Getting Unstuck – Cultivating Curiosity

Summary Debbie Danielpour, an award-winning screenwriter writer, and I examine how screenwriters and speakers use objects to grab their audiences' attention at a particular moment and for a particular reason. This is an abridged — and enhanced — version of episode 219. Takeaways √ Objects can be used by screenwriters or speakers to focus an audience's attention the way dialogue can't. √ Objects ca...

Summary Like the powerful question organizations need to ask — "Why do we exist?" — "Why do I do what I do?" is a powerful question we should all ask ourselves periodically. Takeaways √ "Why does our organization exist?" is a powerful question that everyone in an organization should be able to answer uniformly. If they can't, the organization's purpose and people are likely out of alignment. √ Mis...

Summary In this episode, my friend and fellow podcaster, Steve Miletto , and I discuss the "next big thing," the next chapter in our lives, the "one more" challenge we want to tackle.   My guest Steve Miletto is the Executive Director of North Georgia Regional Educational Services Agency, which provides professional development services and support for 5 school systems in North Georgia. Steve is i...

Summary Central to any focus on change are some looming questions: why change, how to change, and how to overcome obstacles. Looking broadly at change across many fields, what intrigues me about change is the engine that drives it, and that's curiosity. And curiosity is not just a point in time; it's a process : helping people to pause, reflect, ask questions, gain clarity and then change.   My gu...

Summary Research has shown that curiosity can make us happier, increase academic achievement, and increase our emotional intelligence. And of equal importance, as today's guest explains, curiosity is a divining rod in our search for creativity — a key ingredient of long-term business and personal success.   My guest My guest in this episode is Dr. Caroline Brookfield , a veterinarian, stand-up com...

Summary Obstacles standing in the way of progress often seem insurmountable. Leaders who remain adaptable, flexible, and pause to give themselves time to assess options increase their likelihood of breakthroughs. And very often, the solution to the problem sits within the problem itself.   Takeaways √ The seeds of a problem's solution are usually contained in the problem itself. √ Effectively prob...

Summary Much of the teaching profession is in turmoil. Thousands of teachers are leaving the field for a variety of reasons. Among them are: • Teachers exhausted and dispirited after pivoting to remote instruction during the pandemic — and now having to quickly make up for "lost learning." • Teaching has been increasingly politicized through limitations on the content teachers can cover and how te...

As leaders, we can often fall into the trap of focusing most of our attention on the work of achieving desired outcomes. While achieving outcomes is critical for organizational success, authentic leaders also focus on how they are showing up to lead the people doing the day-to-day work to achieve those desired results. Focusing their attention there forces the leader to be vulnerable, to think mor...

Summary There's a lot of talk about why organizations need to have a purpose — why they do what they do on behalf of those they seek to serve — and to have that purpose go beyond being a mere marketing tagline. What's equally challenging to get at is how an organization defines its why, how they get staff buy-in — or better yet, staff input — and then has the discipline to choose activities that w...

Summary In this episode, I talk with Megan Miller , who, at an early age, discovered the power of learning a foreign language and now works to empower others who want or need to have a bilingual voice. Megan is the founder of Aprovechar Language Solutions, LLC, whose mission is to empower anyone needing a bilingual voice. She offers a personalized, habit-based approach to teaching Spanish and Engl...

My pulse quickens whenever we leap into the unknown of space, be it with the 2015 New Horizons flyby of Pluto, or the launch of the new James Webb telescope on December 25, 2021. And so, I experienced that rush on September 26 when the D.A.R.T. spacecraft designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA was intentionally slammed into a tiny asteroid at some 14,000 miles...

One part of life that I've become really curious about in the past few years is dying. I didn't think about it at all when I was in college and played racquetball on a Saturday morning following a little too much end-of-the-week celebration the night before. There were moments in the four decades that followed when death reared its head — close friends from my college years passed away, and I lost...

"As it turns out, personal finance is like touching an electric fence that you didn't know what electric. Managing our money is not a math problem; it's a behavioral problem." Carl Richards is a Certified Financial Planner™ and creator of the Sketch Guy column that appeared weekly in The New York Times (2010-2021). There, he used simple illustrations to introduce calming financial advice and couns...

My guest in this episode is Charlotte Wittenkamp. Her own experience relocating from Denmark to California led to her ongoing fascination with global differences in value systems and communication patterns. In short, why do we believe what we believe?

Many people mistakenly equate obituaries with death notices, but, as we'll hear in this episode, obituaries are not tales of death; they are tales of life. They are the CliffsNotes of someone's identity and relevance. And as much as we know we shouldn't, we are drawn to them as mirrors, which we figuratively stand in front of and ask, " How does my life compare to this individual's?" My guest toda...

I've written four screenplays as a hobby, one of which received an honorable mention at the 9th Annual Nantucket Film Festival. If I were thanking the Academy, it would be because I had an exceptional teacher who just happens to be my guest in this episode. I've asked her to clarify what and how screenwriters work to help inform your storytelling ability as a communicating leader. Debbie Danielpou...

I've asked several people to come on the show in this series to talk very briefly about an aspect of their life that makes them tilt their heads in curiosity and want to figure out how to satisfy it.  My guest in this episode is a master at looking at the familiar from a different angle. Dr. Christine Mason is a university professor, prolific author, workshop facilitator, yoga instructor, and pain...

My guests in this episode are Melissa Hughes Ph. D ., a neuroscience researcher, educator, keynote speaker, and author of Happier Hour with Einstein — Another Round, and Michael Appelgren PsyD , a licensed psychologist, private practice owner, and executive functioning and parent management coach. Together, we explore the roots of curiosity, some of the obstacles that stand in the way of actualizi...

My guest in this episode is Dennis Pitocco. Dennis is Chief Reimaginator of 360° Nation , an organization and approach to life that includes the award-winning BIZCATALYST 360°; Real Voices 360°, and GoodWorks 360°. Everything Dennis and his team do is "for good" versus for-profit and founded upon their quest to rediscover humanity at its very best.

My guest in this episode is Sarah Elkins . Sarah is a storyteller, the podcast host and author of "Your Stories Don't Define You. How You Tell Them Will," and a Gallup certified StrengthsFinder coach. In this episode, Sarah focuses on the role curiosity plays in informing our identity and how we define the relevance of our lives. And through that focus, Sarah has laid bare the bedrock of emotional...

In this episode, the first in the Curiosity series, I've asked a number of people to come on the show over the next few weeks to talk very briefly about an aspect of their life that makes them tilt their heads in curiosity and want to know more about how to satisfy it. My first guest is Pat McHugh. Pat is the Executive Vice President of Sales for the hand2mind school publishing company, which deve...

My guest in this episode is Mary Thomas-Vallens . Mary, a 40-year classroom teacher in the Irvine California Unified School District, currently serves as a moderator and in various other capacities for the Braver Angels organization, which works to depolarize "reds" and "blues," "conservatives" and "liberals" and help them become better listeners.

"It's really all about building relationships. Actually, that's what advocacy is about at its core." Sue Inches is an experienced environmental advocate, educator, and policy consultant. She is the author of the highly acclaimed Advocating for the Environment: How to Gather Your Power and Take Action .

When the supply chain works, it's a beautiful thing. But as the old saying goes, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and given the complexity of most supply chains today, any disruption can have a significant impact. Today's guest St. Claire L. Gerald , an Association of Supply Chain Management Certified Supply Chain Professional, helps us understand why the system is so delicate and ho...

My guest in this episode is Leanne Gordon , the principal of Leanne Gordon , a firm dedicated to helping individuals navigate what overwhelms them when considering change, their personal or their organization's false starts in change initiatives, and the inevitable resistance they'll encounter leading change.