Inside Influence

How do you create a global movement, when your taskforce can’t read, write or speak a common language? When I first emailed today’s guest to invite him on the show, this was his reply: "Totally mystified as to why on earth you want to talk to an old Gandhian living in the middle of the Rajasthan desert?" This was my email back: "I can’t think of a better reason to want to talk to you." This exchan...

Here’s a quote to kick off today’s episode:   “The traditional approaches are now obsolete. One hundred years of marketing thoughts are gone. Alternative approaches aren’t a novelty. They’re all we’ve got left.” Seth Godin   So how do you win at a game where there are no rules? Or even worse, a game where you can throw every cent, every hour, that you have at trying to figure out the rul...

How much do you trust your inner current? That inner nudge that comes from the ideas, people and directions that ignite you. The voice that says this needs to be explored. Next question – what about your ideas? How much do you trust your ideas? I’m not talking about the great earth shatteringly brilliant ideas, the ones that arrive like an avalanche and everyone applauds.  I’m talking about t...

What’s your leadership blueprint? I’m not talking just about your values – or a description of how you operate at your best, on the best day – when everything is going according to plan.  I’m talking about a roadmap of clearly defined behaviours, rituals and practices that exactly define the type of leader you want to show up as – EVERY DAY. There’s an age old saying that we get the leaders w...

Swagger: How to unleash everything you are and get everything you want Where do you need more swagger in your life? I’m not talking about the fake version of swagger – arrogance, aggression or a false sense of bravado. I’m talking about REAL swagger. The type that you can’t fake. You’ve seen them. The people who walk into a room and you can’t help but notice. The ones that seem to emit something,...

We have reached the final episode of our special series of Power Cuts. I hope these small supercharged doses of content have kept you connected and inspired over this Christmas and New Year period, while myself and the inside influence team have been stocking up on turkey, binging on Netflix, and generally refueling our creative tanks. Over the past five weeks, we have cherry picked some of the be...

Here we are again with number four of our series of mini power cuts, all designed to keep you inspired over the holiday season while our team takes a bit of a break to eat mince pies, drink eggnog, and obviously plot big things for next year. On that note, actually, if there are any topics or people that you think should be on the show this year, get in touch. Some of the best guest recommendation...

Here we are with number three of our powercut episodes. This is our way of keeping you inspired over Christmas and New Year while our Inside Influence team takes a little bit of a break to rest and recharge. We have gone back through all the episodes and narrowed down, not only the five conversations we think will be the most helpful, but the specific parts of those episodes that will give you one...

Here we are again with another Power Cut, a series of mini-episodes dropping once a week, each carefully curated from our favorite interviews from 2021 to keep you inspired and motivated, while our Inside Influence team takes a little bit of a break to reimagine and recharge our batteries over Christmas. Today's Powercut episode was my pick, one of my all time favorite human beings and conversatio...

We are coming to the end of another eventful year, another 12 month bundle of opportunities, challenges, plenty of highlights and some definite unforeseen low lights. Hopefully you are about to embark on a well-deserved break. This is exactly what the inside influence team and myself will be doing. So over the next few weeks we are going be taking a festive step back to rest up, recalibrate and re...

How do you feel about the word purpose? Does it light you up, make you feel aligned and on fire to make a difference? Or does it leave you feeling a little disconnected and wanting to change the subject? For me, I’ve always been in the latter camp. I’ve always understood the need for clarifying purpose in a directional sense. Who are we as an individual or collective, where we’re going and how we...

How do you respond to transformational tension? Those moments that form the space in between what we were and what we’re becoming. The information we had access to and what we know now. That deeply uncomfortable place where we can feel change coming, but don’t yet know what the new horizon is going to look like. Most of us choose from a few responses. We freeze – remain still so the threat won’t f...

How do you change the entire way people view a problem? The answer. One story at a time. Every once in awhile, a handful of times a year, I’m lucky enough to get to talk to someone on my original ‘wish list’ for the podcast. Today is one of those lucky days. In the latest episode of Inside Influence I speak with Jessica Jackley, Co-Founder of KIVA, the worlds first person-to-person micro-lending p...

Here’s today’s question – are you an expert or a visionary? Seems like a random question? It’s not. When I was growing up – a while ago now - influence belonged to those who could amass the most information. I don’t know if many of you can remember the EB – basically a set of books that were said to contain all the information on the planet.  Everything there was to know about pretty much any...

If your website or online profile was a big red button, what would it say? Weird question I know. But let’s look at it for a second.   In those moments when we’re most trying to make an impact, it’s easy not to stop and think about what action we actually want people to take. We often get caught in our own bubble, how good does it look, how good does it sound, how likely are people to pay att...

Daryl Davis - One man and the Ku Klux Klan: The power of respectful communication How does a black musician who’s jammed with the likes of Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, BB King and even Bill Clinton - become friends with an Imperial Wizard from the Ku Klux Klan? In this polarised world, breaking down entrenched positions may be the most important skill needed by us all. If two passionate sides can...

Dorie Clark - The Long Game: How to think long-term in a short-term world Does long-term thinking even matter in a world where the rules constantly change? For many of us (myself included) the pandemic has been a tough opportunity to look at the long-term future of our careers and business models.  An invitation to step away from the next fire that’s burning. The next shiny object that everyo...

According to my guest on today’s episode, the largest crisis we currently face has nothing to do with the economy or politics - it’s a crisis at the very heart of how we define leadership.  Today a huge 88% of people do not feel like their work is valued by their employers. As a result, 75% of people would take another job if it came along, a level of disengagement estimated to cost companies...

Rich Diviney - The Attributes: A Navy SEAL Commander on the hidden drivers of elite performance  Skills are not enough. 90% of Navy SEAL recruits fail to pass the basic training. And 50% of Navy Seals fail training for specialised command.  Today’s guest, former Navy SEAL Commander and officer in charge of training for specialised command Rich Diviney asked why?  Beneath skills ther...

Jeremy Cowart - Getting Past “I Can’t” to Change Yourself and the World We all have amazing ideas. Some are hard earned while others just come to us while we are walking down the hall on one unexpected day. But to make those ideas a reality, we need to get past the “I can’t moment” that invariably follows. On today’s Inside Influence Podcast episode I talk to Jeremy Cowart, celebrity photographer,...

Laura Gassner Otting - What would you do if you felt truly limitless? Whether you call it “ being in the zone”, “flow”, “ hyperfocus ”, “ feeling invincible ” , or in the words of my guest today “ consonance ” - we have all experienced those moments where we feel our abilities and passions are absorbed into the task in front of us. Time melts away and we produce some of our best work. What if you...

Michael Krogerus - The Secrets of Great Decision Making: Information, Intuition and How to Keep Moving How do you approach decisions in your life? Are you the cut and thrust type or do you agonize over every decision? We make decisions every day but do we have a good strategy for making those decisions? Even fast decision-makers can struggle with a weighty decision from time to time.  Today’s...

Ben Zander - The power of standing in possibility: Leadership and the transformative role of music What type of leader do you want to be?  Some leaders are like black holes that suck the passion and self-belief out of their teams. While others are unsure of how to enrol their teams into a greater vision. Benjamin Zander is not one of these leaders. He is remarkable in the way he calls out the...

Is hardcore porn preparing children and young people for a good sex life? According to the American Psychology Association, the largest consumers of internet porn are 12 to 17 year-olds.  On today’s podcast, we talk to an advertising industry veteran and entrepreneur who is not afraid to talk about sex education and to stand up for good real-world sex, Cindy Gallop. Cindy is the founder of th...

Guy Kawasaki - The Art of Evangelism: Mastery, mantras and nailing the pitch Is your elevator pitch letting you down? The world is full of the “best” and “revolutionary” so how can you make your product or company cut through ? On today’s Inside Influence Podcast episode, we talk to the former chief evangelist at Apple and current chief evangelist for Canva Guy Kawasaki about how to be an evangeli...