The Sage Sayers

My guest this week is Dorie Clark, an American author and executive education professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Along with working as a globally recognized communications coach for top-tier corporations, Dorie's also a three-time book author, most recently with: The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World , which releases this month from Harvard B...

My guest this week is Bill Carmody, Head of Coaching for Positive Intelligence, who oversees the application of mental fitness for thousands of coaches worldwide. He also creates and rolls out the business development program where he supports coaches to elevate the business end of their coaching business. In our interview, Coach Bill reminds us to love vs. resist and fear personal rejection, espe...

My guest this week is Parisian and Armenian Coach Marie-Louise Pereira who helps the many coachees she serves all over the globe better understand our values,  our purpose and with a vital end goal: To avoid burnout. With around 75% of US and European professionals reporting feelings of worker burnout, never has it become more pressing to understand the signs--and to use our sense of purpose to he...

If you're like me, you're often sharing your ideas in a free-flow way wanting to make sense of things as you go. While external processing's lovely for big-idea people,  from the field I hear a real appetite for bottom lining big, but not fully-formed key ideas. The need for some structure and brevity feels especially vial in ad hoc situations, like group meetings, and in ways which...

My guest today is Jayne Willoughby, a professional coach and artist based in rural Alberta, Canada. Jayne's a true Sage Sayer who's found the gifts and opportunities through life's inevitable setbacks. Jayne's cheerfully reinvented herself multiple times across multiple industries including nursing, psychiatry, and now coaching. She's a certified coach focusing on mental f...

Performance reviews can trigger angst in all of us — and not surprising really because so much feels at stake. And yet, applying a blend of mental fitness, communications coaching, and journalistic strategy, you’ll find efficiency, clarity, and results.   Consider these five approaches to minimize the guess work (and worry) with your next performance review. Have a communication challenge to tackl...

There's real folly right now in not writing in clear, accessible, and audience-centered ways. Here in the U.S., the home for The Sage Sayers, 30% of workers plan to resign from their jobs and Gallup polls track around 70% feel dejected and not interested in work. In this week's podcast, I'm sharing tips and techniques for bottom lining key information in your next robust informative...

If you're like me, you want to share your story willy-nilly without much thought for strategy. But Coach Pam Knox, my guest this week, advises nothing beyond purposeful, strategic storytelling. Unless we have purpose and know our audience, we'll not be targeted, nor will our message resonate, she says. Coach Pam's a global business strategist, storyteller and communication coach hel...

In this week's episode of the Sage Sayers,  I’m narrating Chapter One of the Perfect Novel of My Life. This narrative coaching and mental fitness exercise builds discovery of our inherent gifts to the world and the gifts, knowledge, and the opportunities within each challenging situation.  I learned this exercise through the Positive Intelligence mental fitness program under the training and...

My guest this week is Colby McCullough, a supply chain expert with a combined 24 years of experience in the aerospace and consumer goods industries.  He grew up in New Orleans and holds a BS in Structural Engineering and an MBA in Operations Research from Carnegie Mellon.   Colby now directs the supply chain analytics at a large, Mid West consumer goods company where he and his team develop analyt...

My guest this week is Charles Cranston Jett, a certified coach specializing in career management, critical skill development, and career crises. Charles got here through years of management consulting and executive search experience, especially CEOs and those reporting to CEOs. He also finds calm from lessons and wisdom learned from his former Navy leaders. Charles reminds us of the power of pivot...

In this week's podcast, we offer tips and strategies on asking for a raise, promotion, or improved rates and terms with a contract. This podcast provides a revised audio version to Coach Debbi's article on feeling brave as we persuade, published this week on Medium, which you can find here. Have a communication challenge to tackle with Coach Debbi? Sign up here for a session. Her next co...

My guest this week is Pastor and Dr. Thomas A DeLoach who captures the hearts of North Carolina's youth through preaching, coaching, and his provocative messages on God and community.  With Father's Day approaching, Pastor DeLoach's beliefs feel extra timely: He wants to raise the standard of character and integrity of our leaders and help young, troubled youth remember the love of...

Gunter Schaber wants to transform how salespeople (and entrepreneurs) view their prize. He means: Rather than focus exclusively on the big payout at the end, enjoy the journey along the way. Doing so becomes vital, if you want to feel happy, he says, and will help you become more successful, too. In this week's podcast, we hear from Gunter, a Munich, Germany-based sales coach, how (and why) w...

My guest this week is Peter Khoury, a professional speaker and public speaking coach from the West Bank based in San Francisco.  Peter's a great story to tell of a life full of art, priests, and wonder as a boy to his career in engineering, training, and now public speaking and training through his business, Magnetic Speaking. Peter's a firm believer of learning, growing,  and retooling....

In this week's podcast, we explore how mental fitness through Positive Intelligence (the science and practice of mastering your mind so you can reach your full potential) serves us with high-stakes presentations and messages. Glossophobia, the fear of public speaking, becomes a universal problem and no other tool (I've discovered) helps like mental fitness does.  Today's episode (a...

My guest this week is Jennifer Kho, former managing editor for the HuffPost and the Guardian's US edition. She's now president-elect for the Journalism and Women Symposium and senior advisor to leading media outlets including Canary Media and Capital and Main. Throughout her career, Jennifer's always loved the storytelling and knowledge she gained from reporting and writing stories;...

My guest this week is Luca Dondi, an executive coach based in Rome, Italy, who has developed an intriguing niche helping executives navigate across cultures. Luca knows this experience first hand having worked (and studied) in multiple cultures and frequently as a minority both due to his personality, life approach, and nationality. In this interview, Luca shares his career, life path, and his abi...

Most of us want to feel joyous at work and a delightful 2020 book by Marie Kondo, tidying expert and best-selling author, and Scott Sonenshein, an organizational psychologist has loads of timely advice. In this week’s podcast, I share the core lessons and steps I absorbed from “Joy At Work. Organizing Your Professional Life, ” in hopes it sparks joy in your work—both present and future. For more o...

My guest this week is Hector Garcia, a citizen of Japan and the author of several beautiful and best-selling books, including Ikigai, the Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life which he co-authored with Francesc Miralles.     In our interview, Hector inspires us how to find and honor our Ikigai, our life's purpose. In doing so, we can better ensure we spend more time doing things we enjoy a...

Whether we view failure with fear, shame, or disdain, culturally and generationally we can see many different ways we respond to failure.  Although I've lived and worked within cultures which find failure off-putting and signaling incompetence, I'm working to welcome failure as a vital segue to meaningful growth. (Mental fitness and finding the Sage perspective within setbacks really hel...

My guest this week is Christine Van Der Mark who discovered, a few days after Christmas in 2019, her late husband Shad had committed suicide. He was 41. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracked 47, 511 suicide deaths that year; and through COVID-19, experts predict more deaths of despair, especially among middle aged men who remain over three times more likely than women to commit su...

In this week's podcast, Coach Debbi offers five tips to warm up the tone of your business writing so that you sound warm, accessible, and open vs. closed off and cool.  If you suspect your readers tune you out, let's turn that ship around. If you're interested in Debbi's narrative coaching and executive communication coaching and training services, click here.

My guest this week is Amy Boettcher, an ICF certified coach and former attorney who practiced divorce law for 18 years and was partner at her Wisconsin-based firm. Two years ago, after honoring her need for new knowledge, growth, and for change, Amy retrained in an entirely new field: Coaching. She's since developed an intriguing, purposeful niche serving divorced parents who've found th...

My guest this week is Professor of Theatre at College of William & Mary, Elizabeth Wiley. Prof Wiley's a Midwesterner who's soon to move her side-gig (audiobook narration) to her main gig after many delightful years as a professor. Through COVID-19 and positive changes within theatre, she's realized: Now's the time for creating change. In our interview, Prof. Wiley (an awar...