Talk, Unleashed

No easy way to say this. Losing someone to suicide rips a hole in your gut like few other things. Losing someone, it’s never easy. No matter the circumstance. When, however, that loss comes at that person’s own hand - there is something exponentially more gutting. The shock of loss combined with this deep, sick knowing that it just didn’t have to happen. The world was rocked with the sudden suicid...

Nothing like capping off an exciting whirlwind trip to Paris with COVID. Yep. It got me again. Thankfully seems to be pretty mild this time around and as I muse on wrestling with feeling unwell, it occurred to me that when I’m not feeling well, I don’t always behave well. My temper is short. It’s hard to focus. Overall a sense of malaise impacts everything. Being me, I started thinking about worki...

The power of responsibility. It’s something we’ve touched on quite a bit here on the podcast, and today we get to the source – where responsibility begins. Self. Meaning – at the highest level of responsibility I am clear that when it comes to the world around me, my relationships and even my community and the world beyond, I am responsible. Full stop. Whether it’s direct influence or merely the e...

What does it mean to make a declaration and then ensure it happens? Lots of folks talk about lots of things that they never do. And yet there are others who make audacious statements of things they're going to create and - BOOM - they get 'er done. What's that about? The meaning of the word and what's underneath it has been a pretty hefty aspect of my Leadership Training in the last couple of year...

Seemed fitting given the timing of this week’s episode to muse on the topic of gratitude and another topic that rides closely in the sidecar, abundance. For anyone who’s meandered the path of sobriety, personal development, mindset mastery and the like – it’s pretty common to engage in some sort of gratitude practice. Funny that something that seems as though it should be so simple needs a practic...

Last week’s road show was so much fun, I figured I’d do it again. This time en route from central California back to Las Vegas. While zipping along the same road on which James Dean died (including a pit stop at the last spot he was seen alive ) I pondered the discussions I’d had over the previous days – a delicious adventure in San Luis Obispo, CA for a friend’s wedding. In the days before the we...

Nothing says spiritual experience like wolfing down a Wendy’s Pub Burger, fries, and root beer and then recording a podcast episode while whizzing down a freeway. Yeah. That happened. It was while on route back to Las Vegas after a magical weekend that it occurred to me – I’d forgotten to record this week’s Talk, Unleashed . The good news is that my brain was saturated with a series of powerful ex...

We’re BACK! Funny to think it’s only been a month since the last fresh episode. It feels both a blink and a lifetime. During the podcast’s brief hiatus I took a good long think about where Talk, Unleashed gets to go in its second year. Consensus is that folks enjoy my storytelling ramblings, so you’ll be getting more of that and there’s been some requests for digging even more deeply with the inte...

Pinch me. Talk Unleashed is a year old. Ups and downs. Twists and turns. Embarking on so much exploration and learning. Appreciating all of you who share your experiences. Thank you. So what does lint have to do with anything. It’s something simple. Seemingly innocuous. Something that if you don’t sort out, don’t clean from filters, may actually set something on fire. Like your house. There are me...

Being part of a community means behaving in a way that’s responsible and respectful to others. This can be carried a wee bit far, just ask anyone who lives somewhere with an overly militant HOA. That said, there is something about structure and a set of agreements for folks living in community that makes sense. They exist wherever we go – whether it’s a nuclear family, a neighborhood or living spa...

When a friend of mine and I had a chat in early 2022 and she asked me about my “liminal plans”, I didn’t get it. She was referring to the preparation I might want to consider making as I was making my way towards some big changes in my life. She asked if I was “prepared” for the transition, for taking the time to “properly” digest the past and look to the future. I scoffed a bit and said I was. &n...

Do, or don’t do. There is no try. Isn’t it fun how binary some things can be? At least when presented by Yoda. Joking aside, when it comes to dogs and dog behavior, while there are some gray areas of feeling/emotion, the truth is that the beauty of a dog is the simplicity of it’s view. This or that. Full stop. The truth is that if we dig down deeply enough into the basics of human behavior the tru...

Words matter. Granted I’m a language nerd so they may matter a bit more to me than many, but whether you like it or not, the words you choose to use (or not use) have impact. Words can lift up and tear down. Incorrect words can set something in motion that can take years to turnaround. The word conventionally used to describe a group of wolves, Pack, for example? It’s incorrect. Literally incorrec...

The power of choice. As a smarty pants species we humans have all kinds of choices that we tell ourselves we get to make. That’s not entirely inaccurate, of course. When it comes to living in a community, of being a balanced part of society – the truth is that choices get pretty simple pretty quickly. Kind of like how when I teach my dog various things – it gets a choice. The choice to do what I’v...

Tolerance. Doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of that in the world today, least of all when it comes to the so-called “social” media platforms. While they’re not really designed for actual discourse and connection there is the opportunity to take advantage of these technologies to learn and grow. Teachable moments. So when some junior varsity Internet trolls popped up in response to this Instagram ree...

Grow up. Stop acting like a child. You’re so juvenile. Amazing how the most important and formative phases of our lives become insults and pejoratives at a later stage in life. Typically they’re used to describe a grown adult who’s behaving irresponsibility or not being accountable or responsible. What if, instead, we could remember that these early stages of our lives are precisely the time when...

You can’t stay clean today on last week’s shower. Makes sense, right? So, too, it goes with things like personal development and growth … and dog training. Of course we make strides and progress and evolve and – the work is never really “done”. In today’s episode, the parallels between educating a dog … and a human. And why being a work in progress is actually a good thing. What does leadership ac...

Social skills are delicate muscles that lose their tone quickly when they’re not exercised. It just takes one global pandemic and shutdown with related isolation and separation from society to show that. It’s as though people have flooded back into the world but forgotten they’re no longer in their living rooms. As I’ve been on walkabout for the last months with my dogs, moving around in public ha...

Boundaries. There are so many places that this word plays into our lives. There’s the boundary between nations, the boundaries between people’s properties (whether that’s fencing on the back 40 or the wall between two apartments), and of course there are the sometimes confounding and occasionally elusive emotional boundaries in relationships. Regardless of the form, boundaries serve to show where...

For all the talk of being “authentic” in today’s business world, it still seems to be a pretty rare thing. So when I caught sight of a post on LinkedIn from an old friend that was utterly raw and vulnerable – and was getting serious traction – my interest was piqued. Myles Weissleder and I first met not long after he and some friends started the event platform Meet-up. As part of testing his own p...

There’s no place for feelings in business, right? Stick with strategy, measurable results, spreadsheets and data. Well, none of those things matter if the heart and soul of a business – aka the PEOPLE – are off kilter.  Today’s guest, John Hagel III , is one of the leading management and business consultants in Silicon Valley. For the last 40 years he’s focused heavily on working with top com...

It seemed only logical after last week’s discussion about being messy and how that can lead to commitment that this week we pick up where we left off and keep digging. Surrender. Yep. That word that seems to strike fear or at least palpitations into the hearts of most folks. Surrender. Common thought is that it means to fail, to lose. Turns out that couldn’t be farther from the truth. True surrend...

What might it look like to stop worrying about looking good and be authentic. Really authentic. Nothing like having people in your life who refuse to cosign your bullshit and keep you honest. That’s what you’ll get with Cathy in this week’s episode. It’s a snack-sized offering that is decidedly unvarnished and definitely unleashed. What does leadership actually mean in today’s world? Good question...

One of the most powerful and important pillars of democracy in the United States is freedom of speech – the privilege granted a right in the US Constitution is a shield. It also can be a sword. Eugene Volokh is a Professor of Law at UCLA . His specialty, the First Amendment . What’s a canine behaviorist and life coach talking about with a First Amendment expert? Simple. Cheap Speech. It’s a phrase...

Family. It means lots of different things to different people. For today’s guest, Broadway Star Brent Barrett , it especially means connection and support. Despite perceptions of the cutthroat competition of performance, from where Brent sits, the truth is that every performance is really about the family of people who come together to create it. Whether it’s a one night concert or an extended run...