What's Your Work Fit?

To B or Not to B: A Nature Lover Turns Businesses into Benefit-Driven Brands About this episode: "[They've got some stuff] that makes good headlines on sustainability, but it is not moving many at all on the speed of urgency." - Jen Boyton, regarding her decision to "break up" with Amazon.com As a young child growing up in rustic New Hampshire, Jen Boynton discovered the joys of nature. Play for h...

Emotional Intelligence: How EQ Helps People to Succeed in Meaningful Work Part 2 About this episode: "How often do you know people who take the time to actively pay attention to what they are feeling, identify the source of their feelings, and, take the time to think about how that affects other people?" -Emotional Intelligence Expert Edythe Richards   Most everyone knows what IQ means—it’s the in...

Emotional Intelligence Part 1: How EQ Helps People to Succeed in Meaningful Work About this episode: "Every reveal, so to speak, is unique and everybody's results are unique. So, before [they even get their] results back, I think it is really important to provide an understanding of what Emotional Intelligence is." -Emotional Intelligence Expert Edythe Richards   Most everyone knows what IQ means—...

Give Piece a Chance Part 2: An Entrepreneur Disrupts Chicago’s Food Scene About this episode: “We didn't have the luxury of a soft opening. So, we're packed, it's hard getting the product out of the kitchen, because we really don't know how to do volume yet. And we're learning how to do service. So, we're pissing off people right and left and it took awhile to settle down. And fortunately, it did....

Give Piece a Chance Part 1: An Entrepreneur Disrupts Chicago’s Food Scene About this episode: “There were plenty of naysayers. Chicago is known for deep dish pizza. That is what Chicago is. And people were telling me [you can’t go] into Chicago with a New Haven-style pizza, because frankly, not many people know where New Haven is let alone what New Haven-style pizza is!” - Billy Jacobs, founder of...

Beyond Dreams: where will the Tightrope take us? We tackle the topic. About the episode: On the Fall 2018 season of The Tightrope, we learned that, born from our beautiful childhood dreams, we can find success as adults doing meaningful work. Through their own storytelling , our guests inspired us to seek out work and career opportunities that are profound, empower people, protect the planet, and...

Serving Those Who Serve: Finding Meaningful Work as a Police Chaplain About this episode: “My career has been one of twists and turns, but ultimately things connected to each other. And what I do now—to help people in need—is something that helps me feel whole.” - Michael Shochet, Senior Cantor of Temple Rodef Shalom, Falls Church, Virginia; Chief Chaplain of Fairfax County, Virginia Police Few ca...

Neurocentricity and recruitment align the corporate mission to meaningful work. “We’re looking at a world of more empathetic buying, empathetic recruitment, empathetic reading, empathetic leadership. It is absolutely the way of the future. It is allowing anyone who is connected to a common cause to feel respected and safe in a way that will change the world.” - Adrienne Shoch, Corporate Performanc...

A meaningful career: leading autonomous vehicle adoption In Urban America. “The community has to trust developers of the cars, users of the cars, and they also have to see that these cars are going to take them to the places that they have had difficulty getting to.” - Richard Ezike, Ph. D., Noted Subject-Matter Expert on Transportation Equity Dr. Richard Ezike’s earliest childhood dreams of doing...

Dr. Charles Glassman explains overcoming Brain Drain and other obstacles to leading a meaningful life. “It’s so convincing, the physiological feeling that we have when we’re anxious: our stomachs feel tight, we might have to go to the bathroom, we might feel jittery, we might have brain fog, we might not feel on top of our game or strong. And those are very convincing feelings to tell us we have t...

Going local creates meaningful work. “People aren’t trying to create the next Budweiser. They are trying to create the next IPA that they can sell in the local bar and to drive a nice little employment world that is self-contained and capable of hiring and keeping people at work in their community.” - Morley Winograd, Co-author of Healing American Democracy: Going Local One revolutionary change ha...

The Design Thinker: Turning Childhood Dreams Into Business Success “People come to me realizing that something’s not working, or, that they have an aspiration of what they want. At the end of the day, they want to make a pivot to something else. In order to get down there and make that pivot they need a strategy. And what I tell people is that it may take multiple strategies for you to get where y...

Third Act By 28: One Man's Unusual Journey to do Meaningful Work (Part 2) “People said ‘well, he was a reporter, and a cop, and now he’s a cantor.’ When I look back on it, everything that I’ve done in my life, all of those jobs and the other smaller jobs in between, have always been about doing things with people, for people—helping them in some way.” - Michael Shochet, Senior Cantor of Temple Rod...

Third Act By 28: One Man's Unusual Journey to do Meaningful Work (Part 1) “When I was a little kid, I loved police officers. I could spot a police car a mile away. I think it started when I was seven or eight years old and a police car came into our neighborhood, which never happened, to go to someone’s house to talk to them about something. And he was really nice to us—all of my friends. Who know...

Beautiful Dreams: What did you want to be when you grew up? What were your dreams of doing meaningful work? In this special episode of The Tightrope with Dan Smolen podcast, we ask these questions which are so central to our personal narratives, but also to our pursuit of happiness. You will discover the beautiful dreams of some of our season’s guests, like: Charles Glassman who knew early on that...

The Experience Shaper Part 2: One Performance Expert is Transforming HOW We Work “I was across the country in probably 12 different cities—about 500 people—and I would ask the question: How many of you have had a transformativeperformance evaluation in your career? And only THREE PEOPLE out of 500 said that they had had a transformative conversation.” - Adrienne Shoch, Corporate Performance Expert...

The Experience Shaper Part 1: One Performance Expert is Transforming HOW We Work “As a child, I did have a moment when my mom said, ‘you know, you are going to have to work for yourself. You are going to find your way outside of what everyone else is doing.’ And I’ve never forgotten that.” - Adrienne Shoch, Corporate Performance Expert and Founder of 5 to 1 Consulting Early in life, she knew that...

Transportation Equity: Reengineering the Quality of Urban Life “When someone is deprived of transportation options [it affects] their ability to get an education, it affects their ability to have access to healthy food, it affects their ability to access employment centers.” - Richard Ezike, Ph. D., Noted Subject-Matter Expert on Transportation Equity Transportation access remains one of the most...

Discovering Yourself: Knowing Your Myers-Briggs Type Opens Gateways to Meaningful Work “Myers-Briggs is all about preferences. We all have our preferences in life. Like our preference for chocolate or vanilla, we may eat both from time to time, but we prefer one over the other. So, with Myers-Briggs, the first step is to understand who we are, most naturally and comfortably. And when we are in a g...

Coach MD: How One Physician Leads Patients to Live Better, Stronger, and More Meaningful Lives “I told my [high school] advisor that I was thinking of going into medicine. Well, he kind of paused as he said: ‘Look, medicine is a really tough field. Maybe you ought to think of something different?’ And when he said that, that made me decide—no matter what—I WAS GOING TO DO IT.” - Charles Glassman,...

Meet Eva Grodberg, a corporate escapee turned travel provider of epic experiences. Imagine embarking on an advertising career on famed Madison Avenue, where all the entry level jobs available to recent college grads like you require proficiency in typing. Then imagine getting a lucky break with a pivot to print media sales where you rise to become a top direct response advertising sales mega-produ...

Living a Life of Less Stuff And More Epic Experience According Pew Research's groundbreaking January 2017 report , the American Dream that we all knew as Upward Mobility is long gone; it was replaced by a soberer pursuit of economic stability. As a result, we now fill our homes and storage bins with less stuff. Instead, more of us, and especially Millennials, pursue profound meaning and experience...

Edythe Richards sees a path forward staying nimble for career success. The workforce’s notions of work and career have massively shifted. Edythe Richards is a veteran career counselor and Emotional Intelligence expert. In this episode, she provides a path forward, why it is so critically important that we stay nimble to achieve lasting career success in sustainability, social responsibility, and o...