Monday Morning Radio

The Op-Ed pages of The Wall Street Journal , The New York Times , The Washington Post , and USA Today are among the hardest journalism forums for outsiders to crack. Bob Brody has spent the past 40 years as an Op-Ed "safecracker," having written or ghost-written roughly 1,000 Op-Ed essays. If you are passionate about a topic of public interest or are looking for a way to bolster your stature in th...

By now, nearly everyone knows that William Shatner , aka Captain James T. Kirk, flew into space aboard the Blue Origin spacecraft on October 13th. Why would Jeff Bezos , who owns the rocketship company, want to invite a 90-year-old actor whose turn in the original Star Trek series took place more than 50 years ago on board when Bezos could have sold that seat for tens of millions of dollars?  Long...

David Cowan had a skilled career in geographic information systems — linking data to maps, when he thought he'd try his hand at financial services. Instead of making more money, he made none. Hard times quickly followed. In his early fifties, David found himself without a car, renting a single room to live in, and walking to a nearby McDonald's where he worked the drive-thru window overnight.  "Yo...

More than six million listeners worldwide tune in each week to hear Scott Jeffrey Miller 's On Leadership podcast, produced by Franklin Covey. In his newest book, Master Mentors , Scott draws on interviews he's conducted with his podcast guests — including Daniel Pink , Seth Godin , and Susan Cain — to offer tightly focused, transformative insights aimed at current and would-be leaders. What overa...

Chrysta Castañeda was a solo legal practitioner in Dallas when the legendary oil magnate T. Boone Pickens asked her to represent him in a decade-old business dispute involving investments he made in the three-billion barrel Red Bull region of West Texas. After about three hours of deliberation, the jury awarded Pickens $146 million. Host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart says he doesn't kn...

When he was starting out, Rob Cornilles founder of Game Face, Inc . , had the unenviable task of selling season tickets to the Los Angeles Clippers, which at the time was the most forlorn franchise in the NBA. Who wanted to go to a Clippers game, when Los Angeles had the Lakers? Yet, Rob soon figured out the secret to attracting sports fans and has gone on to train the sales forces of more than 30...

This week, our host, Dean Rotbart generated a lot of media attention over the past two weeks, including coverage in The Wall Street Journal , FORTUNE , and on NPR , among more than a dozen other news outlets. Dean, a faculty member at Wizard Academy who coaches business owners and entrepreneurs on how to attract free publicity, took his own " Reputation Tool Chest " advice to produce an avalanche...

[Listeners to Monday Morning Radio can now purchase a copy of Dean Rotbart's new book, September Twelfth: An American Comeback Story . Visit Gutenberg's Store .]    Joel Schwartzberg has two crucial pieces of advice for anyone tasked with making a presentation or giving a speech: 1. Have a point. 2. Get to it. Surprisingly, many business executives, politicians, and non-profit leaders fail to heed...

Let's play a game. We'll call it Two Business Truths and a Lie .  Which one of these three statements is false ? Thomas Alva Edison said: "I never did a day's work in my life. It was all fun." Owners and CEOs who "let loose" in the office often lose the respect of their employees. One element of Google's success as a company has been office Nerf-gun battles. Playing games and encouraging others to...

[Listeners to Monday Morning Radio can now purchase a copy of Dean Rotbart's new book, September Twelfth: An American Comeback Story . Visit Gutenberg's Store .]    Many companies don't realize they are sitting on a mother lode of extremely valuable assets that they underutilize or don't use at all. The assets are customer purchase data and preferences, and unless companies use artificial intellig...

With all due respect to Facebook and other so-called business change agents, the methods they use to innovate are really outmoded. That's the premise of Radhika Dutt , a teacher of entrepreneurship and innovation at Northeastern University. Dutt is a critic of the prevalent method used by most companies of rapidly launching a new product into the marketplace and then tweaking it time and again unt...

Host Dean Rotbart recently conducted an informal poll of business owners and his social network friends. What, he asked, is the one thing they would most desire more of? About 40% of those who responded answered "money." Another 40%, however, replied that they wish they had more energy. Dr. Amy Novotny , founder of the PABR Institute , which stands for Pain Awareness Breathing and Relief , says th...

Jeff Seckendorf , educator, author, and filmmaker, draws a clear distinction between experts and experts who can teach. Very often, he believes, they are not one and the same. Jeff's specialty is teaching and training. Whether it's scuba diving, aerial acrobatics, brain surgery, or auto repair, Jeff's company, The Training Cycle , can not only teach the subject but can train others to teach it as...

Sean Dowdel l and his wife Thora are the founders of Club Tattoo , which currently has six locations, including a booming studio at the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas. Over the years, the artists at Club Tattoo have inked or pierced hundreds of celebrities, including musicians Blake Shelton and Miley Cryrus , actors Ewan McGregor and Chrissy Metz , and athletes Héctor Sanchez , Amar...

With the Tokyo Olympics underway and the Beijing Olympics slated for early next February, this week host, author, and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart has a timely conversation with four-time Olympian Ruben Gonzalez , who aims to be the only Olympian ever to compete in five Olympics in five different decades. Not only that, but if Ruben, who competes in the luge, makes it to Beijing, at age 5...

We've all heard tales of the perplexed man or woman who climbs a mountain, sits with a guru, and returns all the wiser. In 2007, Helen Yu , a technology leader with clients including IBM, AT&T, and Cisco, spent 14 days on an expedition to reach Mount Everest's base camp. There was no guru, but Helen came away with an increased awareness of how to identify and surmount hurdles.  Yu, author of " Asc...

They are the middle children of Corporate America. They have a boss and they are a boss. Mid-level executives, be they in large companies or small, need help learning how to satisfy all the demands put upon them. That's the premise of Scott Mautz 's latest book, Leading from the Middle . Scott is a former senior executive at Procter & Gamble , who in his consultancy has surveyed well over 3,000 "c...

On September 11, 2001, The Wall Street Journal's main newsroom, located just across the street from the World Trade Center - was obliterated by falling debris and flaming smoke.   Ahead of the 20th anniversary of that fateful day, host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart has written a richly detailed book revealing the never-before-told story of the traumatized men and women of the Journal a...

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the percentage of Americans leaving their current employers for new opportunities is at its highest level in two decades. Pamela Hackett knows why, and she regularly advises CEOs and business owners on how to stem the exodus. Hackett is the Global CEO of Proudfoot , a consultancy that has worked with more than one million leaders — Wow! — ...

Mark Nation is a global technology expert who has spent more than two decades laser-focused on inspiring people and organizations to work with more vision, purpose, and passion in all they do. Mark, author of " Made for Amazing ," is founder & CEO of Nation Leadership , which advises executives at companies large and small how to unleash their full creative potential. As Mark told host and award-w...

Ita Olsen , founder of Convey Clearly , is one of the world's leading speech coaches, training CEOs, politicians, actors, and even podcasters, how to communicate most effectively. Over Ita's 25-plus year career, she's proven that the manner in which you deliver your message, regardless of the audience, can actually be more important than what you say. This week, on a Best of Monday Morning Radio e...

Piloting an F-16 fighter jet at speeds exceeding 1,500 miles-per-hour can surely steel the mind on what's most important. Before becoming a corporate leadership trainer, Rob Shallenberger spent 11 years as a fighter pilot in the United States Airforce, where he came to understand the enormous leverage of strategic, operational, and tactical focus. Now Rob and his father, Steve, are helping executi...

After publishing her book, Carla Moore quit her job as an executive at HBO and launched her own successful business consultancy. Charlie Epstein wrote " Paychecks for Life " and soon earned the moniker, "The Betty Crocker of 401 (K) Advisors." Shelly Henderson used her book to promote her and her husband's Charlotte, North Carolina real estate firm. It worked. What Carla, Charlie, and Shelly have...

Many people get the concept of motivation all wrong. They think it involves willpower and sacrifice. They either offer themselves a reward to achieve their goals or they threaten themselves with penalties if they don't. Susan Fowler says that science and practice proves otherwise. Fowler, whose book on the topic is titled — Why Motivating People Doesn't Work...and What Does — previously co-authore...

For those of us who make our livings relying on effective communications, the correct choice of words is essential. Dr. Per-Olof Hasselgren , a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School , has studied the relationship between human anatomy and English-language phraseology. It's extensive. In his book, " Body Language — From Head to Toe ," Dr. Hasselgren dissects 2,000 idioms, words, and expres...