italy is that what the Americans say is asset rich and income board, to me a financial advisor, this is the first rule of financial advisor, try to change this status because when you are asset rich and income board means that you are not efficient or better, you can't manage your asset. And in this specific situation, for instance, the financial advisor can create tremendous value to, to a family for instance, try to think very rich family that has a good family office and exactly the same very rich family without the family office handling the money for them, the result would be completely different. Stephen Matini: Based on everything you said so far, it seems to me that you, I think you mentioned like probably several things, they're important, but three are really important. One is that you don't need to have a big assets in order to start to be more financially savvy. That's one. Then you mentioned several times the importance of cashflow and the other one you emphasized the importance of time because from a financial investment standpoint, time is crucial more than the actual percentage you get paid in the moment. Riccardo Grabbio: Yes, exactly. I can tell you talking about the time, which is the most important of one. There are several studies that I have read over the years from JP Morgan, but also from some other sources like banger and so on. And what they say is that in a period of at least 20 years in a bunch of 100% investors in the stock market, there was not one that lose one penny over or the 20 years. It means that if you invest, if you buy and hold for 20 years, you're not going to lose money. If instead you try to, what, what we technically say, time the market. So you buy and sell, you buy and sell, then things get tricky. I can tell you one thing, I dunno if you have ever heard about Peter Lynch, I think in seven years in which he managed the found Magellan, he doubled the s and p 500 each and every year. Riccardo Grabbio: So try to think a, a result what we are still talking now about his performance and the funny thing is that 90% of the investors that invest in his fund, they lose money over the year. And you can ask me how it can be possible that in 20 years a fund had a performance huge and the investors lose the money because they were not buying and holding, they were buying and then selling, buying and selling try to keep the best moment in which you to enter and to exit from the fund and doing that 90% of those, they lose the best return of the market. So buying a whole is a good advice. Stephen Matini: So I I wanna ask you to define some key terms, you know that maybe could be useful for the people who are going to listen to the episode. How would you explain assets in the simplest way? Riccardo Grabbio: An asset is something that brings you money in your pocket and on the other side you have liabilities. That is something that takes out money from your pocket. Why is tell you that? Because for instance, try to think to have a new big car, an expensive new car. Actually from the accounting standpoint, this is an asset. Then you, you, you d it in your, in your balance sheet, this is an asset then you will depreciate in 10 years and so on. This is technically an asset, but to me this is not financially an asset. Why not? Because it's not bringing you value any kind, it's not bringing you money in your pocket, it's draining money from your pocket. So keeping it in very simple. For our listeners, asset is something when you buy something that will bring you further money in your pocket than you are buying an asset. Riccardo Grabbio: If it doesn't, then it's not an asset. Then we have some asset that intrinsically they produce something, they produce a value. Let me give you an an an example. A stock index or a single stock for instance, you have a company, you have an organization. Those people, they are all working together with a common purpose, which is to create earnings and so on. So it doesn't matter the price in the short term, in the long run it'll increase in value. Why? Because those companies are making earnings, they're paying dividends and so on. So there will be a good result in the, in in the future. But then there are some other asset that those, they have a value fine, but they don't produce anything. Let me give you an example. If we talk about precious metals, I dunno, gold for instance and so on in this one here is just a simple piece of metal, right? Riccardo Grabbio: It has big value. Yes it does. The market is valuing is up and low value, it does a function in investment portfolio but is not producing anything. I mean, so in this case we are a bit more speculating. The price can go up or down. We don't know in the future can be be a function in the portfolio, but it's not creating anything. But this is another different kind of asset. Another kind of asset are bonds for instance. The returns typically is low, but you lend money to someone, to a government, to a private company, to a corporation, whatever, and they pay you the interest in in your return. This is another asset. It bring you money in your, in your pocket. Then there are also real estate. You can buy flats for, for instance you can buy apartments and so on. Rent it and as a return you have the pay that the people are paying to you. This is another, another example. For instance, those are assets. Stephen Matini: How would you explain? Same question in super simple terms, P&L? Riccardo Grabbio: Very simple difference between revenues and cost difference between what you from your business or from in your private light and the cost that you have to bear to stay alive or if you're talking about a company that you need to pay to keep your company alive. Difference between revenues and cost. And what I'm surprised that several organizations, several entrepreneurs and also private people, sometimes they do not understand why they are not making earnings and they don't arrive to a very simple conclusion. Either you increase your revenues or you reduce your cost or you do them both. And again, I go back to the first concept and and statement that we said keep it simple. You can have a p and l, okay, which is long one kilometer for ista with 1000, 2000 different lines detailed and so on. But in the end, if you take a look at things from 1000 kilometers from from the moon, if you take a look at things from the moon, from a very high distance, in the end you will see two things. You will see revenues and costs. Either you increase revenues or you reduce cost. I know it's very simple, looks trivial, but trust me that nine out of 10 of dozen per they look at the tree but they don't look at the wood because if you take a look at from things from the from the moon, this is what you will see. And you either you are just one or you are just the other. Stephen Matini: How would you define super simple cashflow? Riccardo Grabbio: Cashflow is the difference from the money that you have in the first day of the year and the money that you have in the last day of the year. The difference between the two is the cash that you h

Historian Suzanne Harman Munson discusses her book Jefferson's Godfather: The Man Behind the Man, revealing the significance of servant leadership exemplified by George Wythe, a lesser-known Founding Father. Throughout the conversation, Suzanne offers valuable insights essential for navigating contemporary challenges, emphasizing the importance of individual impact, critical thinking, kindness, and humility. Listen to this episode of Pity Party over and discover how servant leadership and humility can transform lives on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #SuzanneHarmanMunson #JeffersonsGodfather #GeorgeWythe #ServantLeadership #PityPartyOver #Podcast #Alygn #StephenMatini TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: You essentially got into writing and history after you retired? Did I get that right? Suzanne Munson: That's correct. Uh, I didn't have time to write books when I was working. And, um, I had a lot of responsibilities at home as well, raising children and so on. After my husband died and after I retired, I went on kind of a journey in a lot of different directions, and I've written books in different genres. Stephen Matini: Why do you think you chose writing and you chose history of all possible directions? Suzanne Munson: Well, my parents loved history, particularly my father. He would go to bed reading history. Well, he was interested in the Civil War, and he would read detailed accounts of the battles, which not my cup of tea by any means, but we always told stories of our ancestors who came to this country and why they came. So I've always been interested in history, but I, I majored in English, which was very helpful to me as the writer. Stephen Matini: Writer. And your family goes back generations? Suzanne Munson: Yes. They go back to the earliest days of the United States. Stephen Matini: As far as the Founding Fathers, one of your interests is the Founding Fathers. Did you investigate, did you study them all or specific ones, because you focus specifically on Jefferson, but did you have any interest in one of the other ones? Suzanne Munson: Well, yes, I have. I'm reading, um, pretty big book about, um, Benjamin Franklin now who really deserves more credit for helping us win the Revolutionary War. I really like following John Adams and Abigail Adams. But the two Founding Fathers that I focus on in my writing are Thomas Jefferson and his wonderful mentor George with, who is called the forgotten founding father, because hardly anybody knows anything about him today. And I uncovered him and some reading and I said, why don't we know more about this man who was very instrumental in the early success of this country? And his story needs to be told in the 21st century. And I wanted to tell it, but I couldn't because I was working. But as soon as I decided to, uh, to leave the office world, I said light bulb went off. And I said, well, I can finally do this book. But it took about five years to write that book because for some reason I couldn't focus at home. So I would go away to various retreats, writers retreats, spiritual retreats for 48 hours at a time or a week at a time, and really focus intensely on it. Stephen Matini: The process of writing. It's a spiritual experience, and you spend so much time within yourself. What have you learned about yourself when you started digging into this, this whole world or writing? Suzanne Munson: I sort of think of myself as a light giver. You know, the things that I'm learning, I like to share with other people, the integrity of this founding father. I think that we need greater integrity in our government. I've given more than three dozen lectures and online interviews about integrity and government that are need for, for that. Now. Also, after my husband died 10 years ago, I, uh, went on a spiritual journey to find out where he went and what he was doing, if that was knowable, and where we all go and what we do after we leave our physical form. So that was a separate journey. So I was really on two journeys. I was on a traditional journey, uh, with the traditional history, and then I was on a metaphysical journey trying to learn more about the afterlife. So two parallel journeys. And I've written books in both of those genres. Stephen Matini: Was it clear from the very beginning what you were looking for, or were you just aimed by curiosity and openness? Suzanne Munson: Well, with the first book that I wrote, which is called Jefferson's Godfather, uh, that was the biography of George with, it was very clear that I wanted to tell his story, that I felt his story was needed today in the 21st century. Now, my latest book, which is called of Loss and love, a Journey of the Heart that took 10 years to write the book has a happy ending. I did actually do the modern thing. I went online at the encouragement of friends and found my current husband. So it's a memoir of, of my three years between my husband's death and my marriage. Stephen Matini: What is the solace that you received from history? Suzanne Munson: Well, I'm very much inspired by what our Founding Fathers did to create the United States of America. Uh, they were very brave men. They were inspired. I believe what they did was unheard of in the history of the world. Now, we had a Roman Republic, briefly. We had a Greek democracy briefly. They went away fairly quickly. And so what these individuals wanted to do was totally revolutionary, not just on the battlefield, but in the battlefield of ideas. And that was to give power to the people and to create a democratic republic for the first time ever in history, that people were free from kings and queens and popes and aristocracy. Well, the hope was that we would have a meritocracy, that only the best people would rise to be leaders, and that the people would choose those leaders, choose them periodically, and if they weren't satisfactory, bo vote them out of office without killing them throughout the history of mankind, you had to kill somebody to get rid of him if he was in power. And so the peaceful transition of power was very, very strong ideal of these Founding Fathers. That's why they would've been appalled at what happened on January 6th. That would've been their worst nightmare. So this is a time when we need to visit the ideals of these Founding Fathers. And what happened in America in the late 18th century, what we came up with a government by the people of the people, for the people and our constitution that spread all across the world. Our constitution was, um, adopted by many, many, many countries after that took a while. And democracy is still an ideal, a worldwide ideal. It's not in place in, uh, most countries, uh, to the extent that we'd like to have it in place, but it's still an ideal. People still are searching for freedom. They want their freedom. Stephen Matini: I believe that democracy is a huge responsibility for all of us. Some of the worst nightmares in history, were democratically elected. If the Founding Founders came back today, what would you say they would say about democracy and what is the right approach for all of us in terms of, you know, living this responsibility? Suzanne Munson: This is outlined in my book called The metaphysical Thomas Jefferson, what Thomas Jefferson might say today about our government, our higher education, our news, media, religion, the use of military foreign policy, all those institutions. And I believe what he would say is that we as a people have become apathetic. We've allowed our freedoms to be taken away gradually, like the frog in the kettle of water as it heats up what is said in that book, the metaphysical Thomas Jefferson. What he might say if he were observing us today, is that he would crave most of all critical thinking. He didn't use these terms, but TikTok, Facebook, all those social media things where we're totally absorbed by ourselves and our little circle of friends and what they think of us, and we're not paying much attention to what our government officials are doing. Jefferson, above all wanted an educated popula populace and wanted, um, universal education for everyone, rich and poor. That was a revolutionary concept at the time. Only the, um, wealthy, they were educated. And so he would want critical thinking. Uh, he would want us to demand integrity of our, uh, leaders. He would want the leaders in Washington to form circles of integrity. Not all representatives in Washington are corrupt or deal in self-dealing, but enough of them are. But some of them really are striving to be good public servants. And we have one here in Virginia, Abigail Berger, who is admired for being a true public servant. And so there are some like her who were fairly new to the game and haven't gotten corrupted and haven't really started feathering their nests with all the large s that's available. So I think he would want leaders in government to form circles of integrity so that there's a mass of individuals and not just a handful who want the best for the people and not just for themselves or for special interests for the powerful. So some of this is going on. I, I think sometimes things have to get so bad that, uh, you know, people will say enough of this, which we've hit the bottom here, and we, we need to do things differently. We need better leaders. And so the hope is that more people of integrity will offer themselves for a public office. It's not easy. It's a dirty business. There's a lot of dirt thrown around, and it would be nice if that weren't necessary, weren't considered necessary. We do need more leaders with integrity, interest for the public rather than pure self-interest and ego ego's gone wild right now in, in some quarters in Washington. And what's right for the people is secondary.

Dr. Petros Oratis, a leadership and organization development consultant, team facilitator, and executive coach, believes modern organizational success hinges on embracing lateral leadership and fostering collaboration across hierarchical boundaries. Lateral leadership refers to a leadership style that emphasizes collaboration, teamwork, and the ability to lead without relying on a formal position of authority. Dr. Oratis advocates for leaders to address these interdependencies by creating spaces for dialogue and understanding, particularly in environments where power dynamics and competition may exist. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Connect with Stephen #petrosoratis #lateraldialogues #lateralleadership #pitypartyover #alygn #stephenmatini #podcast #leadershipdevelopment #teamwork TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: I'm really happy to be here with you, we share the same passion and so I have a lot of questions for you, which are questions that I try to answer myself. I got into organizational development, you know, later on in my life. Previously I had a career in marketing, which I thought it was my thing. And then at some point out of pure coincidence I learned that I loved to work on organizational functions and to help people to perform better. How did it happen to you? Is this something that you have always known, but how did you get into this? Petros Oratis: Yeah, that's a very good question on reconnecting with origins and the course of life. I think because I studied in Greece and our system there is quite specific as to how you end up in university. But I think maybe also globally at that age you might not really know what to study. So I studied economics as an undergraduate, not necessarily by choice, but because I wanted to end up in organizations sort of in management. On one hand, when studying economics is very interesting because you learned from very early on in life about systems and about interdependencies and the complexity of the world, which I think it's very helpful as a mindset to be grown from early on. But it's also quite of a positive is science. So it has some sort of predictability in a way. Or you learn very quickly this idea of predictability and control and with knowledge and with models, if you apply them properly, you know you will get good results. But human behavior is extremely complex and even if you get it a little bit in courses around psychology, organizational psychology, still, there is this idea that if we study it and we can predict it, we would know what to do about it. And then of course you probably know from your practice and our profession, that's not how it works with large systems, with human behavior, even with us personally we might think in certain ways. So I started developing this curiosity of could I study human behavior more and differently from conventional studies? I wanted to seek something else and that's how I ended up studying differently organizations. So systemically, I mean the discipline is called system psychodynamics, but the idea is that you also take the more unconscious processes that operate within us and in working relations and then in bigger systems. Still the goal and the principle behind it is how can we understand human behavior so that we can actually address it differently but not, not from also I would say almost god-like thinking that if I were to control it fully, then that's how it would work. Stephen Matini: And eventually you learned that there's something that escapes analysis, you know, that you cannot quite frame. I think there's a huge element of craftsmanship in any job. Early on you started to become really interested in the whole notion of flat structures, bottom up, top down and then it even your own podcast, you know, it's the whole notion of lateral leadership is such a central component. How did you get there? Why? Why is this specific angle so important to you? Petros Oratis: I would say both the hard data, the intuition are, are what working jointly. So you can't, you can't split either or right? And I think that's what you exactly said. And the same thing I would apply to this idea of this very organic one could say type of leadership that you need to discover your role and you need to work through how you are going to lead with others. But at the same time that happens in a explicit structure. This tension, I think it's something that I discovered throughout practice that it is relevant for all of us and it becomes part of leadership. I think the interest on studying that more was when I started my doctorate I didn't know what I would research and I didn't know that would be the topic. I knew that I wanted to study something related to collaboration on that high level. And one of the early findings that was guiding me is this idea that when you get sort of senior leaders that are part of a team even together, they would actually do many very meaningful work together. But to get them actually in a room usually would be very tough, very difficult. And then to take them properly in a room, not just physically but really committed so, and to commit to their interdependency, that was also very difficult. So peeling a little bit the onion around that. So what is it that we understand logically that we need to collaborate, we do want to collaborate, but there is something also that is quite scary that in pulls us away, especially when we grow in hierarchy was the first starting point of that, which made me then understand this is not just about collegial relationships. The group of executives that are part of a team, they are also independent leaders that are trying to lead their own stuff. And that's what becomes quite challenging when you want to approach teamwork is those two roles that they conflict with each other and they require a little bit more understanding Stephen Matini: Based on your studies. There's a cultural component that has a huge weight. So it really depends on the culture, it depends where with the organization is located. But as human beings, do we tend and naturally to favor top down organizations, is that just how we operate? Petros Oratis: Our relation to hierarchy is something that is part of our human nature and I think it very much starts from the idea that we are brought into this world in absolute dependency on parent and caretakers on adults who we can only survive at these sort of early steps of our life actually based on those figures that they will take care of us very practically but also emotionally even to make sense. So that's part of our psyche that cannot go away. This idea that we sort of move from complete dependency into autonomy as we are building our own strength and our own self-reliance, we become less dependent on those individuals and that sort of continuum that I'm sort of painting here also continues in careers. So very early life we may have that mentality. We need to learn from our superiors, we need to depend on their judgment, we need to be guided by them and sort of we develop in careers so that we can actually become more autonomous and more powerful perhaps. And then we'll become more autonomous. And maybe this idea or what we tell ourselves is that then we should lead others and so forth. And while this is of course the nature of life, we are forgetting the lateral dimension of all of this may not come to mind so clearly because we do all of that with other peers, whether that's our siblings or our classmates or later on in in groups, our education, also the career development is giving us enough stimulation to be able to collaborate with others. But we forget completely that this collaboration and maybe this competition will at some point entail also dependency, again. I said early life will depend on parents and that's what we think dependency is about or we depend on bosses but we are actually depending on each other because we are part of systems. When the structure is clear that interdependency is no issue. I come to you when I need to come to you, you come to me when you need to and so forth and we will find each other.  But as this clarity goes more and more away, it also means that it's very difficult to basically understand what these interdependencies are and then later on we have to negotiate on those ourselves. From this idea that we were developing our own strength in order to become autonomous and not to rely on authority figures now comes into a conflict that as we become autonomous we are actually depending on others who may not be so, you know, in a different level than we are or they may not actually even care about us as maybe our bosses cared about us doing a good job, if you see what I mean. They felt responsibility maybe over whether that's a good or a bad boss, but they felt some responsibility over us performing or delivering good work to them. Now we are dependent on others and others depend on us that maybe, you know, it's more on an adult to adult level and they don't have responsibility of our wellbeing. So a different access or a different value needs to come to play that can guide us about how do we negotiate, how do we learn to care for each other or how do we take responsibility of the total outcome. This doesn't answer your question on culture predisposition because you know some cultures are very hierarchical in that sense and some others are very egalitarian. But regardless of those nuances, I think it's also helpful to understand that from a psyche point of view, we already have that programming in our lives. Maybe more than other species even who have a very short period of being dependent then they're spend the rest of their lives being autonomous. Stephen Matini: The answer that I've given myself so far, of the reason why so m

Eric Girard, author of the book Lead Like A Pro: The Essential Guide for New Managers, assists professionals in transitioning from high-performing individual contributors to effective people managers. Eric discusses the psychological aspects of this transition, providing insights into managing change and setting realistic expectations. This conversation is a comprehensive exploration of the challenges and triumphs that managers face in their evolution to effective leadership. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to the Pity Party Over podcast Sign up for Live Session to learn management skills Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Connect with Stephen #ericgirard #leadlikeapro #managementdevelopment #podcast #pitypartyover #alygn #stephenmatini #leadershipdevelopment   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini : How did you get to this point? You know, because you take care, such a specific thing, which is helping manager transitioning people transition into manager role. So is this something that you have always thought? Have you always had an interest? How did it happen? Eric Girard: I got into learning and development in my teens. It starts way back in the Boy Scouts. I was a boy scout for years and years and I used to teach kids how to swim and paddle a canoe and row a boat, anything in, on or under the water. And I loved it when a kid would get something like get a skill, like how to make a canoe do what they wanted. And they would go, whoa. And I thought, Hey, I like teaching. Then I went to college and discovered learning and development and joined the Association for Talent Development. Back then it was the American Society for Training and Development, joined a student chapter and got my first job out of college teaching people how to use their computers. And that was okay, but it was, it felt like I was on a hamster wheel. I felt like I was just running, running, running, running, running. So I went and got my master's degree in intercultural training and wound up traveling around. I taught English in Japan. I lived in Australia for a couple years and then when I came back from Australia, I thought, okay, it's time to really find my passion. And I wound up working for a cross-cultural consulting firm. And then I got recruited to come to Silicon Valley. So that started my 20 year sojourn in Silicon Valley. And I went from teaching new hires about the company, new hire orientation into employee development, and then eventually management development. And then I thought, aha, these are my people. This, I like this. So helping managers understand their new role, helping them move from being great employees, great individual contributors, and moving to being a great people manager and learning all those skills and there's a whole list of them was really rewarding to me. So that's where I, I wound up settling, was in the area of management development and I love it and I've decided to make it my life's work now that I'm out of Silicon Valley and I've got my own practice, that's what I do. I love helping new managers make that shift.   Stephen Matini: Because of your cross-cultural experience, is there something that you have noticed that is consistent in managers all over the world? Eric Girard: You know, managers are people, actually, this is a funny thing that came up in a class I was teaching. So I'm in Iowa teaching a class for, at the headquarters of one of my biggest clients. It's the second day of a three-day class. And this one manager who had been pretty active throughout, they raised their hand and said, I just wanna say something. All managers need therapy. That was a big thing to say. And they say, yeah, all managers need therapy because if you don't take care of your own stuff, then you're not gonna be any good to your team. This person was making the case that it's really important to take care of your own stuff, the stuff that's going on in your head so that you can be fully present and fully there for your team. And I thought that was really good. It was a bold statement to make, but you know, we were in a room where we could speak freely. And it makes perfect sense to me that just as people, we all carry a certain amount of baggage into the workplace. And I think it's important to deal with that. And when you're in a leadership position, whether you're a first line manager or whether you're a CXO, when you're in a leadership position, you need to be self-aware and you need to take care of the things that may hinder you from doing the best job possible when it comes to leading other people. I think that's a universal that I would mention   Stephen Matini: When I deal with managers, I deal with people very, very often that never ever took any sort of managerial development plan at all. So essentially finally they get to it when it's too late. So how do you address that issue with clients? Eric Girard: Well, I would never say it's too late. My first suggestion is that there's always time to learn something new. There's always time to improve your ability to lead teams. And so I often will lead classes that are really meant for new managers. The content is fundamental, and yet people will still come to class, you know, Hey, I've been a manager for 10 years and I've never received any training and I'm really grateful to be here. So I don't see it as a problem. I see it as a, as a cost for celebration because you know, this person finally is gonna fill in the gaps. They've probably figured it out. If they've been a manager for 10 years, and I see this a lot, people have been managing for 3, 5, 10 years or more. And this might be their first or second ever management class. Hey, let's fill in the gaps and let's maybe course correct where you can be a little more effective and bring a little more empathy to your role. It, I would say it's never too late   Stephen Matini: Usually. Do you follow a specific learning path with new managers or you let them take the lead? How? Where do you start with them? Eric Girard: Well, in my book I started with empathy. So the first chapter and the longest chapter is about empathy. And that as a human leading of the humans, you need to be empathetic and you need to be able to walk a mile in other people's shoes. Not to the point where you become a therapist or a counselor, but just being able to listen really, really well and attend to what the other person is saying. So, so I lead with that and then we start with making the transition. Okay, you were a great engineer, you were a great financial analyst, you were a great fill in the blank. Now you're leading a team of those people. Let's make the mental psychological transition to a leadership role. And then from there, you know, and the order of these things will vary a little bit once we've made the transition. Then we'll talk a little bit about goal setting, we'll talk about delegation coaching feedback, how to manage change, how to build trust. And these things all happen in slightly different orders. But when I wrote like a pro, I really thought through, okay, if I could write a perfect course, how would it be organized? That's what the table of contents of that book is all about is okay, you know, first empathy, then make the transition, and then all these other things kind of in increasing levels of difficulty and importance.   Stephen Matini: You know, I've never written a book, but I wonder because you went through that experience, what have you learned about yourself in the process of writing a book about something you love? Eric Girard: This wasn't really clear to me until I got into the book. For six months I sat down and for an hour a day for six months, I wrote the book. You know, I just gave myself an hour every morning when I was freshest and I would, I would hammer out a page or a chapter or a paragraph, whatever I could get done in an hour. And that was fun. Recording the audio book, going into the studio and recording the audio book. That was fun. The editing the endless back and forth, not fun. I'm very much a big ideas guy, you know. So I will come up with a big idea. I will put together the framework and put together the skeleton, and then I'll ask somebody else to come in and, and do the detailed work. And I find that that's how I run my business as well, is I will have the big ideas and then I will say, Diana, Sandra Bill, could you please make this pretty? Because that's not my forte.   Stephen Matini: So you are a leader, maybe more than a manager. Eric Girard: You know, in a micro business you have to do everything. So I can't completely just throw things over the fence, but I know where my strengths are and I play to my strengths and I ask other people to use their strengths. And I'm really open about it, you know, I have a horrible memory. I'm not good with detail, and the people on my team are. And so that's what I asked them to bring. And it works really well   Stephen Matini: As a manager. But in your case, as an entrepreneur, how do you choose good team members? That's a skill. Eric Girard: It's a skill. There's a fair amount of luck involved in it as well. So I got lucky because two of the people that are on my team, I've known for years, and I know their skills. So for example, when I started Gerard Training Solutions, I thought, Hey, I can do it all. I can design, develop, deliver the courses, I can do the branded slide decks, I can do the books, I can run the website, I can do all the things because I'm very smart and can do all these things, right? And I immediately made such a mess of the website that I called my friend Sandra and said, can you please fix the website? And she came in and within a couple of days, I had a website and it was beautiful. So I'm like, okay, you're in. But I had known Sandra, let's see, I met her in 2011 and I brought her on in 20 20, 20 21. So I ha

Kali Patrick is a Sleep, Health, & Well-Being Coach whose book Mastering Your Sleep Puzzle helps busy people who struggle with sleep due to stress and overactive minds. Kali highlights the importance of letting go, creating personal space, and making positive lifestyle changes for better sleep. Our interview revolves around understanding and addressing individualized sleep challenges through a comprehensive, mindful, and personalized approach. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #KaliPatrick #SleepCoach #MasteringYourSleepPuzzle #Well-Being #LettingGo #Burnout #Work-LifeBalance #Podcast #PityPartyOver #Alygn #StephenMatini #LeadershipDevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: So I think maybe as a first question that I should ask you to an expert in sleep is, how did you sleep last night? Kali Patrick: I was doing mixed and you know, a lot of people think that because I'm a sleep coach, that I get something like whatever perfect sleep would be that that happens every night. It's almost like if you were a, a nutrition person, people think that you never eat anything that's not healthy. As a woman of a certain age, I wake up hot and then cold and then hot and then cold. So some nights are better than others. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great.   Stephen Matini: When did you start getting interested in sleep? I know you mentioned last time also that, you know, as it happened to so many of us as somehow a trouble or something that upset us becomes the inspiration for a job. How did it start for you? Kali Patrick: Well, my big problems are rooted back in childhood. I think they really started bothering me and becoming an issue in, in college I was under a lot of stress. I was studying for a degree that did not match what I was truly, naturally good at and wanted to do. So I had a lot of stress around making sure I got good grades and making sure I kept my financial support, et cetera. And I had a lot of trouble sleeping. I started this with grinding of the teeth with bro them. So had a lot of pain in my mouth and was going to dentist. They finally gave me the guards for my feet. So that took away some of the pain. But I was still tired. I was still very stressed and struggling and that went on and I graduated and everything was fine and I got a job and then the stress became the job, which, which was in high tech. And I was developing websites back when they were new. So I'm on my way, I something to do in fact that, that I enjoyed, which was helpful. But it was still a very stressful environment. Things were always changing. As you might know, things are never static. You always, always behind, always busy. And so I was having trouble sleeping then and again. I knew it was because of the stress. So I explored things like yoga and meditation and I would take a class here and there and try, okay, I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna stop my mind and I'm gonna do all the things. And that didn't work. And finally I'd say it was probably 15 years later, I did a sleep study. 'cause I thought, well maybe there's something wrong. And going to a doctor and, and telling them, Hey, I'm having trouble sleeping. I don't know what else to do. They had me sleep in the room with the wires attached to my head. And I thought, how in the world am I gonna sleep in a cold, sterile environment with people behind a, a mirror watching me and monitoring me? And turns out I fell asleep. And he said, I woke up in the morning and they said, well, there's nothing wrong with you. You slept great. Here's a prescription. And in hindsight, I really questioned why I got a prescription if there was nothing wrong. I was happy. I was great. Okay, nothing's wrong with me. I have a prescription, I'll take this medication and I'll sleep. I must be taking it for about a week. And that was it because I noticed that I was groggy when I woke up, more so than had I not slept. And I didn't remember my dream. I was a, a pretty vivid dreamer at that time and I was interested in my dream. And when I woke up after taking medication, I couldn't remember them anymore. And I said, well, so I'm gonna wake up broadly. At least I want the benefit of remembering my dream. So I stopped doing that and went to all the natural things, right? The valerian and the melatonin, the teeth, anything that was sort of more natural that I could try. And none of that worked. I eventually thought from burnout in 2010 with my job, I had risen up through the ranks manager, et cetera, all the fun that comes with that as a sort of new job in a tech environment. So I left everything. I just said, I can't do this anymore. I had the benefit of being able to do that. So I went into a yoga teacher training program just saying, I don't wanna teach yoga. I just want to do something completely different and do something that's going to be good for me and I know that this is going to be good for me. And so I did a really intensive teacher training and it was life changing. It was just one of those moments where, wow, my life could be different, I could be different. So I came back from that saying, I do wanna teach yoga. I do wanna be that person who's less stressed and has that calm be yoga voice and just as relaxed. And that created a lot of turmoil in my existing life because the two things didn't fit at all. So there was a lot of, of shedding of my career, my relationship, and it was a very difficult time actually. But what came out of that was this practice that I now have where I am helping people learn how to sleep better, how to do it without all of that stuff that clearly, well, it didn't work for me. That doesn't mean it doesn't work for other people, but most of the people I coach have been in that situation, right where they have tried all the things, I've done, all the stuff I've seen my doctor, nothing's wrong, but I'm not sleeping. And so it's really a pleasure to be able to work with people and to help them find their way through that and do it in a way that works for them, right? Just because I did it in a certain way, you know, you mentioned I'm a sleep expert. I don't call myself a sleep expert. I call myself a sleep coach because I don't initially have all the answers. What we do in a coaching situation is we work together and we navigate it together and we figure out, well, what's going to work best for each person? And that could be completely different than how I did it, but it's that learning how to reconnect to your own natural ability to sleep and see all these other things as distraction, as more stressors, as more to do and to really peel the things away that are preventing sleep versus trying to do things to make sleep happen.   Stephen Matini: Where do you start when you want to be more aware? Kali Patrick: I do usually have people do an assessment. So let's lay out all the problems. Let's just get it all on the table. What are the issues people are having? A lot of my clients suffer from multiple sleep concerns. The main bucket being trouble falling asleep initially when you go to bed, trouble staying asleep throughout the night. Some people wake up too early and some people have all of those problems and still others sometimes feel that the sleep at night is interrupted in some way, or not quality sleep because in the daytime they feel, well, I get tired right in the afternoon, for example. I get tired, I don't have the energy that I want. So we lay all that out. Generally speaking, people have an idea of what might be contributing positively or negatively to their space. What's something you do, for example, that you know you sleep better when you do it? You know, a lot of people will say, well I wanna go for a walk. I know when I exercise or when I go for a walk in the daylight, I sleep better that night. Okay, great. So then that's one in the column of this helps. Okay, what's one thing you're doing that is probably not the best thing for your sleep? And out of 10 people say using technology, I'm on my phone, I'm on my iPad, I'm watching television, I'm, you know, too late in the evening before bed. That's the number one answer. We do that, we go back and forth. We look at what are the contributors, what are the things that are influencing sleep? And the other thing that I think is really important is to step back from all that and say, well what do we want six months from now, a year from now? What do you want your life to be like? And people usually start out by saying, well, I'd like to sleep better. I'd like to have more energy. Great. Let's imagine that you have that now. What do you want? What will you do with all that energy that you have as a result of sleeping better? What will you do with all the extra time and money and effort that you're putting into trying to solve this problem? Where will that go? That becomes the motivating factor. So I've had people say all sorts of wonderful things and people wanna start a business. People want to create art or music. People want to be better in their relationship. There's no right or wrong answer there, but what is the vision for somebody who tweaks better and is more energetic? And that is a real important part of the process because we have to keep that in mind when we make choices and all those little choices that make or break someone's sleep on a daily basis, on a nightly basis.   Stephen Matini: If I understood correctly, it seems that sleep is the manifestation or something else. It is something that gets affected when other parts of our life do not quite align or work the way they do. While you were talking, obviously I'm not a sleep expert, probably my expertise, I would say lies more in the, in the communication realm. And for me, communication is always the indicator, depending h

Neil Lawrence is a well-being and transformational coach who reminds us about the importance of self-acceptance and authenticity to find purpose in life. Neil shares how mindfulness has helped him navigate neurodivergence as well as chronic conditions that have profoundly impacted his life, like Fibromyalgia and PSTD. Neil emphasizes the idea that everyone is good enough as they are, countering societal pressures that often lead to a sense of inadequacy, which heavily affects minority groups like neurodivergent individuals and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Sessions combining coaching, content, and advisory to boost leadership and management skills. Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #NeilLawrence #Mindfulness #compassion #LifeCoachLondon #podcast #PityPartyOver #Alygn #StephenMatini #LeadershipDevelopment #ManagementDevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Have you always known what you want to do professionally? Neil Lawrence: No, I coach creatives. I'm a writer myself. I coach execs, I coach leaders. I do lots of career coaching. I coach kids. And honestly, that idea of having the career and the career plan, it's so antithetical to me. I'm kind of careful where I say it, but I do honestly believe that's not the way it goes. I became intentional about the work I did when I became a coach, everything before it. And even then, it was still like, I don't really know what was getting myself into before then. Third generation immigrant. My community was, this is the generation that has to make it to middle class. I'm sure you know about the UK and just how class obsessed and hierarchically obsessed they are. So, you know, I went to university that wasn't approved of by my community 'cause it wasn't one of the ones. But essentially I kind of fell into everything I did until I became a coach and intentionally became a writer. Stephen Matini: What you just described is what happens, I think to most people. Very few people know from the very beginning what they wanted to do. And you said at some point you made more intentional choices. Do you think it, is it possible to make intentional choices early on on our lives or it just that we have to go through a bunch of stuff before we actually understand? Neil Lawrence: That's a good question. I think our society has got everything the wrong way around. I think there are systemic reasons for that and in the UK I think there's political reasons for that. We are a nation obsessed with success, passion being driven, having the career, having the title. And actually I kind of find myself asking what for, I think work is important. I probably am a workaholic, but in my mind I don't think it's that important. It doesn't define who I am. It's something that I spend a lot of my life doing. I think those people know what they want to do at an early age and are quite driven. I'm passionate about it. I'm not judgmental about that. I'm more on alert for the fact that everybody feels like they have to. And so many people feel they're failing because of it. And particularly since Covid and the pandemic hit and people are even more desperately trying to support the system that now has so many holes and gaps in it that it's unsustainable. I'm seeing as a coach, I'm seeing a lot of really worn out, unhappy, confused people. So three or four things got me too intentional. One facing up to the fact that I was disabled. Two, realizing that I was living with PTSD as well as fibromyalgia and like I've just, it's interesting you're saying about not sleeping. So I've literally just come up my whole weekend's been decimated by PTSD this weekend. It's just like I didn't exist for about 36 hours and you know, it's a big something and then I've told this story a billion times, but basically me and my husband were, we're on a very narrow and congested motorway about five years ago and it was dangerous driving conditions and I, we shouldn't be here. So still being here when I shouldn't be here also is quite a good motivate. So I wouldn't recommend it for anyone, by the way, as a way of finding out who you are. But I think all those things coalesced and I'm being bullied within the education sector and, and the values of working within that for 25 years and realizing just how misaligned they were. As I came to the conclusion that, you know, in UK education's really about two things. It's about hierarchy and it's about institutionalized bullying. All of that coalesced and drew me towards coaching the course I did with a company called Catalyst one Four. I'm still super supervised by them now. Demi one four who's the the founder and the kind of person who's my supervisor as well. They had a big mindfulness element to it that was really important to me as well. So, you know, I dunno if this long answer is giving you kind of what you want, but certainly my experience of waking up day to day means that now whatever's on, even if I'm stressed, it's like it is, it feels like purpose and it feels like I'm doing what I should be doing. Stephen Matini: So basically we are sold a big lie. Neil Lawrence: Yes. What we're told is we need to work so many hours, we need to have a micromanaged plan. We need to keep improving and keep adding to our skillset and we are not good enough. That's kind of, and we'll never be good enough. So we have to keep going. What I see from the people I coach and as as was saying, it's you know, sort of really broad spectrum of people is when they realize they don't have to work this hard, they are more than their job title. If they don't do this course and get this next qualification and people don't congratulate them on social media, they still might be working really well. Trying to be really careful say. That, oh, I haven't done my post this morning either. That's when I see the difference of people going, oh my, my motto is do less, plan less be less. Stephen Matini: But I love it connected to what you're saying. For me, what helps me is reminding myself, why am I doing this? You know, am I doing it because I am enjoying myself and obviously, you know, work is, work is not vacation, but what is the, the reason why I'm doing it? Because that really changes everything. It changes how you are in a situation. It changes how you work, it changes how you feel about stuff. If it's all about getting there, the results, how is it gonna land on people? It may spoil the whole journey, not completely. Definitely it did it for me. Neil Lawrence: I do wonder whether lots of us are on a journey or just constantly looking at destinations. Either those that have gone already that stick with us or those that we're heading to. I do wonder about that. And obviously that's the mindfulness bit, which is also nicely packaged these days as a kind of CBT tick box, which is not at all where I'm at with it or how I practice it and work with people that I coach either. But focusing on the now is the important thing. Set the intention. Obviously we plan, but we leave enough in the hands of trust that we will know when to make the gut decision. The right people will come to us if we're open to it. It always sounds a bit vague and wooly doesn't it, when people who, when people say this stuff or, or it's easily, you know, certain phrase I hate soft skills is an insult. Likewise, you know, when people talk about mindfulness being quite wooly and it's about clearing your mind so you have the clarity to make the decisions you need to as and when they happen rather than trying to look ahead and put everything in place before you get there. You missing on the journey there. Stephen Matini: How did you get into mindfulness? Do you remember the first time that got into your life? Neil Lawrence: In the days when I was still muck schooling, I worked with this wonderful counselor and we were running a couple of groups for young men at the point where I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. That's when I started meditating and used this app, which was a very basic, this is how you know, the three steps, three basic mindfulness techniques. And then from there I started to practice it and I kind of got it. But then I came across two teachers, two American teachers, one called Tara Brack and the second one called Jack Kornfield with a cape. They're really down to earth, they're really funny, they're really compassionate and they are very switched on in terms of systems and what's happening in the world around and, and they don't shy away from any of that. And my jaw kind of dropped open, suddenly there was a kind of spiritual link to the work I was doing and that's when as I continued to practice, a light switched on. I can remember the very moment, you know, Jack Hall Phil's written a book called After the Ecstasy of the Laundry. It's something like that, which is about his experience of kind of becoming a Budd monk and then coming back to America and just kind of the day-to-day going, oh, and I have this half term off where I was really connecting and really starting to feel compassion for other people and doors were opening and I went back to work and got these like 25 emails all about admin and systems and process that completely obfuscated working with young people or connecting with them or making a difference. And I really felt this disconnection. It was like, how the hell am I supposed to do this? So I realized I'd also have to find a wave surviving day-to-day systems that didn't really reach into making compassionate connections and being able to make a difference in that way. So from that moment onwards, things change. Stephen Matini: One of the ways that I have introduced mindfulness in the corporate world, which by the way for many, many, many years in depends on the situation, but it has always b

David D'Arcangelo is the President of Arc Angel Communications, a Limited Liability Company that is a Disability Owned Business Enterprise. Legally blind from a young age, David is a passionate leader, advocate, and policy maker for people with disabilities and underserved populations. During our conversation, David emphasizes the power of positivity, love, and constructive discourse in addressing societal challenges and building bridges between differing perspectives. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over  Sign up for a Training Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini on LinkedIn #DavidDArcangelo #diversity #positivity #blindness #ArcAngelCommunications #podcast #PityPartyOver #Alygn #StephenMatini #LeadershipDevelopment #ManagementDevelopment   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: As we are approaching the end of the year, usually for me it's a, it's a moment of self-introspection. I tend to calm down a little bit, and just revisit all that I've done during the year. I also think about, all right, what I want the next year to be. So, I don't know if you gave any thought to 2024, but do you have any special wish for the year to come? David D’Arcangelo: Peace. I'm a bridge builder and so to me it's just bringing people together. You know, it's kind of ironical. Oftentimes people who advocate for change the most are the most adverse to it. The worst fear of a planner is that the plan actually goes into action. So I'm all about action. I'm all about getting things done and getting results and improving the human condition. So, and sometimes when you do that, you get to change things and not everybody likes that. People say they like it, that they like the change, but then when you go ahead and change it, maybe they don't like it as much. So to me it's about building those bridges and just staying positive, you know, that we can't control a lot. One thing we can control is our attitude. So I choose to be positive. Stephen Matini: What do you think people resent the most about change? David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, it's a great question. I don't know if they resent it. I think it's, people like to build archetypal metaphors in their head of what something is or isn't or is going to be or could be. And when that doesn't happen accordingly or exactly how they envisioned it, that creates conflict and that conflict is unsettling and everything else. So I try not to do that. I try not to have those prejudices really, and who knows what the next moment will bring, you know, it's like you gotta live for the moment. Stephen Matini: So it's about having the right expectations. David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, well, having no expectations really. Well, that can be challenging. It can, because I mean, you need to be pragmatic and plan for your dinner and plan for the seasons changing and plan for short and medium and long term things. So to me, it's the blend of being pragmatic, but also really not expecting much because nothing is guaranteed. All that's guaranteed is now this moment further than that. It's just everything's up for grabs. Stephen Matini: Sometimes it is discrepancy between what we want, our goals, our wishes, and the way things are. And I think it's a fine balance between finding contentment in the present moment while at the same time thriving for something else. How do you personally strike this balance? David D’Arcangelo: Sometimes better than others! Because You do get caught up in trying to think about the future or reflecting on the past. Future performance is usually an indication of past performance, but we're here on the now, so it's taking some measure of where we've been and that experience and being able to reflect on it. Particularly if you've made mistakes, you know, we're all, nobody's perfect and whatever failures we've had, I think it's trying to learn from those so that when you do them again, you're better, right? So having that past experience, trying to apply it towards future behaviors in the now and having that balance, like you said, is to me that's really one of the keys and one of the, if you can find that secret sauce in life, I think that's close to it. Stephen Matini: You mentioned already your mission, which is to improve the human condition, and actually it's one of those traits that you share with a lot of guests of this podcast, people that have made service the very center of their life. How did this mission enter your life? I mean, is it something that's always been there? Is it the result of something that happened in your life? David D’Arcangelo: It's always been there. I didn't always know it was there. It really comes down to fundamental bedrock convictions. And that is, you know, do you believe in God or not? I'm not very religious, but I'm very faithful. Anything that I have, yeah, it's from me, but I'm only the vessel for it. Any of the good things that happen, I really can't take credit for any of the bad things that happen, that's from me, that's on me. So I start with myself, what can I do to be better? What can I do to be more positive? What mistakes did I make that I want to change for the future so I don't make them again? And to me about improving the human condition, you can do a one person at a time, or you can try to be involved with policies that impact many. And I've done both, and I try to do both. And whether it's the one person or whether it's the many, I just try to stay positive and constructive and move things forward from that. But make no mistake about it, particularly in the realm that I've been in, which is disabilities. The disability itself can be very challenging. Those challenges are manifested in many ways. And it's a scale. We are all in various states of ability. And that ability manifests itself in so many different ways. And for some people there is great suffering on one end of that spectrum. And on the other end there's no suffering at all. And there's complete enlightenment and most people are somewhere on that spectrum. And just because you are on one place at one point in time doesn't mean you're not gonna be on another, it's a sliding scale, right? We're all in various states of ability. Stephen Matini: Has disability ever defined who you are? David D’Arcangelo: The best way I can answer that is, it's not my full definition, but it's part of my definition, right? You know, but who would I be if I didn't have this disability to encounter? I Because particularly I find with people with less apparent disabilities, which by the way I think is a very significant amount of persons with disabilities have non apparent disabilities, meaning when you encounter them, you would not necessarily know that they have a disability or not. And I'm probably one of those people, most people like, well, what do you mean you're legally blind? You can see, yes, I can see. And so can the large majority of people with blindness, most people who are blind have some usable vision. Now that's toward one end of that spectrum. I'm, you know, I'm probably barely legally blind, if you wanna put it that way. I'm 2200 with my glasses on, but that is still legally blind. And so oftentimes the greatest discrimination I face is from other people with blindness. It's a both a compliment and an insult at the same time. It's a compliment basically saying, well, you don't present as blind. And so all of the things that I've done to ameliorate my blindness, people don't recognize that or don't see that, and that's kind of the insult of it, right? The good side is, wow, look how high functioning this person is. The bad side is, well, wait a minute, what do you mean you're blind? So you know, you take the good with the bad and it's about education and giving people an understanding of our human condition that we are all in various states of ability, whether it's any of the prevalence, types of disability, hearing, seeing, cognition, mobility, you know, all of the different types of disability. Stephen Matini: Would you say that the biggest challenges that you have faced in your life in terms of disability, did they come from within, or was something that came from the outside? David D’Arcangelo: Yeah, the great stoic philosopher Epictetus said that one of the keys to life is to break things down into one of two categories. Internal things that you can't control and external things that you can control. I try to not spend resources and effort and time on things that are outside of my control. So I try to focus on things that are within my control. Now, within disability, I was born as a person with a disability. I was born with a rare eye disease. And so that's out of my control. You have to play the hand, you're dealt. Other challenges have happened, some of which were within my control, some of the mistakes that I made, or choices that I made, and then others that I didn't and I was just involved with, for one reason or the other, life happens to you. It's a mix of both. And to me it's how do you face that adversity? How do you embrace that adversity? To me, I start with me, what did I need to do better? What should I have done better? It's about my self responsibility. Because if you're gonna get the good things from self-reliance, you need to be prepared to take the more challenging things as well, because nobody's perfect. Again, when you're presented with something, whether it be good or bad, you then have choices. What are you going to do with it? To me, if you choose to be positive and you choose to use it for a positive, good, well that's the way to go.That's the path to go. And that's the path that I've tried to go down. Stephen Matini: It’s so easy sometimes to feel like a victim of circumstances and situations. How have you been able to shy away from that? You seem to me you've been really, really accountable

Simona Orsingher is an Italian executive who has developed a successful career in both Operations and Business Development, two functions that can sometimes clash within organizations. While Operations emphasizes efficiency, cost control, and stability, Business Development focuses on growth, innovation, and revenue generation. Finding common ground between these two functions entails developing shared goals and effective cross-functional communication, especially when dealing with short-term versus medium-term strategies. As a professional whose career has combined both Operations and Business Development functions, Simona highlights the significance of being true to oneself, maintaining transparency, and finding a balance between rationality and emotions in professional relationships. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Alygn is Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #simonaorsingher #operations #businessdevelopment #pitypartyover #podcast #alygn #stephenmatini #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Simona, would you mind sharing with our listeners where you grew up? Simona Orsingher: Until the age of 18th I lived with my parents on the lake of Cuomo. The other side of the lake were the one for Alessandro Manzoni. And then I moved to Ireland for a couple of years. I lived in Dublin and then Londonderry, which is where I basically learned to speak English.  Once back, I moved to Milan for 15 years, more or less because I then found a new job. I moved first to Torino and then to Moderna for four years. And now I am back on the lake of Cuomo, but in Cuomo at the moment since 2020. So right before the pandemic. Yeah, that's my background.  So I come from the province, but then I immediately felt the need of moving into the world, meeting new people, experimenting new things, and seeing new cultures as well because the dimension of the lake was a little bit too tight for me. And even though I still have some connections in France over there, I feel like I'm a citizen in the world, not exactly a citizen of the lake. Stephen Matini: So when people ask you where home is, you know, what do you say? Simona Orsingher: I don't have a home, I don't have any roots. That's something that's, that really impressed me sometimes because normally you have like left the heart in your hometown; I didn’t. Probably, among all the places where I've lived, the one that I consider my home is Moderna for some reason. Because I felt so well there. I was so comfortable and I felt loved and welcomed. So if I have the chance to go back, I would run to go back to Moderna. Stephen Matini: And when did you find out what you wanted to pursue professionally? Is this something that evolved over time? How did that happen? Simona Orsingher: Well, it started when I had my first work experience in Milan. I used to work for some months on international company. And there I recognized that that was what I wanted to pursue. Meaning work with foreigners, speaking in English, going more and more into corporate details and understand how that type of work in general in a corporate environment would've worked and if it fit to me.  And then from there I said, and I realized, yeah, that's what I want to do. And that's what I pursued from that time going forward. So I've always stayed within corporate environments, international environments. So working like in EMEA roles or international roles rather than working just for Italy for example. Stephen Matini: Because your professional background is really interesting. You combine two different routes. You combine the business development part and the operation part. And sometimes in companies, these two functions may not necessarily things see things, you know, eye to eye. Sometimes people get really tribal and very defensive about what they do. So how did it happen with you? How come you pursued both? Simona Orsingher: It was like a smooth swift if I may say from operation to business development. I've always worked in functions which were in the middle, if I may say, because I started as commercial operations specialist and then move to a commercial operation manager role, ending now in a business full business development role, a global business development role.  And this happened because I think that of course you have to be in a place that encourages the teamwork between the two functions. So when we speak about supply and demand or demand and supply process, well this is something which is now very common in corporate environments. But when I started it was not that much.  So as you said, both of the functions are very defensive. So normally business development is the one who rushes rushes. We have two invoices, invoices, invoices and operation is saying, no, we can't do this, we can't do that. So like it's the Mr. No-No.  But in the end, when you work together, you understand that they can't leave without each other and they have to find a common way of understanding things. And this is where I started. So moving from operation to business development happened throughout like 15 years. So it was not something out of the blue.  I've understood working within commercial operation that I had a commercial acumen myself that I was able to discuss and negotiate with customers, even if I was formally working within operation.  And in my previous role, I realized that it was not just my impression, but it was my manager's impression, it was customer's impression. And sometimes they have specifically asked me to do, you know, negotiation and to speak about business.  So I like the fact that I had my commercial operation background when speaking to customers. So I already had in the back of my mind what could have been done and what could not have been done. So I was not over promising things to customers. I was sharing, let me say, a common success ahead because I knew where I could have been comfortable with them. So that was probably the key part of the success, which I've already used in my current role, which is the thing that ultimately led me to gain this new position as global business development manager. Stephen Matini: It is interesting because oftentimes I describe to clients, and I mean it most of the time as some sort of joke that companies only want two things. They want to make money and they want to save money. So the making money component would be, you know, the business development part and the saving money would be the operation part. For anyone who works in a company that somehow struggle in finding a balance between these two functions, what would you say that could be a first step? Simona Orsingher: To speak, to organize meeting and to go through each other figures and targets. Because sometimes, and if this is done on purpose, targets are done irrespectively of each function and they are done to create a sort of internal competition.  I don't agree with this way of doing because no one is going to benefit out of it. Because if commercial operation wins, then business development will lose something and vice versa. So there should be a common understanding, a common basis and common targets.  The commercial operation targets should compliment business development target and vice versa. That will be the first step to me. So meet, have a discussion on the direction we have to take together and not separately. And it's key that all the people are on board with that.  So there should be a sort of servant leadership from commercial operation and from business development because yes, it's true. Salespeople are the one who basically brings the money in, they bring the money, but they don't bring the profit. The profit is made out of what commercial operation is doing because then the cost sustained to run the operation is going to deduct from the revenue that is coming from business development. So there needs to be really a common path to follow together. Stephen Matini: Sometimes the main problem is the fact that the leadership, the culture of the organization is very, very sales driven and sometimes can give the impression to people they are in business development, in sales, that they are the most important function, you know, and then all the other functions feel, you know, a bit resentful. So from the, from the point of view of the leadership team, what could they do in order to create a culture that is more cross-functional? Simona Orsingher: So nowadays the quality, diversity, inclusion, it's like the flag of each company and the first, very first step they have to do towards equality, diversity, inclusion is write this. So you can't expect in a company where salespeople are considered like rocket stars and all the others are just, you know, white collar doing the job that the white collar are happy. So they have to treat both in the same way.  For example, long-term incentives or short-term incentives shouldn't be that different between business development and commercial operation or any other function in the company. In some companies there are even retreats for business development people or salespeople in general. While there's nothing for the rest of the employees, well that's not fair.  So the first step would be to treat people equally in this sense, in the way you approach them, in the way you explain thing, in the way you share your targets, the strategy and the vision. Everybody has to be on board and business development, they need to understand. And to do that, this has to start from the leadership team. So the senior VP in a company, they should start treating the salespeople the way they treat the other ones and vice versa.  Otherwise it's a sort of lead by example. You can't expect white colors and let me say non-sales people to

Chantal Souaid is the creator of “The Weekly Resolution® Planner,” a time management tool that allows consistent progress without the cumbersome weight of perfectionism. Chantal's schedule is very tight as a business entrepreneur and a mom of young twins. She believes that any goal and dream is achievable with consistency and the awareness that the most crucial step is to enjoy the journey as it unfolds. For Chantal, staying in the moment holds greater significance than chasing perfection, firmly asserting that consistency sustains momentum while motivation initiates the trip. Chantal Souaid is a three-month BARKAT Entrepreneur program graduate, an application-based 100% scholarship offering for Middle Eastern and African female entrepreneurs, and part of The Goddess Solution by Puneet Sachdev. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for Live Session  Managerial & Leadership Development - https://www.alygn.company/ Contact Stephen - stephen.matini@alygn.company Connect with Stephen - https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenmatini/ #ChantalSouaid #TheWeeklyPlanner #TimeManagement #Lebanon #StephenMatini #PityPartyOver #Alygn #LeadershipDevelopment #ManagementDevelopment #OrganizationalDevelopment   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Was there any person or any event in your past that somehow have impacted your professional choices? Chantal Souaid: So I'll tell you about three things and I combined them all and I called them the tipping point in my life. And these things were: one, I delivered twins prematurely, which I wasn't expecting.  Two, living in Lebanon, we had the political economical financial crisis.  And three, the project that I was running, they just told us that they are closing from Lebanon to go to another country.  So when this happened and all these three happened at the same time, I said, you know what Chantal, maybe this can be your wake up call for you to do what you've always loved, which was train coach and help people live better lives. Stephen Matini: Were you able to jump on the new idea right away or was it hard? I mean, did you have to take time to process everything? Chantal Souaid: So let me tell you, I've had the blog since 2008. I used to and still like to write too much.  But it took me time to see how I will present myself to the world as an entrepreneur. Because for me, I've been employed an international development project for a very long time.  So what I did, I said, you know what? I was very good at putting New Year's resolutions, and these New Year's resolutions weren't working obviously because I had twins, things were going a bit different and I was a productivity trainer at the time and people used to joke with me and say, you're a productivity trainer, wait until you have kids. The year was starting, it was 2020 and I didn't put in years resolution. And I was thinking, you know what? I don't want to put in years resolution. And at the time, my only goal every single day was just to take a bus for a mom with twins, breastfeeding them, taking a bath was the best thing ever.  So then I thought, okay, I'll make a like a weekly challenge. And I said, okay, if I try to do this and then if I do it every single week, then people would like support me with the follow through.  At the time I didn't call it “the weekly resolution”, so I said, I'll call 2020 weekly challenge. So I decided to film myself announcing the challenge and just posting it on my social media.  And I started it. My husband was very generous in filming me at the start and I said, I'll do it for the full year. I didn't have any plan. I didn't know what every week the challenge would be, but I said, if I announce it to people then I'll have to do it because I'm someone who really cares about what I say, what I said to myself.  Then every single week I started putting a video out and saying, this week this is what we're going to do. So the examples were very simple, like this week say thank you more or look at someone and say how grateful you are for what they did. So it started very simple.  Then Covid hit Lebanon and then the challenge was already going on. So people were more engaged. I had more people joining in. Somehow, sometime around April I decided, you know what? Everybody is joining in. It's very interesting. And I said like, okay, if I go and tell people I want to help you achieve your dreams, the first thing they will tell me, okay, And then when did you achieve your dream and why am I going to listen to you? So I decided to achieve one of my very, very, very early dreams, which was creating a planner and the planner at the time I decided to call it the “Weekly Resolution Planner”.  I have a copy here with me, it’s the second version of the planner. And I thought, okay, this planner would be the crown on top of this year. It would help the year finish at the happy note. And this was it.  I did the first version of the planner then the year after another version. And that's like how the story unfolded of me opening up and then being able to start my coaching business, coaching and training and selling my planner and then just moving from a full-time employee into an entrepreneur. Stephen Matini: The whole time management arena is not necessarily the focus of what I do as a coach and as a trainer. But you know, I do focus on soft skills. So time management comes up all the time. And the one thing that I've noticed over the years is that when you touch time management, you touch a really soft spot for people. And very often people come up with the millions of different reasons why they cannot do what they want. So, in your opinion, what is it that some people somehow, like yourself, you keep going, and other people, they simply settle for something that is not necessarily representative of what they want? Chantal Souaid: I'll tell you like two ideas about that. As I was doing every single week, my husband would come and tell me, Chantal, you don't have a plan until the end of the year. How can you keep on going? This is like every week you're just deciding on what you want and every week you're just reading more and then deciding what it's better if you had a plan. And then I told him if I had a good plan that I'm not implementing consistently, that's not something good.  On the other hand, if I had a regular plan and even maybe a bad plan that I was implementing consistently, this is way much better.  So what I had was a regular plan, which is to post every single week a challenge, but I was doing it consistently. And then I remember an interesting quote that I like that says something along the lines that motivation gets you started, consistency keeps you going. And at the time my image, my self image as a professional was very important. And that's why when we are talking about goal setting, you always ask who will you tell about your goal? So I announced it to the world.  Now I'm someone, the world for me isn't like 1 million followers. The world for me was my family and friends and my close connections. But even if I said to these people that I'm going to do this for me as a value honoring my, my word is something very important. So this got me going.  If on the other hand I said, you know what, I will film every week a video and once the videos are all 20, then I'll announce it. Me knowing myself, I wouldn't have done it.  So going back to my husband, he used to tell me that if it were up to me, I would put the plan, I would film the videos, at least half of them, then I would go for it. So this works for him, but for me, I know that if I put myself out there, if I tell the people and then every single week there's nothing that will stop me and I can do it, this is what would help me and this is how I move through it.  And this is how I usually notice that this is the only way that I can get motivated because I have to put it out there and then once it's out there I will not block out unless I change my mind and nothing like this has ever happened. So each person needs to know. Stephen Matini: And what if someone is not consistent? Is there anything else that people could do? Let's say I'm not someone that consistent, but I have good intentions. Is it still possible in your opinion, to get your dreams, you know, out of your drawer if you're not consistent?  Chantal Souaid: A lot of people are not consistent and this is a very big problem and people come to me all the time about it. Being consistent doesn't start. If you're consistent, you wouldn't take any help.  The problem is how to start on the path. If your why isn't very strong, And if people don't feel that like really they want to achieve this dream, they will never achieve it. Yes, Lewis says, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. And this is true.  So the problem is that the majority of people don't know where they're going or don't know what their goal or what their dream. Thus they can't consistently implement anything.  If they know what their dream is, And if they are adamant about doing it, then consistency can start simply by faking it in the start. But setting like a a small plan on how it'll go and then I can tell you how the weekly resolution can help them achieve it consistently every single week. Stephen Matini: Have you always had clear what you wanted, or is it something that you learned along the way? Chantal Souaid: A lot of times there were a lot of things that were very clear for me and other times things were not as clear and I didn't know where I was going, especially when I was starting my business and having the kids and me being, trying to get used to being a working mom and being a mom in general.  So a lot of these things weren't as easy. But what I learned along the way, and this is a a long learning process, was to just trust myself and trust the process and trust the unive

Dr. Claudia Gross is a German consultant and trainer who lives in Cairo, Egypt, and has a soulful humanist approach to business. Our conversation revolves around the transformative potential of language in fostering positive connections, understanding, and personal growth. Inspired by approaches such as Nonviolent Communication and Positive Psychology, Dr. Gross emphasizes the concept that words create worlds.  Dr. Gross is the author of the first Speak Green book, Words Create Worlds: Cultivating a Conscious, Life-Affirming Language. The idea is to move away from "red language," which is divisive and instead embrace "green language," which promotes harmony and positive communication. By speaking green, we can move beyond binary thinking, embrace a variety of viewpoints with greater ease, and cultivate empathy through language.  Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen #claudiagross #speakgreen #language #pitypartyover #podcast #alygn #stephenmatini #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini:Claudia. You are in Egypt. So how's life in Egypt? Claudia Gross: Life in Egypt is also very different to what I was used to and I think about Germany, you know, like, so a totally different planet if you wanna say that. And I love it because it's so interesting and inspiring.  Being here, living in a totally different culture, being emerged and surrounded by it. Here there are so many opportunities to contribute. This is what I also love.  For me, Egypt's like a huge catalyst of my own development. Everything I currently am,  who I am and what I do is based on this fertile soil of the desert country. So for me, living in Egypt has been a very fertile, inspiring and reconnecting experience, reconnecting myself to my roots. Stephen Matini: Do you think that you would have become the same type of person if you never moved to Egypt? Claudia Gross: I can't imagine. Just the other day I actually thought that I'm very grateful for this kind of destiny or force in the road that brought me here. I have been here since 18 and a half years. So if this period was a human being, it would be a teenager with a driving license.  And when I think about, for example, the power of language that I'm so passionate about, I see this here in in Egypt, an action every day. Even if you just say good morning, good morning in Arabic would be something like wishing you a morning full of light or full of honey, or full of yes. mean if you're responding to this, you would actually aim for saying something that is even sweeter or brighter. And I, I see this a lot.  There's also some things, some words we would not say, things we wouldn't say simply because that's part of the culture, and because we think that it brings bad luck. So being immersed into this kind of environment where the power of words can be felt and seen every day in every conversation definitely contributed to who I'm currently. Stephen Matini: How have you discovered along the way, the power of language, the power or words, how did you get interested in words as much as you do today? Claudia Gross: The initial moment that I can recall that changed everything was when I was sitting in the traffic jam in Egypt and like a particularly long one, really dramatic. And I was surrounded by signs telling me what not to do. So I got like, don't be late, don't miss this appointment. And signs on the streets saying, don't whatever cross here, don't turn here.  And I was like, Hey, listen, you know, I mean like, could you please stop talking in red language to me, if not helpful? What I would love to know is like, what can I now do? Where can I turn? Where could I go? And I mean, I could not just leave my car behind the walk. So this is what happened.  And when I then arrived at the place where I was having dinner with a friend at this time, I was like telling her this experience and suddenly it's like sketching down a couple of red words and green words and this is what happened. This is where it started.  And then retroactively, I realized that since I can think when I was highlighting texts and textbooks or when, when studying something, especially in English, I was always starting to highlight something when the not part was over and when it was focusing on what to do, suddenly I understood that I had it in me for a while, but it just woke up in this particular traffic jam. Stephen Matini: Is this what you refer to as a speak green? Claudia Gross: Yes. For me, speak green. Why have I chosen this? It's because really an opposition to red language in, in comparison to how people talk a lot. When you think about Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of non-violent communication, you would call it hyena language and giraffe language.  For me, what was like closer to my heart where these two languages and also like traffic signs, like read for, hey, wait a moment stand still pause, reflect, is this really how I wanna say it? And then coming up with the green alternative and to go for that. So also this complementary of these colors was important for me in that moment. Stephen Matini: Claudia, I wanna ask you, I understand perfectly the concept. I was wondering, would you mind to provide an example of a sentence that uses red words and how to turn it into green words? Claudia Gross: Oh yeah, certainly. The classic example is that for centuries we are focusing on “no war.” I've been in a Picasso museum where he was also referring to manifestations and demonstrations in the street, and they were all having this posters of no war, no war.  When I seen this in the black and white movie, I thought, like, so long we're going for in war, when actually what we really in the bottom of our hearts are desiring is peace.  So for me, no war is written in red and peace is written in green language. And that's also an example for moving beyond these negation and looking at what do we really want. Because our minds as we now move from neuroscience, cannot see something that is negated. It first has to evoke it like war or war and they're like, ah, no, no, that's not what I'm, that's too difficult. We better focus on what we wish for. Stephen Matini: You told me about this last time when we met, you talked about the difference between a “yes” and “yes, but.” But would you mind explaining the difference between these two approaches? Claudia Gross: Yes, certainly. For me it was one of these discoveries of higher communication, because the experience of “yes, but” something that we all share on a day-to-day basis that someone seems to agree yes and, but then feels like a slap into our face or a close door. We experienced this, but for a very long time I just thought like, well that's the way we say it. This is how we talk.  Until I was introduced in a workshop to the option of “yes, and”. And I goosebumps when I think about it because it's like, what this is adding a new idea. This is not pretending as if you're first agreeing and then contradicting.  And later then I learned that in improv theater they have a rule on stage that they will not say no or yes, but they will always say “and” so that the game or the the show continue. Stephen Matini: In your experience working across different cultures, do you find it easier or simpler, this specific attention towards in one culture versus another or it doesn't matter? Claudia Gross: I think it matters and I think that all cultures are, all languages have different preferences. So I'm already like a bit concerned when we're trying to translate my book because some things I think they're not translatable from English to any other language, be it German or French or Arabic, you know, they where, where I have an idea of what I'm talking about some in the different languages and this what I, that people around them and their examples might be very cultural specific. So some things might not be that we cannot generalize them or things that I could say in German, they actually do not work in another language or a word play that works in English. We can't translate it.  So we would rather put it in brackets or like adding whatever footnote to explain it. But in general, I think this sensitivity or the awareness for the power of language is available in all languages that are using prayer, that are using holy words that are not saying special words because they could bring bad luck.  So I think actually it would be, would be present all around the world. And I'm for example, not saying worldwide because I learned from Buckminster Fuller that this would be pretending that it is a flat earth and I believe it's globe. That's why I'm also speaking about around the world or globally, but not about something worldwide. Stephen Matini: Have you ever heard, I'm sure you did, about the Sapir-Whorf theory or communication? Claudia Gross: Yes. Stephen Matini: I remember when I studied it the first time was the notion, you know, based on these colors that essentially the language that we speak, you know, color and tint anything the way we view the world. And I thought it was an incredible theory. The theory has been discussed, has been disproved in many different times. But still what's interesting when I try to learn a new language and I see the same text, I see the grammar. I always have the feeling that I'm putting on sunglasses, a language, the specific structure, really deeply condition how I relate to people.  Stephen Matini: Words these days seem to be weaponized. Even the whole controversy about freedom of speech. Oftentimes we see endless amount of examples of cancel culture because this person used the wrong word, maybe words that were said years prior in a completely different context. To me it looks like a big gigantic mes

Today, we delve into the world of courage and what it truly means to stand up for what you believe. Our guest is Dr. Cindy Pury, Professor of Psychology at Clemson University and an expert in the psychology of courage.  The episode explores the interplay among fear, bravery, and honesty, revealing why courage doesn't conform to a single, standardized model. Our conversation explores bravery, honesty, and the nuanced nature of courageous actions, emphasizing individual uniqueness. Dr. Pury warns against using courage for harmful ends and shares leadership insights for fostering a supportive environment. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen #cynthiapury #courage #psychology #clemsonuniversity #stephenmatini #podcast #pitypartyover #alygn #leadership #management TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: When did you decide what you wanted to pursue professionally? Cindy Pury: So I drifted into college without having any clear idea what I wanted to do. I had a major in public relations, I didn't love it, but I couldn't think of anything else.  And I got to college and the very first day of class, John Kihlstrom, who was our intro teacher, talked about hypnotism. And I was like, oh! And then we started talking about emotions and I was like, oh! And the whole thing was so interesting that I decided to double major in psychology.  And I clearly remember one day my junior year of college, I believe I was sitting in a windowsill studying in one of the big campus landmark buildings. And I had two exams to study for a psychology exam and a journalism exam. And I remember looking, choosing the psychology book and thinking, boy, I wish any of my journalism classes were as interesting as this. In graduate school I studied emotional theory and emotional disorders, particularly anxiety disorders. And around the same time the director of our honors college asked me to do an honors seminar about fear and horror. And I thought, great. Okay, sure.  And so I put together all these things and I went at the end, by the time I got done looking at my class reading list and stuff, I thought, wow, that's really depressing. We need to end on a more positive note.  So some kind of irrational fear that you have, what do you do about that? Those are anxiety disorders. We have a whole big bunch of treatments for those. So let's read about the most well supported version of that at the time. So I had a section on CBT.  Then what can you do about some kind of thing that you have a fear of that is rational to be afraid of? Well you can reduce whatever the risk is in that situation and really there's not much else you can do to reduce your risk. Well you can behave courageously. And I thought there's like no research on this at all. And I started conducting research on courage and I haven't really gone back.  During my pre-doctoral internship I worked at a veteran's hospital with a bunch of people who had combat related PTSD and I was struck by how they talked about things that sounded very courageous but they weren't calling them that.  And also how some of the things that they were really continually distressed about seemed to be kind of a function of what Jonathan Shea, the year after I finished my internship, coined the term moral injury.  It seemed to be kind of a combination of moral injury and almost like a failure of courage that was bothering them. And so I've been interested in this for a really long time and it turned out to be a really natural fit and I found I was just super interested in it. And so I've stuck with that. Stephen Matini: Simply put, what is the link between fear and courage? Cindy Pury: The link between fear and courage is actually a little bit more complicated than just saying that fear is standing up to courage, 'cause a lot of people say “courage is standing up to fear,” but also they'll say, you were fearless and courageous. And it's like, but those don't fit.  So what we've done is we've taken a step back, me and my colleagues, we've taken a step back from the fear and think about the risk part instead as being central to courage. And this I think eliminates an awful lot of the problem. It doesn't have to be actual risk, it can be perceived risk.  One of the things we know for sure about people who are highly fearful, either dispositionally or just in the moment, is that whatever it is feels much riskier than perhaps it really is. So that happens when folks are afraid of things that aren't really that much of a risk. It still feels very risky. It can feel risky in a really unusual kind of way.  So one of my participants in a courage study wrote about something she did that was courageous, that was smushing, a spider that was in her house. She thought it was courageous that she worried about how if she hadn't done anything, he would come back and get her. And it's like I knew that she knew like most people with specific phobias, she probably knew that spiders aren't smart enough to do that, but it felt that way.  Finally, it helps explain situations where someone describes something they did they that they call courageous. And they'll either say that they didn't feel that much fear in the moment because they were very focused on doing whatever they were trying to do.  Or sometimes they described fear, but their fear has more to do with the fear of whatever bad outcome they're trying to prevent typically for someone else who they love or otherwise care about.  So if a a small child who you love wanders into the street, you're going to be much more afraid of something bad happening to that small child most likely than yourself. Stephen Matini: Is there any difference between bravery and courage? Cindy Pury: The difference between bravery and courage, if your listeners are familiar with the VIA or the Values and Action System, is that the VIA’s bravery component is standing up to fear or difficulty in a particular way. And so it has a lot to do with that emotion and it doesn't have to do with how you aim it.  So I would argue that it would be possible for someone to have an isolated strength of bravery but use it in a completely inappropriate way.  So, if you imagine two people who are equally afraid running into a house fire; cool, they're equally burned and equally likely to die, they're in the burn unit, they're in adjoining beds.  The person in bed A ran into the burning house to save a baby, that person is likely to be hailed as courageous and publicly hailed as courageous by other people. The person in bed B ran into the burning house to make a really cool TikTok video. People aren't likely to say that person's courageous. Stephen Matini: What is as of now after many years of research, your own definition of courage? Cindy Pury: My own definition of courage at this point is that it involves taking a worthwhile risk. So it's got to be taking, it's gotta be a voluntary sort of thing. It's a chosen action. It's not something that just happens to you, it's something that you choose to do. And I suppose I could extend it to choosing to take a worthwhile risk.  It's also something that is risky to you. It also is worthwhile. So it is something that is proportional to the risk that's involved. Risking your life to save the life of another is definitely courageous. Risking your life to pursue some incredibly personally valuable goal can be courageous if you the observer or you the rater shares that value of that goal.  Risking your life for a very trivial thing in a way that need not have happened that way does not feel that way.  A few years ago there was someone who literally did run back into a house fire to get her season baseball tickets, which could have easily been replaced and in fact the baseball team said, we're replacing your tickets but just know we would've replaced these anyways. So that doesn't seem terribly courageous.  I've taken that a step further and I've looked at people who've won the Carnegie Hero medal, which in the United States is a big civilian award for bravery and for the Carnegie Hero medal.  I looked at one year's worth of it, and in that one year most people who won, saved the life of another person, and they themselves were alive.  Some people won dying while saving the life of another person.  Other people won dying and the person they tried to save died, nobody won, when the person they tried to save died, but they lived. There's this sort of hindsight bias that that was worth it.  We have other data on that too where we just made up stories and the stories changed. So like you move to another country for the perfect relationship or the perfect job and A) it works out and 10 years later you're still married or B) after about a year you see that you're really not compatible and you split up, that second person is not likely to see themselves as courageous. Stephen Matini: So if I understood correctly, there seems to be cultural and contextual differences that it impact what people perceive as courageous. Cindy Pury: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. And they'll vary based on both cultural values and individual values and they'll vary based on both cultural threats and individual threats.  And so, if you are in a culture where being perceived as showing any sign of fear is like a terrible thing for you and you're willing to get up and speak in public, that may be more courageous than if, if you're like, oh, okay. Sometimes people are afraid and they go on and it's cool.  Or if you are raised in a culture where showing any sign of sadness as a man is perceived as negative and you're crying in public and you're a man, that's gonna be much a much bigger risk in some cultures than in others. Likewise, the values of course change from culture to culture.  They also change indiv

Leadership consultant Katie Anderson believes fostering a continuous learning culture within a leadership framework can lead to better outcomes and engagement.    In today’s episode, we will discuss with Katie the challenges of shifting from a command-and-control to a learning approach, the role of purpose in leadership, and the impact of adopting a growth mindset. A culture of learning involves reconnecting with a sense of purpose, asking more open-ended questions, and creating a psychologically safe environment where mistakes are learning opportunities. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform: Spotify - http://tinyurl.com/48dvdaks Apple Podcasts - http://tinyurl.com/z9ncxck4 Google Podcasts - http://tinyurl.com/yrr95sud Amazon Music - http://tinyurl.com/4wc9h4vy Podbean - http://tinyurl.com/bdehsasn Listen to Katie Anderson’s podcast Chain of Learning Get Katie Anderson’s book Learning to Lead, Leading to Learn Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #katieanderson #chainoflearning #kbjanderson #podcast #pitypartyover #stephenmatini #alygn #leadershipdevelopment

Yvonne Mose and Jeremiah Mabiria are two entrepreneurs passionate about sustainability, working towards environmental solutions, and creating positive change to protect the planet and foster developmental opportunities in Africa.  Yvonne and Jeremiah founded MOMA Renewable Energy (former SBIKE), a company that produces bioethanol cooking fuel from food waste to address energy and environmental issues in Kenya. Their business aims to reach rural Kenyan households and contribute to reforestation efforts.  Yvonne and Jeremiah represent the rising potential of African startups and the need for support in achieving a more sustainable and interconnected world. Yvonne Mose is a three-month BARKAT Entrepreneur program graduate, an application-based 100% scholarship offering for Middle Eastern and African female entrepreneurs, and part of The Goddess Solution by Puneet Sachdev. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #yvonnemose #jeremiahmabiria #MOMAReneaableEnergy #SBIKE #entrepreneurship #africa #kenya #sustainability #stephenmatini #podcast #pitypartyover #alygn #leadership #management ... TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: You, Jeremiah, you grew up in the US. And you Yvonne, you grew up in Kenya. But Jeremiah, you are also Kenyan descendant, correct? Jeremiah Mabiria: Yes, we're actually from the same region, from the same community. It's just that I had to ate and relearn the language and do a lot of that when I came home. He just migrated when I was six years old. Stephen Matini: Jeremiah, how was growing up in the States? You know, having parents from a different country? Jeremiah Mabiria: It was interesting. It was interesting to be different. I came from a place here where I was like everyone else. We were very young, me and my brother, we were very quick to assimilate and become American. We kind of had to relearn being Kenyan I would say more so than learning to be American. It was natural. Stephen Matini: When people ask you where do you feel home is, what do you answer? Jeremiah Mabiria: Minnesota's home, that's where I grew up. But here Kisii (Kenya), is also home. There's a connection that I feel when I'm here. My easy answer would be that I have many homes. I'm lucky enough to have lived in many places and have many help. Stephen Matini: Yvonne, how was for you instead to grow up in Kenya? Yvonne Mose: For me growing up in Kenya is I think everything that I know, all that I know about life and it was really good growing around my people, my culture, my parents come from a very low income background.  That's why I got the motivation about who I am and what I want to work on. I think it has really formed the kind of person that I am right now. So yeah, but growing is really interesting. It has 47 tribes I believe. I didn't miss out on anything culturally. Stephen Matini: How long ago both of you met? Yvonne Mose: Yeah, about two years. Stephen Matini: When you met, could you sense cultural differences between the two of you? Yvonne Mose: For me, yes because Jeremiah talks different. He is very American in his ways, but it was a good surprise Stephen Matini: Somehow. Both of you have developed over your life an interest, a passion for sustainability. How has that happened? Were there any specific people, any specific event in your past that has somehow made you sensitive to the sustainable agenda? Yvonne Mose: For me, growing up in a poor background, especially in the rural areas in Kisii, I saw how it was hard for my family and even my neighbors to get access to clean cooking fields.  So for me that kinda shaped who I was because I saw how, how much time it took from me going out to play with my friends or even going to school to study. Growing up, that gave me an idea what I wanted to do. So I was very environmental focused and that's even what I pursued in my university for my degree.  And then getting to meet Jeremiah and through him getting to meet his dad who somehow convinced me that employment is not the way that I will want to go and if I wanted to make more impact I should start something by myself. Like create a startup, create a business that will make more impact in the community. And that's what made me who I am today. Jeremiah Mabiria: For me, sustainability something that it came maybe from the education system. I remember the campaigns and we had the blue dumpster for the plastics and the green ones. It was taught in school but I think as I got older it became a lifestyle. That's when through the education system learning that the planet's coming to an end and we keep buying iPhones and new cars and we don't think about what the cost of that is.  If there's gonna be change, then I would have to be part of that. I have to be one piece in creating that change. Meeting with like-minded people along the way through groups at school and and college and campus groups. And that's what really sparked my interest.  We have the advantage of not having messed a lot of things up is in the West. It happened a long time ago. Here we have a chance to stop it from happening. We have a chance to create industries while thinking about what these industries do to the environment and mitigating some of the ill effects that they have. So that's what really drove me, especially when I came home to make sure that I was in sustainable energy. Stephen Matini: Oftentimes the whole notion of sustainability and capitalism and growth, you know financial success, are seen as opposite. What is your view about it? Yvonne Mose: I think when you think about impact, most people think about charity work and I think that's not what it is.  Google is a tech company that has so much impact on people without being a charity organization per se. So for me, when I think about impact, I think about the basic needs for the communities like housing, clean energy, water, health services.  Those are services that you can start and you can make sure that they are accessible to the low income households or or even to the low income communities. And at the end of the day, for as much as your organization is also get making profit, you are also thinking about the community at large impact and profits go hand in hand. Stephen Matini: Do you foresee to be easier, you know, moving forward, having this company in Kenya or you think would be harder in the US? Jeremiah Mabiria: I think it would be easier for sure. What we're doing, we're experimenting a lot, we're trying new things and what I've found is that the Kenyan government, when we have gone to ask for the regulations or to be certified, they kind of let you take the lead. We don't know what you're talking about, we've never seen this. You do it and then we will regulate you.  So it's very accommodating 'cause it's a smaller government and it's a government that is hungry for development, they're hungry for anything that moves a needle forward. So they're very willing to accept.  Whereas in the US it's a very regulation heavy system and so trying things that are outside of the box requires a lot of money because you have to do massive amounts of research, massive amounts of work to make sure you meet the regulations. Here the regulators work with you, they need you. The US the government is so large that I don't think they need any one. Stephen Matini: Would you mind explaining the idea behind your company, SBIKE? Yvonne Mose: Since SBIKE was born so that we can have the most social and environmental impact as we can. We currently produce boca biofuel, which is a bioethanol based cooking fuel out of food waste and food processing byproducts.  We make an environmental impact as much as we make a social impact and our product are priced solo, that it is accessible to the rural low income households who are actually our target customers.  So currently the households use charcoal and firewood to cook 'cause those are the fields that are affordable and accessible to them. And if you compare our biofuel to charcoal, which is even more efficient than firewood, one liter of biofuel burns as much as three kgs of charcoal and one liter of biofuel goes for about let's say 90 cents US dollars and one kg of charcoal goes for about a dollar. Yvonne Mose: That also makes an impact. They get to save as they cook with our fuels. It has health benefits but only byproducts from it are water and CO2. And while we cook with the wood fields, the byproducts are so the smoke and this particulate matter which affects health.  So yes, our organization is mainly focused on the impact that we can make more than let's even profits. But we are also profitable because a little by field we produce it at about 60 cents a liter and we sell it at 90 cents, which makes our profit margin at about 50%. As much as we are making profits, we're also making so much social and environmental impacts. Stephen Matini: How has been the reception of your consumers, your company? Jeremiah Mabiria: Our problem currently is production. We have increased capacity twice since the first machine we fabricated and we have never been able to meet demand and this isn't an isolated area of Kisii county that we chose as our pilots area in the sub county.  We haven't even fully launched into the full county or the region, but we cannot meet the demand in just the area that we're in. And we have requests, we've had meetings with the county government where the request is how quickly can we spread it out and which is why we're we're busy fundraising to see if we can build a proper launch facility. Stephen Matini: If someone is interested in helping you out, what could they do? Yvonne Mose: Currently I think the thing that we need most is to scale up production. So we will need help in scaling our production, tha

We engage in a thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Deb Mashek, business advisor, professor, and author of the book Collabor(h)ate: how to build incredible collaborative relationships at work (even if you’d rather work alone. Deb shares her unique perspective on collaboration, highlighting its importance in various settings and debunking common misconceptions. She believes that when people collaborate and learn from diverse perspectives, they can increase their effectiveness by embracing new resources, viewpoints, and identities.  In our conversation, we explore the key ingredients of a successful relationship and dig into seeking growth through connections with others. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #debmashek #collaborhate #collaboration #podcast #pitypartyover #stephenmatini #alygn #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: Deb, I am going to the origins, sort of speak, of your life. And one thing that I read, I think it was in your book was that three factors, which included your parents, your PhD, and your upbringing in a trailer park, have been your inspiration to learn and focus on collaboration. And I thought that was really interesting. Deb Mashek: Yeah, absolutely. So I call those my three great teachers of collaboration. So the trailer park piece is, I grew up in a double wide trailer in North Platte, Nebraska and there's some people like, Ooh, trailer Park, that sounds horrible.  Thought it was fantastic because what we had was this play mat, which was the trailer park. So we had a chain link fence that said we couldn't go beyond it. But other than that, the kids were really left to their own devices.  So I grew up in the seventies and in the trailer park would spill out at, you know, 9:00 AM and we had to figure out together how we were going to play, what we were going to play, what the rules of our play were going to be. And if somebody violated the rules, we figured out what those consequences were. And that person who violated those rules had to figure out how to make amends and words through play. We learned the social skills necessary to live and work to do, to be with others. So that was the, the trailer park piece.  And then both of my parents throughout my life struggled with alcoholism. So it's kind of a, a perverse sort of teacher of collaboration. But one of the things kids who grow up in, you know, within these neglectful households or households that were had a lot of addiction and whatnot is you figure out, I mean you still have needs, but the parents in that environment are not particularly well equipped to be able to provide for your needs.  And so I figured out really early on how to form connection with other adults outside of my family who were then able to provide for needs. Whether that was fair enough friction, sometimes it was food, sometimes it was clothing. It was very often things like rides to school and things like that. But it was through relationship and through being able to connect with others that I was able to get those needs met. And those are incredibly important skills when it comes to collaborating and figuring out what, what somebody else's needs and interests are and being able to monitor those and being able to state yours in a way your needs and interest in a way that is accessible and interesting and even palatable, I guess, to other, to other people. So that was important.  And then the third one you mentioned is the PhD. So it was never assumed that I would, you know, go to college, much less graduate school. And it was just by virtue of getting to interact with a lot of really positive teachers, great cheerleaders throughout my life. And when I got to graduate school at Stony Brook University out in Long Island, New York, very first seminar I enrolled in was the Psychology of Close Relationships. It was taught by Arthur Aaron and I was the dork in the class who I read every single paper assigned I, my hand was raised for every discussion, I had things to say, and I just absolutely fell in love with this research, you know, that that, well first of all I had no idea that there was a research area dedicated to the psychology of close relationships. So that was really cool to discover.  And then to read this research, I totally fell in love with it. Like it was just really powerful. And I realized like, oh, there is knowledge out there about how to do relationships well. And I think I hadn't grown up with a ton of models of that. So there was also this personal void that I was able to fill in some way through the academic literature. And so I kind of came at that relationship development through the side door. And those, all three of those experiences I think were critical for how I ended up studying and thinking about and helping people do collaboration. Stephen Matini: When you say relationship, are you thinking about any kind of relationship or are thinking about a specific type of relationship, like personal relationship, professional relationships? Deb Mashek: The research area that I was in was about romantic relationships. So when I would teach the psychology of relationships, it was about picking up, breaking up, everything in between. That's what I had been researching.  But there's also research literature on everything like parent child relationships and friendship development and workplace relationships. So any time you have that sense of us notion that there's an us involved, that is relationship, there is a research literature out there about it.  But I started in romantic relationships and then it was in my research fellowship that I started to think about jail inmates. And then when I eventually became a professor out at Harvey Mudd College in California, I started to think about or the, the students' sense of connection and relationship with their dormitories, their residence halls and their sense of connection to the campus. And it wasn't too long later. And then I started to think about how institutions can be in relationship with other institutions and that you can start to form collaborations. And it turns out to me one of the really big fabulous insights I had, and I'm so grateful that it dawned on me, is that those theories that govern a lot of the individual diadic relationships, the people are still involved at the institutional level.  So it's not really that the institutions are collaborating, it's that the people in the institutions are collaborating and those same people have hopes and dreams and fears and anxieties and needs and desires just like we do dally. And so figuring out how to leverage those exact same theoretical models in service to these collaborations that ended up being really valuable in terms of how I could be useful to people. Stephen Matini: As of today, based on all your experiences, all your studies, when you think of the word relationship, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Deb Mashek: That's such a good question. I'm a mom, so right away i, I go to my relationship with my child. All relationships is that sense of mutuality, that sense of coming to care for and contribute to the wellbeing of somebody else. And also expecting that to happen in, in return that there's reciprocity, mutuality, care, concern.  When people look back at the end of life and they talk about their highest highs and their lowest lows, often they end up talking about relationships. That relationships are pain, relationships are exquisite and fulfilling and loving.  Thinking about our work histories too, it's, I remember the colleagues that I loved working with. The second thing that really popped for me is the role that expectations play in terms of that there are all these scripts out there about how relationships ought to be or should be.  We're like these are the good relationships and whether it's the Hollywood manifestations of those, there's like that one really good relationship. We all know and we're trying to have our relationship look like theirs. Oh my gosh, there's so many ways we can fall short of expectations, ours and others when it comes to interpersonal relationships. Stephen Matini: So if I had to ask you what in your opinion are the ingredients of a good relationship, what comes to mind? Deb Mashek: The theory that I do most of my research under would land on exactly the same two. So the idea is it's called the self expansion model. And the idea is that we're all seeking to increase our efficacy in the world, meaning our ability to achieve our goals, our dreams or whatnot.  And how we do that is by seeking out and taking on as our own, our new resources, new perspectives, new identities. And that relationship is one of the ways we do that. It's called including the other and the self.  So imagine you are and I are in a relationship over time I come to see the world through your eyes, your perception of the world starts to change and enhance. Because of our relationship, I start to take on new identities. Maybe that's the identity of the us or the we or that of the couple. So relationship is a way of becoming more energetic in the world or being able to take on the challenges. You can imagine two circles, but this is me, this is you. And as those circles become closer together, that us that shared interstitial space of the Venn diagram, that's part of who I am.  But there are parts of my circle that are not you, and parts of your circle that are not me. And that's actually, that's how the wealth of other perspectives and what can come in.  My dissertation research many, many moons ago actually looked at this idea of feeling too close in the context of a relationship. So feeling smothered by closeness. And when I asked the

Michael Sjostedt is a wellness facilitator who uses art-making for self-reflection, personal growth, and team dynamics.  Our conversation explores how engaging in creative activities can help individuals and teams better understand their thought patterns, deal with perfectionism, manage stress, and enhance communication.  Michael highlights the importance of self-awareness and the value of using creative exercises to improve our approach to work and life. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session ALYGN Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Connect with Stephen #michaelsjostedt #artmaking #making #emotionalintelligence #cutloose #podcast #pitypartyover #stephenmatini #alygn   TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: What is your first memory of Art? Of Art making? Michael Sjostedt: My very, very first memory of art making was in the early eighties elementary school. I don't remember the exact age, but I was drawing schematics of underground homes, 'cause I watched this show Omni, it was a science show and they were doing a piece on underground homes and how much better they are. And it was so modern and so cool.  And I would take huge sheets of paper and draw like a dome. And then I would draw a line as like, here's the ground. And then I would draw the house under it. So it was basically almost like a dollhouse. If you looked at a dollhouse and opened up. It's just got all the different rooms that you can see sliced up. And so that's what I would do. And the top dome was always like my sunroom. So I always have a lounger in there with me on it. But they were ridiculous. They were fun. And that was a very early sign that I was very into design, modernism, new ways of being.  So in the early nineties, clay beads were huge. Kids would wear 'em at concerts, buy 'em at bead shops were huge in the early nineties. So a friend of mine taught me how to make them. And at first I wasn't very good. Everyone else had kind of gotten the process down and I was a little sloppy. But the process itself was still very meditative. There was a start, a middle and an end. And yet within all of that timeframe you could be very creative, you could try all kinds of different designs.  And within a few months I showed the same friends what I had made. They're like, what have you been doing? They're like, are you working 24/7 on this? I'm like kind of, I was so into the  , contemplative aspect of it. It was the most satisfying thing I'd I'd ever done at that point. And from there people are like, wow, that's incredible. I wanna buy one. I'm like, oh cool.   And at the high point, I was 19, I had no business training, I just had a natural instinct for this. And it happened at a good time because it was like the start of summer school break. So I would make these beads, mass produce them for like eight to 10 hours a day, listen to music and just pump 'em out.  And then I would take a day and hit the road and go to a town that was, had bead shops or other stuff going on. And I would get accounts. So at the high point I had 14 wholesale accounts. I had custom orders. I was teaching monthly classes at an art supply store. I was vending at fairs, I was smuggling necklaces into Lollapalooza and other concerts. I would pull out my necklaces, you know, from my cargo shorts, wave 'em around.  It was such a good overall learning experience. Something you can never learn in school. One thing I really took away from that too is that if you really want to learn something, you really have to do it yourself. You just have to mess around, give yourself time, give yourself space. And if you still love it, it's gonna improve. Stephen Matini: I think that a lot of people are so afraid is, is this gonna work? It's not gonna work. That they simply do not think that it's a process. What have you witnessed working with people and helping them, using art making? Michael Sjostedt: What I've seen in recent workshops, I've taught, I'll provide an exercise and people will just start messing around because to them it's low stakes. We're just cutting a paper, we're having a good time and we're experimenting.  And they're like, oh my god, what is this? If the combination of elements isn't what they're used to and they start messing around and they don't like it, they literally hold their heads. They're like, oh my God, I can't do this.  And that negative self-talk could have a perfectionistic voice to it or a tone to it, but it could also just be, I don't know how to start. This is so new to me, I don't know where to begin.  And so I often have to quickly identify that. And so I ask questions, I'm like, okay, tell me what's going on, what isn't working for you? And I, I stick with what's in front of them. I don't get into their head, you know, I'm like, what are you thinking? Because that comes out by what they're saying. So you really have to listen.  You kind of have to like bring people back down 'cause they're really in their head and it, it's a good reminder. Like these low stakes workshops are such an eye into how we operate into how we think and how we talk to ourselves, our narratives.  If you could examine this reaction that people are having, you know, if they can self-examine when they're in this moment, when they're feeling this build that self-awareness muscle up, then they take it into a higher stakes environment like their job or their work.  So if you can take this self-awareness into your other parts of your life and talk yourself off a ledge, you could make your life easier. You know, it doesn't have to be this fraught, I need to quit. This is terrible kind of stuff.  So workshops like this are so helpful. And I'm not saying you have a breakthrough with every workshop or you have a meltdown or any of that stuff, but they do happen. Stephen Matini: Based on anything you say, it sounds that your workshops become some sort of a mirror in which people can see themselves. What makes you different compared to other facilitators? Michael Sjostedt: First and foremost, the name of the workshop is called Cut Loose. And the whole concept is to come and have fun and to do something new, try something new.  The MoMA and the Mat are not gonna be calling you after the workshop, so lower your expectations. You know, it's really just an exercise to do something new and fun and to take a digital break, take a break from real life use art making as like a contemplative, meditative process. There's many ways to meditate.  When I work with the class, I give them exercises, but I let them, there's room for interpretation. Some people love that. Some people are like, wait, what are the rules? I need the rules. Working with those people are really interesting 'cause I could be that way too. I'm like, I need to know if you have an expectation, I need to, I need to know what the things are. It's interesting to work with so many different personalities and to be able to kind of accommodate the different personalities.  So what I do is after we we're done an exercise, I, I'll kind of eyeball a few students who have very interesting interpretations of the exercise and I'll show it to the class with their permission and talk about what I like about this and talk with the student about what they were thinking, how they feel about the outcome. And to show the other students, here's another way to think about using these materials. Like I like how they use this design element. I liked how they use this face or this color and really talk about it. So different things come up for different people, you know, other people have mentioned difficult things that they're going through. And one woman said in a, in a recent class, she goes, I'm gonna start collage journaling because she's navigating a complicated life transition right now and talk therapy is involved in in her transition. But there was something about making without any heavy expectations of this needs to be presented in a certain way. It's really just using, making as a tool to work through whatever's going on, but also to take an active break for yourself.  Stephen Matini: I think it's wonderful and it's wonderful because I think it's quite applicable also working with organizations and teams and managers. You, you told me in the past that sometimes you do use this approach, you know, in a more work type of context. Do the same rules apply or have you noticed any other type of dynamics? Michael Sjostedt: If you're burned out or if you're stressed or if you're under the gun or if you're dealing with difficult personalities, whether it be coworkers or clients or whatever, that combination can be very tricky.  Talking about what, what you're dealing with, with whomever, you, your supervisor or a colleague or something. Don't wait until you are telling yourself, this stinks, I quit, I hate them. If you jump right into the negative consequences a result or, or really attach yourself to the negative narratives around what you're feeling, it makes it that much harder to get out of the situation that you're in.  So really developing a practice that helps you shine a light on your negative narratives, especially if you take yourself out of the work environment and give yourself a, a creative exercise.  You know, this is where HR and wellness folks and activity directors and you know, anyone who's, who's working on morale on teams, this is a good exercise because yes, it's a, it's a chill break. You get to chill out but also things will come up and you, and you have to be ready to respond to that. And you're like, oh, that's interesting, that narrative, maybe write that down. You know? And that's something I do in my workshops too. I have people write down how they're feeling before, during, and after the workshop.  I really got to notice how I think about thinking or how your na

Seth Freeman is an award-winning negotiation and conflict management professor at New York University and Columbia University.  In his book, "15 Tools to Turn the Tide- A Step-by-Step Playbook for Empowered Negotiating," Seth provides practical tools to navigate conflicts effectively, guiding individuals to create value, strengthen relationships, and approach negotiations with empathy. In the episode, Seth emphasizes "winning warmly," ensuring that negotiators can achieve their goals while considering the other party's needs. Seth believes combining strength and kindness can lead to better outcomes in conflict resolution, even when disagreements remain. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session ALYGN Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen #sethfreeman #15toolstoturnthetide #negotiation #conflict #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment #podcast #pitypartyover #stephenmatini #alygn ... TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: When did you decide what you wanted to pursue professionally? Is that something you've always known or unfolded over your time?  Seth Freeman: Well, as I often say, I used to practice corporate law. Now I enjoy my life. I was a very unhappy corporate lawyer for six years, and through a series of life events, I found myself trying just as an experiment to teach a class to paralegals on securities regulation.  Nobody wants to learn securities regulation, so I made it a little fun and they loved it and I loved it. And that was a revelation. I said, well, all right, I'll do it again. And ditto. And then I said, well, maybe I could teach corporate law and ditto. And now I've got a stack of reviews of students who said this was really great. So I started to pursue it, and that led me to Fordham Business School and I taught there. And along the way I became pa interested in mediation, which led me to teaching negotiation. And that led me to teach at New York University, and that led me to teach at Columbia, and that led me to teach around the world.  Stephen Matini: So what, what do you think that was missing, like at the time that you were not having fun?  Seth Freeman: Well, I think I had to unlearn some things. I think I had understood that the purpose of work is to work more, and that you can get interested in anything. And so just find whatever's enjoyable about it and find something that you're reasonably okay with and just, you know, do it and don't, you know, don't worry about trying to find your calling or anything like that. And all of that proved to be in my hands, very unhelpful. And I was chronically miserable and I felt very bad about that. I said, there must be something wrong with me because I just find this work so boring and stressful and I'm not very good at it. So there must be something wrong with me. And what I now realize is that Albert Einstein's remark is right, you know, he said, if you ask a fish to climb a tree, it's not gonna do very well, but if you put him in the water, it'll swim brilliantly.  That was me. I was definitely doing work that I really wasn't called to do. And this idea of calling became a critical realization. What am I called to do? And that takes some real introspection. It takes some prayer, it takes some, some, some exploration. But what do you know, 30 years later I rejoice in this. The idea of retiring to me sounds awful because I just love doing this. Stephen Matini: You know, in hindsight it's so much easier to see what happened. So if you had to do it all over again, would you say that could have been possible for you as a younger professional to find out earlier on what your direction could potentially be?  Seth Freeman: Well, I'll answer for myself and separately. For others, for myself, I'm very grateful. I did not know, because what that would've probably meant was I would've sought a PhD and I would've found myself doing some rather obscure scholarship and some rather obscure place and perhaps getting into this work to some degree.  But I wouldn't have been primarily teaching, I would've been mostly focused on scholarship, which I love as an avocation, but I would not want that to be my primary focus. And that is what it is, what it means to be a, a tenure track academic. So it was a, a real mercy for me to discover this indirectly to first get a law degree in practice and discover what I don't enjoy doing. But it turns out that printed on the back of every law degree is a stamp that says good for a second career in academia.  For others, what I would recommend is make little bets, try different things, information interview. And those ultimately proved to be very valuable for me, along with understanding what it means to have a vocation if possible. All that I think would be my advice to others.  Stephen Matini: And then you focus on an area which is not necessarily something that a lot of people love, which is conflict management, negotiation. What was about that area that spoke to you?  Seth Freeman: You know, I took a vocational test when I was a corporate lawyer just to see if somebody had any perspective for me that I had missed. And they said, you have too many interests and abilities, so there's not gonna be one subject or field that will work for you. You're gonna need to basically build a three-legged stool and try to do several different things or take on a an enormous task. And that might occupy your interests and skills better, like say world peace. That was kind of a throwaway line. But here I am 30 years later and it's a term of art that I try to avoid whenever possible. Cuz world peace can be such a cliche. But how do we get along is such a remarkably rich and varied question. It, you can bring any field of study to bear on it. It's the richness of it, the depth of it, the practical usefulness of it.  I can walk into a kindergarten or I can walk into the United Nations and I have or anything in between and talk with them about what I'm working on, what there is to learn. And they go, yeah, this is useful, this is interesting. Let me tell you my situation.  And as a result, what I'm learning is that it opens almost every door. If you want. If you're interested in psychology, you've got this history, politics, law, economics. This subject covers all bases. So that I think is why it remains so fascinating for me.  And most importantly of all, the sheer joy of seeing people go from being afraid or on the other hand, very arrogant and finding a way to work together with others that's powerful and gentle at the same time is just delicious, to be able to see people create more peace and prosperity and harmony, I never thought I could do that and I could do it. And what a difference that makes. Stephen Matini: You know, one thing that I've noticed speaking to different guests for the podcast is how, for so many of them, what they decided to pursue was either a response to a problem they had an issue, something that they struggled with, that somehow became their life calling. Do you think that we are better off or what in terms of how we get along as people?  Seth Freeman: Well, there's several ways to answer that. One is that one of the least well known and most astounding developments in your life and mine, is that the world is doing better than we have ever done in our lives.  In 1961, John Kennedy talked about a global alliance north and so east and west that can secure a better life for all mankind against the common enemies of man, tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. Now, this is no observation about John Kennedy, it just notes that those goals seem completely unreachable and lofty. But fast forward to today, and what we discover is that tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself, not withstanding some of the headlines we dread, are actually in better conditions than at any time in human history.  Two billion people have left extreme poverty in the last 20 years. It's unbelievable. Deaths due to disease have fallen off. Literacy rates around the world are way higher than they've ever been. Many diseases have been cured. It just goes on and on and on, and it's just not widely known.  And if you think of all of those as part of what the larger definition of peace is, then things are actually in a better place than you would've ever dreamed. And yes, there's less war and deaths due to war than there've ever been notwithstanding Ukraine, notwithstanding in the Middle East and all and and such, not to trivialize that at all, but in general, we are doing better. Now, does that mean everything's hunky dory and that I'm out of a job? Absolutely not. Could it change tomorrow? Absolutely. And there are all kinds of interesting questions about why this is so, and you might be familiar with a book by Steven Pinker, “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” And he talks about how the violence has declined for the last 500 years. And just to the point in the Middle Ages in Europe, the murder rate in most villages with something like 70 per hundred thousand, today it's two per hundred thousand. It's unbelievable how violent our ancestors' lives were, and we're not living that way.  Stephen Matini: Why do you think there's so much emphasis on the negative? It's impossible to read the news that all that we hear is just a celebration of negativity.  Seth Freeman: You know, my grandmother used to say, if it makes you happy to be unhappy, you should only be happy. And there can be a tendency for us to court that which makes us unhappy. It may have something to do with story mastery. We feel the need to master something that's disturbing or distressing. We run to it to learn it. And so we don't have to feel the fear anymore. Whereas if something is good, we're kind of almost programmed to go, okay, I don't need to worry about that anymore. And we don't discuss

Frank O'Halloran & Judith Asher are executive coaches and trainers with over 25 years of experience in leadership and communication. Their podcast ‘What's Next 4 You, launching in early 2024, is a testament to their dedication to helping people perform at their best and to helping younger professionals discover their talents and calling. Judith and Frank point out that the traditional educational system often neglects essential life skills, such as communication and relationship building, maintaining a positive mindset, cultivating gratitude, and embracing challenges with optimism. For Judith and Frank, developing good habits that boost productivity, seeking help, learning from mentors, and embracing continuous feedback are essential for constant growth and success. Listen to the episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Podbean, or your favorite podcast platform. Subscribe to Pity Party Over Sign up for a complimentary Live Session ALYGN Managerial & Leadership Development Contact Stephen Matini Connect with Stephen Matini #frankohalloran #judithasher #whatsnext4you #careerdevelopment #pitypartyover #podcast #alygn #stephenmatini #leadershipdevelopment #managementdevelopment TRANSCRIPT Stephen Matini: I want to ask you how, when, the two of you met? Frank O'Halloran: Judith, how did we meet? I think it was with our babies. Judith Asher: Yeah. We met as parents, not as professionals. Stephen Matini: And when did you start working together as professionals instead? Frank O'Halloran: Judith's husband, George runs a University of Human Rights on the Lido and he asked if I would come and give three lectures on communicating to the master degree students. I did and Judith came along and listened to each one of the three lectures.  My client needed me to bring another trainer with me for one of the sessions that I was doing for them in a little town near Barcelona. Judith and I were taking our babies in their carriages over a bridge and she just happened to say, “Hey, how's work going?” And I said, I'm a little upset because I can't find someone to bring with me to do this training in Barcelona.  And I looked at her and I said, but you could come and do it with me. We have 30 days. You just have to do exactly what I say. And of course, Judith was a natural at this, so she did really well on her first time out. Then the rest is history. We've been working together ever since and now the babies are 20 years old. Stephen Matini: Oh wow. So it's been a while now. Frank O'Halloran: A long time, like 19 years we've been working together. Stephen Matini: Oh wow. That's a long time. So, and now your last project together, it's the podcast. When is it gonna come out? Judith Asher: The plan is to have it launched sometime in the early autumn. We are working actively on setting up a bank of interviews, getting things all lined up. So we've started actually producing it, but we're not going to have it go live for another couple of months. Stephen Matini: So the name is “What's next for you?” Was it hard to find this name? Judith Asher: Oh yeah. It's hard to find a good name. For us, we were first inclined to go for something that involved the word career, you know, like looking for a new career, how to find your best career. That was a big part of the idea. But then after talking to some various friends and thinking it over between the two of us, we realized that actually people don't have careers like they used to.  And just the idea of a career is this notion of like the “posto fisso,” as we would say in Italy, you know, that you find one thing and that's the thing you do and you're gonna do it forever. Just find that one job you can do and repeat for 50 years.  But now it's not about that. It's actually more what's next for you. Like what are you doing now and what could it be? And you have to be adaptable. And it clicked that it made more sense really for the point we wanted to make. Stephen Matini: Of all possible topics that you could focus on, why did you choose as your target 18, 33-35 years old, young professionals? Frank O'Halloran: In our training business. Judith and I work doing soft skills training, mostly communication with corporations that you would know the name of if we mentioned them. And lately we've been working with a lot of young individuals, all right, people in university and people starting their career.  And they get very attached to Judith and I and they ask us very basic questions about, you know, how do I know what careers are out there? How do I know what to say if I go to a networking event, how can I ask somebody to help me out or how do I find a mentor? And if I find one, what do I say to the mentor?  We kept getting all of these questions and to be honest, even our first idea was we should write a book for young people. Then we thought maybe a podcast would be better for them than a book. That's how we switched over to doing a podcast. Stephen Matini: When both of you were younger, when you were in that situation of not knowing exactly where to go, did you have anyone that somehow was able, was important, someone to look up to that guided you? Judith Asher: You know, I'll answer for myself that like you Stephen. No, not really. I would've loved it. And you don't know what you don't know, right? So I didn't know that I should even seek that out. The idea of finding a mentor or talking to people, asking what they do, speaking to my friend, you know, my friends' parents or my parents' friends, you know, like sort of just using my own little network.  Just the idea that I even had a network that wasn't the era we lived in. Just kind of feel your way forward. I did an internship when I was in graduate school and the head of the NGO I was working with, she ended up being my mentor, but I was so clueless at the time that I don't think I really even realized she was my mentor. But that's what she was doing and she helped me set me up for what was my first career, which was in the area of public health, which I worked in for many, many years. Frank O'Halloran: I am a little fortunate because I had lots of people helping me out. I think maybe I just came across as so clueless that all these people I came in contact with said, Frank, let me give you some advice here. Or Frank, did you think about this or did you think about that?  I have been blessed my whole life with people helping me, pointing me in a direction, encouraging me, supporting me. I saved my whole life. It really started when I went to university.  I just, professors and other people I had to work during universities. It was easy. I went to school in Manhattan, in New York City, I worked uptown in an office and I must say everybody just took me under their wing. I wish that kind of thing for everyone. Stephen Matini: For someone who's clueless, what would you say that could be the first step to take? Frank O'Halloran: Because I was totally clueless. I grew up in a very poor, in a very poor neighborhood, in a very provincial town. So I was really clueless when I got to New York. And I think for me the thing that helped me the be the most was just to be positive. I would always ask people about what they did and show like a real positive energy towards finding out more. Stephen Matini: Judy, how would you answer the same question that I asked, you know, to Frank? Judith Asher: If I go back to that internship, which for me was a turning point in my life, I grew up in Montreal. I did some graduate work in Toronto and then I did an internship in New York City again. And when I got there, this was done unconsciously. I mean, I wasn't planning on doing this. This wasn't a strategy.  We had the first meeting at this NGO for women's reproductive health and rights, which was what was my interest area and what I was studying at the time. And I was in this NGO that I thought was really doing amazing work in the world. I was just so happy to be there. And at the first meeting when they had like the Monday meeting and they introduced the new intern, I said, Hey everyone, you know, I'm Judith. I just want everyone to know I don't know anybody in New York. Judith Asher: I have no friends, I have no social life, which means I'm pretty well free all the time.  So what I wanted to say was, I'm available to help anybody who needs help with anything. Like here are the few things I'm good at. Like I'm good at editing, I can speak French and English, I can help to pour coffee. I'm, it's no problem.  I'm happy to be the person to show up on a weekend when there's a press conference. You know, get the coffee, get the sandwiches, put the chairs out and like anything really. And then after that I went and I reminded people, oh by the way, do you need help? Or I'd hear someone complaining of being overworked. And I just always continued to say that. And what happened in the end was this was the start of my whole career. I got to know everybody there. Judith Asher: I got to know what they did. I found it really fun. I got to do a lot of things that were sort of interesting and fun that I otherwise wouldn't have done.  And then eventually the UN called one day and ask the CEO of this organization, listen, we need somebody to come to London, like ASAP, we're shorthanded for a global conference and we just need someone who's flexible, who's willing to do anything. And that's what happened.  I flew to London and that was the start of my international public health career, you know, so really it did come from that giving out of the energy. And also, and this is something Frank likes to talk about and I think he's really right about this, it was also a focus not only on, oh I'm here and I'd like to learn this and I'd like to do that and this is what I wanna suck from all of you.  You know, Frank often talks about like don't only put out in the world what you wanna get from others but what you can give. And even though I sort of had nothing to