Talk, Unleashed

A few weeks ago on the podcast I talked about the kick off of hunting season. Thing is, before the season gets fully underway there’s a problem. Too many deer. Car crash numbers increase exponentially with collision shops facing a voluminous tide of car versus deer situations. It’s not just that the population hasn’t quite yet been regulated. It’s also that in the midst of this chaos the male deer...

It’s funny the things noticed when you take the time to … stop. Not something we do all-that-often in this day and age. Everyone is moving fast - making decisions, clicking links, consuming information from the firehose of the Internet. The act of slowing down let alone stopping? It’s almost unheard of. Lately I’ve taken to setting a timer on my social media apps. No more than 15 minutes a day. Wh...

It’s a common misconception. The idea that the woods at night are quiet.  Don’t get me wrong. After 10 years in Las Vegas where it never gets dark and never really slows down, the woods are the opposite of that. Turn the lights out at night and it’s dark as pitch. The immediate sense is almost a pressure on the eardrums, the weight of silence. I mean it’s certainly more quiet than any city or subu...

Ah, fall. It’s among my favorite times of year - especially when it comes to the tapestry of colors Especially orange. Except in this week’s episode, the color orange I’m talking about is neither part of that palette, nor is it the new black. This is blaze orange - that particularly vibrant shade worn … to avoid getting shot during hunting season. It’s a color in which I get to be pretty much enti...

It’s a famously awful quote used by Mark Zuckerberg in Facebook’s (now Meta) early days.  Move fast. Break things. The idea behind it was, allegedly, to spark innovation; to remove obstacles in creativity by giving folks license to make mistakes, to iterate and to charge forward. This IS critical for innovation. Moving forward, moving quickly, not needing things to be “finished” or “perfect” befor...

Judgement.  Talk about a gateway to misery. Sure. It may feel satisfying for a hot minute, but just like letting fly with a nasty statement in retaliation when my feelings are hurt, the feeling is fleeting. More to the point, when I’m judging others, it says more about me, than it does about them. After all, who the f*ck am I to judge, anyway?  And yet, we all do it. What if, in the moment the jud...

Thing about living in the woods - you get to be the ears present when a tree goes down. Doesn’t just make a sound.  Shakes the ground too. Turns out when it’s gone down, it also tells a story. And this week on the podcast, the conversation that ensues. In a world where what passes for radical honesty usually means someone is just letting things fly outta their pie-hole without much care for others...

I’ve always had the olfactory sense of a Bloodhound. I’d probably have made a superb “nose” for a French perfume company. Having an acute sense of smell is both blessing and curse - it also holds one secret to my masterful skills with dogs and turns out opened up pretty interesting insights about interactions between people. With the sense of smell being one of (if not THE) most important link to...

I’ll never forget the first time it happened.  I was talking with an engineer or coder type at a party. Their cell phone rang. They looked at it, answered it, and walked away without so much as an “excuse me”. In the middle of a sentence. I’d like to say it was the only time it happened. It wasn’t. Sadly this kind of thing happens with more and more frequency. Here’s the irony - when someone check...

There’s nothing like a provocative t-shirt to really make my day.  I used to have one that said “F*ck Yoga”. The reactions to it were epic. Most folks would look at it, look at me and laugh. Every now and again someone would get utterly twisted up with me about it and I’d tell them two things: It’s a fucking t-shirt. The t-shirt originated from a YOGA BRAND that was based in New York. Now don’t ge...

Remember when you were a kid in school and some unruly kid couldn’t mind the rules and as a result the entire class faced consequences? Everyone being hit with staying late, extra homework, pop quizzes. I sure do. It sucked. DISCLAIMER - I’m not talking about kids who may have had undiagnosed situations that weren’t properly understood; who’d have been better served by a different learning environ...

I don’t know about you but I’m of the generation where calling someone “stupid” resulted in varying levels of punishment. In my house the word was tantamount to the F-bomb.  Funny how it seems lately that everyone is pointing fingers and calling other people just that. But is it really stupidity? Or is it ignorance? Truth is, in many cases it’s the latter. How do you figure that out and what does...

LISTEN CLOSELY TO THIS EPISODE AND YOU'LL HEAR A SECRET SOUND :) One of the more hokey sayings in transformational leadership training is we are human BEings, not human DOings.  It’s a cheeky way to tell people to chill the f*ck out, be present and pay attention.  Boy did that generate a whole bunch of eye rolling for me when I began my own personal development journey. Like, sprain the connec...

One of the most irritating cliches in dog training is this - there are no bad dogs, only bad owners. Talk about trying to shame people into changing their behavior. And shame as a lever for shifting how folks behave has worked … never. At least not with anything remotely resembling a healthy change. That said, there are dogs that may behave “badly” … and it’s in those moments when we humans have a...

Disclosure - the idea of this podcast episode isn’t new. It’s the Peter Principle .  What is new is looking at the concept of rising to a level of incompetence’s flaw, as seen through the naturally occurring order in a group of wolves. In a world where what passes for radical honesty usually means someone is just letting things fly outta their pie-hole without much care for others, it’s time for r...

There’s a line in the film “A Few Good Men” where Tom Cruise’s character, a lawyer, demands the “truth” of Jack Nicholson, a General who’s on a witness stand. “The TRUTH!?” Nicholson bellows. “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!” Feedback. It's a bastardized concept in society today and that’s a shame. Because feedback is a privilege. Feedback - a neutrally delivered, radically honest perspective - en...

Nothing like mass market exploitation of words to render them near useless. Let’s take “leadership” for example. Bandied about mercilessly these days, and somehow what the word even MEANS has been lost. It’s simple - leadership is about RELATIONSHIPS, and in order for those to exist, you have to have TRUST. So, put simply - No trust. No leadership. Period. This week’s nugget shares a recent figura...

In a world where what passes for radical honesty usually means someone is just letting things fly outta their pie-hole without much care for others, it’s time for radically authentic conversation. Conscious communication is simple, but often isn’t easy. That’s why Cathy Brooks created Talk, Unleashed – a weekly podcast of radically honest conversation about — everything. Whether her own musings or...

I’ve talked before on the podcast about FOMO - the Fear of Missing Out. How interesting it is that people will go so far as to co-opt other people’s drama, misery and grief just in order to be in line with whatever meme or topic is hot at the time. Yeah, when you think of it that way it sounds pretty awful. But is it? Or is it just another sign that people’s sense of self has gotten so far outta w...

Oh the irony. We are taught - largely through entertainment and media sources - that monsters come in the dark. To be afraid. Be alert and know that danger lurks around every corner. Why irony? Because the truth is that the darkness isn’t danger. Usually that danger IS human-driven and the reality is that we NEED darkness. To reset our bodies, to rest and as I’ve come to discover by living deep in...

It’s among the most frequently sought after and common asks for any dog trainer: "How the f*ck do I get my dog to walk NICELY on the leash?" Loose leash walking. It’s a critical skill. And that’s not what this episode is about, really. It’s about the concept of attachment and obligation - “no strings attached” - which typically isn’t actually the case. As per usual it relates to dogs and...

If your goal in life is to be happy, I hate to break it to you, but your life is going to be pretty f*cked up. Because happiness isn’t goal. It’s a feeling. And feelings are not permanent. They shift. They change. They’re always in motion. So if the goal is a thing that doesn’t stick, I’m always going to be in some state of dissatisfaction, of failure. Perhaps a bit ironic a view from someone whos...

I find scatological humor delightfully amusing. Probably because not so deep inside I’m really a 10-year-old boy. Yes, I find poop and fart jokes hilarious.   So when I found myself confronted with the unmistakable aroma of chicken sh*t, I realized there was a lesson for this week's episode. Even if some of you may think it’s a crappy one, I’m dumping it on you anyway. Yep, just going to pile...

Okay. I get it. In today’s world the value of good content has become embarrassingly commoditized. It’s more about clicks than quality. The idea of co-opting someone else’s idea and passing it off as one’s own has become de rigueur. Or has it? It’s been practice in the art world for centuries that artists and creators are inspired by those who come before them, and begin their craft by modeling it...

Ah, humans. We’re such funny creatures. Someone says a story often enough and folks believe it to be true. Kinda like that story about how if you put a frog in a pot of water and slowly bring it to boil, the frog will die.  It’s a story shared when folks want to emphasize about the slow boil that leads to big change. Here’s the thing - big change, it’s not sudden. Evolution isn’t like a volcanic e...