The Unlock Moment: The Inner Shift That Changes How You Lead

Today we’re talking about talking – finding openness and trust in our leadership and our relationship with the people around us, and unlocking authentic leadership in the process. Peter de Silva is a highly experienced financial industry executive and board member. A former Harvard University Senior Fellow for the Advanced Leadership Initiative, he is the author of ‘Taking Stock – 10 life and lead...

I had the great pleasure of meeting Simon Sinek the other week. He was doing a speaking engagement at the Royal Festival Hall in London with Steven Bartlett, raising funds for a new piece of choreography for Rambert, where I’m involved as a board member. We were talking about my idea of ‘Alone, With Others’ – that sense of it being just you in the midst of the maelstrom. Most of us are lucky enoug...

The forward-thinking ideas and bestselling books of one of the world’s leading business thinkers, Dr David Burkus, are helping leaders build their best team ever. He is the bestselling author of five books about business and leadership. His books have won multiple awards and have been translated into dozens of languages. Since 2017, David has been ranked multiple times as one of the world’s top bu...

David Noble is a deep expert in leadership and strategy, and a more recent convert to the coaching world. With over 20 years at the top echelons of global finance and consulting institutions including Morgan Stanley, Kearney and Oliver Wyman, these days he is the founder of leadership and strategy consulting firm VIEW Advisors, a senior advisor to recruiter Egon Zehnder, the Institute of Coaching...

In this special episode, I’m bringing you a live recording of The Unlock Moment. In May 2023 I presented The Unlock Moment on stage at the Climb23 Innovation conference in Leeds here in the UK. Climb is the UK’s festival of innovation, industry and investment and is brought to you by Investor Ladder and CRSI. You can find out about next year’s event by going to the website climb24.co.uk In this se...

Now if you’ve been listening for a while then you’ll remember a powerful conversation with a friend of mine, and a brilliant coach, Beatrice Zornek. It’s one of the most downloaded episodes of all time on The Unlock Moment. So when Beatrice approached me recently and said ‘why don’t we turn things around and put you on the spot’, I thought it might be fun and interesting. And that’s what we’re doi...

It felt serendipitous to be introduced to today’s guest, a former scuba diving instructor on the Great Barrier Reef who translated his exceptional skills of diving below the surface into the same activity applied in the world of coaching. Skip Bowman is an Australian author, consultant and keynote speaker now focusing on how to transform organisations with a growth mindset and psychological safety...

It’s the paradox of the successful. Psychologists call it survivor bias. The people you hear from are the people who were successful. That’s why now they have the platform that means you’re listening to what they say. And what they say is ‘never give up’. Muhammad Ali. ‘Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’ Vince Lombardi. ‘Winners never quit and quitters never win.’ Thomas Edi...

There is a famous quote by psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl. Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. It epitomises our permission to choose. Permission is a powerful word. Perhaps the most significant Unlock Moment in my own life journey was to give myself the permission to...

Pride Month Special Episode. Meagan O’Nan is an award-winning author, keynote speaker, and expert in vulnerable storytelling. She is the author of the award-winning book, “Creating Your Heaven on Earth,” and “Courage: Agreeing to Disagree Is Not Enough.” Meagan is also a member of the Forbes Coaches Council where she produces regular content for Forbes.com – and that’s where we met. I was struck b...

I’ve been reflecting a lot on a chapter heading for my forthcoming book on ‘The Unlock Moment’ – alone, with others. It reflects the idea that you are surrounded by people who love you, who support you, who mentor and coach you, who partner with you. And yet in the centre, and I mean this in a good way, you are alone. Alone to own who you are. Alone to own the decisions you make. Alone to own what...

A remarkable conversation with a masterful coach that gets to the heart of coaching and what makes it most magical when most simple - this is one of my favourite episodes with one of my favourite people. Today it is my great privilege to welcome master coach Claire Pedrick to the podcast. We’ve known each other for about a year as I’ve been part of one of her coaching supervision groups and she ha...

I’ve recently brought another person on to my team, so now we’re three of us working on The Unlock Moment, the podcast, my coaching and speaking work. I’d put off the cost of an additional team member for as long as possible and then, when I realised that I was dropping the ball on important things, I knew I had to bite the bullet and invest in the additional help I needed. And what a good decisio...

A master storyteller and inspiring leadership coach, Todd Cherches is the CEO and cofounder of BigBlueGumball, a New York-based consulting firm specializing in leadership development and executive coaching where, in his words, 'training is entertaining'! In this conversation Todd brings to life how his experience of horrible bosses taught him why great communication is such an important leadership...

This was one of the most enjoyable conversations I've had on The Unlock Moment, really a delight to spend time with such a humble leader. I met Germain St-Denis recently when he was named a fellow Top 10 Thought Leader in Coaching by Thinkers 360. I heard him on another podcast and I knew that you would love to hear his story. He is one of the wisest and most reflective coaches and leaders I've sp...

Our minds are full of oughts and shoulds. And it’s often other people that put those oughts and shoulds in our head. You ought to have done that better. You should have made a different choice. You failed. It’s paralysing, causing us to spin round in circles chasing something in the past that now we can never go back and change. And it makes us doubt our judgement and turn molehills into mountains...

In this episode I’m delighted to bring you a very special guest who I met recently and I knew I had to bring on to record. Niraj Kapur is an expert sales coach, trainer, speaker and author of the Amazon bestseller, 'Everybody Works in Sales'. He has delivered Linkedin and Sales Training to over 450 small businesses, startups and solopreneurs. LinkedIn awarded him Top Voice status in 2022 and he ha...

In this special bonus episode of The Unlock Moment, I meet CEO, entrepreneur and investor Gordon Bateman, who is hosting the Climb23 innovation festival for investors, start-ups, scale-ups and industry in Leeds, UK on 23/24 May 2023. We're going to be bringing The Unlock Moment to the Climb23 main stage on 24 May as we delve into the power of purpose-driven leadership, arena style! In this convers...

Today we're talking about the topic of workplace wellbeing. Steph Lee is a business transformation coach here in the UK, and founder of People First Workplace as well as the host of the podcast 'Redefining Wellbeing In The Workplace'. Steph's previous career was as a Finance Director and CFO in large organisations such as the global data analytics and brand consulting firm Kantar. Continually unde...

In this powerful exclusive interview, Hollywood teen sensation Meaghan Martin, star of Disney Channel's Camp Rock and Mean Girls 2, talks about the challenges she faced as a child in an adult world. She questions why she was told as a seventeen-year-old girl by 50 year-old directors and network executives that she didn't matter and that she was an inconvenience. She asks why they thought that was...

My wife and I were sitting down with two sleepy dogs tonight and working on completing the jigsaw we’d started a few days ago. A pretty scene of Venetian canals at sunset, we’d decided that in this cost of living crisis, buying a jigsaw of Venice was a better use of our bank balance than a week on the Grand Canal. In the last few months I’ve been working with several clients on figuring out how th...

When I interviewed world-leading coach Maika Leibbrandt on The Unlock Moment, she used a phrase that has stayed with me. She said “I chose to align myself with the people I wanted to grow me.” I thought it was a fascinating turn of phrase on intentionally choosing the people you surround yourself with – she didn’t say “align myself with great people so I could grow”, she said “align myself with th...

Dr Richard Osibanjo is a world-leading coach whose journey in analytical chemistry developed in him a fascination for the chemistry of people and leadership. Now Chief of Staff and Director of Organisational Transformation at the Intel Corporation he develops and delivers people strategy and is also a member of the prestigious Marshall Goldsmith 100 group of coaches, many of whom have previously g...

My name’s Dr Gary Crotaz, award-winning author of ‘The IDEA Mindset’. In this Unlock Micro-Moment, you’re hearing a short extract from one of my top guests on The Unlock Moment podcast. Cinta Miller is one of the top hair and makeup designers in the music and fashion industry. In this short extract she talks about how she found a sense of inner confidence and empowerment through challenging times....

When I talked with world-leading coach Dr Carol Kauffman on The Unlock Moment, she described the three words that changed her life. Such a simple, yet powerful message – in moments where she was facing a choice, she would come back to those three words and it would guide her as to the right path. When life feels complicated, uncertain and anxiety-inducing, finding a few words that encapsulate your...