Christopher Lochhead Follow Your Different™

Latest Episodes:

380 The Innovator’s Delusion | Category Pirates Oct 28, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, Christopher and fellow Category Pirate Eddie Yoon dive into the misconceptions surrounding innovation and market dynamics.

This episode is a must-listen for business leaders and entrepreneurs who want to navigate the complexities of today’s market more effectively.

You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.

The Context

The episode revolves around the limitations of Clayton Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma” and the assumptions that can lead businesses astray. Eddie Yoon critiques the traditional understanding of disruptive innovation, arguing that it often misguides incumbents in their strategic decisions. He emphasizes the need for a fresh perspective on innovation that focuses on creating value rather than merely competing on price.

The Innovator’s Dilemma

Christopher Lochhead opens the discussion by emphasizing the importance of genuine conversations in business and innovation. He sets the context for a deep dive into the innovator’s dilemma, highlighting its relevance in today’s fast-paced market.

Eddie Yoon then elaborates on the four fatal flaws associated with the innovator’s dilemma and introduces intriguing concepts like “super dingdong premium pricing.” Yoon shares valuable insights on how companies can generate unparalleled value while steering clear of “competition derangement syndrome.”

The Four Fatal Flaws of the Innovator’s Dilemma

Lower Prices vs. Super Ding-Dong Premium Pricing

The Misconception

Many companies believe that lowering prices is the best strategy for growth. While this can increase market share, it often sacrifices profitability.

The Reality

Eddie points out that companies like Apple thrive by maintaining premium pricing, capturing a larger share of revenue and profits. Lowering prices can lead to a race to the bottom, where quality and brand value are compromised.

Lesser Consumers vs. Super Consumers

The Misconception

Businesses often target “lesser need consumers” to expand their market, assuming that this will lead to growth.

The Reality

Eddie argues that this perspective is overly simplistic and lacks empathy. Instead, businesses should recognize the potential of “super consumers”—those who are passionate about the product and willing to pay for higher quality.

Winning the Present vs. Designing the Future

The Misconception

Many companies focus solely on current market dynamics, trying to compete in existing markets rather than envisioning future possibilities.

The Reality

This short-sightedness can lead to missed opportunities for innovation and growth. Eddie encourages businesses to think beyond the present and actively design the future by identifying unmet needs and creating new solutions.

Languaging Around Destruction Scarcity vs. Creation Abundance

The Misconception

The language surrounding disruption often focuses on destruction and scarcity, leading to a negative mindset that stifles creativity and innovation.

The Reality

Businesses should adopt a mindset of abundance and creation, where the goal is to build new categories and solve problems rather than merely displacing competitors.

To hear more from Pirates’ Eddie Yoon and Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to this episode.

This episode is based on a new audio mini-book “The Innovator’s Delusion” by your friendly, neighborhood Category Pirates! If you are curious about how you can avoid falling into the trap of Innovator’s Delusion, read about Christopher & Eddie’s solution on “The Innovator’s Solution”.
Want to join in on the Pirate Talks? Subscribe to Category Pirates and sail the seas with fellow Pirates today!

Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

379 Breaking the Cycle of Competition: Seth Godin on Winning Your Own Game Oct 21, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we engage with marketing innovator and bestselling author Seth Godin.

We explore the transformative impact of AI on business, the significance of personal agency, and the pitfalls of hustle culture. Seth emphasizes the importance of choosing customers and competition wisely, as these decisions shape one’s future. The conversation also highlights the role of emotional labor, the need for intentionality in life and career design, and the dangers of hustle culture.

Seth advocates for permission-based marketing, urging marketers to build genuine connections and deliver value to their audiences.

Seth Godin on the Importance Personal Agency

Seth Godin emphasizes the importance of taking control of one’s life and career. He argues that many people are conditioned to conform and fit in, which limits their potential. Instead, he advocates for a life designed with intention, where individuals actively choose their paths rather than passively responding to circumstances.

Another central idea in Seth’s philosophy is that the customers and competition one chooses directly influence their future. He explains that if you cater to a specific audience, you must accept the limitations that come with that choice. Conversely, by selecting customers who align with your vision, you can create a more fulfilling and successful career.

The Impact of AI on Business

The conversation also explores the impact of AI on the business landscape. Seth discusses how AI can be leveraged not just as a tool but as an integral part of a business strategy. He emphasizes that while AI can automate certain tasks, the human element—emotional labor, creativity, and decision-making—remains irreplaceable.

Seth Godin’s thoughts on Hustle Culture

Seth critiques the hustle culture that glorifies constant work and competition. He argues that this mindset can lead to burnout and dissatisfaction. Instead, he encourages individuals to focus on meaningful work that aligns with their values and goals, rather than chasing trends or external validation.

Seth and Christopher then discuss the idea that collaboration can oftentimes lead to greater success than competition. They argue that viewing others in the same field as collaborators rather than competitors can foster a more supportive and innovative environment.

To hear more from Seth Godin and his thoughts in AI & Hustle Culture, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Seth Godin is a renowned entrepreneur, author, and marketing thought leader. He is the creator of the blog “Seth’s Blog,” where he shares insights on marketing, leadership, and personal development.

Godin has written over 20 bestselling books, including Purple Cow, Linchpin, and The Dip, which focus on innovation, branding, and standing out in today’s competitive market.

He is also the founder of several startups, including Yoyodyne, which pioneered online permission marketing.

Through his writing, speaking, and courses, Godin encourages individuals to embrace creativity and make meaningful contributions.

Links

Follow Seth Godin!

Seth’s Blog | Website | LinkedIn

378 From Combat to Competition: How Command Sergeant Major Gretchen Evans Redefined Resilience Oct 14, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we engage in a profound conversation with Command Sergeant Major Gretchen Evans, a decorated veteran who served 27 years in the U.S. Army.

Gretchen shares her inspiring journey, from her motivations for joining the military to her experiences as one of the few women in a male-dominated environment. She discusses the challenges she faced, including injuries that led to her hearing loss, and her post-military work with Team Unbroken, an adaptive athletic team she founded.

Gretchen Evans’ story is one of resilience, leadership, and unwavering dedication to service.

Honoring Veterans and Their Service: Command Sergeant Major Gretchen Evans

Christopher opens the episode by expressing his deep respect for veterans and the critical role they play in society. He then introduces Command Sergeant Major Gretchen Evans, highlighting her remarkable journey and the challenges she faced, including injuries sustained in combat that led to her hearing loss.

Christopher emphasizes Gretchen’s role as an inspiration, both during her military career and in her life after service, particularly through her work with Team Unbroken, an adaptive athletic team for veterans and civilians who have faced life-altering injuries or trauma.

Early Motivations and Joining the Military

Gretchen shares her motivations for joining the military, which were born out of necessity. After losing her parents at a young age, her older brother became her guardian. Struggling to make ends meet while juggling college and work, she was inspired by her father, a World War II veteran, and the values instilled in her.

She decided to enlist in the military, finding a welcoming environment in the Army after being turned away by other branches due to her height.

Breaking Barriers as a Woman in the Military

When Gretchen Evans enlisted in 1979, there were very few women in combat roles. She reflects on the challenges of being one of the few women in a male-dominated environment, particularly during basic training.

Despite the tough leadership from Vietnam veterans who were not accustomed to training women, Evans expresses gratitude for the rigorous training she received, which prepared her for the realities of military life.

She shares her first experience of being deployed to a combat zone in Grenada in 1983, describing the mix of nerves and excitement she felt. Despite her youth and inexperience, she relied on her training and the guidance of her leaders to navigate the chaotic environment.

To hear more from Gretchen Evans and her inspiring story of never giving up, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Command Sergeant Major Gretchen Evans is a highly decorated U.S. Army veteran, motivational speaker, and author.

With over 27 years of service, she served as a senior intelligence analyst and paratrooper in multiple combat zones, including Afghanistan, where a mortar blast resulted in a traumatic brain injury and hearing loss.

Despite her injury, Evans continues to inspire through her resilience, sharing her journey in overcoming adversity. She leads Team UNBROKEN, the first all-disabled team in the “World’s Toughest Race” on Amazon Prime, promoting awareness about disability and perseverance.

Links

Follow Command Sergeant Major Gretchen Evans!
Team UNBROKEN | LinkedIn | Instagram

377 One Woman’s October 7th Bravery At The Nova Festival Massacre In Israel with Natalie Sanandaji Oct 07, 2024

In this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we look back into the harrowing events of October 7th, 2023, when Hamas launched a devastating attack on Israel, resulting in the largest massacre of Jews since World War II.

This episode features an overview of the geopolitical context, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and a firsthand account from Natalie Sanandaji, a survivor of the Nova Festival massacre.

What you’re about to hear is a real, unedited, unfettered, unfiltered conversation about an extraordinary event that happened on October 7, and has been impacting the rest of the world since.

Understanding the Geopolitical Context

Christopher Lochhead provides a detailed overview of the October 7th attacks, emphasizing the unprecedented scale and impact. On that fateful day, 3,000 terrorists infiltrated Israel, resulting in 1,200 deaths and 252 hostages taken to Gaza. Over the following year, Iran and its proxies launched 10,000 missiles, warheads, and drones at Israeli civilians, with the Iron Dome defense system intercepting nearly 200 ballistic missiles in one significant attack.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza is also dire, with the people suffering under the oppressive rule of Hamas. A survey by the Tony Blair Institute revealed that 87% of Palestinians hold Hamas responsible for the ongoing conflict and suffering. Despite receiving over $25 billion in humanitarian aid, the average Gazan sees little benefit, as Hamas leaders hoard the funds.

A Survivor’s Story: Natalie Sanandaji

Natalie Sanandaji shares her background and circumstances as to why she was in the area during the attack. As an American Jew with Iranian and Israeli heritage, Natalie has visited Israel almost every year. She attended the Nova Festival, a nature party themed around peace, unity, and love, with a vibrant atmosphere and a friendly, accepting community.

Natalie recounts the events of October 7th, providing a vivid and emotional account of the attack. The festival was in full swing when rockets began to be intercepted by the Iron Dome. Initially, attendees were more annoyed than scared, believing the Iron Dome would protect them.

“One of our friends from our campsite was on the dance floor when the rock first rockets were intercepted overhead, and she knew that we were still at the campsite sleeping; we hadn’t woken up yet. So she came back to the campsite to wake us up, because she wants to make sure that we were alert to what was happening. She came in she woke us up and she was all smile-y. And she was like, “Hey guys, good morning. I just want to wanted you to know a few rockets were intercepted overhead. But it’s fine.” “

– Natalie Sanandaji

However, the situation quickly escalated as festival security shut off the music and announced an evacuation.

The Aftermath and Reflection

Natalie reflects on the aftermath of the attack and the importance of sharing her story. She disassociated from the moment she saw the rockets, allowing her to speak about the events without breaking down emotionally. Many of her friends and fellow festivalgoers did not survive, and she feels a responsibility to be a voice for those who cannot speak out.

Natalie’s bravery and resilience are evident as she continues to share her story and raise awareness about the ongoing conflict.

To hear more from Natalie Sanandaji and the event that unfolded during the October 7th attack, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Natalie Sanandaji, 28, serves as a public affairs officer for the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).

A Long Island native, Natalie worked in real estate in New York City before October 7th, when she survived the Nova music festival massacre during a visit to Israel. Her traumatic experience that day led her to transform her life and switch her professional track to Jewish advocacy and fighting antisemitism.

Links

Connect with Natalie Sanandaji!

Twitter/X | Instagram

Combat Antisemitism Movement | CAM Twitter/X

376 Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization with Professor Edward Slingerland, Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Philosophy UBC Sep 30, 2024

In the spirit of Oktoberfest, this episode of the Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different is a look back into our conversation with Professor Edward Slingerland, a distinguished scholar and author of Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way into Civilization.

They delve into the cultural and historical significance of alcohol consumption, examining its role in human civilization. Professor Slingerland argues that alcohol has been pivotal in social bonding, creativity, and even the development of agriculture. They discuss how different cultures approach drinking, highlighting the benefits of moderation and the potential harms of excessive consumption. The episode offers a nuanced perspective on alcohol’s impact on society.

You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.

Edward Slingerland on Why Humans Enjoy Getting Drunk

Professor Slingerland begins by addressing a fundamental question: why do humans enjoy getting drunk? The simple answer is that it feels good. However, this leads to a deeper inquiry: why has evolution allowed us to enjoy getting drunk? The prevailing narrative suggests that our attraction to intoxication is an evolutionary mistake. Substances like alcohol are often seen as hijacking our brain’s reward circuits, providing pleasure without any evolutionary purpose.

Contrary to this view, Professor Slingerland argues that alcohol has played a significant role in human evolution. Unlike other pleasurable activities that evolution tolerates because they are not overly costly, alcohol consumption can cause real harm.

But despite its potential dangers, humans have been focused on making and consuming alcohol for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence shows that humans were brewing beer around 13,000 years ago, well before the advent of agriculture. This suggests that our desire to get intoxicated may have driven the development of agricultural societies.

Alcohol and the Development of Societies

One of the key arguments in Professor Slingerland’s book is that the first plants domesticated by humans were often those with psychoactive properties, not necessarily those that were nutritionally beneficial. For instance, the ancestor of maize was cultivated for its potential to make beer rather than for food. This desire for intoxication may have been a primary motivator for settling down and forming agricultural societies.

Once humans transitioned to agricultural societies, they faced new challenges. Life in these communities was often stressful and monotonous compared to the more egalitarian and diverse lifestyles of hunter-gatherers. Alcohol provided a means to cope with these stresses, enhancing mood and reducing anxiety. This is still true today; many people enjoy a drink after work to mark the transition from a stressful day to a more relaxed evening.

Alcohol and Creativity

Alcohol has a long history of being used to enhance creativity. Humans rely heavily on creativity for survival, especially in adapting to changing environments and competing with other groups. However, there’s a tension in our brains between the need to innovate and the need to focus. Alcohol can help loosen inhibitions and foster creativity by temporarily downregulating the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is responsible for executive functions like focus, impulse control, and decision-making.

The famous saying “write drunk, edit sober” encapsulates this dynamic. Different psychoactive substances can enhance different cognitive functions. Alcohol can help loosen inhibitions and foster creativity, while stimulants like caffeine can improve focus and task management. This balance between creativity and focus is crucial for innovation and problem-solving.

To hear more from Professor Edward Slingerland and the culture of drinking through the ages, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Professor Edward Slingerland is a Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia, specializing in early Chinese thought, cognitive science, and digital humanities.

Educated at Princeton, Stanford, and UC Berkeley, he has authored major works, including Trying Not to Try and Drunk, exploring the intersections of ancient philosophy and modern science.

He directs the Database of Religious History and has received over $11 million in grants for interdisciplinary projects. Slingerland is also a dual citizen, avid ocean kayaker, and educator through his popular MOOCs on Chinese thought and religion.

Links

Website | UBC Profile | Twitter | Drunk

375 Rambling Redefined: Category Design and the Janus Motorcycle Revolution with Richard Worsham & Grant Longenbaugh Sep 23, 2024

On this episode of Chistopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk with Richard Worsham and Grant Longenbaugh, the President and CMO of Janus Motorcycles. They discuss Janus’s unique approach to motorcycle design, emphasizing craftsmanship, simplicity, and a distinctive riding experience called “rambling.”

Richard and Grant share their journey from customizing mopeds to creating a new category of lightweight, custom motorcycles. They highlight their rejection of the industry’s focus on speed and technology, instead prioritizing the joy of riding and community engagement.

The episode underscores Janus’s success in redefining the motorcycle experience through authenticity and innovative category design.

What is Janus Motorcycles?

Janus Motorcycles stands out in an industry that typically prioritizes speed and technological advancements. While the mainstream motorcycle market grows at a modest rate of about 2% annually, Janus has achieved remarkable growth, boasting a 50% increase over the previous year. This success is attributed to their commitment to craftsmanship and a unique riding experience that emphasizes a slower, more meditative journey.

The early days of Janus saw Richard and his co-founder, Devin, customizing mopeds and eventually deciding to create a motorcycle that reflected their vision. They started with a 50cc model, drawing inspiration from their experiences with mopeds. Community and collaboration played a crucial role in their journey, as they relied on local expertise and craftsmanship to bring their vision to life.

Richard Worsham & Grant Longenbaugh and how they got into Janus Motorcycles

Richard Worsham’s journey began on the East Coast and eventually led him to Goshen, Indiana, where Janus is based. His time at Notre Dame and the region’s rich history in craftsmanship, particularly in the RV industry, laid the foundation for Janus. Leveraging local manufacturing resources, including partnerships with Amish craftsmen known for their exceptional quality, Richard’s passion for motorcycles was ignited during his college years. This passion ultimately led to the creation of Janus Motorcycles.

Grant Longenbaugh, with a background in marketing and creative work, became involved with Janus out of passion and curiosity. He and his colleague, Jordan, helped launch the 250cc line through a successful Kickstarter campaign. This campaign not only provided the necessary funding for EPA testing but also marked a turning point for Janus, allowing them to scale their operations.

On Rejecting Industry Norms

Janus Motorcycles takes a starkly different approach compared to the broader motorcycle industry, which has been focused on technological advancements and performance enhancements for decades. Richard and Grant articulate their philosophy of rejecting this “features push” mentality, instead prioritizing beauty, simplicity, and a genuine connection to the riding experience.

Richard draws parallels between motorcycles and classic cars, noting that vehicles like the old MGs provide a raw, engaging experience that modern vehicles often lack. He argues that while technological advancements like anti-lock brakes and rider aids are beneficial, they can also dilute the authentic experience of riding. The focus should be on the joy of the ride itself, rather than on features that might be more appropriate for household appliances.

To hear more from Richard Worsham & Grant Longenbaugh on their experience with Janus Motorcycles and the category of motorcycles and riding experience, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Richard Worsham and Grant Longenbaugh are the President and CMO of Janus Motorcycles, a motorcycle manufacturer company based in Goshen, Indiana. Richard Worsham, an artist and engineer with a passion for vintage and handcrafted designs, envisioned a brand that blends classic aesthetics with modern engineering. He focuses on creating lightweight, small-displacement motorcycles that offer an authentic riding experience, drawing inspiration from 20th-century motorcycling heritage.

Grant Longenbaugh, with a background in engineering and business, complements Worsham’s vision by overseeing operations, logistics, and business strategy. Together, they turned their shared enthusiasm for craftsmanship, American manufacturing, and motorcycling into a successful enterprise. Their motorcycles are celebrated for their unique, hand-built quality, simple yet effective engineering, and distinct retro-inspired design.

Under their leadership, Janus Motorcycles has grown a dedicated following of riders who appreciate the company’s philosophy of embracing the joy of riding over speed, as well as its commitment to sustainable, small-scale production. The company remains proudly American-made, with every motorcycle built by hand in their Indiana workshop.

Links

Learn more about Janus Motorcycles!

Janus’ Website | Janus’ LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube | Facebook

Richard’s LinkedIn | Grant’s LinkedIn

374 From Vodka to Bongs: John Spagnola on Building Legendary Brands & Creating New Categories Sep 16, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a conversation with John Spagnola, CEO of Ublendit, about innovation and category creation in the spirits industry.

John shares his journey, emphasizing the strategic advantage of creating new categories rather than competing in existing markets. He discusses the success of Hideout Vodka and introduces a new agave spirit, the “77,” designed for health-conscious consumers.

The episode also explores the impact of celebrity endorsements and meaningful partnerships, such as Hideout Vodka’s initiative with the National Parks.

John Spagnola on the Challenge of Competing in Established Markets

John starts off the conversation by reflecting on the challenges faced by smaller brands in a market controlled by a few large companies like Diageo and Constellation Brands. These giants can easily undercut smaller brands on price, making it difficult for them to compete. John emphasizes that merely trying to fit into the existing market is a trap that many fall into.

Instead of competing within established markets, John advocates for creating new categories. This approach not only differentiates products but also attracts attention from larger companies, who view category creators as innovative rather than as threats. He cites the success of brands like Screwball Whiskey and 21 Seed, which created unique categories and achieved significant valuations.

Hideout Vodka and MGM Partnership

John shares the story of Hideout Vodka, which gained traction by securing a partnership with MGM properties in Las Vegas. This partnership allowed Hideout Vodka to become the vodka of choice in several MGM hotels, marking a significant win for a smaller player in the industry. However, as the brand began to grow, John realized they were falling into the trap of merely trying to fit into the existing market.

Recognizing the need for innovation, John and his team brainstormed a new product idea involving Cheech and Chong, the iconic duo known for their association with cannabis culture. They conceptualized a vodka product called “The Judge’s Water,” which cleverly ties into a memorable scene from Cheech and Chong’s movie “Up in Smoke.” The product not only serves as vodka but also converts into a bong, appealing to their fan base in a novel way. This product sold over 5,000 units quickly, showcasing the power of category creation.

John Spagnola on Leveraging Celebrity Partnerships

John believes that aligning with well-known figures can turbocharge category creation and drive consumer interest. He shares his excitement about developing an apple pie whiskey, initially inspired by Martha Stewart, but now considering other celebrity partnerships that could elevate the brand even further.

John then discusses the potential for high acquisition multiples in the spirits industry, noting that companies can achieve impressive valuations, especially when they have a unique product and a celebrity endorsement. He highlights the average revenue multiples in the spirits sector, which can reach as high as 21x for celebrity-backed brands, making it an attractive space for innovation and investment.

To hear more from John Spagnola and his ventures in Category Creation, download and listen to this episode.

If you want to hear about our previous discussion about the Custom Spirits Category, check out this previous episode at FYD 212.

Bio

John Spagnola is the CEO of Ublendit, LLC. Ublendit is a pioneer in the custom spirts category. They are the first to create custom spirits for hotels, bars, nightclubs, restaurants and special events.

John is also Managing Partner at Venture Santa Cruz, where they identify new markets to make a difference in and disrupt them.

He’s based in Santa Cruz, CA.

Links

Follow John Spagnola!

Ublendit.com | LinkedIn

373 Surviving and Thriving: Dr. Judy Ho on How to Heal and Build Stronger Relationships Sep 09, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have an insightful conversation with Dr. Judy Ho, a renowned clinical and forensic neuropsychologist, to explore attachment theory and its impact on personal and professional relationships.

Dr. Judy Ho explains how early caregiver relationships shape our emotional responses and interactions throughout life. They also discuss the nature versus nurture debate, cultural influences on empathy, and the potential for healing attachment wounds at any age.

This episode also delves into managing negative self-talk and understanding attachment styles, offering practical strategies for fostering healthier relationships and personal growth.

Dr. Judy Ho on Attachment Theory

Attachment theory, as explained by Dr. Judy Ho, is a psychological model that describes the dynamics of long-term interpersonal relationships between humans. It focuses on the bond formed with primary caregivers during early childhood, which lays the foundation for how individuals perceive themselves and navigate challenges in life.

This bond is crucial because, as infants, we are entirely dependent on adults for survival. The lessons learned during this formative period are deeply ingrained, influencing our behavior and emotional responses well into adulthood.

Christopher Lochhead brings up the nature versus nurture debate, questioning whether core human qualities like love and empathy are innate or learned. Dr. Judy Ho explains that these traits are a combination of both biological drives and environmental influences. While there may be an innate tendency to care for those we are related to, much of how we express love and empathy is shaped by our environment and the behaviors modeled by others.

Cultural Influences on Empathy and Generosity

Christopher shares a personal story about an encounter with an immigrant in distress, highlighting cultural differences in perceptions of generosity and empathy. Dr. Ho notes that culture significantly shapes our values and behaviors.

In individualistic cultures like the United States, personal independence is often prioritized, whereas collectivist cultures emphasize community support and shared resources. This cultural context can profoundly influence how individuals respond to acts of kindness and generosity.

Dr. Judy Ho on Healing at Any Age

The conversation shifts to the possibility of healing attachment wounds, even for those who have experienced difficult childhoods. Dr. Ho reassures listeners that healing is possible at any age, regardless of whether the original caregivers are available for discussion. The key is to develop a secure attachment to oneself, which involves recognizing and addressing the patterns formed due to past experiences.

Christopher reflects on the concept of “re-parenting” oneself, a process he learned about in his early twenties. Dr. Ho explains that this involves revisiting past experiences and providing oneself with the nurturing and support that may have been lacking during childhood. It is essential to understand that many individuals carry the misconception that they are to blame for their caregivers’ shortcomings, leading to negative self-talk and a distorted self-image.

To hear more from Dr. Judy Ho & her thoughts on self-healing and building healthy relationships, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Dr. Judy Ho is a triple board-certified clinical and forensic neuropsychologist, television and media personality, and tenured associate professor at Pepperdine University.

She specializes in evidence-based therapies for mental health and has published extensively on various psychological topics.

Dr. Ho is also the author of Stop Self-Sabotage, focusing on personal growth and overcoming self-defeating behaviors. In addition to her academic work, she is a frequent guest expert on TV shows and podcasts, offering insights on mental health, relationships, and wellness.

Links

Follow Dr. Judy Ho!

Website | LinkedIn | X (formerly Twitter)

372 From Homeless to Millionaire: Grace Vandecruze and The Power of Believing Beyond Your Limits Aug 26, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, our guest Grace Vandecruze treats us to an extraordinary story of resilience, determination, and financial empowerment.

Grace shares her remarkable journey from a childhood marked by poverty and homelessness to becoming a successful entrepreneur and financial advisor.

Grace Vandecruze’s Early Life and Influences

Grace’s story begins in Guyana, where she was raised by her grandmother. Her grandmother’s unwavering belief in her potential played a crucial role in shaping Grace’s mindset. Despite limited resources, her grandmother’s love and generosity instilled in her the philosophy of “believe beyond your limits.”

Grace’s family immigrated to the United States when she was 14, seeking better opportunities. They faced numerous challenges, including homelessness. Despite these hardships, her determination to succeed never wavered. She viewed education as the key to breaking the cycle of poverty and worked tirelessly to excel academically.

Financial Empowerment and Education

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted Grace to shift her focus toward financial empowerment. She had been educating community groups about financial literacy, introducing concepts like investing and personal finance. In addition, the tragic events surrounding George Floyd’s death further motivated her to publish her book, “Homeless Millionaire: Six Pillars to Uplift to Financial Abundance,” to empower others during a time of crisis.

Grace’s book is designed to be accessible and practical, filled with tools and resources to help readers navigate their financial journeys. She likens the process to climbing a mountain, where she supports readers every step of the way.

Grace Vandecruze on Embracing Identity and Overcoming Stereotypes

Grace reflects on her identity as a woman, an immigrant, and a person of color, asserting that these aspects of her life are not disadvantages but rather unique strengths that set her apart. She believes that everyone has the potential to transcend stereotypes and limitations through mindset and determination.

Grace likens life to mountain climbing, where reaching a peak is just a momentary celebration before facing the challenges of the descent. She emphasizes the importance of continuous growth and the pursuit of new challenges.

To hear more from Grace Vandecruze & her amazing journey, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Grace Vandecruze is a financial advisor, CPA, and Founder of Grace Global Capital, LLC, with over 20 years of Wall Street experience. She has advised on transactions exceeding $5 billion and holds an MBA from The Wharton School.

Grace’s life was transformed after a fire left her family homeless, fueling her passion for financial wellness. An accomplished mountaineer and sailor, she inspires others through her resilience.

Grace has been recognized by Business Insurance and Directors & Boards, and frequently contributes to financial media as a speaker and thought leader.

Links

Find out more about Grace Vandecruze!

LinkedIn | X (formerly Twitter) | Homeless to Millionaire

371 Every Startup Needs a Problem: AI, Startups, and the Art of Storytelling with Adam Frankl Aug 19, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we engage in a compelling conversation with Adam Frankl, a seasoned expert in the tech startup world.

With over two decades of experience, Adam shares his insights on the current state of tech startups, particularly in light of the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI).

In our conversation with Adam, we delve into actionable advice and thorough explanations to guide aspiring entrepreneurs and tech enthusiasts, so stay tuned to learn more about the current state of startups.

Adam Frankl on The Current Startup Landscape

Adam Frankl begins by highlighting the paradox of the startup environment in 2024. On one hand, launching a tech startup has never been easier due to the availability of advanced tools and resources. Entrepreneurs now have access to productivity tools, social media for distribution, and the ability to build audiences quickly. This democratization of technology allows startups to reach potential customers and create impactful products more efficiently than ever before.

However, this ease of entry has led to intense competition. The number of startups has surged, making the market more crowded. Founders must navigate not only the challenges of building their products but also the pressures of macroeconomic trends, such as fluctuating valuations and the uncertain IPO landscape.

Adam Frankl on Transformative Impact of AI

They then move into the topic of the transformative impact of AI on startups. Adam observes that every startup he has worked with in the past year has integrated AI into their operations, not just in product development but across all aspects of the business. This integration allows startups to enhance productivity, streamline processes, and innovate at an unprecedented pace.

He emphasizes that the speed at which startups can achieve traction today is remarkable. For instance, he shares a story about a relatively new startup that has already generated revenue and is on track to become a billion-dollar company, all within a year of its founding. This rapid growth is largely attributed to the use of AI in various functions, from coding to marketing.

Focusing on Problems, Not Products

A key insight from Adam is the importance of focusing on the problem rather than the product. He argues that successful founders prioritize understanding the pain points of their target audience. By concentrating on the problem, startups can create solutions that resonate deeply with potential customers. This approach aligns with the principles of the lean startup movement, which advocates for validating problems before developing products.

Adam explains that when founders articulate the problem they aim to solve, they attract the attention of those who experience that problem. This creates a community of potential customers eager to engage with the startup, even before a product is fully developed. He stresses that the first product may not be perfect, but if it addresses a significant pain point, customers will be willing to invest in it.

To hear more about Adam Frankl’s thoughts on the current landscape of startups, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Adam Frankl is the author of “The Developer Facing Startup,” a guide dedicated to helping developers navigate the complexities of launching and scaling their own tech startups.

With over a decade of experience in software engineering and entrepreneurship, Frankl combines his deep technical expertise with a passion for innovation. He has successfully co-founded multiple startups and understands the unique challenges faced by developer-entrepreneurs.

His book distills practical advice, actionable strategies, and real-world insights to empower developers in their journey from coding to company creation.

Links

Follow Adam Frankl!

LinkedIn | The Developer Facing Startup

370 Character and Leadership: The Power of Ethics in an Uncertain World with Dr. Susan Liautaud Aug 12, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we engage in a thought-provoking dialogue with Dr. Susan Liautaud, a renowned ethicist and professor at Stanford University. With Dr. Liautaud, we explore the complexities of ethical decision-making in today’s fast-paced world, focusing on leadership, resilience, and the impact of emerging technologies like AI. Dr. Liautaud also emphasizes the importance of character in leadership and the ethical implications of technology. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Susan Liautaud on Emphasizing Character Over Experience Dr. Liautaud underscores the critical role of character in leadership, noting that while experience and track record are crucial, the emphasis on character seems to have diminished in recent years. She expresses concern that many organizations prioritize short-term gains over ethical considerations, leading to a culture where difficult decisions are avoided. This avoidance can have dire consequences, as seen in various high-profile corporate scandals. Direct Communication as an Ethical Responsibility Christopher Lochhead shares his observations about the communication styles prevalent in different regions, contrasting the directness he experienced growing up in Montreal with the more indirect communication often found in Silicon Valley. He expresses frustration with what he perceives as a culture of passive-aggressiveness, where people avoid confrontation and use euphemisms to address issues. Dr. Liautaud agrees, stating that clarity and directness are not just cultural preferences but ethical responsibilities. Dr. Susan Liautaud on Addressing Imposter Syndrome and Perfectionism The conversation touches on the phenomenon of "imposter syndrome," particularly among younger professionals. Christopher shares his perspective that feeling like an imposter often stems from a misunderstanding of one's own capabilities. Dr. Liautaud concurs, noting that the label of "imposter syndrome" can be misleading and that it is essential for individuals to recognize their growth and learning in new roles. Dr. Liautaud then highlights the broader implications of perfectionism in the workplace, suggesting that the pursuit of unattainable standards can lead to unethical behavior, such as cheating or avoidance. She emphasizes that organizations must foster an environment where individuals feel safe to express their challenges and seek support without fear of judgment. To hear more from Dr. Susan Liautaud and the how adhering to Ethical Responsibilities can affect and improve the workplace, download and listen to this episode. Bio Dr. Susan Liautaud teaches cutting-edge ethics at Stanford University and serves as Chair of the Council (trustees) at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She advises corporations, NGOs, and governmental bodies and their leaders on internationally complex ethics matters and is the Founder of the Ethics Incubator. Links Connect with Dr. Susan Liautaud Website | LinkedIn | X / Twitter | Stanford Profile We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

369 Educating Against Hate: Dr. Robert Wolf’s Mission Against Antisemitism Aug 05, 2024

On this episode of the Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a conversation with Dr. Robert Wolf and delve into the harrowing yet inspiring story of his father, a Hungarian Jewish man who survived the Holocaust and escaped oppressive regimes. This episode is not just a recounting of historical events but a powerful call to action against the rising tide of anti-Semitism and cultural intolerance. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Robert Wolf on the Importance of Remembering History Dr. Robert Wolf's book, "Not a Real Enemy", is a poignant reminder of the atrocities of the Holocaust. His father's story, filled with both tragedy and resilience, underscores the importance of remembering and educating others about this dark chapter in history. Because of this, Dr. Wolf expresses deep concern over the current rise in anti-Semitism, noting alarming statistics such as the belief among some young Americans that the Holocaust is a myth. This ignorance is dangerous and highlights the need for proactive education and awareness. The Role of Resilience and Redemption & Understanding Geopolitical Tensions The conversation also touches on the power of resilience and redemption. Dr. Wolf shares his father's journey of rebuilding his life after the Holocaust, emphasizing the importance of integrity and dedication to helping others. They then explore the complexities of geopolitical tensions, particularly focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader implications involving Iran. Dr. Wolf and Christopher discuss the historical prejudices and the potential for cooperation and economic growth among Arab nations. Fostering Understanding and Empathy Throughout the episode, Dr. Wolf emphasizes the importance of education and community engagement in combating ignorance and fostering a more inclusive society. He advocates for proactive efforts to educate others about the Holocaust and the dangers of hatred. To hear more from Dr. Robert Wolf and his thoughts on Antisemitiism and the current world events, download and listen to the episode. Bio Dr. Robert J. Wolf is a neuroradiologist with an educational background from the University of Michigan Medical School, Brown University, and Yale University. Inspired by his parents' harrowing experiences escaping communist Hungary and the Holocaust, Dr. Wolf authored "Not a Real Enemy," which recounts his family's survival and the tragic history of Hungarian Jews during World War II. He shares these stories with audiences worldwide, aiming to preserve and highlight this important history. Links Learn more about Dr. Robert Wolf! Website | LinkedIn | X (formerly Twitter) | Facebook | Not A Real Enemy We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

368 A Call to Serve: Shelane Etchison on Leadership, Legacy, and Her Fight for Political Change Jul 29, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different we have an in-depth conversation with Shelane Etchison, a veteran who is currently running for office in the US government. This episode is a compelling exploration of Shelane's remarkable journey from a non-military background to serving in the Army, her experiences in combat, and her motivations for running for political office. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Shelane Etchison on her Journey of Overcoming Challenges Shelane begins by recounting her early life, noting that she did not come from a military family. Growing up in a dual-citizen household with her mother from British Columbia, Canada, she developed a deep sense of gratitude for the opportunities available in the United States. The events of September 11, 2001 profoundly impacted her, sparking her interest in the military and leading her to join ROTC during her undergraduate studies. Initially, Shelane faced significant challenges in ROTC, feeling out of place and unsure of herself. After a brief withdrawal, she explored Air Force ROTC but ultimately returned to Army ROTC, where she found her footing. Her determination to serve was fueled by a sense of duty and a desire to prevent future attacks on American soil. She reflects on the internal dialogue that motivated her: "Someone has to go and bear the burdens of defending this nation." - Shelane Etchison Shelane Etchison on her Views on Military Service and Leadership Shelane articulates her views on the significance of military service in shaping effective leaders. She believes that the skills and values learned in the military—such as discipline, teamwork, and strategic thinking—are essential for political leaders. Her perspective challenges the conventional notion of leadership, advocating for a model that prioritizes service and accountability. Throughout the conversation, Shelane emphasizes the need for political reform, particularly in how veterans are treated and represented in government. She shares her vision for a more inclusive political landscape, where diverse voices, especially those of veterans, are heard and valued. This vision is rooted in her belief that true leadership involves listening to the needs of the community and acting in their best interests. Motivations for Running for Congress Shelane expresses deep concern about the current polarization in American politics, which she believes is detrimental to the country. She argues that there is a significant crisis of genuine leadership, and she feels compelled to step up and represent the values she believes in. Drawing from her military experience, she emphasizes the importance of leaders who prioritize the needs of the people over party interests. Shelane's decision to run as an independent candidate is rooted in her desire to challenge the two-party system, which she views as increasingly out of touch with the electorate. She points out that a majority of Americans are registered as independents, yet they often lack viable candidates on the ballot. By running as an independent, Shelane aims to provide a new choice for voters who are frustrated with the current political landscape. To hear more from Shelane Etchison and her views on how to change the government from within, download and listen to this episode. Bio Shelane Etchison is a former Army officer and aspiring congressional candidate. Raised in Florida, she became the first in her family to join the military after the events on September 11. She served in Iraq and was part of a Special Operations program in Afghanistan. After 11 years of service, she earned an MBA and MPP from Harvard. Shelane has worked on economic development and security consultancy projects and is committed to bringing principled leadership to North Carolina,

367 The Pursuit of Peace For Ukraine In the Face of Evil with Roman Sheremeta Jul 15, 2024

On this episode of the Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a conversation with Roman Sheremeta, a distinguished behavioral economist and professor at Case Western Reserve University. Roman shares his personal experiences and insights on the ongoing war in Ukraine, highlighting the resilience of the Ukrainian people and the devastating impact of the conflict. The discussion covers the global implications of the war, the importance of standing against aggression, and the role of strength in maintaining peace. Christopher and Roman also address broader geopolitical issues, including the US government's response and the need for strong leadership and unity. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Roman Sheremeta on the Devastating Impact of War on Ukraine Roman Sheremeta recounts the harrowing impact of the war on Ukraine, highlighting the destruction of infrastructure and the psychological toll on the population. He shares his personal experiences of visiting a children's hospital in Ukraine, where the war's impact on the hospital and its patients is heart-wrenching. Roman also discusses the challenges faced by his family and friends in Ukraine and his efforts to raise funds to support his alma mater, which has also been affected by the conflict. Despite the devastating circumstances, Roman emphasizes the resilience and determination of the Ukrainian people. He describes the daily challenges faced by Ukrainians, including the constant threat of air raids and the psychological burden of living in a war zone. He also shares the emotional toll of losing friends and family members in the conflict. Roman Sheremeta on the Global Implications of the War Roman highlights the global implications of the war, emphasizing the need for strength and unity in the face of tyranny. He warns of the potential for further aggression if the international community does not take a stand against the war. “This is not just a Ukrainian war; this is something that concerns the whole of humanity. If we don’t stop this evil now, it will only be emboldened, leading to real trouble.” – Roman Sheremeta Christopher and Roman discuss the role of strength in maintaining peace and deterring aggression, drawing on historical examples and behavioral economics principles. The Importance of Standing Up Against Aggression Both Christopher and Roman share personal experiences of standing up against aggression. Christopher recounts defending two older women from harassment, while Roman shares a story of intervening to stop a thief. These experiences highlight the importance of strength in deterring aggression and the challenges of doing so within the current legal and societal framework. The conversation then touches on the complexities of democracy and international relations. Roman provides insights into the motivations behind the war and debunks false narratives about the situation. Both Christopher and Roman express frustration with the lack of consistent support for countries facing aggression and call for a more principled approach to international conflicts. To hear more from Roman Sheremeta and how the global community can help end the war, download and listen to this episode. Bio Roman Sheremeta is a renowned economist specializing in experimental and behavioral economics. He earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University and currently serves as an Associate Professor of Economics at Case Western Reserve University. Sheremeta's research primarily focuses on conflict resolution, competitive behavior, and decision-making processes, gaining him international recognition and numerous academic accolades. In addition to his academic roles, Sheremeta is a frequent contributor to leading economic journals and conferences. His innovative experiments and studies have significantly advanced the unde...

366 Pattern Breakers: Mike Maples Jr. of Floodgate on Disruptive Thinking and Transformative Ventures Jul 08, 2024

On this episode of the Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different we have a conversation with Mike Maples Jr., co-founder of Floodgate, about his new book "Pattern Breakers." We explore the concept of Pattern Breakers, non-consensus thinking, and the breakthrough sequence for startups. Mike shares some insights on the role of language in defining new patterns and the significance of early adopters. The conversation provides valuable perspectives on the mindset and strategies essential for entrepreneurial breakthroughs and category design. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Mike Maples Jr on Understanding Pattern Breakers Mike Maples Jr. introduces the concept of pattern breakers as individuals or companies that disrupt the status quo by proposing radically different futures. These entities don't just imagine a different future; they live in it, tinkering with new technologies and experiencing firsthand the opportunities to break the limits of current thinking, feeling, and acting. Mike also discusses non-consensus thinking, and how is crucial it is for pattern breakers. It involves challenging widely accepted norms and beliefs to create transformative value. He emphasizes that breakthrough startups often face resistance from the present and the status quo, making it essential for founders to be disagreeable in the right situations. The Breakthrough Sequence for Startups The first step in the breakthrough sequence is achieving insight breakthroughs. Founders need to immerse themselves in the future they envision, understanding new opportunities and creating new patterns. Mike uses examples of legendary founders like Marc Andreessen and Bob Metcalfe, who were visitors from the future, to illustrate this point. Once insight breakthroughs are achieved, the next step is to achieve product-market fit. This involves building what's missing for early adopters and lighthouse customers, who play a crucial role in shaping the direction of a startup. Founders must listen to these early believers and co-create the future with them. The final step in the breakthrough sequence is driving growth. This involves creating a movement and category design, gradually moving more people to the envisioned future. Mike highlights the importance of using differentiated language to escape the comparison trap and the conformity trap, leading people into a different future. The Role of Big Companies in Creating Breakthroughs Big companies can also create breakthroughs by harnessing inflections and insights to change the future. Mike discusses different approaches big companies can take, such as sustaining innovation, organic growth, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and partnering. However, he also acknowledges the challenges and biases that come with being a successful company. One effective strategy for big companies is backcasting, where leaders stand in the future and look back to the present, envisioning how they achieved a radically different future. This approach helps companies switch their mental scaffolding from being in the present and looking forward to being in the future and looking back to the present. To hear more from Mike Maples Jr on Pattern Breakers and creating breakthroughs for your company, download and listen to this episode. Bio Mike Maples Jr. is an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. He’s co-founder of Silicon Valley based, early-stage VC Floodgate. And the host of the popular “Starting Greatness” podcast. Investments include Twitter, Lyft, Bazaarvoice, Sparefoot, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Doubledutch, Twitch.tv, Playdom, Chegg, Demandforce, Rappi, Smule, and Outreach. Link Connect with Mike Maples Jr.! Floodgate | Twitter | LinkedIn | Starting Greatness Podcast Check out Mike's new book, Pattern Breakers! Amazon Books | Porchlight Books | Starting Greatness | Patte...

365 The Hidden Power of Games, Their Impact on Us, and Why They Matter with Kelly Clancy, Neuroscientist and Author of “Playing With Reality” Jul 01, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we engage in a captivating discussion with neuroscientist and author, Kelly Clancy. We explore the profound impact of games on human behavior and society, highlighting their dual nature as both trivial pastimes and cognitive tools. Kelly delves into how games shape intelligence, social structures, and even political systems. The conversation also touches on the gamification of life, the role of games in learning and social bonding, and the potential benefits and pitfalls of gaming. This episode offers a fresh perspective on the universal appeal and transformative power of games. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Kelly Clancy on the Dual Nature of Games Kelly Clancy introduces the concept of the dual nature of games, highlighting their role as both simple entertainment and complex cognitive tools. Games are often dismissed as mere pastimes, but they serve as mental scaffolding that helps individuals understand and navigate complex social systems. Games have played a significant role throughout history, shaping intelligence and social structures. From ancient board games to modern video games, they have been instrumental in teaching strategic thinking, cooperation, and competition. Understanding Complex Social Systems through Games Christopher and Kelly discuss how games serve as a framework for understanding societal rules and structures. Games like Monopoly can illustrate the foundational thinking behind economic systems such as capitalism and socialism. Kelly emphasizes the universal nature of play across species and its evolutionary significance. Games are not just a human phenomenon; they are observed in various animal species, highlighting their fundamental role in development and social bonding. Games as Tools of Learning Throughout history, games have been used as tools for conflict resolution and social bonding. They provide a structured environment for competition and cooperation, helping to resolve disputes and build relationships. Uncertainty is also a key aspect of games that captivates the brain and drives learning. The unpredictability of outcomes keeps players engaged and motivated to improve their skills. Games also serve as a window into understanding human behavior. The spectator element of games, such as watching sports or eSports, allows individuals to observe and analyze the actions and strategies of others. To hear more from Kelly Clancy and the hidden power of Games, download and listen to this episode. Bio Kelly Clancy is a distinguished neuroscientist and author, known for her contributions to understanding biological information processing and agency. Her research has been funded by prestigious fellowships, including those from HFSP, EMBO, and the Branco Weiss Fellowship. Kelly’s work delves into the principles of sensory representations and the interplay between agency and sensory perception in the brain. She has published extensively in top scientific journals and has received the Regeneron Prize for Innovation in Biomedicine. Kelly’s debut book, Playing with Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World, explores the impact of games on human cognition and society. Her essays have been featured in renowned publications such as Harper's Magazine, Wired, and The New Yorker, reflecting her talent for making complex scientific concepts accessible and engaging to the public. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges neuroscience and literature, making her a prominent voice in contemporary science communication. Links Connect with Kelly Clancy! Website | X (formerly Twitter) We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram,

364 Building a Lean, Mean AI Machine: The Future of Business Conversations with Krish Ramineni, CEO of Fireflies.AI Jun 24, 2024

On this episode of the Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a conversation with Krish Ramineni, co-founder and CEO of Fireflies.ai. We explore the transformative impact of AI on business operations, focusing on Fireflies.ai's journey from a Bay Area startup to a leader in AI-driven transcription and conversation analysis. Krish Ramineni shares his insights on strategic growth decisions, the shift to remote work, and leveraging AI for efficiency. If you want to know more about AI's potential to revolutionize industries like legal and marketing through innovative applications, then you’re in the right place. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. The Journey of Fireflies.ai: From Startup to AI Pioneer One of the pivotal decisions that contributed to Fireflies.ai's success was the shift to remote work and maintaining a lean team. Krish Ramineni emphasizes the importance of leveraging AI technologies to enhance productivity and efficiency, allowing the company to operate with fewer resources while achieving significant growth. Krish also talks about the importance of focusing on specific domain-related issues and building applications that solve end-to-end job functions. Fireflies.ai started by addressing the need for capturing and remembering meeting discussions, which evolved into a comprehensive AI meeting assistant that can join video conferencing platforms, take notes, send summaries, and perform post-meeting tasks. The Broader Implications of AI on Business and the Job Market Both Christopher and Krish emphasize the critical role of adaptability in an era of rapid technological change. Businesses must be willing to embrace new technologies and continuously evolve to stay competitive. Krish also shares the potential impact of AI on professions that historically relied on knowledge asymmetry, such as legal and marketing departments. AI can democratize access to information, making it easier for individuals and small businesses to compete with larger organizations. Which means those who are late on adapting might be phased out sooner than they think. The Ethical Considerations and Risks of AI They then touch on the potential risks and ethical considerations associated with AI. Krish and Christopher highlight the importance of careful regulation and transparency to ensure that AI technologies are used responsibly. To hear more from Krish Ramineni and the transformative power of AI in business, download and listen to this episode. Bio Krish Ramineni is the co-founder and CEO of Fireflies.ai, a cutting-edge company specializing in artificial intelligence-driven meeting transcription and note-taking. With a background in product management and software engineering, Krish has a track record of transforming innovative ideas into successful technology solutions. Prior to founding Fireflies.ai, he worked at Microsoft, where he honed his skills in building and scaling enterprise software products. Under his leadership, Fireflies.ai has grown rapidly, serving thousands of businesses globally and revolutionizing the way professionals handle meeting documentation and collaboration. Krish’s vision for Fireflies.ai is to create a seamless workflow where AI-powered tools handle repetitive tasks, allowing individuals to focus on higher-value activities. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Krish combines technical expertise with a deep understanding of market needs. His entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to innovation continue to drive Fireflies.ai forward in the competitive tech landscape. In addition to his professional achievements, Krish is passionate about mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs and contributing to the broader tech community. Links Connect with Krish Ramineni! Fireflies.ai | LinkedIn | X (formerly Twitter)

363 Championing Change from Within with Congressional Candidate Tim Alexander Jun 17, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk with a seasoned law enforcement officer and congressional candidate, Tim Alexander. Tim Alexander shares his inspiring journey from a challenging childhood to a distinguished career in law enforcement, driven by a pivotal encounter with police misconduct and his grandfather's wise advice. They discuss Tim's dedication to rewriting police policies, advocating for smarter funding and training, and his stance on gun control. Tim emphasizes his commitment to practical, moderate policies focused on public safety, affordability, and job creation, aiming to serve his community effectively. So if you want to hear his insights on law enforcement and his plans as a congressional representative, take a seat and let’s dive right in. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Tim Alexander's Journey: From Adversity to Advocacy Tim’s story is one of resilience and determination. Growing up in a poor family, he worked hard to support himself and his family. His journey took a significant turn when he decided to pursue higher education, despite financial constraints. This decision led him to an unexpected path in law enforcement, driven by a pivotal encounter with police misconduct. Tim credits his grandfather, Doc Plummer, for inspiring him to pursue a career in law enforcement and make a difference from within. His grandfather's advice to become a police officer to effect change from the inside was a turning point in Tim's life. Rewriting Police Policies: Smarter Funding and Training One of the key themes they discussed was the true cost of policing. Tim emphasized that the cost of bringing a new officer on board goes beyond their starting salary. It includes training, equipment, and other expenses that are often overlooked. Tim highlighted the importance of having mental health response teams to handle non-violent mental health calls. He emphasized that police officers are not always the best-equipped to handle such situations and that having trained professionals can lead to better outcomes. Tim Alexander on Gun Control: A Balanced Approach Tim's stance on gun control is balanced and pragmatic. He supports the Second Amendment and the right to own guns but advocates for sensible gun laws, particularly regarding assault weapons. He emphasizes that these weapons are designed for war and have no place on the streets of America. Tim also discussed the role of law enforcement in advocating for sensible gun laws. He expressed frustration that police associations do not take a stronger stance against assault weapons, despite the dangers they pose to officers. To hear more from Tim Alexander and what he has done for law enforcement and his plans in the future, download and listen to this episode. Bio Tim Alexander, a New Jersey native, has dedicated his life to public service. After experiencing racial profiling, he pursued a 27-year career in law enforcement, rising to Detective Captain at the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office. Motivated by a commitment to community trust and safety, he earned a B.S. and M.B.A. from Drexel University and a J.D. from Rutgers University. Transitioning to law, Tim worked as a Major Trials Prosecutor and in the Civil Rights Unit in Philadelphia. Now in private practice, he focuses on Civil Rights and Employment Discrimination law. Tim is a lifelong Democrat, committed to serving his community. For more information, visit Tim Alexander for Congress. Links Campaign Website | X (formerly Twitter) | Facebook We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

362 The Hero’s Journey: How To Make Your Customers The Heroes Of Their Own Transformational Journeys | Category Pirates Jun 10, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we delve into the revolutionary concept of the experience economy. Coined by Joe Pine and James Gilmore in the late 1990s, the experience economy has transformed how businesses engage with customers. This episode will break down the key insights from our conversation, offering actionable advice and thorough explanations on how to leverage the hero's journey framework to elevate customer interactions. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Understanding the Experience Economy The experience economy is a concept that suggests businesses can create value by crafting memorable experiences for their customers, rather than just offering products or services. Pine and Gilmore's visionary work has influenced modern business thinking, pushing companies to focus on the emotional and experiential aspects of customer interactions. Key Takeaways: Shift from Goods to Experiences: Businesses need to move beyond selling products and services to creating immersive experiences that resonate with customers on a deeper level. Emotional Engagement: Experiences that evoke emotions are more likely to be remembered and valued by customers, leading to increased loyalty and advocacy. The Hero's Journey Framework The hero's journey, a narrative structure popularized by Joseph Campbell, can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to create meaningful customer experiences. This framework involves a hero (the customer) embarking on an adventure, facing challenges, and ultimately achieving transformation. Steps of the Hero's Journey: The Call to Adventure: The customer recognizes a need or desire that prompts them to seek out a solution. Crossing the Threshold: The customer takes the first step towards addressing their need, often by engaging with a brand or product. Trials and Tribulations: The customer faces challenges and obstacles, which the brand helps them overcome. Transformation and Reward: The customer experiences personal growth and satisfaction from overcoming challenges, leading to a deeper connection with the brand. Making Customers the Heroes One of the most impactful ways to engage customers is by positioning them as the heroes of their own stories. This approach not only enhances their experience but also fosters a sense of empowerment and loyalty. Actionable Tips: Understand Customer Needs: Conduct thorough research to understand the desires, pain points, and aspirations of your customers. Craft Personalized Experiences: Use the insights gained from your research to create tailored experiences that address individual customer needs. Support and Guide: Act as a mentor or guide, providing the tools and support customers need to overcome their challenges. For more insights and examples from the Category Pirates, download and listen to this episode. Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books: Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different **NEW!** The B2B Tech Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Engineer Your Market, Find What Makes You Different, And Become A Category Queen We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

361 A Tribute to Bill Walton May 31, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, I would like to share with you a very special tribute to a man who's not only a legend in the world of basketball but also a cherished friend of mine—Bill Walton. Join me as we take a walk down memory lane, revisiting the first time Bill graced my podcast with his presence and the indelible mark he's left on my life. A Meeting of Minds in San Diego It was August 24th, 2017—a day etched in my memory, thanks to the friends who captured the moment and shared a photo of our first encounter. Meeting Bill Walton was like stepping into a storybook where the characters leap off the page. Here was one of the greatest NBA players of all time, a man whose stature was matched only by his extraordinary personality, ready to become a part of my world. Our initial meeting took place at an executive event in sunny San Diego, where we were both slated to speak. I remember watching Bill, completely unscripted, captivating the audience with his life's slideshow in the background. His ability to weave tales and engage listeners with nothing but his memories and a carousel of personal photos was nothing short of mesmerizing. The Teacher in My Life Bill's journey is one of resilience. From battling a stutter to enduring chronic injuries, his path was never easy. Yet, he emerged stronger, channeling his love for music and life into everything he did. His passion was infectious, and his dedication to being unapologetically unique was something that deeply resonated with me. Bill played a crucial role in my transition to becoming a teacher. His influence was a guiding light, helping me navigate through new territories with confidence. His life lessons extended beyond the court, and I was fortunate to be one of the many who benefited from his wisdom. Radical Generosity and Unwavering Support One of the most touching aspects of my friendship with Bill was experiencing his radical generosity firsthand. I'll never forget the care package of memorabilia he sent my way—a testament to his thoughtful nature and the value he placed on our bond. In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, it was Bill's kindness that shone through the darkness. His heartfelt messages provided comfort and support when I needed it most, further solidifying the profound impact of our friendship. As I reflect on the time spent with Bill Walton, I'm filled with immense gratitude. His legacy extends far beyond his basketball accolades; it's etched in the hearts of those he's touched with his generosity, spirit, and unwavering friendship. I hope that this episode gives you a glimpse into the remarkable man that is Bill Walton and the special place he holds in my life. His story is one of triumph, tenacity, and the power of genuine connections. Thank you for joining me in this celebration of friendship and legacy. Bio Bill Walton, an NBA legend, is renowned for his exceptional skills, dynamic personality, and influential career. Born on November 5, 1952, Walton's basketball journey began at UCLA, where he led the Bruins to two national championships. In the NBA, he played for the Portland Trailblazers, San Diego/Los Angeles Clippers, and Boston Celtics, earning two NBA championships and an MVP award in 1978. In 1997, Bill Walton was selected as one of the NBA’s Fifty Greatest Players of all Time. Post-retirement, he became a beloved broadcaster, known for his colorful commentary. Walton's legacy continues to inspire basketball enthusiasts worldwide. Links BillWalton.com | NBA Profile | ESPN Biography We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

360 2024 Is 1939 (Again) In America May 27, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, the conversation takes a deep dive into the complex and sensitive situation in Gaza, Palestine, Israel, and the broader Middle East, and how our perception here in America is being warped by misinformation from different sides. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. A Feeling of Déjà Vu for America On the evening of Feb. 20, 1939, the marquee of Madison Square Garden was lit up for the big event: "Pro American Rally." But it was the farthest thing from being American as can be. Uniformed members of pro-Hitler group The German American Bund carried American and nazi flags. That being said, In the last week of December 1942, fifty leading German-Americans (including baseball legend Babe Ruth) signed a declaration condemning nazis which appeared in ten major American daily newspapers. Ultimately, American patriots stopped the American nazis. Looking at the events this week at Columbia, MIT, NYU, and other elite US schools, they mirror much of the hate, horror and scale of The German American Bund. While some were there to genuinely support the civilians trapped in the ongoing conflict, there were others that openly supported Hamas’ extremist actions. It was very ironic to see banners about women and LGBT+ groups support, when they are the most oppressed in the world that these people envision. What’s even worse is that there were reasons to suspect that these protests were sponsored by people who don’t want to get their own hands dirty. (Mis)Information is Rampant One of the downsides of our technological boom is the ease of access to information. Unfortunately, ease of access does not always mean a smart populace. As information is shared from peer to peer, information gets distorted, if not outright manipulated to suit their agendas, that sometimes the victim comes out on the other end as the one being ganged on, instead of the oppressor. This particularly true with social media sites, who has become the de-facto source of information for the younger generation. There was even a brief period where young people were lauding a speech that Bin Laden made to justify 9/11. Never mind the atrocities he and his jihadist group committed in the US and international stage, he made a great speech! Totally justified. Call to Arms Nazis have attacked America from within before. American patriots stopped them. The only question now is, will you and I empower radical jihadists nazis? Or will we stop them, like our ancestors did 78 years ago? To hear more of Christopher Lochhead’s points on the matter, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead Links WSJ Article on the Anti-Israel Protesters The World’s Record Holder for Executing Women Has Executed Three Women in Three Days This Is Ahmad. He Was Queer In Palestine. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

359 Life Is In The Transitions with NY Times Bestselling Author Bruce Feiler May 20, 2024

Here at Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we’ve had the privilege of engaging in conversations that transcend the ordinary, delving into the depths of what truly makes us tick. On this episode, we sat down with Bruce Feiler, an acclaimed New York Times best-selling author, to explore his work, "Life Is in the Transitions." Bruce Feiler is a renowned American author, television personality, and speaker known for his insightful and thought-provoking work on family dynamics, religion, and contemporary culture. He is the author of several New York Times bestsellers, including "Walking the Bible," "The Council of Dads," and "Life Is in the Transitions." Feiler's work often blends personal narrative with broader cultural analysis, and he has been a popular columnist for publications like The New York Times. This wasn't your typical interview; it was a real, raw conversation about the seismic shifts we all face and how we can navigate them with grace and resilience. We believe that people are now more than ever being rocked by their life quakes, and hope that Bruce’s words could help us once again. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Bruce Feiler on the Non-Linear Journey of Life Bruce's personal journey is a testament to the power of embracing life's unpredictability. From battling cancer to supporting his father through Parkinson's disease, he's no stranger to what he calls "life quakes." These are the massive, often unexpected events that shake us to our core and challenge the linear narrative we've been sold about how life is "supposed" to go. During our talk, Bruce recounted a moment at his 30th college reunion that sparked a revelation. As he moderated a panel of distinguished classmates, he saw firsthand the universal struggle to maintain the facade of a perfect, linear life trajectory. This experience, coupled with his own, led him to question the societal pressures that bind us to outdated life narratives. Bruce Feiler on the Myth of the Midlife Crisis One of the most enlightening parts of our discussion centered on the concept of the midlife crisis. Bruce debunked this myth, pointing out the flawed research and biases behind it. He argued that we need to update our understanding of life transitions to reflect the modern, non-linear world we live in—a world where change is the only constant. We also emphasized the importance of proactive life design. We must acknowledge and navigate through life's disruptions, which often come at us like a "car pileup," multiple and simultaneous. It's about learning to dance in the rain, rather than waiting for the storm to pass. Life Quakes: Voluntary and Involuntary Bruce explained that life quakes are frequent disruptors, with most being manageable. However, about 53% of these quakes are involuntary—like a spouse cheating or losing a job—while 47% are voluntary, such as changing religion or leaving a job. Millennials, he noted, are more inclined to seek change, while older generations may feel more stuck. The pandemic, a collective involuntary life quake, has heightened our sensitivity to change. Bruce stressed that while the quake may be involuntary, the life transition that follows must be voluntary. It's about taking back control and making the decision to navigate through the transition effectively. “If we look at life transitions as periods that we have to suffer our way through, we are wasting half of our life. If we look at them as periods, they’re going to be difficult and painful, but there’s also opportunities for growth and renewal. That’s the story of your life.” – Bruce Feiler Bruce's book doesn't just lay out the problem; it offers a toolkit for navigating life transitions. He provides practical guidance on what to expect, the phases involved, and the tools to get through it.

358 Unlocking Revenue: AI’s Predictive Power in Business with Clari CEO Andy Byrne May 13, 2024

Welcome to a special episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, where we dive deep into the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and business growth. Today, we have the pleasure of speaking with a visionary in the realm of AI and revenue generation, Andy Byrne. Andy Byrne is the visionary CEO of Clari, a leading revenue operations platform. With a wealth of experience in the tech industry, Byrne has been instrumental in shaping Clari's innovative approach to sales execution and forecasting. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. From Garage to Global: Clari's Ascension Andy takes us on a journey through Clari's evolution, from its modest inception in a garage to becoming a powerhouse with over 700 employees and R&D centers across the globe. He shares the pivotal role of generative AI in accelerating business processes, enabling companies to swiftly create, convert, and close their sales pipelines. Despite initial skepticism, Predictive AI has proven to be a game-changer for revenue leaders. Andy highlights how early predictions empower proactive decision-making and optimize capital deployment, crucial for managing expectations around revenue and earnings per share. Andy Byrne on Uncovering Revenue Leaks with AI We then discuss AI's ability to identify and rectify revenue leaks. Andy provides tangible examples, such as neglected leads and overlooked targets, which can significantly impact a company's bottom line. By harnessing AI, organizations can foster revenue collaboration and enhance productivity at all organizational levels. "The process of running revenue is more of a technology game now than a sales game." – Andy Byrne Predictive AI: Fostering Collaborative Conversations Drawing parallels to the early days of SEO and network performance management, we delved into the concept of "signal" within AI. Clari's AI is adept at analyzing signals from a myriad of sources, offering real-time insights that are instrumental in detecting revenue leaks and informing strategic decisions. Andy recognizes how Predictive AI can spark these useful conversations. He stresses how these talks, where people compare their gut feelings with the predictions made by machines, can boost teamwork and help businesses thrive. To hear more from Andy Byrne and how AI can help boost your company’s revenue, download and listen to this episode. Bio Andy Byrne, CEO of Clari, is a seasoned leader in the tech industry. Andy Byrne is dedicated to revolutionizing revenue operations, championing innovation, and fostering collaboration within sales teams globally. His strategic vision has propelled Clari to the forefront of the industry, where it stands as a trailblazer in harnessing the power of Predictive AI for sales execution and forecasting. Under his guidance, Clari continues to empower businesses to achieve unparalleled growth and success, setting new standards for excellence in revenue optimization and operational efficiency. Links Connect with Andy Byrne! Clari.com | LinkedIn | Twitter/X We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

357 Crowning Achievements: Shante & Lauren’s Trailblazing Journey in Wig Rental Category Design with Shante Frazier and Lauren Mitchell of WellCapped May 06, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have the pleasure of sitting down with two remarkable entrepreneurs, Shante Frazier and Lauren Mitchell, the co-founders of WellCapped. In our conversation, we delved into the origins of their groundbreaking service, the hurdles they've overcome, and their ambitious vision for the future of the beauty industry. Their journey is one of innovation, resilience, and a relentless pursuit of redefining beauty standards. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. WellCapped: The Genesis of a Game-Changer Shante and Lauren's venture, WellCapped, is akin to Rent the Runway, but for wigs and hair extensions. This novel concept was born from a simple suggestion by Shante's aunt and has since blossomed into a business that caters to a diverse clientele seeking quality and affordability. Their personal experiences and corporate backgrounds have fueled their mission to democratize high-end wigs and hair extensions, making them accessible to all. The beauty industry has seen a surge in the use of wigs and hair extensions, with technological advancements blurring the lines between natural and styled hair. Celebrities and influencers are challenging traditional beauty norms, and WellCapped is at the forefront of this shift, empowering customers to experiment with their looks without the hefty price tag. The Entrepreneurial Leap Shante recounts the poignant moment that transformed her hesitation into conviction. The idea of a rental service for wigs and hair extensions wasn't just a business opportunity; it was a chance to support individuals undergoing chemotherapy by offering free memberships and support—a testament to the personal significance of WellCapped. Transitioning from corporate America to entrepreneurship is no small feat. Shante and Lauren share their motivations and the challenges they faced along the way. "When you see your customers telling you how our company has changed their lives, it gives you the fuel that you need to keep going on the bad days.” – Lauren Mitchell of WellCapped Eventually, Lauren's layoff became a catalyst for her commitment to WellCapped, while Shante reflected on the naivety and learning curve of starting a new venture. The Journey of Fundraising and Resilience Raising funds for a startup is a daunting task, but Shante and Lauren's determination was unwavering. They focused on aligning with investors who shared their vision, rather than convincing skeptics. Their commitment to excellence and continuous improvement has been a driving force behind their success. Their participation in the Techstars program marked a pivotal chapter for WellCapped. The intensive accelerator experience honed their brand and helped shift customer perceptions about renting wigs—a concept that is now gaining traction and acceptance. Shante emphasized the growing trend of viewing hair as a fashion accessory. WellCapped taps into this trend by offering a cost-effective way for consumers to express themselves through their hair, fostering a culture of experimentation and self-expression. To hear more from Shante & Lauren and how they raised WellCapped from the ground up, download and listen to this episode. Bio Shante Frazier Shante is a recent MBA graduate from NYU Stern, where she specialized in Marketing and Strategy. She graduated from Spelman College in 2012 with a BA in Economics. Prior to coming to Stern, Shante worked at Progressive Insurance for 3 years in the Pricing and Competitive Intelligence departments while also serving as an officer in the Ohio Army National Guard. Lauren Mitchell Lauren is a experienced marketing enthusiast with a demonstrated history of providing direction in the consultant industry and building meaningful relationships. She is a two-time graduate from Louisiana State...

356 Unbroken Spirit: The Fight To Save American Wild Horses with Scott Wilson of American Wild Horse Conservation Apr 22, 2024

Here at Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we've had the privilege of engaging in conversations that are not just thought-provoking, but also deeply impactful. On this episode, we sit down with Scott Wilson, the passionate co-founder of American Wild Horse Conservation, to discuss a topic close to both our hearts: the plight of America's wild horses and the ongoing efforts to preserve and protect these magnificent creatures. Scott Wilson is a renowned Colorado Nature Photographer and Communications Leader, whose journey took an unexpected turn when he discovered the plight of America's wild horses. Scott became captivated by the freedom and majesty of the wild horses roaming the western United States. His realization that these iconic animals were facing threats to their survival inspired him to take action and co-found American Wild Horse Conservation. This non-profit organization is dedicated to preserving and protecting wild horses, which have played a pivotal role in the nation's history and ecology. This captivating conversation illuminates the plight of these majestic creatures, and the tireless efforts to secure their freedom and ensure their survival. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Scott Wilson on the Historical Tapestry of America's Wild Horses The history of wild horses in the United States is as rich and complex as the country itself. Scott Wilson shares that there are approximately 65,000 wild horses roaming free across ten states in the western United States. It's also a little-known fact that all the world's horses have their origins in North America, and they were reintroduced in the 1500s. These animals are not just a part of the natural ecology but are woven into the very tapestry of our nation's history. In 1971, the Wild Horse and Burro Protection Act was a promise made to these animals—a promise that we are duty-bound to uphold. As we delved into the significance of wild horses, it became clear that they are not just symbols of the wild but are key players in the ecological balance of our public lands. Wild Blue Roan by Scott Wilson of the American Wild Horse Conservation Scott Wilson on the Struggle for Space and Survival Given these facts, it was unsettling to learn that wild horses are allocated a mere 2% of public lands. Contrary to popular belief, these horses are not in competition for building or economic development. In fact, only 1% of the nation's beef is produced on these lands, debunking the myth that wild horses pose a significant threat to our economy. However, the challenges they face are real and pressing. Competition with livestock, encroachment by oil and gas businesses, and government policies that often do more harm than good are just a few of the hurdles wild horses must overcome to survive. Wild Pinto Stallion Picasso by Scott Wilson of the American Wild Horse Conservation Nevada: The Heartland of Wild Horses It's a surprising fact that roughly half of the wild horse population in the US is concentrated in Nevada. This distribution has significant implications for conservation efforts and the management of these animals. That being said, Scott Wilson's initiative to buy back land and expand the habitat for wild horses is a beacon of hope. The acquisition of 3500 acres in Nevada and the establishment of a land trust are steps toward ensuring that wild horses and other wildlife can coexist peacefully. To hear more from Scott Wilson and how American Wild Horse Conservation help protect these majestic creatures, download and listen to the episode. Freedom by Scott Wilson of the American Wild Horse Conservation Bio A brand-builder and landscape photographer of twenty years, Scott Wilson found his conservation voice after a prolonged battle with stage 4 colon cancer refocused his lens on Colorado’s wildlife,

355 How To Win On Shark Tank, Create A Category, & Save Billions of Butts with Sean Riley, Chief Dude at DUDE Wipes Apr 15, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have the pleasure of welcoming Sean Riley, the co-founder of Dude Wipes. For those unfamiliar with it, Dude Wipes is a brand that has revolutionized the concept of personal hygiene with a superior alternative to traditional toilet paper. Sean shares the story of how Dude Wipes catapulted to legendary success, including securing a deal with Mark Cuban on Shark Tank and being recognized as one of the top five greatest Shark Tank entrepreneurs. Our conversation was not only enlightening, but also a testament to the power of innovation and strategic category design in entrepreneurship. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Sean Riley on Disrupting the Market with Practical Innovation The conversation starts off with Sean's mustache and how well everyone's taking to it. Sean's distinctive mustache isn't just a personal style choice; it's become a branding asset for Dude Wipes. Pivoting from that, Sean discusses the significance of the brand and its deep resonance with consumers. The name "Dude Wipes" itself is a stroke of genius, encapsulating humor, authenticity, and a bold approach to male hygiene. The conversation then veered towards the practicality of Dude Wipes. Sean emphasizes the universal dissatisfaction with traditional toilet paper and the need for a better solution, especially for men on the go. He explores the potential for Dude Wipes to become as ubiquitous as toilet paper, with the aim of making the product more accessible and convenient for consumers. Drawing parallels with Gojo Industries, the category king of liquid soap and Purell hand sanitizer, Christopher highlights the reframing of the problem and the potential for Dude Wipes to create a new category in the hygiene space. Despite initial skepticism, Sean's commitment to disrupting the toilet paper market remains unwavering. Sean Riley on Overcoming Skepticism and Embracing Category Potential In the early days, Dude Wipes faced challenges and skepticism. However, Sean and his team were confident in their product's appeal to men. They understood that by creating a better product, they could carve out a new space in the male market. Sean's insights on the importance of category potential and market dynamics were particularly enlightening, emphasizing the significance of entering a growing category with unique offerings. The Shark Tank Effect: A Pivotal Moment for Dude Wipes Sean provides an overview of Dude Wipes' impressive sales figures and distribution channels, highlighting the company's organic growth and resourceful brand-building approach. Reflecting on their Shark Tank experience, Sean recounts the unexpected turn of events when Mark Cuban offered them a deal, marking a pivotal moment for the company. Sean's passion and determination were palpable as he recounted the journey of building Dude Wipes and overcoming challenges to achieve success. To hear more from Sean Riley and to receive valuable insights into entrepreneurship, category design, and the power of believing in a product's potential, download and listen to this episode. Bio Sean Riley is the co-founder and driving force behind Dude Wipes, a groundbreaking brand in personal hygiene. With a business degree in hand, Sean teamed up with his childhood friend to challenge conventional notions of men's grooming. In 2010, they launched Dude Products, introducing flushable wipes tailored for men, a concept that resonated with consumers seeking convenient, effective, and masculine alternatives to traditional toilet paper. Sean's leadership propelled Dude Products from a garage startup to a global phenomenon, with a diverse product line available in major retailers worldwide. His dedication to quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction solidified Dude Wipes' position as ...

354 Sweat, Barriers, and the Birth of BODi: How Carl Daikeler Defined a New Fitness Category Apr 08, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow your Different, we have a conversation with Carl Daikeler, the visionary CEO of BODi (formerly known as Beachbody). We explore Carl's remarkable journey in the fitness industry, beginning with the inception of the eight-minute abs video series—a concept that sprang from his own need for a quick and effective workout solution. Carl's story is not just about the creation of a fitness program; it's about identifying a gap in the market and filling it with innovation. The eight-minute abs series not only became a household name but also gained unexpected fame with its mention in the movie "Something About Mary." If you’re interested to learn more, consider giving this episode a try. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Carl Daikeler on the Power of Media in Fitness Carl shares the challenges and triumphs of launching other renowned fitness programs like Power 90 and P90X. He emphasizes the crucial role of media in delivering fitness instruction and the concept of structured home fitness. Reflecting on the success of P90X, Carl reveals the strategic thinking behind creating new fitness programs, such as Insanity, and the lessons learned along the way. The impact of Carl's fitness programs on individuals is profound, to say the least. They offer a sense of accomplishment and success to those who may have struggled with traditional gym environments. This, in turn, sheds light on the marketing and strategic decisions that propelled these programs to success and how Beachbody evolved into a digital powerhouse. The Evolution of Fitness: From Products to Subscriptions In the ever-changing landscape of the fitness industry, Carl explains the shift from selling products to embracing a subscription model. In fact, BODi has successfully transitioned to this model, boasting over a million subscribers. However, the journey hasn't been without its challenges, such as subscription fatigue. As such, Carl highlights the importance of evolving the business model to include digital program purchases alongside subscriptions. The unique features of their digital platform, such as virtual trainers who can make real-time corrections for dozens of participants, also helped ensure a high-quality experience. This flexibility extends to allowing users to download programs for offline use, catering to the modern consumer's need for convenience and customization. Owning the Morning and the Holistic Approach to Health The conversation took a personal turn as Carl shares his morning routine, which includes a health shot and Shakeology. He stressed the significance of starting the day with healthy habits to set the tone for overall well-being. This led to the discussion of a controversial topic in weight loss pharmaceuticals, like Ozempic, and the dangers of relying on drugs without making necessary lifestyle changes. Carl advocates for a holistic approach to health, emphasizing the need to build and preserve muscle for long-term vitality. They ponder whether people use these drugs as a kickstarter for a healthier lifestyle or merely as a shortcut. Carl introduces the concept of "health esteem," advocating for building a lifestyle centered around health and activity rather than focusing solely on weight loss. To hear more from Carl Daikeler and how to build up your body the healthy way, download and listen to this episode. Bio Carl Daikeler is the visionary CEO and Co-founder of BODi, a revolutionary health and wellness company. With over two decades of experience in the fitness industry, Carl is on a mission to transform lives through innovative approaches to exercise and nutrition. Carl's journey began with a passion for helping others achieve their fitness goals. Drawing from his own struggles with weight management and a desire to make a differe...

353 Russia Could Have Been Legendary: Russia’s Turbulent Transition with Kevin Maney, NYT Bestselling Author of Red Bottom Line Apr 01, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we are joined again by a dear friend, Kevin Maney, as he shares stories about the missed opportunities for innovation after Soviet Union's fall. Kevin Maney has a new book out called Red Bottom Line, wherehe tells his firsthand experience as a young USA Today reporter in Russia during the time. From the optimism of Gorbachev's era to the disillusionment under Putin, Christohper and Kevin also explore Russia's technological transformation, societal issues and geopolitical impact. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Kevin Maney on the Journalism in Russia during the late 80s and early 90s Kevin starts off the conversation with a description of the conditions in Russia before, during, and after the fall of the Soviet Union. He describes when Mikhail Gorbachev started loosening restrictions and allowing more foreign correspondents into Russia, which allowed journalists like Kevin to make it to Russian soil as early as 88-88. Though some restrictions were lifted, Kevin recalls that they still had to jump through so many hoops just to get there, as there aren’t exactly direct routes or flights going from America to Russia at the time. At this point in time, a lot of Americans and other Westerners were flocking to Russia, as demand for common consumer products skyrocket. Things like toothpaste and deodorant were being sold left and right, things that weren’t originally available locally. Kevin observed this trend and proposed to his editor to let him cover this economic and financial phenomenon that is happening in the Soviet Union. Kevin Maney on Life in Russia during Economic Hardship As Kevin recalls the situation then, he saw a country that was on its last legs, and its people trying desperately to live as normal as they could. He observed certain stores that only allowed foreigners or people with non-local currencies to shop, as they know it had more buying power in the long run. Local residents were crowding other stores, either to purchase clothing items or to replenish their essential supplies. In department stores, shelves were nearly bare, with only toys and luxury items remaining unsold. Everyone was scooping up anything they could find. Seeing all that in contrast to people’s lives in America was disheartening, to say the least. The Opening of the First McDonalds in Russia during the 90s Given all that, Kevin still saw some hope for the country as they start rebuilding themselves from within. That, and all the companies that are now flooding into Russia to help supplies their needs and ideally, boost their economy. One such company was McDonalds, who Kevin has a fond story to tell. He shares that on one of his trips back to Russia, he just happened to be on the same flight as George Kohan, the biggest McDonalds franchisee in Canada. George was on his way to Moscow to check his plans to build a branch there, which eventually became the first of many McDonalds built in Russia. Kevin got to talk with George Kohan on how things were going with building a business on foreign soil, and the procedures and machinations he had to go through to finally get approved to open his business there. To hear more from Kevin Maney and his stories from the redeveloping Russia in the 90s, download and listen to this episode. Bio Kevin Maney is cofounder of Category Design Advisors, where he works with CEOs and executive teams to develop and execute strategies to design and dominate markets. He is also a multi-time bestselling author and journalist who writes about technology and society. His most recent book, UnHealthare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance, was co-authored with venture capitalist Hemant Taneja and Jefferson Health CEO Steve Klasko. It came out in 2020, and tees up how healthcare will evolve in the ...

352 Big Bets and the Future of Leadership with John Rossman, Author of Big Bet Leadership Mar 25, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we are joined by our friend and multi-time guest, John Rossman. John Rossman is a Master of Innovation and former Amazon Executive who brings to the table his insights from his new book, Big Bet Leadership: Your playbook for winning in the hyper digital era. His experiences with industry giants illuminate the path for making bold, transformative decisions. This conversation is a deep dive into the courage and strategy required to lead in uncertain times, focusing on big bets that redefine industries, in an era where navigating technological change is crucial. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. John Rossman on Category Design and Big Bet Leadership Christopher and John discuss the impact of category transformation and AI on businesses. John expresses gratitude for Christopher's influential work on category design, which has shaped his thinking and client engagements positively. They then delve into the challenges faced by companies in making big bets and succeeding in transformations, particularly in the context of AI and digital eras. Both acknowledge the historical struggle of major corporations to adapt and innovate compared to startups. John emphasizes the need for senior leaders to rethink traditional approaches and embrace new strategies to navigate the hyper-digital era successfully and achieve substantial productivity gains. John Rossman on Bold Moves vs Incremental Improvements Christopher and John explore the necessity of both incremental improvements and bold moves in corporate leadership. They stress the importance of executives balancing ongoing operations with strategic innovation, emphasizing the need for a portfolio of big bets alongside incremental changes. Drawing on insights from successful leaders like Satya Nadella, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk, they highlight the challenges of leading transformations in established companies. They propose a framework centered on creating clarity, maintaining velocity, and accelerating risk and value to guide organizations towards systematic transformation. Customer Obsession and Customer-Driven Innovation Christopher and John then talk about the importance of customer obsession and strategic thinking in driving successful business transformations. They critique competitor-focused strategies and highlight the significance of understanding customer problems deeply. Drawing from Amazon's approach, they emphasize the need for a portfolio of hypotheses and ideas, continuously testing and iterating before scaling. Both caution against premature scaling and advocate for a patient approach that prioritizes operational readiness and sustainability. They stress that a combination of tactics, including customer obsession, agile methodologies, and strategic experimentation, is essential for systematic innovation and transformation. To hear more from John Rossman and how to make Big Bets for your company, download and listen to this episode. Bio John Rossman Digital and Innovation Advisor Mr. Rossman is an expert at digital business models, operations and organizing programs. He has led engagements on developing innovation processes, Internet of Things strategies, marketplace and API driven platform business models. He is a sought-after speaker on creating a culture of operational excellence and innovation. Mr. Rossman has worked with clients across various industries, including retail, insurance, education, healthcare, consumer products, industrial products and transportation. Mr. Rossman’s notable assignments include The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft, Nordstrom and several of the world’s leading retail and insurance organizations. Prior to Rossman Partners, John was a Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal,

351 The Harm of Childhood Trauma and the Hope of Resilience with Dr. Marc Hauser, Author of Vulnerable Minds Mar 18, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we are joined by educator, neuroscientist, and former Professor of Evolutionary Biology and Psychology at Harvard, Dr. Marc Hauser. Dr. Marc Hauser has a new book out called Vulnerable Minds: The harm of childhood trauma in the hope of resilience. You should also know this is a very adult conversation, as it deals with tough topics like childhood abuse. If you are not comfortable with such topics, you have been advised. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Marc Hauser on Trauma and Compassion Fatigue in Working with Children Dr. Marc Hauser, who works extensively with trauma victims, discusses the challenges of maintaining emotional well-being while dealing with the profound suffering of his clients. He acknowledges the risk of compassion fatigue and emphasizes the importance of self-care. Dr. Hauser reveals his coping mechanisms, including physical activity and the supportive environment of his home life. He also highlights the necessity of balancing empathy for his clients with maintaining professional boundaries to avoid becoming overwhelmed. Comparing his work to that of his veterinarian wife, he underscores the unique emotional demands of his profession, particularly when faced with physically aggressive clients. Despite the difficulties, Dr. Hauser emphasizes the importance of maintaining compassion and offering hope for a better tomorrow to those he serves. Dr. Marc Hauser on Childhood Trauma and its Impact on Mental and Physical Health Dr. Marc Hauser explains the significance of TRACEs (Trauma Response to Adverse Childhood Experiences) and RRACEs (Resilience Response to Adverse Childhood Experiences) alongside ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). He elaborates on how ACEs, identified through a questionnaire developed by Dr. Vincent Felitti, are linked to physical and mental health issues. Dr. Hauser highlights the transformative impact of understanding and addressing childhood trauma through TRACEs and RRACEs, emphasizing the importance of trauma-informed care and resilience-building strategies. It underscores the need for a holistic approach to supporting individuals affected by childhood trauma, considering both the adverse effects and potential pathways to resilience and healing. Misconception on the ACE score Dr. Hauser discusses the misconception surrounding ACE scores, emphasizing that they were never intended as individual predictors but as population measures. He explains how ACE scores were misinterpreted and integrated into policies like insurance coverage in California based on individual scores. Christopher questions the implications of ACE scores on insurance premiums and treatment eligibility. Dr. Hauser clarifies that ACE scores are not accurate predictors of individual health risks but rather reflect population trends. He compares ACE scores to heritability measures, highlighting that they indicate predispositions but not definitive outcomes for individuals. Dr. Hauser underscores the importance of understanding ACE scores as measures of experience rather than direct responses to adverse childhood experiences, introducing the concepts of TRACEs and RRACEs for a more nuanced understanding of trauma response. To hear more from Dr. Marc Hauser on childhood trauma, download and listen to this episode. Bio Marc D. Hauser, Ph.D. Links Connect with Dr. Marc Hauser LinkedIn | Twitter / X | Marc D. Hauser website We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

350 The AI Startup Teaching Kids To Build Tech Startups with Hannah Grady Williams and Ted Dintersmith of d’Skills Mar 11, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we bridge the gap between native analogs and native digitals in business by having a dialogue between the VC legend Ted Dintersmith and one of the new legends of her generation, Hannah Grady Williams. Ted Dintersmith is a VC legend on the East Coast. He's a former venture capitalist and a founding member of Charles River ventures, where he spent a significant portion of his career investing in and nurturing technology startups. Transitioning his focus toward education, he's become an influential advocate for innovative educational practices. Hannah Grady Williams is the legendary founder and CEO of d’Skills. She's recognized for her innovative approach to shaping education and her efforts to equip the next generation with the tools necessary for success in the modern digital landscape. And, oh yeah, she's only 25 years old. Hannah, Ted and Chris discuss the challenges of bridging generational gaps in education as native digital and native analogs. Along with the importance of introducing AI into education to empower students with real world projects. You'll be shocked at the transformative impact of the skills program on student’s confidence, problem solving abilities, and career prospects. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Hannah Grady Williams on Education Reform and Preparing Students for the Workforce After a quick introduction between the two guests, the conversation starts with Hannah recounting a pivotal moment from her childhood when her dad involved her in a real estate deal at age 12, sparking her interest in applying academic skills to real-world situations. This experience led her to question the traditional education system's effectiveness in preparing students for modern careers, especially in the age of AI. She and Christopher discuss the shortcomings of current education models, emphasizing the importance of practical skills over rote memorization. Both share a vision of revolutionizing education by shifting focus from test scores to impact portfolios, where students showcase real-world projects demonstrating their skills. They aim to equip students with digital and AI skills through hands-on projects, enabling them to make tangible contributions to businesses. Ultimately, they envision a million students graduating high school with impact portfolios, ready for the demands of the modern workforce. Ted Dintersmith on the Disconnect between Traditional School Education and Skill Development Christopher and Ted discuss the stark difference between traditional education and teaching skills relevant to the modern workforce, particularly in the context of AI. They note the reluctance of many educational institutions to embrace AI tools, preferring to view them as potential cheating aids rather than productivity enhancers. Ted highlights the disconnect between traditional schooling and the demands of the job market, where college graduates often lack marketable skills and face uncertain career prospects. He emphasizes the need for parents to recognize the evolving nature of jobs and the importance of equipping students with adaptable skills. They see initiatives like Hannah’s d’Skills as offering a path for students to create their own fulfilling careers, distinct from the outdated model of relying solely on degrees and conventional career paths. Education Priorities and Student Motivation Adding more on the topic of issues concerning traditional education, Ted also emphasizes that education's central issue isn't test scores or learning loss but rather the erosion of student motivation and purpose. He highlights the success of programs like d’Skills in engaging students, enabling them to pursue meaningful projects they find important. These initiatives contrast starkly with traditional sc...

349 October 7th Horror To Hope: A Tech Startup For Every Fallen Israeli with Izhar Shay & Ophir Shay, Next October Co-Founders Mar 05, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we are joined by Izhar and Ophir Shay, a father and brother to Israelis who have lost their lives in the Hamas attack. Today, they share how they chose to honor their fallen, in what can only be described as, Different. Izhar Shay is an entrepreneur – a venture capitalist, very successful in the startup community and startup nation in Israel. And he's a former Israeli Member of Parliament who served as the Minister of Science and Technology. His son, Ophir Shay, is also an entrepreneur, and he has a background in marketing and customer support. Both men have served honorably in the IDF. In Israel, it is customary to plant a tree for fallen Israelis taken in war or terrorism. But Izhar and Ophir chose to honor them by starting a startup called Next October, a nonprofit on a mission to create and build a new successful Israeli startup for every person murdered or kidnapped on October 7. It's an extraordinary vision. How you can take horror and turn it into hope and prosperity. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Ophir Shay and Izhar Shay on Coping with Loss and Grief When asked by Christopher on how they are doing, Ophir expresses optimism amidst difficulty, mentioning progress with connecting companies and families. Izhar then reflects on the challenge of answering "how are you doing?" following a family tragedy on October 7, losing their youngest son, Yaron, a soldier. Christopher empathizes, sharing his experience of loss and the struggle with such questions. Izhar details Yaron's life, highlighting his values as both an Israeli and American citizen. Yaron is remembered as a remarkable individual, cherished by his family, and honored for his service. Memories of Yaron and His Passions in Life Izhar and Ophir continue the conversation about Yaron’s life, one that is filled with different passions, be it in music, watching and playing different sports, and tattoos. Izhar further reflects on Yaron's passion for sports, spanning across continents and connecting people. He highlights Yaron's dedication to his favorite teams and how his commitment was recognized even in his funeral. Christopher reciprocates, sharing his lifelong passion for sports, particularly football and hockey. He recounts a story about NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton, emphasizing the joy of being an enthusiastic fan and celebrating one's passions. Both agree that sports serve as a unifying force, fostering connections and bonding within families and communities. On accepting New and Old Communities Continuing on that line of thought, Christopher shares his experiences of bonding with his nephews over football, and introducing them to different activities, and in effect, different communities. He notes that music and sports communities tend to be more accepting, as while options might differ vastly from person to person, it’s still an avenue to get a conversation started and to have something common to talk about even if it’s the first time you have met the other person. Ophir agrees with this sentiment, and also adding that at the end of the day, it’s about embracing a new community, or even finally embracing one that you’ve been part of all along. Nothing is stopping anyone from being hardcore fans of their teams, as long as they show mutual respect for others and the teams they support. And isn’t that the point of it all in the end? To hear more from Izhar Shay and Ophir Shay, and how their startups honor their fallen sons and brothers, download and listen to this episode. Bio Izhar Shay Cofounder of Next October. Former Minister of Science & Technology and MK. High-Tech Entrepreneur, Venture Capital Investor, Director & Chairman. Founder, Start-Up Stadium, the largest online community of Israeli entrepreneurs

348 How Young People Can Become AI Entrepreneurs In 10 Weeks with Hannah Grady Williams CEO of d’Skills Feb 26, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we unveil what's really possible for young people when they're set up to win as modern entrepreneurs, leveraging new AI technology. And who better to showcase it than the Gen Z whisperer for CEOs and executives, Hannah Grady Williams. Hannah Grady Williams is back, and she’s here to talk about d’Skills. d’Skills is a one-of-a-kind digital training community that teaches young people entrepreneurship, AI skills, and how to create a revenue producing business in 10 weeks. And the superstars of this conversation are teenage AI entrepreneurs, Rory Straight and Anna Mitchell, two recent graduates of the d’Skills Program. This episode will definitely challenge and inspire you to think about what's possible for young people in new and different ways. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Hannah Grady Williams on d’Skills and AI The conversation starts off with Hannah introducing d’Skills and what they do. Simply put, d’Skills is a hub where high schoolers are coming to learn 21st century skills and technology like ChatGPT and all its uses, and develop their skills further into projects that can make an impact in the market and the business world. Hannah finds it fascinating how new technology can bridge the gap between young people’s ideas and the business world, and give birth to new products and categories that they can further develop as they learn more skills, or become more adept in their current ones. Using AI for Business Projects while still in High School Hannah also talks about a thing that she and d’Skills did over the summer called GPT Challengers Cup, in which they invited high schoolers from around the globe. And from this competition emerged Rory and Anna, who are also joining us on this episode. It was astounding what ideas and end products that high schoolers were able to develop in the span of 30 days, but in the end, it was Rory & Anna’s project that emerged victorious. What they ended up building was a Chrome extension that functions as an app that helps people study more efficiently by creating a comprehensive studying schedule based on the tasks you have registered in your to-do list. Learning a New Skill in 15 Second or Less Christopher then talks to Anna, who was handling the social media aspect of their team. This info was made more impressive by the simple fact that Anna has not handle social media marketing prior to the competition, and had to learn things through a bit of mentorship, but also doing a lot of research by herself. “It's actually funny that you asked that question because right now, I'm actually in a marketing class. And it's super funny, because with all due respect to my teacher, I've learnt nothing in that class; It is like busy work, papers, everything. It's crazy how much that I learned even like before the two weeks before the actual cup was over, and now that I'm doing it like in my free time, that it's really not as hard to make it seem. You don't have to know all the business lingo and the economic terms. All you have to do is continue to push yourself and try new things and see what works and if it doesn't work, then you know that doesn't work and you move on from that.” – Anna Mitchell To hear more from Hannah, Rory, and Anna and the importance of skill-building with new technology in the business world, download and listen to this episode. Bio Hannah Grady Williams is the founder/CEO of d’Skills. d’Skills is a one-of-a-kind digital training community that teaches young people entrepreneurship, AI skills and how to create a revenue producing business in 10 weeks. Aurora Straight Hi, I'm Aurora, a STEAM enthusiast from Kansas with a deep passion for innovation and a strong presence in both academics and extracurricular activities.

347 Bouncing Back: Facing and Conquering Life’s Toughest Challenges with Combat Veteran Travis Mills Feb 19, 2024

We all encounter radical challenges, and we face big choices about how we approach life in the most challenging moments and learn to survive in – maybe even thrive. Today, we are joined by a combat veteran, retired US Army Staff Sergeant Travis Mills, as he shares his challenges and the choices he has made to get to where he is today. Travis Mills is a serial entrepreneur, the driving force behind the Travis Mills Foundation, and the author of Bounce Back: A playbook for facing life's toughest challenges with grace and gusto. Make sure you listen all the way to the end. You don't want to miss any of Travis's unrelenting spirit, wisdom and humor. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Travis Mills on his Military Service and Experience Christopher starts off the conversation by inquiring about Travis's motivation for joining the military. Travis recounts feeling directionless after college, and was prompted by family advice to choose a military path for personal growth and benefits. Fascinated by infantry roles, Travis enlisted for a signing bonus. He breezed through basic training due to his athletic prowess and later engaged in military ground fighting tactics, drawing on his childhood interest in karate. Despite his combat skills, Travis values self-control and notes the discipline instilled by martial arts. Travis Mills on Mental Toughness Travis reflects on being featured on a magazine cover for his mental toughness rather than physical appearance. He also appreciates the recognition for his foundation work. Christopher acknowledges the disparity between modeling and true toughness. Travis also shares instances where he had to assert himself, highlighting his ability to de-escalate conflicts but also assert authority when needed. He explains how his military background balances his jovial persona, noting people's tendency to underestimate him. He emphasizes the importance of professionalism and corrective measures in his businesses, showcasing his leadership style derived from his military experience. From Military to Entrepreneurship Christopher admires Travis's entrepreneurship and proposes introducing him to Iron Mike Stedman, a fellow Marine and entrepreneur. Stedman's mission involves helping inner-city kids through boxing and assisting veteran entrepreneurs with their businesses. Travis expresses his belief in pursuing dreams and betting on oneself, citing personal experiences in entrepreneurship. Despite facing challenges, Travis advocates for seizing opportunities and embracing failure as a motivator. He shares his ventures in house flipping and marina ownership, emphasizing the importance of surrounding oneself with supportive people and taking calculated risks. Travis's resilience and clarity of purpose derived from his military background inform his entrepreneurial journey. To hear more from Travis Mills and his journey and challenges from being in the military to being an entrepreneur, download and listen to this episode. Bio Born and raised in Vassar, Michigan, United States Army Staff Sergeant (Ret.) Travis Mills of the 82nd Airborne is a recalibrated veteran, motivational speaker, actor, author and an advocate for veterans and amputees. In addition to being the founder of the Travis Mills Foundation, Travis also serves as the President of the Board of Directors. Travis has achieved his vision for the Foundation by bringing together a talented array of experts who masterfully accomplish the Foundation’s mission. Per Travis’s lead, the team at the Foundation are not only respected colleagues, they are family. Links Connect with Travis Mills! Travis Mills Foundation | Instagram We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him,

346 Dating Over 40 with Nina Jarnum, author of “F*ck Kissing Frogs” Feb 12, 2024

It’s February, so what better time it is than to talk Love on Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. Today, we have a fun one: a special dating episode for people over 40. And who better to talk about it than our guest, Nina Jarnum. Nina Jarnum is a lawyer-turned-Yogi-turned-popular writer, and she’s the author of a new book called, “F*ck Kissing Frogs”. And we had a blast talking about her book and the topic of dating over 40, as you’ll hear in just a bit. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Nina Jarnum on Kissing Frogs Christopher jumps straight into it with the question of how many frogs do you have to kiss to find the one. Nina answers that if one is being smart about picking and dating, not as much as one would think. Nina recounts her experiences in online dating, starting off with the bad impressions and stigma that people say online dating has to offer. But for the most part, Nina did not encounter those issues and had fun with online dating; which got her curious why a lot of people had a bad impression of it. And so Nina asked her friends if she could check out their matches and update their profile, and some got better results from it soon after. Nina Jarnum’s Online Dating Tips for Women When asked about what is it that sets up a good profile from a bad one, Nina points out that having a good profile is like introducing yourself favorably to the other person. It’s a good way to share some information that shows what you are looking for in a person, but not so much that you’re sharing your life story. Another tip that Nina gives is to be mindful of your profile pictures. Aside from the usual things to avoid like hiding in group photos and such, Nina suggests having at least one full-body picture on it, so that people have an idea of who they are meeting, and it’s also a good visual treat. Nina also talks about avoiding using filters and other image-altering stuff in your profile, as it is a major turn-off for men to find out that they’re not meeting who they think they were supposed to meet based on the profile. “Don't put filter on your photos. Every man I have spoken to about this have been like, their pet peeve is turning up on a date and not being able to recognize the person is such a turnoff. I like comparing it to as a woman when you go on a date with a man and his profile says he's 6’5”, and he turns up and he's 5’7”. It's not cool.” – Nina Jarnum Nina Jarnum on Dating Preferences and Honesty Following that line of thought, Nina adds that not only is it an awkward encounter at the very beginning of the date, it sets a bad impression and precedent right from the start that you are lying about something. She explains that while trying to appeal to the general consensus of what a “good-looking” guy or gal sounds seems like the way to go, the whole point of online dating is to find someone that likes you that you might also like, and not the other way around. That said, there will always be preferences on people that you like, but Nina suggests that you don’t overly limit yourself to those preferences, because you might be missing out. One common thing that she points out is about people’s height; as some would not even consider dating someone who is below a certain number. The point is, sampling out of your comfort zone is fine once in a while, especially if your current pool is not turning out the results that you want. You might end up finding that great date from someone you didn’t expect. To hear more from Nina Jarnum and more dating tips for people over 40, download and listen to this episode. Bio Nina Jarnum is a mother, a lover and a world explorer. She was born and raised in Denmark, moved to England in her twenties where she graduated law school. Nina has taught yoga, breath work and mindfulness all over the world,

345 Learned Excellence: Legendary Lessons from Navy SEALs, CEOs, Pro Athletes & Big Wave Surfers with Dr. Eric Potterat & Alan Eagle Feb 05, 2024

This episode is exclusively for people who want to have a personal breakthrough in their own performance. And who better to discuss it with but with people who have learned excellence, Dr. Eric Potterat & Alan Eagle. Alan Eagle is an executive Communication Coach, and he spent 16 years working with a top people at Google. He's written several other books, and his most well-known for his celebrated book, “Trillion Dollar Coach” about the legendary Silicon Valley coach Bill Campbell. Dr. Eric Potterat is a clinical and performance psychologist, and he was with the US Navy for over 20 years as a commander. On the last 10 years of Eric's career. he was the head psychologist for the US Navy SEALs globally. To say that these two know a little bit about how the top performers in the world do what they do is a radical understatement. And on this episode, we get into all of it, we pop the hood to go deep on their new book learned Excellence, which I highly recommend you pick up a copy of. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Eric Potterat and Alan Eagle on Maintaining One’s Mental Health in a Chaotic World Christopher, Alan and Dr. Eric opens the discussion on how they maintain their mental health with all the crazy things happening around all of us. Christopher highlights the overwhelming challenges globally, from political divisiveness to wars and rising anti-Semitism. Dr. Eric emphasizes the importance of focusing on what individuals can control, citing attitude, effort, and behavior within their circle. Alan adds that staying informed is crucial, but he discourages excessive complaining, urging people to think about actionable steps rather than mere criticism. “I can't stand the complainers. Okay, if you're going to take a position, great! Then I would think through, “what can you do?”” – Alan Eagle The three then get into how the struggle of balancing engagement with the world and avoiding emotional overload, especially in the face of potentially troubling events in the upcoming years. Dr. Eric Potterat and Alan Eagle on Mindset, Organizational Culture, and Sustained Excellence in Baseball Christopher, Alan, and Dr. Eric then talk about maintaining a good mindset in spite of challenges along the way. Dr. Eric talks about the concept of agency, and how to distinguish between victims, survivors, and thrivers, advocating for the latter by practicing agency and embracing post-traumatic growth. Alan underscores the importance of choosing a mindset and shares his experience with the Dodgers, highlighting the team's systemic approach and organizational mindset. Dr. Eric credits the Dodgers' sustained excellence to a focus on hiring talented individuals, providing necessary tools, and maintaining a process-oriented approach. Process and Mental Toughness in Entrepreneurship They then discuss the crucial role of process and mental toughness in entrepreneurship. Christopher draws from Michael Gerber's "The E Myth," highlighting how successful franchises attribute their triumph to well-defined processes, contrasting with small businesses' failure due to a lack of systematic approaches. Dr. Eric identifies process as a pillar of mental toughness, emphasizing its role among the five pillars discussed in their book. Alan Eagle also shares insights from Silicon Valley, underscoring the balance between process and visionary chaos at Google, which contributed to its innovative success. To hear more from Dr. Eric Potterat and Alan Eagle on how to learn excellence, download and listen to this episode. Bio Eric Potterat, PhD, is a clinical and performance psychologist and a leading expert in individual and organizational performance optimization. He retired as a commander from the US Navy after twenty years of service, during which he helped create the mental toughness curriculu...

344 Product, Growth, and Career Advice with Lenny Rachitsky Jan 29, 2024

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we are joined by one of my favorite people in the creator world, Lenny Rachitsky. A few episodes back, we posted the conversation we had on Lenny’s Podcast were I also extended an invite to him for a dialogue at Follow Your Different. And now, here we are. Lenny Rachitsky specializes in deeply researched product growth and career advice, particularly for those in the startup/tech world. Lenny's newsletter on Substack is also the number one paid business Substack. Try as we might with Category Pirates, we've been unable to catch him, and I think that's great. There are some powerful learnings here for marketers, and creators, and really anybody who wants to design a legendary career, I think you're going to absolutely love this very special conversation with Lenny. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Lenny Rachitsky on Product Management and Growth Strategies The conversation begins with Christopher praising Lenny’s approach to product management and growth, hailing him as the "category King." They then discuss the value of staying broad versus niche in product management, with Lenny expressing admiration for specific experts like Emily Kramer in marketing. Christopher commends Lenny for his unique, non-egotistical approach in a field filled with "hustle porn stars." Lenny attributes his success to providing genuine value rather than chasing followers. Christopher perceives a cohesive through line in Lenny's work, suggesting a continuous quest to answer key questions for founders and product builders. Lenny elaborates on his goal of addressing a broad range of questions in product management and growth, emphasizing a core focus with intersecting adjacencies like career and leadership. Creating Valuable Content through Practical Application of Ideas Lenny continues to discuss his approach on content creation, emphasizing the importance of maintaining diverse interests to keep himself engaged. Christopher Lochhead praises Lenny for incorporating varied topics into his work, appealing to a broader audience beyond the core niche of product management. From there, they explore the concept of obvious and non-obvious content, with Lenny acknowledging the practical nature of his content. Christopher notes the challenge of balancing obviousness with depth, expressing his preference for content that goes beyond the blatantly evident. Despite categorizing Lenny's content as somewhat obvious, Christopher commends him for avoiding the realm of "stupid obvious," recognizing the valuable and practical applications within Lenny's work. Lenny Rachitsky on Creating Quality Content Following up on this, Christopher questions Lenny Rachitsky on creating smart, obvious, and practical content without it being overly simplistic. Lenny attributes his success to maintaining a high bar for quality, ensuring content is not overly obvious or uninteresting. He emphasizes spending extensive time on each post, sometimes up to 100 hours, and credits his ability to dedicate full time to content creation as a significant advantage. Lenny describes a flywheel effect where initial success allows more time for improvement, creating a cycle of growth. He suggests that anyone can follow this model if they find the time and opportunities to invest in their content. To hear more from Lenny and his ideas and thoughts on business content creation, download and listen to this episode. Bio Lenny Rachitsky (author of #1 business newsletter on Substack with 500k+ subscribers) interviews world-class product leaders and growth experts to uncover concrete, actionable, and tactical advice to help you build, launch, and grow your own product. Links Connect with Lenny Rachitsky! Lenny's Website | Lenny's Podcast | Twitter/X | LinkedIn

343 Miracle Morning / Miracle Life with Hal Elrod, multi-million bestselling author Jan 22, 2024

It is now 2024; and as they say, a new year, a new you. So let us start you off by helping you gain a new lens and perspective on things. And who better to assist you on that than our guest, Hal Elrod. In the world of kind of personal growth and personal development, Hal Elrod stands alone. He's recently released a new updated and expanded version of the Miracle Morning. To say that Hal Elrod has created a movement would be putting it mildly. On this episode, you get to enjoy an extraordinary conversation with this man. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Hal Elrod on Spirituality and Personal Growth after Traumatic Events Hal Elrod talks about his journey of overcoming cancer and the cognitive challenges caused by chemotherapy. He shares that he has found himself struggling to finish books because he takes longer to process and comprehend what he was reading, or he forgets what has happened one or two chapters before and ends up rereading them again. They then delve into Hal’s spiritual growth post-trauma, exploring his Catholic upbringing and exploration of various religions. Hal emphasizes an inclusive perspective, viewing different faiths as attempts to understand a higher power. He describes a personal and intimate relationship with God, finding solace and strength through prayer. Hal reflects on the usefulness of belief and shares instances where prayer manifested specific outcomes, reinforcing his faith in a higher power. Hal Elrod on Faith, Personal Development, and Empathy in a Broken World When asked, Hal Elrod acknowledges his connection to Christianity but emphasizes a nuanced belief, focusing on embodying Jesus Christ's teachings rather than subscribing blindly. Christopher appreciates the authenticity of Hal’s answer, asserting that being a good person matters more than religious labels. Christopher shares a personal perspective on faith, stating that being a good person transcends religious affiliations. He mentions a song by Aaron Lewis that explores everyone talking to God in challenging times, highlighting the universal inclination towards faith during hardships. This reflects a shared belief in the importance of personal development and empathy over rigid religious definitions in navigating life's challenges. Miracle Mornings & Focusing on Personal Growth during Uncertain Times Christopher praises Hal Elrod's impactful work on personal development, particularly the Miracle Morning routine. He notes the challenging times, referencing global issues, economic struggles, and personal hardships. Hal shares some of his insights from 2020, emphasizing the importance of focusing on what's within one's control to maintain mental well-being. He highlights the Miracle Morning as a powerful tool for daily self-improvement and resilience, especially during chaotic periods. Hal underscores the correlation between feeling out of control and the necessity of self-care. Ultimately, he advocates for concentrating on personal growth, stating that inner peace contributes to a better world, emphasizing the responsibility individuals have to themselves and those around them in tumultuous times. To hear more from Hal Elrod and how to live have your own Miracle Mornings, download and listen to this episode. Bio Hal Elrod is on a mission to Elevate the Consciousness of Humanity, One Person at a Time. As the author of one of the highest rated books on Amazon, "The Miracle Morning" (which has been translated into 37 languages, has over 3,000 five-star reviews and has impacted the lives of over 2,000,000 people in more than 70 countries) ... he is doing exactly that. What's incredible is that Hal literally died at age 20. His car was hit head-on by a drunk driver at 70 miles per hour, his heart stopped beating for 6 minutes,

342 One Woman’s October 7th Bravery At The Nova Festival Massacre In Israel with Natalie Sanandaji Jan 15, 2024

Today marks the 100th day from the terrorist attack done by Hamas that took the lives of many civilians in Gaza. On this episode, our guest is an extraordinary woman named Natalie Sanandaji, who shares her experience as it happened on what could be described as the worse day for Jews since World War II. What you're about to hear is a real, unedited, unfettered, unfiltered conversation about an extraordinary event that happened on October 7, and has been impacting the rest of the world since. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Natalie Sanandaji on the Day of the Attack The conversation starts off with Natalie painting a scene on how she found herself in the middle of the October 7th terrorist attack, where Hamas militants killed civilians and held the population hostage. For context, Natalie is an American-Persian Jew, who visits her relatives frequently, especially during holidays and family celebrations. As such, her visit back in October was for vacation, so she could be with them in the upcoming holiday season. That said, she had heard that there was an upcoming Nova Music Festival nearby, wherein they can camp out and enjoy music, which often lasted for a few days. The immediate comparison is that it was like Woodstock, as the themes of peace with music was similar. The irony of the event and what happened afterwards did not escape Natalie. Natalie Sanandaji on the Start of the Attack After the first night of the festival was over, Natalie and her friends decided to go back to their campsite and take a nap until the morning set of the festival. But instead of waking up to the sound of music, they were woken up by the sound of rockets. “One of our friends from our campsite was on the dance floor when the rock first rockets were intercepted overhead, and she knew that we were still at the campsite sleeping; we hadn't woken up yet. So she came back to the campsite to wake us up, because she wants to make sure that we were alert to what was happening. She came in she woke us up and she was all smile-y. And she was like, “Hey guys, good morning. I just want to wanted you to know a few rockets were intercepted overhead. But it's fine.” “ – Natalie Sanandaji Normally, the Iron Dome would’ve intercepted the few rockets and everything would be back to what they were, with their biggest fear being getting hit by falling debris. But there was something to the amount and frequency of the rockets that made Natalie’s friend think that this was different. Escalation After hearing more than a dozen rocket explosions, Natalie and her friends decided to pack up and just go home. Party’s over. Though there were people who were starting to panic as they were going to their cars, the whole vibe of it was more annoyance than fear – annoyed that the festival was cut short because of what was happening. Natalie and here friends themselves were not in a hurry. She even found time to go to the bathroom to freshen up while her friends waited by the car. Only later did Natalie find out that that decision could’ve been a fatal mistake on her part. “I went to the bathrooms and then I went back to the car, and not until about two weeks later did I realize how much I was putting my life in danger by going to those bathrooms. Because about two weeks later was when a video surfaced of the Hamas terrorists coming to those exact bathrooms where I was maybe 10-15 minutes later, and just shooting at every bathroom stall trying to kill anyone who was hiding inside.” – Natalie Sanandaji As they drove out of the venue, the festival security was herding the leaving people into the dirt roads for better traffic. Though suddenly, those same security people started telling people to go back, and later on telling them to get out of their cars so they could run and hide.

341 How To Become A Category Pirate | Christopher Lochhead on Lenny’s Podcast with Lenny Rachitsky Jan 09, 2024

This week on Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we’re presenting to you Christopher's appearance on Lenny’s Podcast, hosted by Lenny Rachitsky. Lenny Rachitsky runs the #1 Business Substack newsletter, Lenny’s Newsletter. It is legendary especially for people in tech marketing, product marketing, and startups. It’s so legendary that even Christopher pays for it. And now, he’s in it. This is one of the more in-depth discussions Christopher has had with a very smart person about category design in a while. So settle in for a good listen and great lesson about category design. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. This episode originally aired on Lochhead on Marketing episode 187. If you want to hear more insights on marketing and category design from Christopher, feel free to check it out at Lochhead on Marketing and anywhere you listen to podcasts. On taking the Good with the Bad Lenny starts off the conversation by showing appreciation to Christopher’s extensive work, and jokingly adds that it was challenging to prepare for their conversation due to his numerous podcasts, books, and other content. That said, Lenny noticed Christopher’s website displayed negative reviews prominently. When asked about it, Christopher explained his approach with humor, calling his team Category Pirates and embracing criticism. He believed it was essential for innovators not to fear criticism, citing examples of famous artists and musicians who faced initial negativity. Christopher displayed the negative feedbacks to show the reality of creative work and to remind people not to take themselves too seriously. Lenny admired Christopher’s ability to handle criticism and expressed the desire to adopt a similar mindset. Lenny Rachitsky on how Lenny’s Newsletter came to be Christopher Lochhead expressed admiration for Lenny’s branding choices, appreciating the simplicity of just being called “Lenny.” He found it endearing and highlighted that Lenny’s authenticity stood out in a world where many influencers create an aura of superiority. Lenny shared that the name “Lenny’s Newsletter” was a default suggestion from Substack, and he never intended it to be a long-term commitment. Similarly, he struggled to find a different name for his podcast, wanting to avoid a self-centered approach. But despite having his name in the branding, Christopher noted the content wasn’t self-centered; instead, it reflected Lenny’s genuine approach, unlike influencers who focus on creating envy. They both appreciated the authenticity in Lenny’s approach. Lenny Rachitsky and Christopher Lochhead talk Category Creation Lenny asked Christopher about category creation, a concept Christopher has championed over competition in existing markets. Christopher explained how most people aim to compete by offering a better product or service in an existing category. However, legendary innovators don’t follow this path. They create entirely new categories, defining unique problems and solutions. Christopher emphasized that a single company in a category usually captures two-thirds of the market value, making category creation a lucrative strategy. He cited Gojo Industries, creators of Purell, as an example. They didn’t just invent hand sanitizer; they redefined the problem of hand cleanliness, leading to a new market category. Christopher stressed the importance of focusing on problem-solving rather than just product features, making one’s brand irreplaceable in customers’ minds. He contrasted this approach with typical marketing, where companies invite comparison, emphasizing the power of radical differentiation and being a category creator. To hear more about Christopher’s conversation with Lenny Rachitsky on Category Creation, download and listen to this episode. If you want to learn more about Lenny Rachitsky...

340 2024: DEI, AI, The Cloud & Beyond with Bob Evans & John Siefert of Acceleration Economy Jan 01, 2024

Today on Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, John Siefert and Bob Evans, the leaders and founders of Acceleration Economy, join in on the dialogue about DEI, AI, and what’s in store for 2024. In addition, Bob Evans is also the host of the podcast called Cloud Wars Live, which Christopher has actually been a guest to a few times. They also have some great guests and amazing discussions over there, so go check them out after this episode. That said, let’s dive in into this dialogue and prepare ourselves for the upcoming year. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. John Siefert on DEI in Tech Industry The discussion opens up on the topic of what they have learned in the past year. One thing they agreed on immediately is that people seem to have gotten a little dumber in 2023. Not like major blunders and the like, but more like small things that might seem inconsequential at first, and came back to bite them before the year’s end. After this brief exchange, the topic shifts to the topic of morals and intellectual decay that they have observed in the tech industry, particularly in the implementation of DEI statutes and the like. John Siefert comments on DEI, more specifically how a well-intentioned thing on paper could become twisted and be exploited when applied in the current social landscape. An example in the discussion is that people are being told to hire a diverse staff not because of being inclusive, but rather to meet certain numbers and get benefits out of it. Given these circumstances seemingly are the norm nowadays, Christopher believes that the floodgates might open once this one particular case sets precedence. Bob Evans on how DEI is distorted in practice Bob adds to the topic of DEI and points out that the distortion often comes on how it was implemented, e.g. if it’s already done in bad faith from people up in management for a few people’s benefit, then the struggle to actually implement a proper setup will be that much harder. It has come to the point that Inclusion is being used to actually exclude people. The example that the group gives is that certain analysts believe that Asians are overrepresented in Tech. So rather than hiring someone that is very capable in the required position, companies end up not opting to hire such talent because the person is Asian, and therefore skew their DEI scores. They would end up hiring for diversity rather than skill, and this dilutes their products and services, causing overall loss in the long run. The point of DEI was to be fair and impartial, and yet in practice it just became a way to fulfill certain requirements for special perks, sometimes to the detriment of the company. To hear more about Bob Evans’ and John Siefert’s thoughts on DEI, AI, and what 2024 has in store for us, download and listen to the episode. Bio John Siefert Chief Executive Officer, Acceleration Economy Co-founder John is a strategic thinker and business builder who loves to reimagine what is possible with smart people who are not afraid of the future. He has the ability to visualize voids in the market and then define a people, product, process, and position approach to creating a brand where that void once existed. Bob Evans Cloud Wars Founder, Acceleration Economy Co-founder, Analyst Bob analyzes business innovation, cloud technology, leadership, corporate strategy, and the global digital economy. He’s the founder of Cloud Wars, was recruited by and worked for Larry Ellison, and shares his thinking via daily videos, daily articles, newsletters, and podcasts. Links Connect with John Siefert and Bob Evans! Acceleration Economy Network | Cloud Wars Live: Apple Podcast & Spotify Bob’s LinkedIn | John’s LinkedIn We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™!

339 A Wish for Different in 2024 Dec 18, 2023

First and foremost, we at Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different would like to wish everyone from the bottom of our hearts, happy holidays. We hope that you have an opportunity to be with the people you love this time of year, and enjoy some happiness and peace. That said, there seems to be a lot going on lately. Be it about antisemitism, diversity, equality, and inclusion, and sort of the core values that the United States will be governed by and will latch on to. So I wanted to take this time and have a talk between you and I. You may not like what I will have to say, and that is all right. The important thing is that we have a good dialogue between us, and open ourselves to thinking Different does not always mean they hate you and your type of thinking. As we head to 2024, that is my wish for the holiday season. That we have a breakthrough in real, authentic, civilized, thoughtful dialogue. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Christopher Lochhead on LGBTQ+ rights over the years Christopher shared a heartwarming story about a LinkedIn acquaintance, a marketing executive, who recently had a baby with her wife. They had a positive exchange about babies, and Christopher expressed genuine happiness for the couple. “Around here, we think babies are fucking fantastic, especially when they're born to good people who are committed to raising those children and loving knows children. What could be better than a great couple are a great group of folks who have a baby, love that baby, and do everything in their power to provide that child with a great life and enjoy that child. It's wonderful.” – Christopher Lochhead Christopher then reflected on growing up around queer individuals, recalling the challenges they faced over the years. He emphasized the progress in societal acceptance of the queer community, highlighting the positive change that allows people to openly share personal milestones without fear of judgment. That said, Christopher expressed joy for the LinkedIn acquaintance, appreciating that she can legally be herself and share her family news without hesitation, considering it a legendary step forward, especially in the United States. Christopher Lochhead on mortgage discrimination Christopher then talks about a CNN headline that revealed the systemic racism about the Navy Federal Credit Union's discriminatory mortgage approval practices. The report states that while over 75% of white applicants were approved for conventional home purchase mortgages, less than 50% of black applicants were approved under the same circumstances. Christopher condemns this as not just systemic racism but outright evil. He criticizes financial institutions like Wells Fargo for repeatedly facing charges related to racial discrimination without executives facing jail time. He emphasizes the urgent need to acknowledge and fight systemic racism for true equality and justice, citing the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. “This is racism right in front of us. And anybody who's just anybody who cares about equality, and justice, and the pursuit of happiness for all must acknowledge that there is systemic racism against certain groups. There's no doubt about that. And we need to fight it. We really need to fight it.” – Christopher Lochhead On Systemic Racism and DEI in society Christopher expresses concern about the rise of hatred, particularly in the context of recent events, notably the conflict in the Middle East. He highlights the misunderstandings surrounding the October 7th events, emphasizing the severity of the situation and the explicit threat against Israel and the Jewish population. Christopher is dismayed by the confusion and the lack of recognition for Israel's right to defend itself. He shares a personal experience of a friend falling victim to violence and un...

338 Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World with Rabbi Sharon Brous, Bestselling Author of “The Amen Effect” Dec 06, 2023

Every thinking person and caring person has been affected by the pain and suffering in our world of late. And most of us have been grappling with the horrors of October 7 and everything that has come since then. Today, Rabbi Sharon Brous is here to help us make sense of it all. Rabbi Sharon Brous is the founding rabbi of IKAR Jewish synagogue and community in LA. Rabbi Sharon was also chosen to bless President Obama and Vice President Biden at their inaugural in 2013, and she returned to do the same for President Biden and vice president Harris in 2021. She was also named the number one most influential rabbi in the United States by Newsweek and The Daily Beast. Her new book is available now for preorder and it also makes a wonderful gift for yourself and for others. It's called The Amen Effect, ancient wisdom to mend our broken hearts and world, and I think you'll love it. So pick up a copy today wherever you get legendary books. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Rabbi Sharon Brous on coping with grief The conversation begins with Christopher asking Rabbi Sharon Brous about coping with grief and finding hope post-tragedy. Rabbi Sharon admits feeling shattered, expressing concern for her family and the world. Despite the prevailing sorrow, she emphasizes the pivotal moment in history, urging a deliberate choice toward healing. Christopher questions how, as a rabbi, she addresses anger, fear, and despair. Rabbi Sharon sees her role as a pastor: comforting the afflicted, acknowledging pain, and fostering empathy. She encourages reconnecting with shared humanity, emphasizing agency in shaping a better future. “I think that my first job is to be a pastor, to really be a pastor to my community. To, as we say, comfort the afflicted, to name out loud the pain that people are experiencing, to affirm how incredibly worrisome and anguished this time really is. And not to stop there – to then lead us to stretch our hearts and try to find some empathy from our own suffering, to try to reestablish links to a world that we dream is possible, even from out of the depth of the world that we find ourselves in.” – Rabbi Sharon Brous Rabbi Sharon Brous on loneliness and finding a community after a tragedy Christopher shares his distress post-October 7, expressing shock and concern at the rising anti-Semitic behavior. He opens up about feeling out of control, lonely, and abandoned—a sentiment echoed by others. Rabbi Sharon Brous acknowledges the surprising existential loneliness post-tragedy. Drawing on Dr. Vivek Murthy's insights, she links loneliness to a gap between needed and actual social connections. Rabbi Sharon underscores the importance of reaching out, emphasizing that human thriving relies on connections. She encourages overcoming the inclination to retreat, advocating for rebuilding bridges to the mainland, as no one can self-sustain on an island. Reflecting on her own experience after October 7, Rabbi Sharon highlights the healing power of shared humanity, even across cultural divides. Rabbi Sharon Brous on healing and reconciliation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict On the topic of stopping the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Rabbi Sharon Brous envisions a future of reconciliation and healing. She rejects the idea of a military solution and emphasizes the necessity of building a shared future as neighbors. “I believe, along with the many thousands of Israeli Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are part of a very vibrant civil society in Israel, that the only way forward will be together. I believe that ultimately, there will not be a military solution to this conflict, that ultimately, we are going to have to find a way to build a future as neighbors.” – Rabbi Sharon Brous Despite the current pain and challenges,

337 Inside the Mind of “CEO Whisperer” Jerry Colonna, Bestselling Author of “Reunion – Leadership and the Longing to Belong” Nov 13, 2023

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have the great pleasure of talking to the “CEO whisperer” Jerry Colonna, once again. Jerry Colonna is back, and he has a new book to share with everyone. It’s called Reunion – Leadership and the longing to Belong. If you think radical, intimate conversations about careers are a powerful and important thing, you're gonna love everything about this conversation with Jerry. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Jerry Colonna on Fame and being the same person all the time The conversation starts off with Christopher Lochhead and Jerry Colonna discussing the impact of their voices in podcasting, highlighting how listeners feel connected as they follow along Christopher and Jerry's dialogues, as if they're actually part of the conversation. They also think that being authentic online and offline is always a good thing, sharing their personal anecdotes and experiences. Christopher mentions meeting famous people and how Bill Walton handles fame graciously. On the flip side, Jerry reflects on the unnerving aspect of being known by strangers due to his work. They both emphasize the challenge of balancing public perception and personal identity, especially in the digital age. But at the same time, they appreciate the connection with their audience but acknowledge the unique dynamics of being recognized. Jerry Colonna on having Empathy and Compassion in Leadership Jerry discusses the importance of empathy and compassion, highlighting that being fully present and authentic allows for genuine connections. He attributes the current low levels of empathy in leadership roles to various forces and suggests that those in power may benefit from maintaining the status quo. Jerry Colonna, known as a prominent CEO coach, defends the relevance of discussing human aspects in business conversations. He believes that better humans make better leaders and expresses a responsibility for leaders to contribute to making the world a better place. Though he is also concerned about the divisive state of society and urges business leaders to engage in dialogue to address the issues tearing communities apart. Jerry Colanna on Suffering and how to cope & make a difference Christopher and Jerry then explore the challenges of coping with widespread suffering and violence. Jerrry draws insights from Buddhist teachings, emphasizing the need for empathy and compassion. He discusses the choices people face in response to suffering and highlights the Buddhist perspective on addressing and transcending it. Jerry also introduces the concept of the tragic gap, urging individuals to stand between the present reality and a better future. Christopher shares his view of embracing change as the only sensible choice, rejecting defeatism. The conversation concludes with a quote from Captain Paul Watson, emphasizing the importance of focusing on the present to shape a better future. To hear more from Jerry Colonna, his thoughts on his new book, and leadership in general, download and listen to this episode. You can also check out his previous episode here at FYD episode 067. Bio Jerry Colonna is an executive coach who uses the skills he learned as a venture capitalist to help entrepreneurs. He draws on his wide variety of experiences to help clients design a more conscious life and make needed changes to their career to improve their performance and satisfaction. Previously he was a partner with JPMorgan Partners (JPMP), the private equity arm of JP Morgan Chase. He joined JPMP from Flatiron Partners, which he launched 1996 with partner, Fred Wilson. Flatiron became one of the most successful, early-stage investment programs in the New York City area. Links Connect with Jerry Colonna! About Jerry | Reunion / Get the eBook!

336 How Startup Founders Build A Legendary Life with Brad Pedersen, Co-founder & Chairman of Lomi Nov 05, 2023

Every entrepreneur and every person who's creative wants to have a deeply fulfilling professional and personal life. But it can be easy to get distracted and pulled off course, which is why we all need “Touchstone Moments” to remind us of what matters. Today, we talk about it with our guest, Brad Pedersen. Brad Pedersen is a lifelong entrepreneur, and the Co-founder & Chairman at Lomi. He's got a new bestseller out called Startup Santa, a toy makers tale of 10 business lessons learned from timeless toys, and it's great. What you're about to experience is a deeply personal conversation about life and startups, the toy business and Brad's learnings from creating Lomi, which is pioneering the smart home composter category. If you think real, meaningful conversations about life and business matter, you're in the right place. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Brad Pedersen on courage and creativity in entrepreneurship Christopher Lochhead and Brad Pedersen start off the conversation with the importance of courage and creativity in entrepreneurship. Christopher reflects on his initial doubts before launching his book, Play Bigger, emphasizing the unpredictability of how the world will respond. Brad praises his courage to put his ideas out there, highlighting the power of the Internet in connecting people. Brad defines courage as finding the balance between recklessness and carelessness, emphasizing its pivotal role in decision-making. He values the courage to embrace the unknown, pursue ideas despite criticism, and create value in the world. Their exchange showcases the transformative impact of courage and the Internet in scaling ideas and fostering meaningful connections. On Mentoring and throwing a rope to those who need it The conversation then shifts into the importance of experienced entrepreneurs helping newcomers. Christopher emphasizes the value of giving back and supporting others in their entrepreneurial journey, drawing from his own mentors like David Ogilvy. They discuss the accessibility of mentors in the digital age, debunking the misconception that mentors are unapproachable. Brad shares his perspective on mentorship, emphasizing the significance of personal growth and the importance of mentors who focus on becoming better individuals. They challenge the pursuit of materialistic achievements, advocating for meaningful connections and personal development. Brad also suggests evaluating mentors based on their character and the positive impact they've made, highlighting the enduring value of genuine connections and intrinsic fulfillment. Brad Pedersen on prioritizing growth over material gains Continuing on the topic of mentorship, they discuss the evolving nature of mentorship and personal growth in the digital age. Christopher reflects on the accessibility of mentors in the digital world, contrasting it with the past when connecting with influential figures was challenging. He criticizes the influence of "hustle porn stars" who promote materialism and envy. Lochhead emphasizes the genuine connection and humility he values in mentors. Brad agrees with the assessment, focusing on personal growth and the pursuit of intrinsic value over material possessions. He highlights the importance of mentors who exhibit excellence and virtue. Christopher then shares a humorous anecdote about a wealthy individual's arrogance, emphasizing the significance of genuine connections over material displays. To hear more from Brad Pedersen and how to realize your touchstone moments in your life, download and listen to this episode. Bio Brad Pedersen: Co-founder and Chairman of Lomi. Brad Pedersen is an award-winning entrepreneur, angel investor, thought leader, and sought-after business coach. In 2008, he founded and scaled one of Canada’s top toy companies,

335 Inside Israel with Dr. Giora Yaron, former Chairman of Tel Aviv University Oct 27, 2023

Today on Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a special episode featuring a good friend of mine, Dr. Giora Yaron. We talk about what's happening in Israel now, the realities of the situation Israel faces and what's likely to happen next. Dr. Giora Yaron is considered a legend in the startup tech world. He's known as one of the key players in creating the tech startup VC ecosystem. He started his career as a Senior Executive in National Semiconductor in the United States. And subsequent to that he's founded, co-founded, and/or been the chairman of more than 25 Deep-tech startups. He’s also the former chairman of Tel Aviv University. Dr. Yaron is also a decorated Israeli Defense Forces Combat officer. And today, he serves as a strategic adviser to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. No matter what you think about this war, no matter how much you think you might know, there's a lot to learn in this riveting captivating, in depth, no BS conversation with a living Israeli legend. Also, it's important to note this episode was recorded on October 26 2023. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Giora Yaron on the current situation in Israel Christopher Lochhead and Dr. Giora Yaron discuss the situation in Israel. Dr. Yaron shares how his family was safe living far from conflict zones, although they hosted affected families initially. He mentioned the challenges faced by IDF with a significant number drafted and the delicate balance in completing the mission while saving hostages. Dr. Yaron also highlighted past incidents, comparing the current situation to previous attacks in 1973 and 2002. He expressed concerns about dealing with barbarian savages and the challenge of maintaining Israeli values while addressing the crisis. Dr. Giora Yaron on the conflict’s impact on civilians The conversation then shifts to the topic of the recent conflict in Israel and its impact on civilians. Dr. Yaron discusses the strategic and moral dilemmas faced by Israel in dealing with groups like Hamas and the challenges in differentiating between combatants and civilians. He emphasizes the need to combat extremist groups aiming to establish an Islamic state and the importance of military action to achieve this. Christopher notes that many veterans, like Colin Powell, become peacemakers later in life and discussed the heroic efforts of civilians in the conflict. But Dr. Yaron responds that the situation isn't about pursuing peace but dealing with an ongoing conflict. Dr. Giora Yaron on Cultural Differences and how it affects perception in the West Dr. Yaron shares his concerns about the disconnect between Western sympathies for Palestinians and the harsh realities faced by Israelis due to terrorist attacks. He emphasizes the need for a practical approach and shared personal experiences, such as Mellanox's tragic incident, to illustrate the challenges faced in pursuing peace in the region. He further underscores the complexities of the situation and the clash between idealistic hopes for peace and the harsh realities on the ground. To hear more from Dr. Giora Yaron and the clash of ideals in Israel, download and listen to this episode. Bio Dr. Giora Yaron is the former Chairman of Tel Aviv University (Executive Council), and on the board of Amdocs (DOX). Dr. Yaron serves on the advisory board of the Israeli Ministry of Defense. He is also an active Founding Investor and Founder of a group of high-tech and med-tech companies; P-cube, (acquired by Cisco), PentaCom (acquired by Cisco), Qumranet (acquired by Redhat), Comsys (acquired by Conexant, Texas Instruments), Exanet (acquired by Dell) Hyperwise Security (acquired by Checkpoint) Qwilt, Itamar Medical, Excelero, Equalum and, Aqua Security. Dr. Yaron has been serving as board member and/or Chairman of the Boards of these com...

334 How To Build An AI Startup, AI Video Content Marketing & More with Vikram Chalana, Founder/CEO of Pictory Oct 23, 2023

How do you build an AI startup? What's different about an AI startup compared to a normal tech startup? How do you get VCs to come to you instead of chasing them? If you have these questions in mind, our guest, Vikram Chalana, might have the answer you are looking for. Vikram Chalana is the founder and CEO of Pictory.AI, an AI video creation tool that can help content marketers create content in a fast and scalable manner. So, if you have an interest in AI and what future it holds, you’re going to love this episode. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Vikram Chalana on the Practicalities of Remote Work Christopher and Vikram start off the conversation by talking about the benefits of working remotely. Both have stated that they have enjoyed their work-from-home setups, even after the hustle and bustle of the world has returned somewhat. They also agree that, despite some backlash, remote work offers advantages, like eliminating commutes and enabling people to work in comfortable, happy environments. Vikram, a startup founder, values hiring talent globally, and that online tools like Slack and Zoom have made it easier to bridge the geographical barrier of work. Though they acknowledge the desire for in-person interactions sometimes, they could not ignore the practicality of remote work. Raising money for AI startup: when do you bring on investors? Christopher and Vikram then discuss the timing of taking in investors and venture capital. Christopher shares a conversation he had with a friend, a CEO in the AI space, who's considering significant investment offers. They debate the need for additional funding despite having $5 million already. The friend’s reason for this is because of the demand for compute in AI due to expanding training data, which requires substantial investment. In this case, Vikram agrees that getting more funds makes sense because of the load they are taking as their data lake grows and the computing demand increases. Vikram, on the other hand, expresses hesitance about raising funds when his SaaS startup is already capital efficient. He grappled with how to allocate the money, but also considers future investments in deep tech. Vikram also emphasizes his approach of launching products even if they are initially embarrassing, highlighting his focus on post-revenue stages for fundraising. Vikram Chalana on startup valuations and fundraising strategies Christopher and Vikram then talk about fundraising strategies, emphasizing the risks associated with overvaluation. Christopher shares some cautionary tales about companies that raised large sums at high valuations, only to face significant drops in worth, causing employee dissatisfaction. Vikram, who favors a conservative approach, highlights his experience in building capital-efficient businesses. He stresses the importance of realistic valuations, suggesting that entrepreneurs should not overvalue their businesses. They discuss an entrepreneur who achieved a healthy valuation without pushing it to the extreme. Christopher notes the contrasting situations faced by non-AI entrepreneurs struggling to attract VC attention, while AI startups like Vikram's are sought after. To hear more from Vikram Chalana and his thoughts on AI Startups, download and listen to this episode. Bio Vikram Chalana is an experienced business and technology executive with a demonstrated history in the enterprise software and medical device industry. Before becoming the CEO of Steth IO, Vikram was the co-founder and CTO of Winshuttle – empowering people to transform their ERP-based business. He propelled the company’s technology strategy to support Enterprise, workflow and mobile solutions, helping thousands of customers maximize their investments in enterprise applications such as SAP ERP, Oracle EBS and Salesforce.com.

333 Israel: War in “Startup Nation” Oct 12, 2023

On this episode, let’s talk about Israel, and the war that has come to this “Startup Nation”. Off the top, let me say the pain and suffering of what's happening is unbelievable, unbearable. My heart goes out to Israel, all Israelis, and all Jews around the world. I also want to say I have spoken with many Arabs since this happened. There's a very big difference between an Arab or a Palestinian and Hamas. They are not the same thing. My Arab friends wanted to stress that to me. My heart goes out to all the innocent Arabs in Gaza and in the region who are suffering and also experiencing extraordinary pain and loss. Israel is a “Startup Nation” If you’ve been in tech for a while, you’ve probably worked with Israelis. For the better part of my professional life, I’ve worked with entrepreneurs, engineers and executives from the country. The Israeli’s I know are smart, tough, driven, no-nonsense result producers. If you want to get big tech shit done, work with Israelis. It has one of the highest concentrations of startups in the world. Its tech sector is a major contributor to the country's economy. Tech is 18% of Israel's GDP, and 14% of all salaried employees work in Tech. That’s roughly 500,000 people. On top of which, 50% of Israel's total exports come from Technology developed by these people. The framework Israelis created to co-locate Israel/US tech startups, established an innovation model that is envied the world over. Israel has over 6,000 Tech Companies The impact of this war borne out by the Israeli people. Reports indicate that the start if this war was "the darkest day in Jewish history since the end of the Holocaust.” And, it will also be felt by virtually every major tech company in the world. There are over 6,000 tech companies operating in Israel, including some of the largest names, with Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Intel to name a few. These companies have a variety of strategic operations in Israel, including research and development centers, sales offices, and customer support centers. Israel is home to over 15,000 startups, and they employ over 100,000 people. In 2021, Israeli tech companies raised a record $25.6 billion in venture capital funding. Today, they are scrambling to secure and support their people. 15,000 Israeli Tech Startups Now, this evil war is extracting an unbearable human cost. More death, suffering and disruption is sure to follow. And this war will be felt by many of us in the tech industry. My heart aches for Israel. My heart aches for all of the innocent souls in the Middle East. We’re praying for peace, and the day we can all get back to building legendary companies. To hear more of Christopher Lochhead’s thoughts on the recent events that unfolded in Israel, download and listen to this episode. If you wish to join the conversation and get more information on the matter, check out Christopher’s post on LinkedIn: Christopher Lochhead Different: Weekly Newsletter We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes

332 The Future of Tech Startups with Paul Martino of Bullpen Capital Oct 02, 2023

If you have been following Silicon Valley and tech news, you might be wondering what the future of tech startups in general are and what trends venture capitalists are following nowadays. Our guest, Paul Martino, might be able to answer those questions for you. Paul Martino is the founder of eight companies including Tribe; one of the world's first social networks, and aggregate knowledge a big data advertising company. Paul holds over a dozen patents on core social networking concepts, content targeting and recommendation systems. This is a fun, fascinating and deeply insightful conversation with one of our favorite thinkers in the tech startup world. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Paul Martino on Venture Capital, Fundraising, and Market Sentiment The conversation begins with Paul Martino and Christopher Lochhead talking about the challenging environment for venture capitalists. Paul Martino acknowledges the tough 18 months, highlighting a temporary upswing but anticipating further challenges. Christopher shares mixed signals from CEOs, noting a tough market despite some positive indicators. Paul observes a significant change in fundraising capital availability in Q2, attributing it to increased confidence with NASDAQ's rise. As Christopher mentions entrepreneurs preferring angel investors over traditional VCs due to difficulties and lowered valuations, Paul disapproves of VC complacency during tough times and assures entrepreneurs that committed VCs like him are open for business, emphasizing their entrepreneurial mindset. He also understands the logic behind entrepreneurs relying on existing investors during market uncertainty. Paul Martino on the impact of market downturn on early- and late-stage companies They then continue to discuss the challenges faced by late-stage companies dealing with overvalued situations. Paul emphasizes the distinction between a down round and a recap, suggesting that a down round, while not ideal, is manageable. He also stresses the importance of CEOs accepting a realistic valuation to issue new options and retain employees, criticizing those who let ego hinder practical decisions. Christopher raises concerns about companies with significantly reduced growth rates, questioning their true value. Paul gives a hypothetical example of a $10 billion company dropping to $3 billion, highlighting the need for companies to adapt and not shy away from necessary adjustments to move forward. Paul Martino on San Francisco's decline and potential for recovery The conversation shifts to the topic of the decline of vibrant cities like San Francisco and Portland. Paul observes the eerie emptiness in once-bustling areas, expressing concern for the loss of the lively environment. Lochhead shares similar sentiments, reminiscing about the exciting times they experienced during previous boom periods. They discuss the root causes of these issues, focusing on policy changes like Prop 47 and Prop 57 in California that decriminalized theft under $1,000, leading to increased crime rates. Paul believes it will take a new generation of pragmatic leaders to address institutional problems and revive cities, estimating a 20-year timeframe for San Francisco's recovery. The conversation highlights their shared disappointment in witnessing the decline of the cities they once knew. To hear more from Paul Martino and the future of tech startups, download and listen to this episode. Bio Paul Martino is a Managing General Partner at Bullpen Capital. Paul is the founder of eight companies including Ahpah Software (a computer security firm acquired by InterTrust; Tribe (one of the world’s first social networks), and Aggregate Knowledge (a big data advertising attribution company acquired in 2014 by Neustar). Paul’s early online gaming innovations in multi-play...

331 How To Have A Legendary Career, Regulate AI & Much More with David Schellhase, Silicon Valley Legal Obi Wan and Salesforce & Slack’s Former General Counsel Sep 25, 2023

If you're someone who wants to have a legendary, long-term, and super-successful professional career, you're going to love this dialogue with Silicon Valley’s Legal Obi-Wan, David Schellhase. David Schellhase is considered as one of the greatest General Counsels in Silicon Valley history. David was the GC at Salesforce for nine years, and he was the GC that took them public. He was the GC at Groupon, and most recently, the GC at Slack. On this highly engaging episode, David and Christopher cover everything from the problems plaguing San Francisco in California, to how lawyers can be true partners who helped power the success of a legendary business. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. David Schellhase on the Challenges facing San Francisco The dialogue starts off on the topic of the current state of San Francisco. David described downtown San Francisco as a ghost town with a lack of energy and a significantly reduced population, feeling like just a really small scale of what it was four years ago. He expressed concern that there's no immediate rebound in sight. Christopher pointed out that policies and politicians may have contributed to the city's issues, but some complexity exists in understanding the causes. David acknowledged that many are well-intentioned but lack a clear understanding of cause and effect. They discussed the challenges of addressing issues like addiction and the need for comprehensive solutions, rejecting simplistic approaches. David emphasized the difficulty of the situation and the desire for an easy solution. Stuck in the middle David Schellhase discussed the challenges of dealing with complex problems, particularly in San Francisco, where there's a high tolerance for individuals facing issues like addiction and homelessness. He noted the difficulty of reaching marginalized individuals with chemical problems. Christopher shared a scuba diving analogy, emphasizing the need to make a clear choice between being supportive and caring or taking a more serious approach. He highlighted the inconsistency in dealing with crimes related to opioids, such as fentanyl, where some individuals receive lenient sentences despite carrying dangerous substances. Christopher argued that society is stuck in an ambiguous middle ground, where it either needs to fully legalize and regulate these substances or enforce stricter criminal penalties, as the current approach is leading to harmful consequences. David Schellhase on addressing the societal issues in San Francisco David and Christopher then continued to discuss the lack of a coherent strategy to address societal problems in San Francisco and the broader United States. They acknowledged the need for a balanced approach that avoids mass incarceration but also holds individuals accountable for their actions. David emphasized the complexity of San Francisco's permissive culture and the challenges it faces in dealing with issues like addiction and homelessness. Christopher highlighted the importance of a holistic approach, including both support programs and consequences for criminal behavior. He argued that the U.S. lacks effective measures to deter crime, with many serious offenses going unsolved and unpunished. To hear more from David Schellhase and his thoughts about the current Justice system, rise of AI, and how to build a long-term successful career, download and listen to this episode. Bio David Schellhase is of Counsel to Sullivan & Cromwell. He is resident in the Firm’s Palo Alto office and focuses on a range of technology-related and business issues. David has more than 25 years of experience in the technology industry and most recently served as the General Counsel of Slack Technologies, Inc. While at Slack, David oversaw the company’s 2019 direct stock listing IPO. Prior to that,

330 The World’s Leading Alien Hunter: Harvard’s Top Astronomer Dr. Avi Loeb, Author of Interstellar Sep 13, 2023

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, Dr. Avi Loeb makes a return to discuss why traditional science and academic circles still consider researching aliens as taboo. If you are not familiar with Dr. Avi Loeb and his work, you can check out our previous conversations with him (FYD 202 & FYD 230). Dr. Avi Loeb is the most credential scientist and astronomer ever to say that we have been visited by something outside of our galaxy that is alien in nature. He also has a new book out called Interstellar: The Search for Extraterrestrial Life and Our Future in the Stars. And now, Professor Loeb with his team are the first ever to discover and retrieve interstellar objects that landed on Earth. And even further, Professor Loeb says that he thinks there's a case to be made that these remnants of these objects that came from outside of our solar system and landed in our ocean could be alien. So if you are interested in that and things from outside our earth, stay tuned to this episode. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Avi Loeb and his Interstellar discovery The conversation begins with Christopher expressing his admiration for Professor Loeb's work and delves into the controversial nature of his recent actions. Professor Avi Loeb then talks about his expedition to Papua New Guinea and its connection to a significant interstellar discovery. Professor Loeb explains that his journey to Papua New Guinea was prompted by the detection of a fast-moving object that collided with Earth in 2014. This object exhibited unusual properties, including its high speed and material strength. It was determined to have come from outside the solar system, which sparked initial skepticism among his colleagues but was later confirmed by the US Space Command. To investigate further, Professor Loeb led an expedition to the Pacific Ocean, where the object had crashed. The team used a specialized sled with magnets to collect millimeter-sized particles from the ocean floor, which had rained down during the object's explosion. After extensive searching, they found molten droplets and other materials that provided crucial insights into the object's composition and origin. Dr. Avi Loeb and the Spaceballs Professor Avi Loeb then talks about the remarkable discovery of spaceballs, which are unusual spherical objects with unique compositions. Professor Loeb also adds that the expedition was a significant effort funded by private donors, emphasizing the extensive work put into the project. He then talks about receiving the spaceball materials at his doorstep via FedEx, and he wasn't concerned about a slight delay given the billions of years it took for the materials to arrive on Earth. They then talk in detail about the analysis of these spaceballs, with Professor Loeb's intern, Sophie Bertram, helping to discover and analyze a significant number of them. They found three high-yield regions along the meteor's path, suggesting these regions might correspond to the flares observed during the meteor's entry. The composition of these spaceballs, dubbed "Bilbao," was unique, containing elements not found in known Earth, Moon, Mars, or asteroid materials. This composition further supports the idea that these materials originated from outside the solar system. Dr. Avi Loeb on the skepticism of Traditional Science Professor Loeb explains that initially, there was skepticism from some colleagues and reviewers when the data about these interstellar landings that occurred in 2014, leading to a delay in publishing the findings. However, three years later, the US Space Command formally confirmed the object's interstellar nature with a high level of confidence. This confirmation prompted Professor Loeb to plan an expedition to Papua New Guinea, gather a team, design specialized equipment,

329 The Power of Words with Dr. Valerie Fridland, #1 Bestselling Author of “Like, Literally, Dude” Sep 04, 2023

Nothing is more powerful than words. Yet we seldom realize that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images, which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society. Today, we go deep into the power of words and much more with our guest, Dr. Valerie Fridland. Dr. Valerie Fridland is a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno. She writes a popular language blog on psychology today called Language in the Wild. Her new book is the number one bestseller. It's called, Like, Literally, Dude, arguing for the good in bad English. So if you love words, thinking, and thinking about words, you're gonna love Dr. Valerie. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Valerie Fridland on how Language evolves over time The conversation starts with Christopher asking if the emergence of new phrases that some people dislike is a part of how language changes and develops. Dr. Valerie Fridland explains that language evolution involves a combination of factors, including how our brains and mouths work, societal influences, and the goal of maximizing communication with minimal effort. Language not only conveys information but also communicates social facts and signals about relationships and context. Dr. Valerie mentions that language naturally tends to become more efficient in terms of pronunciation over time. For instance, sounds that are harder to articulate tend to simplify, such as the evolution of "th" sounds into sounds like "f" or "v." Despite these natural linguistic changes, people often criticize them as lazy or uneducated. Christopher shares examples of pronunciation differences he's noticed over time, like the word "details" and "insurance". Dr. Valerie explains that these changes often involve shifts in stress patterns, where certain syllables become emphasized while others are de-stressed. This shift in stress patterns can be influenced by various factors, including the influence of other languages or dialects. The shifting of words due to culture and society Dr. Valerie and Christopher then continue the discussion about the shift of words due to cultural and contextual changes over time. They explore the evolution of the word "stone" from its Old English origins as "stainaz" to its modern form, which was influenced by contact with Old Norse and Anglo Norman French. This emphasizes how language changes in response to historical interactions and influences. They also discuss the evolution of the word "partner" and how it reflects changes in societal attitudes towards relationships. Initially associated with business partnerships, "partner" expanded to include romantic or committed relationships, especially within the LGBTQ+ community as social acceptance grew. Younger generations commonly use "partner" to refer to their significant others, regardless of their gender or marital status. Valerie explains that language adapts to describe new concepts or changing social norms, often by repurposing existing words rather than creating entirely new ones. Dr. Valerie Fridland on Neologism Neologism refers to the creation of entirely new words, not borrowed from other languages. Christopher initially confuses neologism with someone who invents new words, but Dr. Valerie Fridland clarifies that it involves creating completely new words. They discuss examples related to language innovation. Christopher mentions how businesses like Starbucks introduce new words or repurpose existing ones to create new categories, as seen with "latte" and "grande." Valerie explains that these are not neologisms but rather the borrowing or repurposing of words. The conversation delves into the concept of creating new words through morphological processes like adding suffixes, as seen with "palooza" and "gate.

328 Crime, Justice, & America with Morgan Wright & Steve Murphy, Hosts of The Game of Crimes Podcast Aug 28, 2023

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a riveting dialogue with two of America's favorite crime fighters. The hosts of the Game of Crimes Podcast are here: Morgan Wright and Steve Murphy. Steve Murphy was one of the real DEA Narcos who took down Pablo Escobar. The Netflix series Narcos is based on his work. Morgan Wright spent 18 years in state and local law enforcement is a highly decorated police officers state trooper and detective. He was even trained by the original members of the FBI as Behavioral Science Unit on serial crime profiling, which led him to training spies and spooks at places like the NSA. If you're a crime buff care about justice and or care about the future of the United States, you're going to love this episode. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. How Gangs are extending their Influence in certain parts of America The conversation starts off with Steve Murphy sharing shocking revelations about Mexican gangs and their influence on California laws. He mentions their podcast called "Game of Crimes", which has been running for over two years, and their recent episode about an interview with a former member of the Mexican Mafia, referred to as "Mundo." They emphasize not sharing his real name due to safety concerns, as there is a history of violence associated with such revelations. Steve explains further how criminal groups like the Mexican Mafia manipulate the California penal system and legislators. They work to secure more lenient laws, better prison conditions including improved food, reduced responsibilities, and access to phones for conducting criminal activities from behind bars. The speaker expresses how these criminals mock the California legislators, exploiting their reluctance to confront them, resulting in laws that favor the criminals. This situation is portrayed as detrimental to honest taxpayers in California, who end up losing out. On Gangs using children in their operations The conversation continues as they discuss the disturbing trend of gangs involving children in their criminal operations, particularly in relation to Mexican fentanyl gangs and trafficking. Christopher expresses his shock about the leniency of consequences for minors involved in serious crimes due to certain laws in California. He describes a conversation with a police chief who shared a case of a 14 or 15-year-old who stabbed a rival gang member and received only a three-month ankle bracelet as punishment. They then delve into the concept of gangs using children, mentioning how historically even New York City drug dealers employed young kids as lookouts. Steve Murphy shares insights into the psychology of recruitment, explaining how gangs exploit children's need for attention and affection, particularly in impoverished neighborhoods where parental support may be lacking, and the allure of earning “easy money” even as a child. This dynamic leads to these kids being drawn into gang activities. Morgan Wright adds that Mexican fentanyl gangs are trafficking even children, who are forced into various criminal roles such as drug distribution, human trafficking, and even employment. He highlights the shift in focus for cartels from drug trafficking to human trafficking due to the increased profits and lower risks involved. The term "Minutemen" is mentioned, referencing how quickly kids are released from custody due to relaxed laws, allowing gangs to maintain control over them easily. Keeping children out of jail Morgan Wright then stresses how important it is to keep children out of the streets and jails, so they do not fall further into the machinations of these gangs. “The intervention has to start early and often because if you don't, they’ll arrive at a path to where as he could either stay on the good side,

327 Queer In The C-Suite with Jim Fielding, Bestselling Author of All Pride No Ego: A Queer Executive’s Journey to Living and Leading Authentically Aug 14, 2023

Many of us are different; and for many of us being different is a superpower. But what do you do if your different is not always accepted in the business world? How can you use your different as an advantage? We get into that and much more with our guest, Jim Fielding. Jim Fielding has had an extraordinary executive career, working at the highest levels of some of the most well-known and respected corporations in the world companies like The Gap, Disney, DreamWorks, and 20th Century Fox. And Jim's got a stunning new book out. It's called All Pride, No Ego: A queer executive’s journey to living and leading authentically. Today, we get into all of it: from how to have a legendary career as an openly gay man and how to be different. We also dig into many of the thorny social dynamics that are being discussed and dealt with right now around the LGBTQ+ community in modern America. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Jim Fielding on being Different and having the Freedom to follow it The conversation starts off with Jim’s younger years, as he reveals that he felt different around the age of six or seven and had a sense of destiny beyond his hometown. He grew up in Toledo, Ohio, near Lake Erie, and had a middle-class upbringing with a firefighter father and stay-at-home mom. But he has always felt that his parents gave him a sense of freedom early on. Jim's book, which was initially meant for 2024, has taken on more urgency amid the evolving LGBTQ+ rights movement. He shares how it has evolved into a platform for conversations, community building, and addressing inequities. They then talk about the impact of the book and how Jim is using his platform to advocate for marginalized communities and human rights. Jim Fielding on the state of queer communities then and now They then talk about the state of queer communities over the years. Jim Fielding discusses the evolution of attitudes towards LGBTQ+ individuals and their experiences. Jim reflects on the changing landscape and the challenges faced by the queer community. He notes that the current situation feels like a mix of progress and regression, with moments of hope interspersed with concerning headlines about anti-LGBTQ legislation and discrimination. Jim emphasizes the need to own the narrative and stand up against efforts to push the community back into the closet. He draws parallels to historical moments, such as the fight for rights in the 1960s and the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. Despite all these, Jim's optimism remains strong, bolstered by the resilience of the queer community and the activism of younger generations. On standing up and being an Ally The conversation then shifts to Christopher's perspective as an ally and his observations about changing attitudes. He contrasts the comparatively accepting atmosphere of the 1970s and 1980s, exemplified by cultural icons like David Bowie and Annie Lennox, with the challenges faced during the AIDS epidemic and subsequent backlash. He expresses confusion about the shifts in attitudes and experiences, wondering if his memories of acceptance were naive or if there has been a recent shift. Jim offers insights into the impact of the AIDS epidemic on perceptions of the LGBTQ+ community and the subsequent challenges it faced. He discusses how this period led to a more pronounced demonization of LGBTQ+ individuals, especially by conservative groups. They also touch on the struggle for marriage equality and the ongoing fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Bio Jim Fielding, a proud Ohio native and Indiana University Hoosier, started his career on the department store floor. Over the next 30 years, he would lead some of the world’s most beloved media and retail brands, including The Gap, Disney, Claire’s, Dreamworks, and 20th Century Fox. Jim is known for his ability to combine storytel...

326 The Well-Lived Life with 102-year-old Dr. Gladys McGarey, “Mother of Holistic Medicine” & Bestselling Author Jul 31, 2023

We all want to live life well and long but oftentimes, life gets in the way of having a legendary life. But what if there are secrets to a well lived life? Today, we have a life affirming real dialogue with the legendary Dr. Gladys McGarey. Dr. Gladys McGarey is a general practitioner, co-founder of the American Holistic Medical Association, and she's a category designer who is considered the mother of holistic medicine. Dr. Gladys is 102 years old; she began her medical practice at a time when women couldn't even have their own bank accounts. She's got a new number one best seller out and it's already in its second printing, called The Well Lived Life, a 102-year-old doctors six secrets to health and happiness at every age. This conversation takes some fascinating and unexpected turns, and we hope you join us for it. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Gladys McGarey on the Importance on focusing on Life and Love We start the conversation with Dr. Gladys, who is more than 100 years old, and they discuss how amazing it is to communicate through modern technology. Dr. Gladys expresses her conflicted views on technology's impact, suggesting that the lack of real-life experiences and love in young people's lives might contribute to violence. She then shares a story about using dogs in the classroom to provide children with a sense of real love, which could prevent harmful behaviors. She also talks about the power of animals to bring joy and love, and how Dr. Gladys' upbringing in India reinforced the importance of love in healing and how it is a powerful medicine, as described in Dr. Gladys' book. Dr. Gladys McGarey on how to make do with what you have Dr. Gladys discusses the benefits of modern technology, as well as acknowledge some concerns that herself has. She reflects on her medical career, recognizing the limitations of past practices and the importance of evolving with new knowledge. She shares a dream that led to the realization of the interconnectedness of masculine and feminine energies. They explore the concept of feminine gestation and manifestation, emphasizing the need to understand and appreciate this process in addition to traditional manifestations. Dr. Gladys suggests that acknowledging and accepting this holistic approach could lead to better outcomes, instead of rejecting them outright. Find her Voice in her 90s In her 90s, Dr. Gladys had a breakthrough in finding her voice and embracing her true humanity. She had always sought validation from others and struggled to trust her own voice. Through a dream, she had a profound realization that her voice mattered and was essential to express her soul essence. This led her to write a book with a deeper focus on the inner aspect of the Divine, emphasizing life and love. She believes that as humans, we are reaching for our true humanity, understanding the importance of caring for each other and the Earth rather than seeking dominance. Dr. Gladys sees simplicity in embracing life and love as essential elements of our existence. To hear more from Dr. Gladys McGarey and her views on how to live a fulfilled life, download and listen to this episode. Bio Dr. Gladys McGarey is 102 years old in 2023, at the time of the publication of her book “The Well-Lived Life: A 102-Year-Old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age” Dr. Gladys is also still a consulting doctor. Recognized as a pioneer of the allopathic and holistic medical movements, she is also a founding diplomat of the American Board of Holistic Medicine. She is the cofounder and past president of the American Holistic Medical Association, as well as the cofounder of the Academy of Parapsychology and Medicine and the founder of The International Academy of Clinical Hypnosis. Dr. Gladys lives and works in Scottsdale, Arizona,

325 Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World with Bruce Feiler, 7-time NYT Bestselling Author Jul 24, 2023

The people who are happiest don't chase someone else's dreams; they chase their own. This is according to our guest, one of our favorite authors, thinkers, and people, Bruce Feiler. So we have a whole dialog on just that. Bruce Feiler is the author of the landmark book, Life is in the Transitions. And now he's back to address one of the seminal questions of our time: “How do we find or create meaningful work,” a subject he's lived over and over again. His new book is out and it's called The Search, finding meaningful work in a post career world. Bruce is one of America's most thoughtful voices on contemporary life. He's a seven-time New York Times bestselling author, he's lived many lives from circus clown to preeminent spirituality, author to winning three James Beard Awards and being the subject of a Jeopardy question. Bruce is an American treasure, who you're going to love hanging out with. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Bruce Feiler and his book’s effect One of Bruce’s books is titled "Life is in the Transitions," which explores the idea that nearly half of our lives are spent in various transitions. The book delves into personal experiences, including Bruce's own life upheavals, such as battling cancer, facing financial troubles, and dealing with family crises. He explains how society tends to undervalue and stigmatize these transitional periods while glorifying stability. Bruce's mission is to normalize and understand the growth potential in these unsettled phases, encouraging people to embrace them as opportunities for renewal and transformation. The book has resonated with readers who recognize and appreciate the validation it provides for the complex emotions and experiences they encounter during life's transitions. Bruce Feiler on the notable lack of life transition books at 40 When asked why he thinks there’s not a lot of books like his on the shelves, Bruce shares that it was mainly because society has traditionally undervalued and stigmatized these periods. The focus has been on achieving stability and success, neglecting the importance of understanding and embracing life's transitions. However, Bruce says that recent societal changes, including the decline of organized religion and shifts in the workforce, have led to a growing interest in searching for meaning in life and work. People are no longer content with viewing work as a mere source of income but are seeking work with purpose and significance. This shift in perspective has sparked a renewed interest in exploring life transitions and finding meaning in these transformative phases, especially for professionals who are still pursuing their careers in their 40s and beyond. The power of work vs fame The conversation then shifts to the power of work over fame, and the importance of focusing on the craft rather than seeking balance. Bruce praises the Christopher’s diverse and successful career and emphasizes that legendary individuals are not known for balance. For Christopher, he finds Bruce’s commitment to the work quite amazing, and despite achieving fame and success, he remains grounded and humble. Bruce attributes his continued passion and joy to finding a path that aligns with his talents. They agree that the best work comes from dedicated effort and stepping away from distractions to focus on the creative process. To hear more from Bruce Feiler and how to make the most out of yourself during your transitions, download and listen to this episode. Bio Bruce Feiler Links Connect with Bruce Feiler! Bruce’s Website | Twitter | LinkTree We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

324 Peak Performance Aging with Steven Kotler, NYTimes bestselling author of Gnar Country Jul 10, 2023

The story we've been told our entire lives is that as we get older, we decline physically. But what if we could become more legendary as we age? We discuss this and so much more with our legendary guest, Steven Kotler. Science-based Human Performance Guru Steven Kotler is back in his fantastic new book Gnar Country: Growing old, Staying Rad. Steven lays out how cutting-edge discoveries in embodied cognition flow science, and network neuroscience have revolutionized how we think about peak performance aging. In this radically different conversation, you'll learn how to embrace peak performance aging in your life. This is a fun, fascinating and deeply insightful conversation with one of our favorite thinkers. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Steven Kotler writes a book about me The conversation starts off about the new book that Steven has written, called Gnar Country. Christopher expresses his gratitude to Steven for writing the book and acknowledges his admiration and respect for him. However, Christopher also tells Steven that it has challenged his comfortable outlook on life. The book centers around the idea of not being "dead before you're dead," encouraging readers to embrace mission-style challenges in the second half of their lives. Steven clarifies that he doesn't mean Christopher has to go surf Mavericks, a famous surfing spot known for its enormous waves. But rather that engaging in difficult and fulfilling activities can be transformative. For Steven, the second half of life is presented as an opportunity for growth and exploration. Getting back to Gnar Country Christopher, who had been easing into a more relaxed lifestyle, confesses that he was getting used to being "dead" in a figurative sense – finding comfort in smoking at home, enjoying the garden, and taking leisurely walks. However, after reading Steven's book, he feels inspired and reminded of the adventures he used to embark on with his friend Al Ramadan. Christopher mentions how he and Al would take annual trips for adrenaline-fueled activities like surfing, skiing, and scuba diving. Coincidentally, as Christopher reads the book, he receives an email from Al Ramadan, proposing a future surf and dive trip for their group of friends. This timing strengthens Christopher's belief that the universe, through Steven and Al, is nudging him to return to thrilling and challenging adventures in “Gnar country”. Steven Kotler on Park Skiing in your 50s The conversation then focuses on Steven Kotler's experience of teaching himself park skiing at the age of 50. This is despite conventional beliefs that learning such skills becomes impossible after a certain age. Steven explains that there has been scientific research done in the past 20-25 years that challenges the traditional view of aging, which assumes a gradual decline in physical and mental abilities. He emphasizes the "use it or lose it" principle, stating that with continued training and practice, individuals can maintain their skills far longer than previously thought. As a skier himself, Christopher initially finds it incredulous that Steven attempted to learn park skiing in his 50s. He recounts a personal experience of attempting a park maneuver in his early 40s and how risky it was as he continued. Christopher expresses his surprise at Steven's determination and adventurous spirit, acknowledging the challenges and potential dangers associated with park skiing. This further showcase Steven's pursuit of pushing boundaries and defying age-related limitations by taking on the challenge of park skiing in his 50s, which is pretty rad, in our opinion. To hear more from Steven Kotler and how to live in Gnar Country, download and listen to this episode. Bio Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning journalist,

323 Being Different, Raising Different Kids with Kayla Taylor, Bestselling Author of Canaries Among Us Jun 26, 2023

The most powerful thing you can be is 100% yourself, and specifically be the things that make you different, yet uniquely you. But we live in a world that values sameness that drives conformity, that lack of openness to different can cause significant problems for adults, and even more so for kids. We discuss all these and more with our guest, Kayla Taylor. Kayla Taylor is the author of Canaries Among Us, a Mother's quest to honor her child's individuality in a culture determined to negate it. If you're different, you love someone who's different, or have a child in your life who's different. You're going to love this conversation with Kayla. Pay special attention to the part of this dialogue about how we're all grappling with being caring and sensitive to the needs of others and on the other hand, not being so overly careful that we can't say anything to anybody about anything for fear of being criticized or canceled. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Kayla Taylor on receiving appreciation for her work Kayla expresses gratitude for when people give their time and validation of her work. She describes her book as a vulnerable endeavor and admits to considering not publishing it multiple times. She recalls expecting critical reviews, which almost led her to give up. However, a positive review convinced her to continue. Kayla feels a sense of obligation to address the stigmatized issues covered in her book and support others who may be going through similar experiences. She acknowledges that while others have written about similar topics, they often reflect on childhood experiences or feel restricted by privacy concerns. She believes there is a lack of literature capturing the current challenges of raising children with learning differences who face bullying, and she wants to fill that gap and offer support to others in similar situations. Kayla Taylor on writing under a pseudonym When asked as to why she wrote under a pseudonym, Kayla explains that she couldn't find a memoir from a parent in the midst of dealing with issues such as bullying, learning differences, and anxiety. She desired a book that captured the present moment and felt poignant. However, she also wanted to respect her children's privacy and avoid publicly shaming individuals, including the children who behaved poorly. She believed that all children should have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and grow without enduring public shaming. To protect people's privacy, avoid shame, and honor her own principles, she chose to write under a pseudonym. Additionally, through her research on different forms of victimization, Kayla discovered that society often fails to support and center those who have been victimized. She didn't want to contradict her belief in prioritizing victims' privacy and autonomy by publishing a book that would potentially expose everyone involved. Thus, she decided to use a pseudonym to maintain consistency. Understanding Learning Differences Kayla discusses her journey into understanding learning differences when her child faced bullying for being unique and different. Through research, she discovered that one in five people have diagnosable learning differences, including dyslexia and ADHD. However, this statistic doesn't account for other factors such as sensory processing, mental health issues, and physical impairments that affect learning. She criticizes the education system for being designed during the Second Industrial Revolution, focusing on standardization and neglecting individual strengths. Christopher shares his own experience of having multiple discernible learning differences and emphasizes that being radically different left him with no choice but to embrace his uniqueness. Despite not having a GED, he became the head of marketing at a publicly traded sof...

322 How To Build A Legendary B2C Product, Company & Category with Matthew Bertulli Co-founder & CEO of Lomi Jun 19, 2023

In this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we learn how to build a legendary B2C category and company from one of the hottest founders in a brand new category space, Matthew Bertulli. Matthew Bertulli is a true mission driven founder, and this is a masterclass on how to be a missionary category designer who evangelizes their category and believes entrepreneurs can do what governments can't. Lomi was introduced to the world with one of the most viral product launch videos in history, and Matt breaks down just how they did it. Trust me, you're going to come back and listen to this episode multiple times. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. The Need for Lomi The conversation starts off about Lomi, and the need for a product infrastructure for composting. Matthew sets up a bit of background by discussing their company, Pela Case, which produces compostable phone cases. Later on, what they realized is that despite having the push to create compostable and earth-friendly products, there was a lack of compostable infrastructure globally. They observed that even major companies like Pepsi, P&G, and Unilever were investing in transitioning from single-use plastics to compostable alternatives. However, government regulations banning single-use plastics were in conflict with the lack of compostable infrastructure. For example, in California, companies offered compostable products, but there was no proper system to handle them. Compostable items were often mistaken for regular waste and ended up in landfills, rendering the whole effort futile. Matthew Bertulli on going against the “safe”route Matthew then shares their decision to go against the “safe”advice and pursue this idea for Lomi. Despite having a successful company with millions of customers, they chose to develop a complex product that would compost food in a short time. The process was difficult and required significant investment. They faced numerous obstacles, particularly with factories initially rejecting the idea or lacking the technological capability to execute it. However, they eventually found a toy factory willing to support the project. Matthew emphasizes that creating something new and innovative is met with resistance, as manufacturers prefer replicating existing products. "The hard part with all of this is like, it's making this kind of product or any kind of product like this. It's hard tech, which makes it expensive. It makes it slow. It took years to develop." - Matthew Bertulli Standing up against the Board The conversation then moves toward the entrepreneurial mindset and the personal motivation behind pursuing a business idea. Matthew explains that having control over the board and ownership in the business allowed them to make bold decisions. For them, their drive stemmed from a strong dislike for food waste, particularly due to personal experiences with inefficient waste disposal methods. They believed that finding a better solution would resonate with others who shared the inconvenience. Matthew was highly convinced that the idea would work and could successfully sell it to the board and the team. They also highlighted the positive impact on climate change, which further motivated people to support the idea. Despite having some failed ideas in the past, the trust and confidence from the board and investors helped them move forward. The result of their efforts was the successful introduction of Lomi, a new kitchen product that has experienced rapid growth and is considered one of the most significant additions to the kitchen product category in over a decade. To hear more from Matthew Bertulli and the success story of Lomi, download and listen to this episode. Bio Matthew Bertulli Co-founder and CEO of Pela Case & Lomi. We are a certified B-corp,

321 Mental Health with Morra Aarons-Mele, Bestselling Author of The Anxious Achiever Jun 12, 2023

We all face mental health challenges, and learning to navigate them is the difference between a super successful career and life or living a career and life of struggle. But the business world is not exactly the most welcoming place to talk about our mental well-being. One of the people leading the way to change that is our guest, Morra Aarons-Mele. Morra Aarons-Mele the author of The Anxious Achiever: Turning your biggest fears into your leadership superpower. She is also the host of the popular The Anxious Achiever podcast, and is on a mission to normalize anxiety and leadership. Morra says that anxiety is built into the very nature of leadership and can be harnessed into a force for good. So if you've ever experienced that feeling in your stomach that comes from being nervous, or if you've ever grappled with fear, you're going to thank yourself for listening to this conversation. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Morra Aarons-Mele on talking about Mental Health The discussion opens up with the topic of mental health in the workplace. Christopher expresses his gratitude for a book on the subject and acknowledges the growing acceptance of talking about mental health. Morra then reflects on her interactions with others while doing so, noting that the value is in providing a sense of normalcy and acceptance. She hopes to assist people in incorporating mental health considerations into their lives and encourages them to consider how this affects their performance. She also emphasizes the value of humor and a human approach in dealing with mental health issues. The Shy Loud and the Introverted Extrovert The next part explores the experiences of Christopher and Morra as introverts and extroverts in social situations. Morra describes herself as an extreme extrovert who enjoys being in the spotlight, engaging with media, and giving speeches, but finds herself quite introverted when it comes to casual conversations and one-on-ones. She emphasizes that introverts can also enjoy public speaking and have a humorous side, challenging common stereotypes. Christopher, on the other hand, identifies as an extrovert but mentions being an "introverted extrovert." He explains that while he is comfortable speaking or participating in events, he tends to avoid social gatherings without a clear purpose or role. Christopher shares his preference for meaningful interactions rather than superficial networking. He mentions that online platforms like TED Talks have allowed him to avoid uncomfortable socializing while still sharing his ideas. Managing Mental Health is important Morra emphasizes that managing mental health does not weaken a person's ability to show up and be successful. She challenges the misconception that anxiety and depression make individuals weak and highlights that they are common human experiences and sometimes medical conditions. Morra draws attention to the fact that stories of overcoming adversity are celebrated because they demonstrate resilience and personal growth. She argues that mental health should be viewed in the same light, as individuals who confront and integrate their mental health challenges can become stronger and more effective leaders. Morra criticizes the tendency to deny or mask mental health issues, stating that it hinders our ability to be there for others. She ultimately suggests that managing and embracing mental health challenges can contribute to personal growth and leadership development. To hear more from Morra Aarons-Mele and how to thrive as an Anxious Achiever, download and listen tot this episode. Bio Morra Aarons-Mele Morra Aarons-Mele knows that taking your mental health seriously is a leadership strength. She hosts The Anxious Achiever podcast for LinkedIn Presents, which won the 2023 Media Award from Mental Health America,

320 How To Confront Evil & Inspire The World with Pastor Evan Mawarire of Zimbabwe Jun 05, 2023

There are experiences in life over which you never get in this, and dialogue is one of those. Normally, we tell you some things you'll learn and some things to listen for, but not today – because we want you to get what there is for you to get from this conversation with our guest, Evan Mawarire. Evan Mawarire is a Zimbabwean clergyman who founded the #ThisFlag Citizens Movement to challenge corruption, injustice, and poverty in Zimbabwe. He's the man who stood up to an evil dictator Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, with nothing more than his voice, faith, and commitment to his country and his people. Pastor Evan mobilized a movement powered by social media and empowered the nation of Zimbabwe to peaceful protest. And when he inspired his beloved country, Pastor Evan inspired the world, but he has paid in unimaginable personal price. On this episode, you get to hear his story in his words like never before. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Pastor Evan Mawarire on releasing the bitterness In this conversation, Pastor Evan Mawarire is asked how he maintains a positive attitude in the face of mistreatment and hardships. Pastor Evan admits to having felt bitterness and anger along the way, but emphasizes the importance of releasing these emotions and practicing forgiveness. Holding on to bitterness, he believes, only poisons oneself and prevents personal growth. By forgiving others and asking for forgiveness for his own mistakes, “I would be lying if I said I was never bitter or never angry at some point in my life, or in my journey, particularly this part of the journey. But you have to have an openness of heart to work that bitterness out. You have to have it in your hearts to be able to get to a point where you release the anger that you feel towards somebody because these are human emotions. At the end of the day, what bitterness does is that it does not affect what you are bitter towards, but it poisons your own well.” – Pastor Evan Mawarire Pastor Evan strives to be negative-free and to cultivate a clear conscience. He admits that this process is ongoing and affects all aspects of his life, including apologizing to his six-year-old daughter for his errors. Pastor Evan sees forgiveness as an essential part of his path, allowing him to thrive and be the best version of himself despite the risks and challenges that come with it. You can Forgive and still seek Justice Pastor Evan Mawarire is then asked how he can forgive those who have committed grave injustices against him and others, given the dangers he has faced. Pastor Evan explains that forgiveness is not a substitute for justice and emphasizes the significance of distinguishing between the two. He recognizes the importance of justice and understands that forgiving someone does not absolve them of their actions. While he has personally forgiven individuals such as Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, who threatened and mistreated him, Pastor Evan believes that justice must be sought for the crimes committed, not just for his own sake, but also for the millions of others who have suffered. He encourages others to forgive at their own pace, because true forgiveness comes from the heart and cannot be forced. Finally, he emphasizes that forgiveness and the demand for justice can coexist because forgiveness is a personal choice and justice must still be sought. Pastor Evan Mawarire on the Liberation Struggle of Zimbabwe Pastor Evan then shares his background and the values instilled in him by his father. He describes how his father, who had humble beginnings as a cow herder in rural Zimbabwe, actively participated in the liberation struggle for Zimbabwe's independence. When the war ended in 1980, his father, along with his newlywed mother, moved to the capital city,

319 How To Build A Legendary Native Digital Business with Amy Porterfield May 29, 2023

Many people dream of being paid to create. That is, earning a living from both knowledge work, which is the application of existing knowledge to produce value, and creating net new knowledge, intellectual capital content, or what you can think of as creator capital, is simply cool. Our guest today is the Category Queen of teaching people to build highly scalable, highly profitable, native digital businesses, and specifically digital courses, content and communities, Amy Porterfield. Amy Porterfield has a podcast called Online Marketing Made Easy, which is often the number one ranked marketing podcast in the world. and she also operates the leading digital course academy. Her book, Two Weeks Notice, find the courage to quit your job, make more money, work where you want, and change the world is a number one bestseller for a reason. There are a lot of people who pay a lot of money to have the conversation with Amy that you're about to hear. The future of businesses native digital in yourself will thank you for listening to this episode. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Amy Porterfield, the Category Queen of Digital Community Online Marketing We start the conversation with a brief background as to what Amy Porterfield does in the online business field. As Amy puts it, she teaches people how to start online businesses, specifically how to turn their knowledge, know-how, and skill set into a profitable digital course that they can launch over and over again. And when it comes to digital resources, careers, or businesses that one can have access to, there’s a lot in the online sphere. Her courses teach you these options, so you can decide which ones you need to learn for your business, and which ones you might choose to delegate for efficiency. Amy Porterfield on the magic of Digital Courses Amy then highlights the benefits and advantages of digital courses. Both discuss from their POV the transformation that occurs when shifting from a product-focused marketing mindset to a teacher mindset. They highlight the scalability of digital courses, allowing creators and businesses to reach a larger audience and achieve greater freedom and financial success. Amy emphasizes how digital courses can establish thought leaders and put individuals or companies on the map within their respective industries. Furthermore, digital courses help potential customers understand the value and power of a product, service, or brand, making it easier for them to buy in and become part of a community. Teaching through digital courses is seen as a powerful strategy to educate and engage customers, ultimately leading to business growth. The use of digital courses in a product-driven business Amy then talks about the role of digital courses in educating people about innovative products or services and facilitating buy-in from potential customers. Amy highlights the value of digital courses in helping individuals understand the power and benefits of a business's offerings, leading to increased interest and engagement. Christopher adds that the more groundbreaking the product or service, the greater the need for education to bridge the gap between the new concept and the target audience. He mentions the importance of teaching and providing knowledge within digital courses to support the adoption of new ideas. Digital courses are an effective medium for educating and empowering users and businesses alike. They enable businesses to demonstrate their expertise, build trust, and highlight the value they can offer. Businesses can establish themselves as thought leaders and attract a dedicated community of followers by teaching first and providing valuable content. Because they provide a structured and accessible format for learners to grasp new information,

318 The Power of Questions with Jon Berghoff, Founder of XCHANGE Approach May 22, 2023

Today, we are living in a world where access to all of the knowledge of humanity is getting easier, faster, and more accessible to all. This means that know what and how to ask questions to obtain the required answers have become a skill onto itself. On this episode, we have a dialogue with Jon Berghoff about the power of questions, and how to know if you’re asking the right questions. Jon Berghoff is the founder of XCHANGE Approach, a company that delivers legendary group learning experiences designed to blow open exponential thinking, and exponential results. Jon's a living legend for a reason, and he's a ton of fun. We promise you; your brain will thank you for listening to this dialogue today. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Jon Berghoff on creating an experience where people feel safe The conversation starts off with a question for Jon, particularly on how he could create successful digital events in a world where people don’t fully subscribe to them yet. Jon shares that he drew his drive from his own experience back in high school, where he felt like he was left out and was disconnected for other people. In time, he realized that breaking through this disconnect is one of the important details in getting people excited for conversations, meetings, or on his case, digital events. Because they have a place where they feel safe and where they feel they belong. Jon Berghoff on the role of questions The next part of the dialogue focuses on the importance of asking the right questions and creating meaningful experiences in meetings and gatherings. Christopher recognizes that a company's success is attributed to asking the right questions, listening, and creating a positive experience, and Jon is an expert at asking questions and creating a safe environment. They then talk about the difficulty of adapting to a rapidly changing world and how it relates to ineffective meetings. Jon emphasizes the importance of designing meetings that address complex issues and move away from the notion that a few people have all the answers. The Ego-centric design of meetings The conversation then shifts to the ego-centric design in meetings and conversations. Christopher observes that some meetings have the feel of dictatorial ego-centric events in which a few people present their vision and have all the answers. Jon agrees and explains that many meetings are unconsciously designed with an ego-centric approach, in which either a few people have all the answers or participants are more concerned with convincing each other of their own ideas. They do, however, recognize the need to tap into collective intelligence and shift the paradigm to engage everyone's thinking. Jon emphasizes the importance of questions in this process, stating that the world's complexity requires less emphasis on having all the answers and more emphasis on asking the right questions. He refers to John Kelly's view that future intelligence will be measured by the ability to ask the right questions rather than what one knows. To hear more from Jon Berghoff and the power of questions in today’s knowledge-driven world, download and listen to this episode. Bio Jon Berghoff is the founder of the XCHANGE Approach, a scientific approach to unlocking collective wisdom in any group. These are extraordinary times, which call for exponential conversations. Which is why innovative leaders have run to XCHANGE as the solution for bringing together companies, communities, customers in powerful ways. Before COVID-19, XCHANGE was leaned on by companies like Facebook, BMW, Costco, to facilitate powerful, large-scale conversations... when the stakes were highest. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, change agents of every type: coaches, consultants and thought leaders... are using XCHANGE to create connection,

317 Women’s Right To Orgasm: A Different Dialogue on Women’s Health with Dr. Christi Pramudji, Urologist-Gynecologist May 15, 2023

Women's Health is a topic everyone cares about, and sexual health is an important part of living a legendary life. But it can also be a tough topic for both women and men to address. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we go deep into the topic of Women’s Health with our guest, Dr. Christi Pramudji. Dr. Christi Pramudji, MD is a fascinating doctor because she followed her different to become one of the very few Urologist-Gynecologist. Dr. Christi is considered to be a true pioneer in Pelvic Health and Regeneration. By the end of this episode, you'll gain real insights into why Dr. Christi says orgasm is a right, how the female orgasm works, and what it takes for women to have them. She also presents a holistic approach, including some new recent medical interventions that help women have breakthroughs in their sexual health. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Christi Pramudji on niching down The conversation starts off with the question as to why Dr. Christi decided to niche down to being a urologist for women, rather than a more general practice. Dr. Christi clarifies that she still has male clients from time to time, though looking at the overall clientele, 99.5% of it would be women. She explains that once clients found out that there was a female urologist, they all started flocking to her practice. Over time, she grew to love the role, and it became her specialty. “When I got into practice, it immediately became female. As soon as women learned that there was a woman urologist, they wanted to come see me. And I kind of fought against it for a couple years. And then I decided that I really like this part of urology and I wanted to embrace it, and I just wanted to be really great at it.” – Dr. Christi Pramudji Why Women prefer female urologists When asked why women tend to prefer female urologists over male urologists. Dr. Christi explains that many women feel more comfortable discussing private and intimate issues with a female doctor. Conditions like a leaky bladder can make women feel less feminine and embarrassed, leading them to prefer talking to a female urologist. While most male urologists are easy to talk to and have a good sense of humor, women may still worry about feeling uncomfortable. Dr. Christi also mentions that a sense of humor and a warm, down-to-earth demeanor can help put patients at ease when discussing such personal matters, regardless of gender. They also share an example of a doctor with a unique bedside manner who is well-respected and successful in his field. Dr. Christi Pramudji on the female orgasm The topic then shifts to female orgasms and the numerous misconceptions about it. Dr. Christi explains that female orgasm is frequently portrayed in the media as easy to achieve during intercourse, which is unusual. Orgasm in women typically requires clitoral stimulation as well as full integration of the body and mind. Dr. Christi also mentions how the lack of effective treatment options for female orgasm issues makes dealing with the issue difficult. She emphasizes that, unlike men, female orgasm is not required for procreation and is considered a sex bonus. Christopher then asks if women can experience pleasure without orgasm, and Dr. Christi emphasizes that sex should be pleasurable even without orgasm. She does, however, clarify that the clitoris is the primary pleasure organ for women, and that most women require direct stimulation of the clitoris to experience intense pleasure. To hear more from Dr. Christi Pramudji and other topics regarding women’s health, download and listen to this episode. Bio Dr. Christi Pramudji is a Urologist-Gynecologist whose expertise is unmatched as a true pioneer in pelvic health and regeneration and has helped thousands of women heal and get their fulfilling sex l...

316 How AI Changes Startups, Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital with Mike Maples Jr. of Floodgate May 08, 2023

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a dialogue with Mike Maples Jr. on how artificial intelligence is changing startups and venture capital. Mike Maples Jr. is the co-founder of Floodgate, one of the highest profile early stage venture capitalists. He also has a podcast called Starting Greatness, and it is one of my absolute favorites. By the end of it, we hope that you'll gain a new way to think about both technical risk for startups and market risk. And why in an AI world, you must either be radically different or radically disintermediate something. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Mike Maples Jr. on AI We begin the discussion on the topic of challenges of making sense of the rapidly evolving field of AI. Mike also talks about the traditional funding model of startups, where the primary focus was taking out technical risk, and how the LAMP stack, which commoditized what was once expensive, made it easier to start a startup. Mike notes that the nature of the LAMP stack changed what startups were funded for. “What I like to say is that the LAMP stack was deflationary in terms of the cost of starting startup. And so what does that mean? It meant that what you were funding was different, because if Kevin Rose can start dig for $1,500, over a weekend, there's no technical risks there. I mean, he hired a contractor to do it that he didn't even know at the time.” – Mike Maples Jr. Who gets Product Market Fit first The conversation then moves on to the changing dynamics of venture capital investment. The discussion continues with the notion that technical risk and market risk are inversely related. Solving a technically difficult problem that is valuable to society will create a market; if the problem is easy to solve technically, it will all come down to who achieves product-market fit first. To add value to the business, Floodgate and YC have taken the approach of funding market risk takedown. As technology becomes more commoditized and innovations become more accessible, the person who creates something people want the quickest wins. This is why YC was so successful: it offered young people $100,000 to either take market risks or leave. He also mentions that the traditional venture capital model may not be appropriate for all businesses and that deflationary factors such as content, code, and data may change the way businesses are built. Mike Maples Jr. on AI and the future of Venture Capital Mike Maples Jr. then returns to the topic of artificial intelligence and its implications for the future of venture capital. Here, Mike emphasizes two ends of the risk spectrum: high technical risk and high market risk. On the one hand, some projects require large amounts of funding for mass computation in order to build massive models that have the potential to change humanity. On the other hand, AI is being used in a variety of fields, including content generation for marketing, customer service chatbots, and lead generation, resulting in a deflationary effect on content, code, and data. According to Mike, some businesses may not require traditional venture capital funding and should instead focus on achieving $50 million in revenue with a small team and minimal funding. There is also speculation that the current billion-dollar funds may be providing the wrong incentives to these companies. To hear more from Mike Maples Jr. and how AI can affect the future of startups and venture capital, download and listen to this episode. Bio Mike Maples Jr. is an entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. He’s co-founder of Silicon Valley based, early-stage VC Floodgate. And the host of the popular “Starting Greatness” podcast. Investments include Twitter, Lyft, Bazaarvoice, Sparefoot, Ayasdi, Xamarin, Doubledutch, Twitch.tv, Playdom, Chegg,

315 Mastering Crisis with Liz Hoffman, Bestselling Author of Crash Landing: The Inside Story of How The World’s Biggest Companies Survived an Economy On The Brink May 01, 2023

Over the last three years or so, we've all been through one of the craziest most challenging times in modern history. On today's episode, we have a conversation with Liz Hoffman on how we can take stock of what just happened, and how we can master ourselves during a time of Crisis. Liz Hoffman is a legendary author and journalist. She used to be a senior reporter at The Wall Street Journal, and now she's a business and finance editor at the new startup called Semafor.com. She's got a riveting new book out that I really enjoyed, called Crash Landing: The Inside Story of how the world's biggest companies survived an economy on the brink. We’ll discuss more about this new book and much more in today’s Follow Your Different, so stay tuned. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Liz Hoffman on the early days of the pandemic, and how we are today Liz and Christopher discuss the emotional impact of the pandemic's early days, which they regard as a global trauma. She then talks about how the emotional pitch of those days helped her set the emotional tone of her book's characters. Christopher reflects on the dramatic changes in the world since then, as well as his sense of loss for lost time and loved ones. Liz agrees and mentions a recent article on the pandemic's delayed reckoning with global trauma. They then talk about the bumpy re-entry into the world and the pandemic's lingering effects, of whether we are post-pandemic or not. Liz Hoffman on the ending that never came Liz and Chris discussed how they, like many others, had hoped for a clear endpoint to the COVID-19 pandemic, but that it had remained elusive. And for Liz, there was an added layer of it as a reporter, looking for a conclusion to her work, but it never came. Christopher mentioned how both parties were hoping for a Hollywood-style ending, but the emergence of the Omicron variant dashed those hopes. Liz Hoffman believes that, as humans, people prefer clarity and closure, but the pandemic has been a long-term experience that defies easy categorization. The pacing of Liz's pandemic book reflects this, as it begins with a frenzy before settling into a long and uncertain funk. What legendary leaders do in times of crisis Christopher then asks Liz for insight on how leaders can rise to the occasion rather than crumble under pressure. Liz believes that making a large number of decisions quickly and efficiently, without over-analyzing, can be beneficial. She cites the CEO of Hilton, who pulled their credit lines from banks in early March and received $2 billion to get them through the crisis. Liz emphasizes the importance of making decisions early and anticipating what will happen next, rather than getting bogged down in lengthy decision-making processes. She also points out that leaders should never run a multinational corporation on instinct alone, yet there is frequently unnecessary "process fat" in corporate decision-making that can be trimmed off. To hear more from Liz Hoffman and how to master yourself in times of crisis, download and listen to this episode. Bio Liz Hoffman is the business and finance editor at Semafor. Previously, she was a senior reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where she covered financial markets, corporate dealmaking, and the machinations of Wall Street. A native of central Pennsylvania, Hoffman graduated from Tufts University and the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Links Connect with Liz Hoffman! Semafor | Twitter | LinkedIn | Crash Landing We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

314 How to build a startup with Doug Camplejohn, Founder of Airspeed Apr 24, 2023

How do you take a startup, or really any game-changing idea, from conception to launch and success in the new native digital world? And how do we connect and celebrate with our colleagues in this new native digital world? Our guest Doug Camplejohn, has given a lot of thought to both of those questions. Doug Camplejohn is the founder and CEO of Airspeed. And it has been remarkable to see how Doug and his team has stayed true to a true north vision to solving a problem that matters, but at the same time be super flexible in both thinking, product development, and marketing. With over two decades of experience in the tech industry, Doug has held leadership roles at some of the world's most innovative companies, including LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Salesforce. Pay special attention to Doug's wisdom about why the questions, “are you having fun?” and “do you care if you get fired?” are such powerful questions, and how they can affect a person’s business decision-making. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Doug Camplejohn on how to create a Startup The conversation starts with Doug sharing his approach to creating a startup. Doug explains that entrepreneurs are constantly looking for patterns and problems to solve, and he keeps a "suck list" of bad things and ideas that stick with him. He believes in being firm on the vision but loose on the details, and that good ideas don't die but instead become something he can devote the next decade of his life to pursuing. Doug further explains that he and his team at Airspeed started with a clear goal in mind: to make employees feel more connected and celebrated, even if the details of how they got there changed along the way. The Trap of following the “Perfect Plan” The importance of having a clear problem direction rather than being solely focused on a product vision is further addressed by Christopher and Doug. They discuss how some entrepreneurs can become obsessed with a particular product idea and then struggle to pivot when it fails. Doug also believes in solving a problem that is personally meaningful and resonates with others, rather than chasing after the latest hot technology. He maintains that if the problem statement is genuine and resonates with people, the solution and approach to solving it can be flexible and evolve over time. Product Direction vs Problem Direction They then talk about the importance of having a problem direction rather than a product direction. They discuss how many entrepreneurs become too obsessed with a product vision and then realize they need to pivot one day. Because there are other factors to consider, from the top to the bottom of the organization. Finding a problem that is personally meaningful to the entrepreneur and resonates with others, according to Doug, is critical. They also discuss the difficulty of changing product direction and how it affects morale. Doug believes that taking a balanced approach, planning ahead of time, and breaking it down into smaller chunks, can help with flexibility and adaptation while still maintaining a clear vision. To hear more from Doug Camplejohn and how one could create a legendary startup from the ground up, download and listen to this episode. Bio Doug Camplejohn is an accomplished tech executive, entrepreneur, and startup advisor with over two decades of experience in the industry. He is the Founder and CEO of Airspeed, a platform designed to connect and celebrate employees digitally. Prior to founding Airspeed, Doug held several leadership roles at innovative tech companies such as LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Salesforce. At LinkedIn, he was the Vice President of Product Management for Sales Solutions, where he led the development of LinkedIn's Sales Navigator product. Doug also worked at Salesforce as an EVP and GM of Sales Cloud.

313 Revenue: How To Drive Growth & Prevent Revenue Leak with Andy Byrne, CEO of Clari Apr 17, 2023

In good times and bad, every drop of revenue matters. Without it, none of us even has a business. On this episode, we have a riveting conversation about the past, present, and future of revenue operations with Andy Byrne – the entrepreneur, CEO, and category designer of revenue operations. Andy Byrne is the CEO of Clari, and is known widely in the industry as the prime minister of revenue. And right now, Clari is doing an extraordinary thing, and has become the category King in revenue operations. Pay special attention to Andy's insights into how boards and investors are now starting to focus on revenue governance. As you listen to Andy, you'll also be getting a masterclass in how a CEO can be an evangelist for their company, and their category. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Andy Byrne on being the CEO of a Red-hot Company The discussion begins with Andy being asked about his experience as co-founder and CEO of a successful startup, particularly over the last three unusual years. Andy expresses excitement about the impact his company has made, including the creation of a new job category called Revenue Operations, which is now the fastest growing and most lucrative job in the industry in the United States. He also mentions how proud he is that their platform has managed over $1 trillion in assets. He believes they are only getting started and will have a significant impact on the world. How Revenue Operations and the rise of AI Andy describes how he and his team saw an opportunity in developing an enterprise system to manage the revenue business process from beginning to end. They saw revenue as more than just an outcome, but as a critical business process in need of a dedicated system. He is pleased with the effect their company has had on the lives of many people, particularly revenue-critical employees, and believes that this is only the beginning. With regard to AI, Andy is excited about the potential of machine learning and artificial intelligence to make a meaningful impact, citing an example of their system accurately predicting a healthcare life sciences company's $1.6 billion quarter within hours of being turned on. The Problem with the Three-Headed Hydra Andy then chimes in on importance of revenue and the challenges that companies face when using antiquated revenue management systems. He re-emphasizes that revenue is a business process, and it is the most important process in a company. Unfortunately, many businesses continue to rely on the three-headed Hydra: CRM, Excel, and BI, resulting in revenue leaks, reporting leaks, and inaccurate forecasting. Christopher shares his experience working with businesses that face unexpected deals in the final days of the quarter, which can be problematic if the company's forecasting is inaccurate. Andy agrees and stresses that using these subpar systems increases risk and should put a stop to investor interest in that stock. To hear more from Andy Byrne and how to avoid revenue leaks in your business, download and listen to this episode. Bio Andy Byrne brings over 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, business development and management to his position as CEO of Clari. Clari is the category leader in the Revenue Software Platform market, with over $1 trillion in revenue under management. Prior to Clari, Andy was part of the founding executive team at Clearwell Systems, which he helped grow from pre-product & pre-revenue in 2005 to $100 million run rate until its acquisition by Symantec (SYMC) in Q2 2011. Prior to joining Clearwell, Andy co-founded Timestock, Inc., which was acquired by Computer Associates (CA) via the acquisition of Wily Technology. Timestock delivered world-class enterprise application management solutions to large fortune 500 corporations. Before Timestock,

312 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do with Amy Morin, One of America’s Favorite Psychotherapists Apr 10, 2023

Over the recent past, we've all been through one of the craziest, most challenging times in modern history. simultaneously, we've had to negotiate all of these things, inside of the context of dealing with our personal lives, our businesses, our careers, and any life challenges that we may have had along the way. So we thought that it would be great to welcome back the legendary Amy Morin, for some much needed group psychotherapy. In less than a decade, Amy Morin has become one of America's most popular psychotherapists. She's just got that special quality. Amy is a person who is radically human, incredibly smart, empathetic, and surprisingly, approachable. Maybe that's why we think she's become America's top or one of the top Psychotherapist and a multi-time Bestselling Author. Her new book is out, and it’s called 13 things Mentally Strong People Don't Do Workbook. So in this episode, we dive into all that and find out ways to tactically bolster our own mental strength as we go along. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. A Quick Update on Amy Morin Amy has been a guest before in Follow Your Different, and since then she has written new things and accomplished so much more. While Amy has many years of experience and success as a psychotherapist and writer, she quickly found herself with new inspiration and multiple inputs when Covid struck the world. Given the mental strain of worrying about a pandemic, the additional factor of having to stay home and people being exposed to a plethora of terrible news on TV, as well as the helplessness of being unable to do anything, did a number on everyone. Amy realized that she was in a unique position of having the knowledge to assist and a way to share that knowledge through her podcasts and later, in print. As a result, she has written a few works on how to deal with mentally demanding situations and stress, and she recently released a workbook on how to boost one's mental strength. Mental Health Podcast or Therapy? Amy shares that sometimes, their mental health podcast turns into an impromptu psychotherapy session – not just for the guest, but as well as the listeners who are going through the same situation in their own ways. When asked about the difference between podcasting and her psychotherapy sessions, Amy admits that there are times that those two seem to blur together, yet she thinks it is important to keep a distinction. Sometimes, the therapist in me wants to respond one way, and then I'm like, but there's people listening. So you need to respond in another way. So I'm always very aware of that, like, ‘Oh, am I gonna respond to this a little bit differently. And I want to be empathetic’. But at the same time, I didn't want to open up a can of worms for somebody who forgets that this is a podcast. I don't want to ever make it seem like we're getting them to open up in a way to then take advantage of them.” – Amy Morin The importance of having a healthy amount of Not-Give-A-Shit Attitude We then talk about what it is like to have a public following, and how having a healthy amount of no-give-a-shit attitude helps wonders with their own mental health. Amy agrees with this, and shares that she recently did a podcast about the topic of bad mental health advice you might be getting in social media. She had wanted to explore the topic more, and even go so much as contact those who posted the now-viral meme “advice”. But she didn't go through with it in the end. At the end of the day, all she'd gain is a migraine from arguing with people who don't care. She would rather focus on her own inner peace and work on other topics for her own podcast. To hear more from Amy Morin and how to bolster your mental strength to take on the world, download and listen to this episode. Bio

311 The Future of American Healthcare with Dr. Ashwini Zenooz, CEO of Commure Apr 03, 2023

All of us want the best healthcare for our families, our communities, and our country. But Legacy approaches and technologies in the United States often stop our healthcare heroes from being able to deliver the legendary care they want to deliver. So let us have a dialogue about this and much more with our guest, Dr. Ashwini Zenooz. Dr. Ashwini Zenooz is a radiologist who became the chief medical officer of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. She then joined the technology industry, and became the chief medical officer at Salesforce.com. Dr. Ash is now the CEO of Commure, a venture-backed startup on a mission to produce a breakthrough in digital health. Her achievements thus far have been incredible, and we hope that her personal story will inspire you. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Dr. Ashwini Zenooz on the current state of COVID The conversation starts of with a question for Dr. Ash on the current state of COVID, particularly if we are past the crisis part of it. Dr. Ash responds that there’s still a lot of things to look into, as COVID has not only affected our healthcare, but different parts of society and fields as well. “I would say it's yet to be seen. I think it's not just the healthcare part. There's a lot of other implications from the pandemic that were seeping into with the economy. There's a lot of stuff that's happening around us that's related or as a result of the pandemic. So it's yet to be seen. But yeah, I would say that at least the crisis is over.” – Dr. Ashwini Zenooz On how the US fared in the COVID pandemic As much as it hurts to say, Dr. Ash shares that there were things that the US could have done better on. She thinks its partly because we try to “reinvent the wheel” every time there’s an epidemic or pandemic. As a society, we have had a lot of ways to learn how to properly respond and mitigate the damages, yet we tend to commit the same mistakes over and over again once it happens. What's even more frustrating from a healthcare standpoint is our lack of concern for future occurrences. When a major healthcare issue is resolved, it appears that no one is interested in researching how to prevent the next case, or what to do if the next one would be on a larger scale than the one before. It’s like we only care to look back once the current one is already at our doorstep. Dr. Ashwini Zenooz on masks and vaccines On the topic of preventive measure, Dr. Ash was asked about what she thought about wearing masks and taking the vaccine. For mask-wearing, Dr. Ash shares that for her, it is a personal choice. Even if airlines and public spaces don’t require you to wear them anymore, she opts to wear them because she wants to. For her, having that extra precaution for a little inconvenience is not a big deal, but she wouldn’t be offended if she sees someone not wearing one in a public place. For vaccines, her thoughts as a layperson or a simple mom is that there would be more documentation or data available to the public on the tests that were done that passed the approval of the FDA, and have someone who can explain it to the general public. This avoids confusion and misinformation from spreading out, and less hesitation for asking assistance when someone eventually decides to finally get their vaccines. To hear more from Dr. Ashwini Zenooz and the future of American healthcare, download and listen to this episode. Bio Ashwini Zenooz, M.D. Dr. Ashwini Zenooz is the CEO of Commure, a venture-backed technology company dedicated to building a health ecosystem rooted in collaborative care and connected innovation. Prior to Commure, Dr. Zenooz was Chief Medical Officer at Salesforce. Dr. Zenooz was also the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) overseeing the national EHR modernization program,

310 The Work/Life Flywheel with Bestselling Author Ollie Henderson Mar 27, 2023

Almost everybody wants to design a legendary life and make a difference, but it can be harder than it sounds. On this episode, you’ll get a very different conversation about designing a life with meaningful work that works for you. And who better to have this conversation than with our guest, Ollie Henderson. Ollie Henderson is an entrepreneur, CEO, and bestselling author of the book called “The Work/Life Flywheel”. He is a great guy, and we really get into a heartfelt conversation about how we can all design the legendary life for ourselves. By the end of this episode, we hope you’ll have some new tools for living your life, your way. You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go. Ollie Henderson on Work/Life Balance The conversation starts off with the two agreeing on how much they “love” work/life balance. Ollie responds that he had kept a few choice words in the book that his editor would rather not have, but it was important to the point Ollie was making. That being said, Ollie shares that his issue with Work/Life balance is just a term people used to oversimply a supposedly complex matter in our lives, mostly due to laziness and have something easy to adhere to, like a schedule or a task to do. “I think the thing about work life balance is that it's a lazy feeling that we all have. It's something we think we should adhere to. Like, ‘yeah, we should all have better work life balance’, and it kind of makes sense. It has the best intentions, but it's frankly, wrong. It doesn't make sense.” – Ollie Henderson Work vs Life Another thing that Ollie pointed out is that the semantics of the word is also all wrong. Work/Life Balance conjures up the image of you pitting up Work versus Life; that you cannot have both at the same time, and that one of them is better than the other. “I think when people say they aspire for work/life balance, what they’re saying is, ‘I am going to place work in life against one another, because work is bad and life is good. And if I can't find this equilibrium, then my life is not complete’.” – Ollie Henderson The issue is that statement is not true for every individual, and there is no one-and-done balancing to be done. Nobody has achieved that precise equilibrium, because it doesn’t work like a countermeasure of one over the other. Work/Life Flywheel Christopher adds that we have to reject the notion of work and life are compartmentalized in different sections, and we somehow need to balance them on weighing scales. There is only “Life”, and we do a lot of things in that life. So if not Work/Life Balance, what then? Ollie shares that there are some who use the term “integration” to add a new perspective to it. For him, he prefers to use the term “Flywheel”, because it entails that everything he does in life are interdependent of each other. “It's this idea that there isn't a single part of your work your life that is any more important than the other; they're all interdependent. For me, when I'm doing great work and I'm happy at work, I'm a better person, I'm a better dad, I'm a better partner. And when I'm a better partner and a better dad, that manifests more in my work.” – Ollie Henderson To hear more from Ollie Henderson and the Work/Life Flywheel, download and listen to this episode. Bio Ollie Henderson Experienced founder and CEO, Ollie Henderson, pivoted his career while juggling the pleasures and pressures of raising a young family. He believes work/life balance is a myth. Rather than seeing career and personal life as two opposing forces, Ollie argues that the secret is to design an integrated approach that allows them to work in harmony. Ollie's weekly newsletter and Top 10 Careers podcast, Future Work/Life, provides news and analysis to thousands of people interested in the future of work,

309 Ancient Wisdom For A Modern America with Simran Jeet Singh, Bestselling Author of “The Light We Give” & Aspen Institute Religion & Society Executive Director Mar 20, 2023

Have you ever had a conversation with someone where you feel very lucky to have been able to meet and talk to that person? My conversation with our guest, Dr. Simran Jeet Singh, felt like just that. Simran Jeet Singh, PhD is the Executive Director of the Religion and Society Program at the world-famous Aspen Institute. He's also the author of a new national bestseller, called The Light We Give: How Sikh wisdom can transform your life. You're listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let's go. Dr. Simran Jeet Singh on Sikh Wisdom The conversation starts with one of the major proponents that Dr. Simran shares to everyone, which is Sikh wisdom. He defines it as such: “I think Sikh wisdom is these experiences and insights that people before us have developed and we have access to if we want. And one of our choices is do we want to learn all the lessons the hard way, or do we want to step into these treasures that are already available to us. It is the Sikh philosophy and traditions that I didn’t really learn to appreciate until I got older and started meeting real challenges in my life.” – Dr. Simran Jeet Singh Dr. Simran used these Sikh wisdom in moments of his life where he felt huge struggles and difficulties to guide himself into the person that he wants to be. The Challenges of being Different On such moment was when the events during 9/11 occurred, and the whole country was, in many ways, suffering a collective sense of trauma. It was a vulnerable feeling that people of the United States did not think they would feel. But the feeling of vulnerability was even more so for Dr. Simran and his community. “In this moment of extreme difficulty for our country, of extreme anger and violence, all of a sudden, I and people belonging to my community fell into the stereotype of how Americans saw their enemy. And so that, I think, is partly what felt so difficult in this moment: on the one hand, I felt like I was an American and belonged here and was going through the same trauma as everyone else. Yet at the same time, so many people around me, my fellow Americans would look at me and be like, “no, no, you're not one of us here.”” – Dr. Simran Jeet Singh It hurts doubly for Dr. Simran, as he understands the pain and vulnerability that they are experiencing, as someone who has lived in the US for quite some time. But at the same time, the hate created by the almost-kneejerk reaction that some had afterwards was something that his community and others did not deserve, simply because they were different. Dr. Simran Jeet Singh on educating the masses Dr. Simran believes that this reaction is fear born from ignorance, and is something that could be remedied by educating the people on what the Sikh ideologies and culture really stand for. Sometimes, he would be surprised that an average American doesn’t know where Punjab is, let alone what a Sikh was. That gave Dr. Simran a sense of where he needed to start. Even before educating about the different cultures and ideologies, they might not even have an idea of where you came from, and they have been making assumptions about your culture based on the wrong information. To hear more from Dr. Simran Jeet Singh and Sikh wisdom, download and listen to this episode. Bio Simran Jeet Singh PhD is Executive Director for the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program and author of The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. He is a visiting professor of history and religion at Union Theological Seminary and a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations, and in 2020 TIME Magazine recognized him among sixteen people fighting for a more equal America. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, and he is a columnist for Religion News Service. Author of the award-winning children’s book Fauja Singh...

308 Silicon Valley: What Happened & What People Are Confused About Mar 13, 2023

It's been a crazy handful of days in Silicon Valley. But now that the federal government has made their announcements and has the ball rolling, I wanted to spend a few minutes with you just clarifying some things that seem to be creating confusion in the recent Silicon Valley Bank situation. There seems to be more confusion about what just happened with the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and what the federal government just did as there was about COVID. So let me see if I can break this down for all of you. There is no Bank Bailout for the Silicon Valley Bank Let me say that again: there was no bank bailout here. The executives got fired. None of the investors, creditors, nobody doing business with the bank, in that sense, are getting any of their money back, particularly the investors in the board. The Silicon Valley Bank is gone. The Effect on the US Finance The President has said that this will not cost taxpayers’ money. You may choose to believe it or not, but that is the current position of the government on the matter. What they’re saying is if there’s any protection money required, it will come from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC is an insurance company managed by the federal government, which is paid for by Wall Street and the banks. They pay insurance fees to the FDIC for drastic instances such as these. Making that point clear as soon as possible was a good move by the federal government, because if they have wavered in their decision to do so, twisted narratives about bank bailouts and conjuring the past instances of it happening would have been a bad blow to the US government's image. The Silicon Valley Bank Depositors will get their money back White there’s no direct timetable for when the depositors can get their full funds back, the federal government, via the FDIC, came in and said that they will make sure that the people will get 100% of their money back. Here’s where most of the confusion lie at the moment, because there are some who spin the narrative like this resembles the recent FTX crash. But unlike the FTX crash where the money is in large parts gone, the Silicon Valley Bank’s money is still there. The main issue at the moment is that there were some horrendous mistakes in investing the money, which caused it to be stuck and become inaccessible at the moment. So when a bank run happened, they didn't have enough cash. And that's what caused this. But the money is still there, unless we learn otherwise after the ongoing investigations. To hear more updates and suggestions on how Silicon Valley, the federal government, and the FDIC can prevent such a crisis from happening again, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

307 Silicon Valley & 5 Crisis Marketing / Communications Principles Mar 12, 2023

Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse went off like a bomb on March 10th 2023. And I want to reach out to you and essentially share with you the conversations that I've been having with many friends, many entrepreneurs, many VCs, in the last 24 hours or so. That said, let's talk about what's really going on; specifically, what the media talking heads and idiot, ‘thought leaders’ on the internet are getting very, very wrong. Second, we’ll discuss a few ideas on what you can do immediately to shore up your situation if you are a Silicon Valley Bank customer, or even if you are working in the tech world. And then thirdly, let's talk about the crisis from the perspective of your company, and what you can do moving forward. The Silicon Valley Bank Collapse As of now, what is clear is that Silicon Valley Bank went down in part, because of some combination of getting caught in a cash crunch. It appears they made some bad long term bond decisions at low interest rates. And as you know, the US government has been raising interest rates from about 0.25% roughly a year ago, to about 4.75% now a year later. This has caught a lot of people off guard. This is not to say there wasn't a mistake on SVB’s part, but what we do know is that there were some combination of over investing in long term bonds, and the interest rates going up that aggravated the problem. Here’s a link to the Wall Street Journal article breaking all of what has happened so far. Media and Thought Leaders’ “thoughts” on the matter First of all, there’s a thread growing around that says, “Oh, this is the billionaires in Silicon Valley doing corrupt things, and now they're getting their comeuppance.” This is not the case. If there was something incompetent or illegal that took place in the Silicon Valley Bank, we’ll find out once the investigations are done. But for now, it is affecting a lot of people in the space, and not just those billionaires they are harping about. This is not some cash crunch hurting billionaires. It is hurting the people who didn't get paid on Friday, because their employer just froze their bank. This is the entrepreneur who DM me on Twitter yesterday saying they have their entire 20 million of VC funding at SVB, and asking what they can do now. These entrepreneurs and CEOs don't know how they're going to pay their people, don't know how they're going to pay their bills. It appears that the FDIC is saying that people will get their guaranteed 250,000 on Monday, but over 90% of the deposits in this bank are in excess of that. So it's really not much protection. And while it seems that much of this money will come back to its rightful owner, it's not clear what percentage and in what timeframe. Running a business with no money is fucking hard. And that's what's going on here. To learn more about the Silicon Valley Bank situation and how your business can cope with crisis of this magnitude, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

306 Beat The Odds: From Abused Orphan to Loving Father with Peter Mutabazi, Bestselling Author: Now I Am Known Mar 06, 2023

When we come face to face with the raw enormity of the human spirit, it can be truly stunning. And when we encounter a person who is so magnanimous, they inspire us to ask questions like, “What could I do?” Today on Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk to one such person, Peter Mutabazi. Peter grew up in shocking poverty, was called garbage and physically abused by his father. He ran away from home, and by 10 years of age became a “street kid” in the capital of Uganda Kampala. Today, Peter lives in America, and he's living a legendary life as a foster dad. He is also running a foundation called I Am Known Foundation, and his mission is to help increase foster parenting to help care for the most vulnerable children in our country. By the end of this episode, you will gain a visceral understanding of how a person can literally traverse from the worst imaginable situations as a child to achieving success, happiness, and a deep sense of what he calls true worth. Peter Mutabazi on Teenage Adoption The conversation starts off on the topic of adoption, particularly on teenage adoption. While most of the conversations about adoption revolve around adoption as a child, teenage adoption is very rarely talked about. For Peter, this age period is particularly vulnerable for them, as they prepare to be part of society when they become 18. If there was no one to guide these teenagers, then they would have nowhere to go afterwards, and no way to establish themselves. “When you're 15 and you have only three years left in the foster care system, and you have nowhere to go, it's critical for anyone to step up and guide you to the world you've never lived, that you don't know. So I feel like they're the most vulnerable and need the most talk.” – Peter Mutabazi Peter also comments that teenage adoptees are easier to be with. This might be due to the fact that they can pretty much handle themselves in their day-to-day lives, provided that they have the support and resources to do so. Peter Mutabazi on his Origin Story Peter tells the story of his youth in a village called Kabaddi, which was located at the border of Uganda and Rwanda. From the get-go, life was harsh to them, as even the basic necessities are hard to come by at times. Peter shares that he wasn’t even given a name until he was 3 years old, as the survival rate of babies was so low, they did not want to give them names and form attachments before they are sure that he could survive. “I also got to learn that I didn't have a name until when I was three years old. Why? Because for every 100 children were born in my village 60 would die before the age of two. So most moms were afraid to name a child because they didn't want to get attached.” – Peter Mutabazi To add another layer of difficulty to all that, Peter’s father was what you’d call abusive, in every sense of the world. Peter quips that in a normal family, even if you suffer through hardships, there’s always some comfort of knowing that you have a home to return to. In his case, it was the most agonizing place to be in because of his father. So at the young age of 10, Peter decided that he had had enough. He ran away from home. To hear more from Peter Mutabazi and his story of growing up with an abusive father to being the father to those in dire need of it, download and listen to this episode. Bio Peter Mutabazi Peter Mutabazi is an entrepreneur, an international advocate for children, and the founder of Now I Am Known, a corporation that supplies resources to encourage and affirm children. A single father and foster dad, Mutabazi is a former street kid who has worked for World Vision, Compassion International, and the Red Cross. He has appeared on media outlets such as the BBC and The TODAY Show and continues to be a passionate speaker. He currently lives in Charlotte, North. Links Connect with Peter Mutabazi! NowIAmKnownFoundation.org | Now I Am Known | Facebook | Instagram

305 How To Design A Legendary Career, Company, And Category with Gail Moody-Byrd of LinkedIn (Part 2) Feb 27, 2023

This is part two of a very special Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different series that we are doing on how to design a legendary career, company and category. This two-part series is a masterclass on how to have a legendary career in technology from 2 different perspectives. On this episode, we have a dialogue with the amazing Gail Moody-Byrd. Gail Moody-Byrd is the head of Marketing for LinkedIn Sales Solution Group. And the job that she's done there on category design is truly a stunner. I myself have known and done some work with Gail in the past, and she's also worked with my friends and adopted brothers from Category Design Advisors. If you've ever wanted to know how to drive massive big change inside a massive big organization to make a massive big difference, you're in the right place. You're also going to learn what it took for a Harvard MBA to become a successful category designer, and get executive management bought in and participating in a massive new strategic initiative like category design. There are many people who would easily pay $25,000 to have lunch with Gail, and today you got her for free and on repeat. We hope you'll enjoy this conversation as much as we did. Creating a New Category in LinkedIn The conversation starts off with acknowledging that Gail Moody-Byrd has done something extraordinarily rare in the business – which is to have implemented a category design approach within a monster corporation, which is within an even bigger monster corporation. This is because normally when you think of implementing category design in a business, it is usually done by startups and entrepreneurship, which may develop later on to a category business leader. Though it is not unheard of, it’s highly unusual for a megacorporation to attempt such a thing. But according to Gail, it all stems from the culture within LinkedIn itself, where they are encouraged to pursue and grow their business the way they see fit, almost like the same energy as a startup would, but with the backing of a monster corporation behind it. So when Gail joined the LinkedIn Sales Solutions Group, they already had the idea of finding something to elevate their status and “get their mojo back”. And Gail was just the spark they were looking for. Gail Moody-Byrd on the Curiosity of LinkedIn Christopher shares his experience with introducing Category Design to big corporations, and the less than successful results he would get a times. This is because major corporations tend to stay rigid and not dive into new ideas that easily, especially if their current product or service still has a huge share of the market at the moment. Gail agrees with this and adds that while LinkedIn may seem like the same on the outside, it has this inherent curiosity within that lets their people explore new ideas, as long as it stays within company guidelines and has the data to back it up. “The beauty of LinkedIn is that they gave me the liberty to explore some of those ideas. There's a curiosity within LinkedIn that I appreciate. We're so market driven, and interactive, always looking for new ideas. And so the amount of support and the extreme receptivity to the conversation was, frankly, shocking to me.” – Gail Moody-Byrd Evolving the Platform through Category Design Gail Mood-Byrd then talks about LinkedIn Sales Solutions, and its growth and changes over the years. It was created 10-11 years ago to enable salespeople in the b2b space to connect on the LinkedIn platform with people who might need their services. Over the years, it has grown from being a way to connect with potential buyers and fielding available talents, to something backed by support and data science to help you find the information and the system actively looking non-stop for related data to your inquiries and target audience. It has also gone from one-way communication, to something akin to an active conversation between potential buyers and sellers; all in a trusted network like ...

304 How To Design A Legendary Career, Company, And Category with Joe Sexton (Part 1) Feb 20, 2023

This episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different is part of a very special two-part series that we are doing on how to design a legendary career, company and category. This two-part series is a masterclass on how to have a legendary career in technology from 2 different perspectives. On this episode, we have a dialogue with the legendary Joe Sexton. Joe Sexton has been a material contributor to creating well over $40 billion in market value over his legendary career. He's one of the most legendary sales revenues and frankly, overall company leaders I've met or ever had the pleasure of working with. There are many people who would easily pay $25,000 to have lunch with Joe, and today you got him for free and on repeat. So sit back and let this conversation take you into new heights and ideas in the next hour or so. How to Change to Conversation in Tech Industries Christopher and Joe reminisce on the time they spent working together, what they learned from each other during that time, and how they were able to apply what they had learned from each other to their own practices after they pursued their own paths. For Joe Sexton, it was all about changing the conversation about things. Whether he went to McAfee, CrowdStrike, and other different fields in tech, his understanding in improving their business and becoming business leaders in their respective categories was on how to change the conversation, i.e. making a radical change in the usual perspective of a certain product, or creating a new one for a problem that people didn’t think of solving before. Know What You Know, and Execute Joe Sexton has taken may advisory roles over the course of his career, and have heard from CEOs that doesn’t seem to know what exactly their company does, or what they do in it. “I've spoken literally to well over 100 CEOs in my board role. I’ve heard pitch after pitch after pitch, and 99 times out of 100, after a half hour of passionate talk and presentation by the CEO, I say, “I've been doing these 35 years, and I don't understand what you said. I mean, I only understand what you do.”” – Joe Sexton On the other hand, Joe has also worked with people who knew what they were good at, and got his help so they could focus on the thing they’re good at, rather than stretching themselves thin. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you only stay on that level for the rest of your company’s development, but learning where you can help your business grow, especially during its start, can spell success or failure in startups and the like. Joe Sexton on Creating Your Opportunities When asked about how he would create opportunities for himself when he got started, Joe replies that that is one of the questions that young people ask him. To answer the question, Joe shares that one must have a good track record on their field and the data to back it up. Because when it’s time to compete in the market, these two things will speak for themselves, rather than coming up with a soft pitch and hoping for the best. It’s like explaining what you are worth to a company or a potential investor, without needing to resort to technical babble or telling your story from scratch. Having that track record and reputation and the data to back it up means that they have something to look into before you even meet, and that could put them at ease. To learn more about How To Design A Legendary Career, Company, And Category, download and listen to this episode. Bio Joe Sexton Mr. Joe Sexton is an accomplished technology executive who’s been part of creating over $40 billion in value. He’s served as CEO, President, CRO and SVP, advisor and/or board member for more than a dozen category designing technology firms. He is the former President of Worldwide Field Operations at AppDynamics. ($3.7B purchase by Cisco) Prior to AppDynamics, he spent significant time in senior leadership roles at McAfee ($5B public co), Mercury Interactive ($4.

303 Why The Future Belongs To Intellectual Capitalists on Cloud Wars Live Feb 13, 2023

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead, Follow Your Different, we are going to drop a conversation that I recently had with my dear friend, one of the smartest guys in tech, Bob Evans, on his podcast, Cloud Wars Live. If you work in technology, what Bob and his guests have to say is fascinating, illuminating, and, frankly, agenda-setting. If you're a regular reader of Category Pirates, you'll know that we've been writing about intellectual capitalists and the emergence of a whole new human category, Native Digitals, for quite some time. We believe this is an extremely important topic, and we believe that the emergence of the intellectual capitalist as the highest value role in the work world above that of what has historically been the highest value job you can have in the working world, which is the knowledge worker, is particularly significant. Because those of us who will thrive not just survive in the future, we'll move beyond acquiring knowledge and getting paid to apply that knowledge to getting paid to create and monetize new categories of intellectual capital, new categories of knowledge, new categories of thinking, which can be turned into new products and services. The Story of the Hummingbird The conversation starts off with Christopher telling the story of the Hummingbird and his Sensei Sutton. His sensei is an amazing martial artist and a badass individual, but at a certain point in his life, he had to overcome many adversities before getting to where he is now. “So the moral of the story is in life – Sometimes you're the hummingbird and sometimes you're the sensei. But Sooner or later, we all need somebody to catch us tightly enough not to hurt us, but strongly enough to save us.” – Christopher Lochhead In life, we will absolutely be in situations where we are the hummingbird. But the real question is, when we have an opportunity to be the Sensei, will we will we meet the call? ChatGPT and the Death of the Knowledge Worker Christopher then talks about the current boom in AI technology, particularly on the topic of ChatGPT and similar AI generated content. Much like how machinery and Automation have taken over some aspects of labor from men, this new AI technology seems to be crowding in the profession of Knowledge Worker. While it may not be up to par with certain intricacies to date, it is quickly learning and becoming better over a short period of time. And much like the service workers of the past have to learn to adapt to new technology, Knowledge Workers also have to follow the trend and evolve, paving the way to what we call Intellectual Capitalists. Intellectual Capitalist So what is an Intellectual Capitalist? For Christopher, it’s someone who doesn’t just collect information and apply it like a knowledge worker, but someone who actually generates net-new knowledge. It could be from their experience while working on a certain field that makes them faster, more efficient, or outright the best in that field. In one word, an Intellectual Capitalist has Leverage over other people who are in the same field, but can’t do it better or even as good as them. An Intellectual Capitalist should also not be only bound to current categories and ideologies. If there is an idea worth pursuing, it’s not enough to learn why it hasn’t been done before. One should also look through it with what we have today, and if the rapidly-growing pace of technology will be able to support it and when. To hear more about the dialogue about AI and the Intellectual Capitalist, download and listen to this episode. Bio Bob Evans Founder of Cloud Wars and Co-Founder of the Acceleration Economy, Bob leads the strategic direction of the global analyst network and actively covers the Cloud and Digital Business categories. Creator of Cloud Wars Top 10, a ranking and ongoing analysis world's most influential tech companies driving digital business and the digital economy. World-class strategic communicator focused on emerging bus...

302 How To Start Strong & Win Big with Floodgate Investor Carly Malatskey Feb 06, 2023

Position yourself or be positioned has long been one of my favorite expressions. Most people think of life as something that happens to us, and that we have no agency to design our lives. It turns out, successful people like our guest Carly Malatskey, tends to think differently from that. They learn to create and seize upon opportunity before they succeed, they position themselves for success. Carly Malatskey hosts the SheLeads podcast, which is a podcast network made by women for women. Carly is also a two-time Stanford National Soccer champion, and has also started off her career as a new Venture Capital Investor at the legendary Floodgate in Silicon Valley. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, what you're about to experience is a real dialogue about how to seek out legendary mentors and surround yourself with legendary people. We also talk about what it takes to win championships at the highest level, and how to start your career in a strong, powerful way and much, much more. Carly Malatskey on Starting a Podcast The conversation starts off with Carly being asked as to why she started her own podcast, and the types of dialogues she wants to have in it. Carly explains that she has always loved listening to podcasts. But she also thought that as a young leader, she has the opportunity to talk to other leaders in different fields, and have a conversation from the view point of a young woman who has the youthful energy of coming out of the academe but still has a lot to learn and experience in the field. This also comes at the cusp of COVID, so she along with countless leaders and individuals are currently stuck at home and pretty much open to doing conversations over zoom and the like. It just seemed to Carly that it was the right time to take a chance at it and reach out to different types of people so they can share their experiences with her and other young aspiring leaders. SheLeads Podcast: A Podcast for Women by Women Carly shares that one aspect of SheLeads podcast is that it is from the perspective of incredible female leaders in different fields and industries. “I talked to Olympians, founders, lawyers, and I thought, “why not have this aspect where these women are also talking to someone like me?” And thinking of how they started their career, what were their first steps, or how were they thinking through their career.” – Carly Malatskey Men and Women Communicate Differently When asked about the saying that men and women communicate differently, Carly shares her thoughts on the matter. For Carly, it's much more natural for women to sit across from someone and really just sit for hours, talking. The topics could range from their experiences this past week or so, something that worries them in the future, or their feelings about certain matters. For men, they need an activity to distract them from the fact that they’re actually sharing their thoughts with another individual. It’s almost like it’s an excuse to talk and bond over something, though it was their original intention to begin with. Carly found the question quite interesting, and was even thinking if there was a scientific reasoning for these types of behaviors. To hear more from Carly Malatskey on how to win big and start your career stronger, download and listen to this episode. Bio Carly Malatskey is an Investor at seed-stage VC firm, Floodgate. Prior to Floodgate, she earned her Bachelors in Science, Technology and Society from Stanford University and was a Mayfield Fellow at Stanford as well. She also played for the Stanford Women’s Soccer team for 4 years and won 2 National Championships! Shortly before graduating, she started a podcast called SheLeads with Carly, where she speaks to powerful female leaders from all industries. With 80+ episodes, she explores their unique paths to becoming leaders in their fields as well as the lessons they learned along the way. It is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

301 Pricing: A (Surprising) Super Power with Dr. Rafi Mohammed, Pricing Expert, HBR Contributor, and Author of The 1% Windfall Jan 23, 2023

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk about Pricing, and how it can be a Superpower. Our guest, Dr. Rafi Mohammed explains how pricing strategy is one of the most underused power levers in business, and why you should start using it. Dr. Rafi Mohammed has written over 90 articles on innovative pricing strategies for Harvard Business Review over the years. He is the author of The 1% Windfall: how successful companies use price to profit and grow and the art of pricing. Also, he has got a brand new HBR article out called Expand Your Pricing Paradigm. When the smartest people in business want to work strategically on pricing, they go to Dr. Rafi Mohammed. So this may well be a very, very valuable episode that could be a demarcation point for you personally and your business. Pricing is about Capturing Value This dialogue could not come at a more timely manner for Christopher, as there have been multiple questions and discussions with him with CEOs who are asking very deep questions about pricing. And while him suggesting to double the price was being outrageous, Dr. Rafi agreed to his point that Price should be a function of value. To calculate their profits, many businesses, in Dr. Rafi's opinion, erroneously use the formula "cost times a certain percentage," which he claims is fundamentally flawed. For Dr. Rafi, Pricing is all about capturing the value of the product or service. He gives a story about it to illustrate the point: “A little example I have of that, that sort of illustrates a story is street vendors in the middle of Central Park. The minute that it looks like it's gonna rain, many street vendors double the price of their umbrellas. But think about that: the doubling of price has three important thing components of pricing. First of all, it shows that price really doesn't have a correlation with cost. The second point is price is all about what is the customer's next best alternative. So if I'm in the middle of Central Park, I can hightail it to a local CVS six or seven blocks away, then get right on to buy an umbrella. Or I can have the convenience of it right now. And the third and most important point of that very simple story is pricing is all about thinking like a customer, how's your customer thinking?” – Dr. Rafi Mohammed Dr. Rafi Mohammed on Highlighting the Unique Value One of the common practices that is also observable in the tech and Silicon Valley industries is that they view their competitor’s price, and adjust accordingly if they think they are “better” or roughly competing on the same level. The issue that Dr. Rafi sees in this is that most companies only have a vague idea of the “advantages” that their companies have over their peers. Most do not pinpoint what makes their products or services “unique” from the rest, hence they have problems capturing and justifying the correct value for their product or services. This lack of definition also makes the market more spread out, as consumers have a harder time figuring out which one is the better alternative from each other. Highlighting the “uniqueness” or in some cases, the “premium” qualities of a certain business also helps consumers figure out if they’re getting a decent price for it, or just paying too much for a small added convenience. “Here's also the beauty of pricing. Even if you're not as good as is the next best alternative pricing come in to save the day? And you can sort of look at customers other eyes, they look, I get that don't have all the bells and whistles of this of this alternative that you're looking at. But is it really worth the 40% premium that they're charging over what I am? And I often tell people that if consumers always want the best, we'd all be driving Rolls Royces.” – Dr. Rafi Mohammed The Value of Category Design in Pricing Christopher then addresses the elephant in the room, which is how category design can affect the value and eventually the pricing of a product or servic...

300 Legendary Author Dushka Zapata Jan 16, 2023

Today marks the 300th episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. And who better to have a dialogue with on this episode than one of our very first guests in the podcast, the amazing Dushka Zapata. Dushka Zapata is a regular here on the podcast, and is one of my absolute favorite people in the world. She’s the author of many legendary books. Her most recent is called How to Write a Book: or tackle anything you find daunting, which is part of the How to be Ferociously Happy series. When she’s not writing, she has had an extraordinary career as a PR communications executive and coach. A Period of Creativity The dialogue starts off with a reversal of roles, as Dushka asks Christopher about how he has been, and congratulating him on his most recent works. Christopher attributes it to having partners in the craft in Eddie Yoon and Nicolas Cole. He feels grateful that he has been able to work with both in what he refers to as his “business writing band”. “I think in my case, on the writing side with Cole and with Eddie, when you have partners, we sort of feel like a band. We call ourselves a business writing band, in so far as we've committed to do work together for years, and do meaningful work over a meaningful amount of time. And while the three of us have other interests and do other things, we do the vast majority of our writing together. So what being in a creative band means is the quality of the work changes radically.” – Christopher Lochhead Christopher adds that while they have overlapping interests, they also each have expertise in other areas, which allows for a multiple perspective on what they write, and can reach out and connect to different audiences. Creativity as a Way to Connect with Yourself On the topic of connecting to people, Dushka shares that creativity in a way has a purpose of connecting you more with yourself. She also finds it wonderful that while you are doing so, other people can join you on that path of self-connection. “I feel like being connected to the part of me that creates, which in my case is mostly writing. But it can be anything. Creativity can be baking, or raising a child or anything that creates something from nothing. But I think it's us at our most us.” – Dushka Zapata Writing as a Superpower It usually is the case for people who create is that the more they get older, the less they create. Though it does not seem like it for Dushka, as she continues to write and share new things enthusiastically as time goes on. For Duskha, she feels like she has even become more creative as she grew older. Because for her, it’s something that she genuinely enjoys doing. “My relationship with writing is idyllic. I have heard great writers like Hemmingway say that you have to bleed at the keyboard. And I have never associated writing with anything that hurts. I have never felt frustrated with it. Or I've never experienced writer's block. I've never felt that I have to suffer at the keyboard or with my pencil. It's just pure joy. It always has been.” – Dushka Zapata To hear more from this amazing dialogue with Dushka Zapata, download and listen to this episode. Bio After working for more than 20 years in the communications industry, Dushka noticed a theme. People find it very difficult to articulate who they are and what they do. This holds true for both companies and for individuals. For companies, this is an impediment to the development of an identity, a reputation, a brand. It makes it hard for customers to see how companies are different from their competitors. For individuals, in a new world order of personal brands, it makes it hard to develop one that feels real. This is the focus of Dushka’s work: she helps companies and people put into simple terms who they are, what they do, and where to go next. Her work comes to life through message development, presentation training, media training and personal brand development. It comes to life through executive coaching,

299 Ukraine: How 3 Entrepreneurs Make A Massive Difference with Denys Gurak of A.D.A.M., Iryna Savytska of Bank of Memories, Dr Amarjot Singh of Skylark Labs Dec 19, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a much-needed conversation with Denys Gurak of A.D.A.M., Iryna Savytska of Bank of Memories, and Dr. Amarjot Singh of Skylark Labs about the commitment to make a difference and standing up for what you believe in. We also get into how entrepreneurs and startups in Ukraine are answering the call to help their homeland from within and beyond. Denys Gurak and his company A.D.A.M. is a pioneering 3D bio printing company whose primary focus is 3D-printing bones, with the hopes of using the technology to assist medical professionals in helping injured soldiers. Iryna Savytska is the CEO of Bank of Memories, which is a blockchain startup focused on allowing families to protect the memories of all their loved ones, as well as key documents and assets for the next generation. Dr Amarjot Singh is the founder and CEO of Skylark Labs, a company that is designing a new category of next gen AI powered security products that can detect and save people from drone attacks and other threats. These three entrepreneurs and category designers prove the axiom, “Everything is the way that it is because somebody changed the way that it was.” And they are changing the way that it is. All startups on this episode are mentored by the Global Ukraine Foundation. The Global Ukraine Foundation is a community of VCs and Founders who support Ukraine and other tech founders around the world. A Snapshot of life in Ukraine The conversation begins with a question about the current conditions inside of Ukraine, and what are the immediate concerns that the public needs to know and help with if they can. Iryna shares the news of the recent rocket barrage by Russia, which was quite a dangerous yet almost routine for them nowadays. One of the things that hit the most is the current conditions in Ukraine, where they are forced to rely on generators to get electricity and water, things that people in the 21st century shouldn’t be worrying about anymore. She also describes the situation in some areas outside Kyiv, where looting and robbing houses have been happening. Most are being done by Russian soldiers, but there have also been other unscrupulous people taking advantage of the confusion around them to loot and steal. Physically away, mentally in Ukraine Denys Gurak talks about his experience living outside of Ukraine and seeing what is happening on the ground from the outside looking in. He shares that a lot of Ukrainians he knows who are also living in the US feels a certain guilt that they’re not there and physically support their families and countrymen. But he says that rather than wallow in guilt, it’s better to convert it into somethings productive and helpful for their countrymen, and do whatever they can even from a distance. When asked if it was a fucked-up thing for a young entrepreneur like themselves to be thinking about war and what to do about it, Denys has this to say: “Actually, it gives you experience and makes you stronger. I mean, you have to try to switch any situation from a problem to an opportunity. Otherwise, you can just sit at home on the couch and do nothing. And for many of us, that's not an option now, is it?” – Denys Gurak Dealing with Drones Dr Amarjot Singh talks about drones, particularly on what they are developing at Skylark Labs. Their aim is to use drones on the side of Ukraine to help guiding systems and give a pre-emptive warning to people that Russian drones have been sighted in the vicinity. One of the issues with the usual procedures is that drones usually flight high and are hard to find using conventional means. Skylark aims to counter this with drones of their own, but focus on counteroffensive rather than escalation. That said, this technology can eventually help in surveillance and exploration of certain areas, especially once it has been developed to withstand different weather and abrasive conditions. Dr.

298 Is Sam Bankman-Fried the Crypto Madoff? with “Madoff Talks” Bestselling Author Jim Campbell Dec 12, 2022

Given recent events in the world of Cryptocurrency, almost everyone in business is currently pondering the following question: Is Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of the crypto exchange FTX, the Bernie Madoff of Crypto? Or is he merely an entrepreneur who made some horrible errors? Today at Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we are joined by the legendary Jim Campbell to examine this question. Jim Campbell is the author of the bestselling definitive book on Bernie Madoff called Madoff Talks. We did a deep dive with him on the book and on the topic of Madoff himself. Check it out if you’re interested in how Madoff manipulated everything before it all fell apart (FYD 217). On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we go deep with Jim Campbell on the similarities and the differences on old school scammers like Bernie Madoff and the disaster that is Sam Bankman-Fried and the fate of FTX. Jim Campbell on Sam Bankman-Fried: Madoff 2.0 or not? The dialogue starts off direct to the point: is Sam Bankman-Fried Madoff 2.0? Jim responds that there are similarities but also differences between the two. The biggest similarities is that both Madoff and Bankman-Fried comingled their firm and customer assets to boost the value of its company, with Bankman going so far as to use said money to create more connections in the tech, business, and even so far as government and politics. Both were also involved in something like a Ponzi scheme, though FTX allegedly took it a step further by using its own FTX tokens as collateral to further increase its own valuation, which is a form of market manipulation. The baffling behavior of Sam Bankman-Fried When you are accused of a crime as big as the one Sam Bankman-Fried is currently facing, it’s normal to avoid the public eye for a while, and make no statements unless in the presence of their lawyer, lest they say something incriminating. Which is why Sam Bankman-Fried’s behavior baffles everyone, as he goes so far as guest for certain podcasts and interviews. Yet he still had the arrogance and audacity to say that he didn’t know what he has done would result in a loss of $32 billion dollars for their investors and consumers. Jim Campbell on doing your due diligence The thing is, there were a lot of questionable aspects to FTX, once you dug into their model. Unfortunately, doing the due diligence seems to be a rare thing nowadays, due to the fear of missing out. With the boom of crypto in the latter half of the 2010s and even more so during the pandemic, investors wanted to hop it to latest coin or token, should it increase in value exponentially like what happened to Bitcoin. Some tech companies and businesses are also guilty in this regard. Take for example on what happened to Theranos. Businesses were so eager to jump in even with just a concept, because they think it’ll be more expensive to establish connections and partnerships later on. Some were dazzled by the names attached to the concept, others by the “projected” earnings should it be developed. In the end, they all lost their investments because they couldn’t be bothered to do their due diligence beforehand. To hear more from Jim Campbell, download and listen to this episode. Bio Jim Campbell is the host of the nationally syndicated radio show Business Talk with Jim Campbell. He is known for his hard-hitting interviews of leading figures from the worlds of business, politics, and sports. Known for “firsts,” Campbell snagged the first extensive interview with former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer after his resignation, the first interview with former Tyco CEO Denis Kozlowski after his release from prison, and the first broadcast interview with former stock analyst Roomy Kahn, a government informant in one of the biggest insider trading busts in American history. Campbell’s extensive corporate, consulting, and entrepreneurial business background includes roles at KPMG Consulting,

297 GrubHub: Bedroom Start Up To Billion Dollar Category King with Mike Evans, Grubhub Founder & Author of Hangry Dec 05, 2022

Plato once said that Necessity is the mother of Invention. This could not be anymore true with Category Design, and for our guest today, Mike Evans. Mike Evans is the founder of Grubhub, a category in food delivery service that was born from the necessity of having a multitude of options in one app, rather than having to look for it in different websites or printed pamphlets. From a budding delivery guide, Mike grew his company into a premier delivery ordering platform, and became Category King in this regard. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we go through Mike Evans’ journey, from the spark of the idea to managing a successful startup and beyond. Mike Evans on the inception of Grubhub The conversation starts off with Mike sharing how their love for great food made them a big fan of ordering. “I live in a household with a woman who loves to cook. Because we like to eat, sometimes we don't feel like cooking. And when I say we, I mean her – I helped mildly. And maybe it's because we're getting a little older or whatever, sometimes you just don't feel like the rigmarole of going out to a restaurant and sitting down and that. And there’s this magical ability to press a button on your Star Trek communicator and have a very nice person show up at your house with some very warm food from one of your favorite local restaurants. It's a fucking miracle.” – Mike Evans Grubhub came at a time that the home internet is still finding its foothold in everyone’s household, and is one of the first few apps you’ll find in the App Store. Necessity brings Innovation But as the idea might seem like a simple one nowadays, it’s surprising that we haven’t thought of it sooner, even as a simple website or catalog. Of course, there was the yellow pages, but it’s not like there’s a dedicated section there for restaurants, and the numbers aren’t always updated. And you still have to resort to pamphlets to find out what’s on the menu, so can be quite redundant. “I just wanted to find who delivered to me, and the Yellow Pages was a terrible, a terrible way to organize that information. It was just alphabetical sorted for the whole city and Chicago is 25 miles tall and 3 miles wide. And so the restaurants that deliver to the White Sox area, don't deliver to the cubby area. Not useful to see it in a in a big Yellow Pages book. And so that was the original idea.” – Mike Evans While there were some restaurants that were doing online ordering at the time, it wasn’t what Mike has originally had in mind. He just wanted to have the location and contact details of a restaurant, as well as and updated menu of what they offer. Eventually they would expand Grubhub to be an ordering platform as well, but that’s a few years down the road. Mike Evans: Content comes first Now that he has the idea for it, the next step was creating the business and driving traffic into it. Mike Evans explains that the common trap among starting business that bridge two markets together is that they often cater to just one end or the other. According to Mike, before you even get to any side of the market, you first need to create great content for your business. In his case, he built out the online menu guide first for high-traffic restaurants before marketing it to potential users and showing restaurant owners that it is a viable product. He basically found a way to get value on his business that doesn’t depend on either side of the network to start. Mike also commented that there’s a common misconception that you have to be the first in order to corner a big chunk of the market. For him, being the First Best is important, as you will be used and remember much better this way by users, rather just having a clunky business model that happened to come out first. To hear more from Mike Evans and his startup journey, download and listen to this episode. Bio Mike Evans founded GrubHub in his spare bedroom and grew it into the multi-billion-dollar onl...

296 Our Worst Episode with Neil Pearlberg, Santa Cruz Surf & Skateboard Podcast Legend from Off The Lip Radio Nov 28, 2022

On almost every episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we strive to provide radically valuable, radically different real dialogues that hopefully make a big difference. Today, we aspire to do none of that. Because what you're about to hear is a fun funny ADHD conversation with our guest, my buddy and Santa Cruz icon, Neil Pearlberg. So sit back and listen to two buddies have a conversation while the cocktail flows and the better judgment goes out of the window. Neil Pearlberg On podcast high jinks and Cameo The conversation begins with some light-hearted ribbing about podcasting, and how they don’t get together often anymore unless there’s a podcast. There’s also a couple of stories about their previous attempts and always having an issue every time they do so. Afterwards, Christopher brings up the idea of Cameo, and maybe hiring someone to do audiobook readings of their Category Pirates mini books. They muse if UFC fighters could be good audio books readers, and also wonder how much they would charge if they set up their own Cameo. Neil Pearlberg on high-profile guests to the podcast The conversation then shifts to the past guests they’ve had on their respective podcasts, particularly the higher-profiled ones. Neil recalls the time when he had Jimmy Panetta on as his guest, back when he was still a District Attorney and was running for Congress. He remembered how nervous he was and how he wanted to ask great questions rather than the usual ones they dish out at interviews. So as Neil’s interview winds down and he is down, to his last question, he decides to take a chance. “So at the end of my 10 questions. I'm like, fuck it, I'm just gonna ask the guy. Because I know he's gonna say No, and I'm not afraid of the word No. So I said, “Mr. Panetta, What could you tell me? What it was like to be in the situation room with you and Obama went off to bin Laden? Can you describe to me that process?” I'm thinking, “Fuck no. Hey, that's top secret”, you know? He answers, “Do you have half an hour?” Yes, sir. I do. And he told that story about the whole thing with the three helicopters and that black ops and Navy Seals and the whole thing was badass. was pretty cool.” – Neil Pearlberg Getting Banned on Twitter Christopher then talks about Twitter, and given its recent trends, how he got suspended for the most ridiculous reasons. One of his suspensions was from an offensive Covid tweet, where he sarcastically replies that Bill Gates has a farm that puts Covid on 5G towers (a weird conspiracy hoax perpetuated at the time). Unfortunately, Twitter customer service bots can’t detect sarcasm, and he was suspended the next day, although he got immediately reinstated once he deleted the tweet. Though given the current trend, getting banned or suspended on Twitter is almost a badge of honor for some, especially if their ban came from the most ridiculous or offhand reason. Which is sad, because despite its flaws, Twitter remains one of the few places were people could have an open discourse, provided it is executed properly. To hear more from Christopher Lochhead and Neil Pearlberg, download and listen to this episode. Bio Since September 2009, Neil Pearlberg has written over 200 articles covering the sport of surfing, as well as skateboarding, and soccer, for the Bay Area News Group, & Santa Cruz Waves. He is also the host of the “Off the Lip Radio Show”, & Hour Local Radio Show aired on Santa Cruz Radio Show KSCO AM 1080, FM 104.1, ksco.com and streamed on Santa Cruz Waves Facebook Page. Neil has also published articles in Adventure Sports Journal, National Geographic, Stand Up Paddle Board Magazine. Links Connect with Neil Pearlberg! Off the Lip Radio | Instagram | Twitter | Linkedin We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

295 How To Have A Legendary Career In Tech, Designing The A.I. Category, & IPOing with Bruce Cleveland, Bestselling Author of Traversing the Traction Gap Nov 14, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we go deep with one of my favorite people in Silicon Valley, Bruce Cleveland. Bruce Cleveland has had a career in Silicon Valley for over 40 years. And he's pretty much done it with building companies, technologies, categories, and brands, as well as working on and with some of Silicon Valley's best executive teams and entrepreneurs. He's been a successful investor. He's also a bestselling author. In fact, one of my favorite books is Traversing the Traction Gap, which he wrote. And I recommend it to all entrepreneurs. By the end of this dialogue, we hope you'll have gained radical new insights into how you can do legendary things in your life and career. Traversing the Traction Gap The conversation begins with a discussion of Bruce Cleveland's book, Traversing the Traction Gap. His best-selling book was praised by Silicon Valley insiders and many entrepreneurs for the information and insights it provided. Bruce shares that his reason for writing the books stems from people trying to make VC seem like a mystical thing, rather than explaining things in a clear way. “The reason I wrote it was because I began to grow pretty weary of really, really smart people not making it. Their companies not surviving for a variety of reasons. And they all tended to be pattern-matched against those reasons. I was also not happy with the venture community in its entirety, because I don't think it was honest with a lot of these entrepreneurs as to why they weren't getting investments, etc. And I kind of wanted to demystify those issues.” – Bruce Cleveland Bruce Cleveland on helping out entrepreneurs Another reason Bruce gives for writing out the book is that he wanted to help out fellow entrepreneurs who may be feeling lost, or guide those who are doing well into things that could make their ventures better. “The purpose and objective of this book was to share with entrepreneurs that, “hey, here's some things you could possibly do to significantly enhance the probability of success.” You know, we only get one shot at this life, I felt like I owed it back to the entrepreneurs of the world who take all the risk as to what I saw, from my vantage point, both as an operating exec and as an investor, to why I thought things weren't working for the vast majority of startups.” – Bruce Cleveland C3.ai and Enterprise AI The conversation then goes to Bruce’s latest ventures into category creation. Together with Tom Siebel, they founded C3.ai, which delves into enterprise AI. Bruce then talks about how it came to be, and how working on C3.ai has been so far. “I think this is one of the benefits of having a CEO who understands and believes in category creation, is that it as your job as CMO becomes much easier to do.” – Bruce Cleveland When they started conceptualizing and creating the category of enterprise AI, the term wasn’t even on the radar. While there were companies who were doing something similar to a lesser degree, it wasn’t clearly defined, and no one was pursuing rapid advancement on it. Now, it’s something that a lot of companies are looking at, and C3.ai is at the forefront of it. To hear more from Bruce Cleveland and how to have a legendary career in VC and tech, download and listen to this episode. Bio Bruce Cleveland’s career in Tech spans more than 40 years as a venture investor and operating executive. He was a first investor and a board member of Marketo, which held an IPO in 2013 and was acquired in 2018 by Adobe for $4.75B. He was an early-stage investor in other notable companies such as C3.ai, Doximity, Vlocity, and Workday. Bruce also held senior executive roles in engineering, product management and product marketing at Apple, AT&T, C3.ai, Oracle and Siebel Systems. His book, Traversing the Traction Gap, is a prescriptive guide for startups and new product initiatives within larger companies helping teams to use ‘market engineering’ techniques t...

Pause for Democracy Nov 07, 2022

In observance of the Midterm Elections in the United States, we will not be dropping full normal episodes of Follow Your Different this week. And if you are American, I do hope you get out and vote. It is, in my opinion, one of the most patriotic things you can do. I also just wanted to read you a little something that I wrote recently on LinkedIn that I think is germane. Because whatever happens in the American midterms, roughly 50% of the country is going to be elated, and 50% of the country is going to be pissed. So let me do a little reading for you here. “Today, more Americans hate more Americans than ever. And yet, we all know hating someone because they disagree with you might be the biggest stupid of them all. So how did this happen in the oldest surviving democracy in human history? It’s because politicians, media, and social media, on both sides, create hate. Politicians, media, and social media, on both sides. monetize hate. We took the bait and internalize the hate, but it's not too late. We can start really thinking. We can start really dialoguing. We can start really making a difference. American on American hate stops with us. This is something every American can be a leader on, and frankly, everybody in the world can be a leader on. American on American hate stops with us. God bless America and God bless the world."

294 Quit A Job You Hate For The Work You Love with Pat Hiban, Bestselling Author of The Quitter’s Manifesto Oct 31, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow your Different, we discuss the idea of keeping a successful career that you have stopped liking a long time ago versus quitting it to find one that you find more fulfilling. And who better to have this conversation than with our guest, Pat Hiban. Pat Hiban is the bestselling author of the book, The Quitter’s Manifesto. He is an investor, author, podcaster, and a guy having a very good time living an epic life. By the end of this dialog, you will gain radical new insights to build your muscles for designing the life of your choosing, and not just do something because of a current trend. Pat Hiban on The Quitter’s Manifesto The conversation starts with Pat Hiban’s book, The Quitter’s Manifesto, particularly on the topic of why he wrote it, and his inspiration while doing so. Pat shares that during the past year or so that we were all locked up, people had time to think a lot about their work conditions, and what they want to do in life. “It was during COVID. I just heard of a lot of people making decisions to change jobs and the change the location of where they were working from. Also, we had this great resignation going on. I saw it, and I called Tim and I was like, “Tim, the one thing that I learned from you, you are my mentor in quitting, and I said, we should write a book on quitting.”” – Pat Hiban So Pat and Tim Road pooled their thoughts together and The Quitter’s Manifesto was born. Quitting is Scary Pat’s idea for the book was that it should be a tactical, step-by-step book. So first things first, they have to acknowledge the reality of things: that quitting a stable career is scary. “The first chapter in the book is called, Acknowledging the Truth. And the truth is, quitting is very, very scary. It's like going to a cliff and jumping off.” – Pat Hiban For entrepreneurs, taking the jump is just Tuesday to them. This is because before they jump, they already have a parachute or glider ready even before they take the leap. Normal people do not always have those prepared beforehand, and jump blindly to their doom. So the aim of The Quitter’s Manifesto is to create rope swings that they can hang on each chapter, and at the end of it all, a net of safety when you finally decide to take the plunge. The Company Healthcare Trap The conversation then shifts to the topic of job fluidity being hampered by healthcare being tied to their employment. There are a lot of people who stick it out with big corporations for less pay, because of the healthcare benefits that they could have. So a lot of people end up being stuck or always teetering at the edge of quitting, until they find something with enough income that it overshadows the healthcare benefits they get. The weird thing about this is that they may already be earning a lot more monthly than that potential “healthcare benefit” might provide, but they still hedge because they don’t want to let go of that supposed “security blanket”. “I talked to a guy yesterday that had a family health care plan, it was worth $2,000 a month. And he wouldn't quit his work because of it, even though he was flipping real estate on the side, making 400 grand a year. He wouldn't go to flipping real estate full time, just because he wanted that healthcare. And then he finally did quit, and he realized how minuscule that the healthcare actually was, it didn't matter.” – Pat Hiban To hear more from Pat Hiban and The Quitter’s Manifesto, download and listen to this episode. Bio Pat Hiban As a young child, Pat Hiban was labeled “learning disabled with speech deficiencies” and put into special classes. Through his teenage years, Pat fell forward through life and tried everything he could to find his purpose, including 2 years as a 4th string player (benchwarmer) on the lacrosse team. He graduated from college with a degree in sociology and a 2.6 GPA. After being turned down for several corporate sales positions out of college,

293 Solar Energy, Opportunities & Myths with Bill Nussey, Author of the no.1 Bestseller “Freeing Energy” Oct 24, 2022

Most of us are interested in what is happening in the electric energy revolution. So it is logical that people want to understand how this different future will impact ourselves, our families, our communities, our work, and our world. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow your Different, we talk to Bill Nussey to clear the air about renewable energy. Bill Nussey is a best-selling author, and his book, Freeing Energy is a fact-based, clear-eyed look at how innovators are using what he calls a local approach to solar to develop whole new categories. What you're about to discover is how learnings from the information technology and entrepreneurship world are now driving breakthroughs, in energy and in specific solar energy. We go right at some of the myths about solar energy, and the trillions in New Category potential that Bill sees for entrepreneurs and investors in solar energy. Bill Nussey on Legacy Power Technology Bill starts of the conversation by describing how outdated the current grid system that we are using to power homes and businesses around the country. He describes past inventors like Graham Bell and Wright Brothers, and how proud they would be if they were to see how far their inventions have evolved over time. Unfortunately, the same could not be said about the technology running our power grids. “If I were to go back to Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, George Westinghouse, any of the fathers of the original grid 100 years ago and bring them forward. They would look around and say, “WTF, this is the exact same system.” Every other part of the industry & technology has been completely changed, yet this is the same. – Bill Nussey Why Nothing has Changed All of this could be traced back to the business model being outdated, yet no one is taking a huge leap in changing. That’s because they are afraid of losing the monopoly they have over distribution, should their new venture fail. Every one of them is risk averse and more than happy to just keep the status quo. Though it might look broken at times, it’s not to say that the grid can’t handle the capacity. It’s just that overall consumption is steadily growing, especially during peak hours when everyone is at home, using their devices and charging up their EVs. That said, this also fuels the rhetoric of how monopolies work, which is “if it is not noticeably broke, then we don’t have to fix it.” Myths about Renewable Energy Bill then talks about the general misconceptions and myths surrounding renewable energy, particularly those who insist that it is worse than what we currently have now. One major misconception that still prevails is that creating the materials to harvest renewable energy is simply too expensive and generates a lot of waste that it supposedly should prevent. The main target of this argument was solar panels, which back then was costly to make, and usually have a long Return of Investment (ROI) for potential adopters. While it may have been a reasonable argument in the past, nowadays technology and further development has made it so that manufacturing these materials don’t require as much energy and resources as it did before. If you are willing to spend a little extra, you can even have the manufacturer create 0% net carbon panels for you. New technology will continue to make more efficient, and more affordable things in the future. It’s all a matter of if and when you are willing to adapt to the new circumstances. To hear more from Bill Nussey and how the Renewable Energy category can thrive in the near future, download and listen to this episode. Bio Bill Nussey spent most of his career as a tech CEO. His first company, which he co-founded in high school, provided graphics software for early, text-based personal computers. Bill’s second company, Da Vinci Systems, was started out of his college dorm room and grew to serve millions of users across 45 countries. Later, he spent several years as a venture capitalist with Greylock...

292 Flat & Happy: Mastectomy – A Personal, Practical, Different Dialogue with Bestselling Author Katrin van Dam Oct 17, 2022

On today’s episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, what you're about to hear is a story of challenge, loss, courage, and triumph. We're also releasing it now in part because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So join us as we have a meaningful dialogue with our guest, Katrin Van Dam. Katrin Van Dam is a successful executive in the media business, and she's focused on content for kids and families. About three years ago, doctors told her that she had to have both breasts removed because of cancer. What she did next will surprise and will likely inspire you because she chose a different path. By the end of this dialogue, I think you'll gain some legendary insights into a problem that almost all of us will be touched by. Katrin van Dam on Breast Cancer The dialogue starts of with Christopher sharing that as people stay longer in this world, they experience a lot of expected and unexpected things. One of the unexpected things would be cancer and other serious ailments. Katrin van Dam replies that it is not as unexpected as we all thought. Given that one in eight women get diagnosed with breast cancer. So rather than unexpected, it’s something to be aware of and get checked for every once in a while, after a certain age. When Katrin was diagnosed with breast cancer, she found that both her breast had an invasive type of cancer. So rather than going for radiation, she opted to nip the problem in the bud and went with mastectomy. Being Presented with Options The part that Katrin found perplexing afterwards was when she found out that there was an option to not have breast reconstruction after undergoing mastectomy. Most would’ve probably taken reconstruction as part of the process, rather than an option. But Katrin also clarifies that she’s not advocating that everyone not to have reconstruction, but consider if it is really something they want. “I want to be clear about this. It's a tremendous boon to somebody who wants to have breast mount reconstruction. For many, many women, that is a great way to be able to sort of move on from what's happened to them and to reconnect with their bodies. And I don't begrudge anyone that, but knowing that it was not for me.” – Katrin van Dam She also points out that Breast Mound Reconstruction is not a one-and-done thing. It is normal for those pursuing it to have multiple operations to have the desired outcome that they want, and as with any operation, each one of those presents risks. This is why Katrin is pissed that women aren’t given all the options upfront, and some have gone through painful and risky operations for something that they may have not wanted in the first place. Making an Informed Decision Katrin brings up a conversation she had with her husband when she informed him that she wasn’t getting the reconstruction. It surprised her that he did not give his immediate support on the matter, which got Katrin thinking if she missed something. In retrospect, Katrin realized that they were not operating on the same knowledge base. She who has had time to research on the complications and risks of reconstruction can confidently say that she doesn’t want one, as compared to her husband who has not delved into the matter as deep as she did. Another thing was that they were working on different assumptions: him thinking that having no breast would be a constant reminder of the cancer, while Katrin not caring about it at all. In the end, Katrin realized that she could’ve communicated better, not just on the final decision, but on her process on how she got to that decision. To hear more from Katrin van Dam on how to be Flat and Happy, download and listen to this episode. Bio Katrin van Dam has worked in children’s media and licensing for nearly thirty years and is currently a creative executive at a major media company. A few months after her debut Young Adult novel was published, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy.

291 David Sacks All In Podcast “Rain Man”/Top Tech VC on Armageddon, Ukraine/Russia, Biden, US Mid-terms, Free Speech & more Oct 10, 2022

US President Joe Biden recently warned about the possibility of Armageddon. He said “we have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we discuss the current situation in the US and around the world with All In Podcast Rain Man, David Sacks. David Sacks is a legendary entrepreneur, category and company builder, and now venture capitalist. He's the founder of a VC firm called Craft Ventures. He was the founding Chief Operating Officer of PayPal founder and CEO of Yammer, which sold to Microsoft for well over a billion dollars. He has been an early investor in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Uber, SpaceX, Airbnb, Slack, and more. And today, he's also incredibly well known as one of the CO hosts of the All In podcast. So listen in to keep up with current affairs, and you might learn a thing or two on how to prepare for the future. David Sacks on Biden’s comment about Armageddon We begin on the recent comments that Biden made about Armageddon. When asked why he thinks Biden’s thoughts went that way, David’s reply was: “My reaction to this was the man who can't see two steps ahead, suddenly realizes where his policy is leading. We're the ones who have refused to engage in any sort of diplomacy or any sort of negotiated settlement. Our strategy is not to provide them with an off ramp.” – David Sacks But David also thinks that Biden acknowledging this is a step in the right direction. “That being said, I still thought it was incredibly useful for Biden to say what he said, because the first step of getting out of a problem is acknowledging that you're in one.” – David Sacks David Sacks on Tactical Nukes & Risking Nuclear War There has also been talks of using tactical nukes to quickly resolve the situation. David does not agree with this, saying that using nukes at this point just opens up the risk of a nuclear war. “If a tactical nuclear weapon gets used in Ukraine, then the whole world will be different. This thing could escalate very quickly into a larger scale nuclear war. You had Petraeus on the Sunday shows last weekend saying that if Putin uses attack nukes, the US should respond by hitting every Russian military target in Ukraine? Well, again, think two steps ahead. How do you think the Russians would react to that, given that they clearly don't have the military might to stand up to the US in terms of conventional arms?” – David Sacks If countries start using nukes, then it signals that the former agreements against it can be violated with impunity. And that is a dangerous ground to tread. Prediction or Deterrent Returning to Biden's statement about Armageddon, David suggests that, rather than being a prediction, this statement, along with Petreaus', could be interpreted as a warning or deterrent against Russia going nuclear. The problem is that the reasons why the Russians might escalate to the use of nuclear weapons is because they're losing the war by conventional means. Add to the fact that Putin doesn’t have an off ramp that lets him keep his reign. Because if he loses this war, or doesn’t gain anything significant from it, it is very likely that he will be forced out of office by the public. Putin is pretty much acting like a cornered beast at this point. The scary part is that you don’t know what that cornered beast might do as a last-ditch effort to escape. To hear more from David Sacks and the current situation of the world, download and listen to this episode. Bio David Sacks is co-founder and general partner at Craft. He has been a successful founder and investor for over two decades, building and investing in some of the most iconic companies in tech. He has invested in over 20 unicorns, including Affirm, AirBnB, Bird, ClickUp, Eventbrite, Facebook, Houzz, Lyft, OpenDoor, Palantir, Postmates, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, and Wish. David is also co-host of the popular “All-In Podcast” w...

290 The End of Bias with Bestselling Author Jessica Nordell Oct 03, 2022

Most people want to be welcoming of others and believe in equality for all human beings. But we're all a little biased. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we go deep on the topic of bias with our guest, Jessica Nordell. Jessica Nordell is a bestselling author who has written a book called The End of Bias. Jessica's book has won a boatload of awards, including being named a Best Book of the Year by the World Economic Forum. What you're about to experience is a real different dialogue about what it really takes to end bias. Jessica Nordell on Bias and Racism The conversation starts off on the topic of Bias, and how it relates to racism. Christopher asks if racism and bias served a purpose for humanity or not, to which Jessica replies: “Racism certainly emerged because it had a very specific social, political and economic purpose, which was to enable the existence of chattel slavery. In order to justify and sort of perpetuate the existence of that inhumane practice, what we would look at now as a criminal, criminally inhumane enterprise, Racism had to exist as a as a way to justify it. Because if a group of people are seen as lower on a social hierarchy, then it's much easier to justify that kind of inhumane behavior.” – Jessica Nordell Jessica Nordell on the Origin of Racism Following up on the topic, Jessica was asked if these ideas of being superior over a certain race or gender started existing after a certain period, or did humanity have these notions from the start. Jessica explains that this particular question was one of the things she really dug into in her research for her book, The End of Bias. One of the things she found was that in ancient Egyptian civilization, there was no notion of skin color prejudice. There were even evidence of non-ethic people rising on the Egyptian political administration, which suggests a high intermingling of people in the region. This suggests that contemporary racism was invented at a certain point in time for a specific purpose. Jessica Nordell on Male-Female Bias When asked if it was the same for Male & Female biases, Jessica shares that Patriarchy predates the written word, which means the position of men above women is a really old school of thought. But there have been civilizations and ethnicities that flip that over its head. For example, in ancient Mesopotamia women are associated with divinity. There was a sense of women being associated with authority and leadership, which has eroded over time. So it’s hard to find the origin of Patriarchy, because by the time we have writing, it was already there, and men were doing the writing. To hear more from Jessica Nordell and what it takes to actually end bias, download and listen to this episode. Bio Jessica Nordell is an award-winning author, science writer, and speaker known for blending rigorous science with compassionate humanity. Her first book, The End of Bias: A Beginning, shortlisted for the 2022 Columbia Journalism/Lukas Prize for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2022 NYPL Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the 2021 Royal Society Science Book Prize, is the culmination of fifteen years of reporting and writing on the subject of bias and discrimination and how to solve it, for publications including the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the New Republic. The End of Bias was named a Best Book of the Year by the World Economic Forum, Greater Good, AARP, and Inc and is currently being used by organizations from newsrooms and startups to universities, healthcare organizations, and faith communities to solve some of their biggest cultural challenges. Deeply engaged with connecting across differences to expand and heal the human experience, Nordell's own early-career experience with workplace bias inspired her passion for tackling discrimination and for seeing others in their full complexity and humanity. With degrees in physics from Harvard and poetry from the Universit...

289 The Secret Life of Secrets with Columbia Professor & Bestselling Author Michael Slepian Sep 26, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk about something that every single one of us has, very few of us think or talk about, and it's something that can have a profound impact on our lives. So let’s talk about Secrets with our guest, Michael Slepian. Michael Slepian is an Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at the legendary Columbia University. He's also a recipient of the Rising Star Award from the Association of psychological science. Michael is considered by many to be the leading expert on the Psychology of Secrets. He's got a brand-new best seller out called The Secret Life of Secrets, which we will get into this episode and much more. Michael Slepian on Secrets The conversation starts out on secrets, and how we all keep them. As to why we have secrets, Michael was asked if there were pros and cons in keeping secrets from people. “So the pros, you are protecting something, you might be protecting your reputation. And in your own mind, you might be protecting someone's feelings, you might be protecting a relationship with someone. Whatever you think is the outcome of people learning about this thing, you're preventing that.” – Michael Slepian But to keep a secret means you are essentially cutting yourself off from other people, so they couldn’t share your burdens or provide emotional support if that is part of what you are keeping your secret from. “You're blocking yourself from the availability of getting help from others. You can't get their emotional support; you can't get their guidance and advice.” – Michael Slepian Why We Keep Secrets One reason that we keep secrets is that we often feel ashamed of those secret. In response, we bury it deep and isolate it from the public, so no one will know. But this process of isolation also keeps it from receiving any validation if the secret is something to be actually ashamed of, or something that one only thought would be unacceptable. “We'll feel isolated with those secrets, we’ll feel inauthentic for keeping them and uncertain that we're doing the right thing. But all these negative feelings are tempered easily when we start talking to people and getting the help that we need.” – Michael Slepian Having Secrets is Natural Michael further explains that having secrets is normal, and that people tend to keep the same secrets. On his research that shows 38 common categories of secrets, an average person has 13 secrets that fall on that list, and 97% of people would have more than one secret that is in that list. “We all keep the same kinds of secrets. As isolating as a secret can feel, we all have similar ones. And so we're not alone in the secrets we have.” – Michael Slepian To hear more from Michael Slepian and the secret about Secrets, download and listen to this episode. Bio Michael Slepian is the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia University. A recipient of the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, he is the leading expert on the psychology of secrets. Slepian has authored more than fifty articles on secrecy, truth, and deception. His research has been covered by The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, NPR, and more. Links Connect with Michael Slepian! Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Columbia bio Check out his new book: The Secret Life of Secrets We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

288 Leadership Lessons From Taco Bell, KFC &Pizza Hut, David Novak, Founder/former CEO Yum! Brands & Author of Take Charge of You Sep 19, 2022

It is said that the people who have the most legendary careers are what you might think of as other-directed. The key to a successful life is to remove your joy blockers, and the goal of a career should be to, as Warren Buffett says, dance your way to work. We talk about all these and more on Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different with our guest David Novak. David Novak is the co-founder and was the CEO for 17 years of the legendary Yum! brands. Yum! is the world's largest restaurant company, which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, and many others. David also has an amazing podcast called How Leaders Lead, and a new book called Take Charge of You: how self-coaching can transform your life and your career. Learn how be a legendary leader, executive, and entrepreneur from the best by listening in to this episode. David Novak on Looking Back on his Career The conversation begins with David’s new book, and how it is a window to his career and life, and the interesting events and tidbits that go along with it. “I was the first kid in my family to get a college education, got a degree in journalism, didn't get an MBA, ended up becoming a CEO, and have the time of my life building a fantastic company. Now I'm in my next phase of my life where I'm fortunate enough to be able to spend time on the things that truly give me joy.” – David Novak Nowadays, David focuses on Leadership Development, and shares his thoughts and insights in his podcast, How Leaders Lead by David Novak. He also has time to write books, which has been a big passion of his. David Novak on Reaching One’s Goals and What Comes After The topic shifts on how most of the books and guides in entrepreneurship that is published are focused on personal growth and development, but there are only a few on what happens when you achieve those goals. Because life doesn’t stop when you reach those goals – there has to be something else to direct your passion into. David agrees and adds to it that after proving yourself and learning to manage and eventually lead people, the goal post shifts ever so slightly, and you find other ways to draw success. “Well, I have to tell you, that a lot of the research out there says that, you know, the people that are the happiest are other directed. What I've found is that the more other directed I got, the more I focused on other people's success more than my own, the more success I ultimately got. And, you know, it's kind of an amazing thing.” – David Novak On the Current State and Rising Up Again The conversation then goes to the current state of things, where inflation and the looming threat of recession is on the rise. David comments that there is current a huge divide, particularly in the haves and have nots, especially in the environment that they are in. That is not to say that there aren’t any people who thrive in harsher environments, but David wishes that people would at least have the chance to nurture themselves and grow. “I hope one day, my goal is somehow from all the leadership development I do that there'll be one person that will rise up in this country and inspire people again.” – David Novak To hear more from David Novak and how you can take charge of you, download and listen to this episode. Bio David Novak, Founder/former CEO Yum! Brands & NY Times Bestselling Author Starting with an undergrad degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri, David grew from his first job as a copywriter at a small ad agency to become a New York Times best-selling author, co-founder and former CEO and Chairman of Yum! Brands, the world’s largest restaurant company (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut), and now, founder of the non-profit organization, David Novak Leadership, Inc. and host of top-rated leadership podcast, How Leaders Lead with David Novak. David was named "CEO of the Year" by Chief Executive magazine, one of the world’s “30 Best CEOs” by Barron’s, one of the “Top People in Business” by FORTUNE and one of the...

287 Mike Maples, Jr. of Floodgate on a New Way to Think about the Future Sep 12, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk about the idea of startup capital, how to have an exponential career, and maybe even a new way to think about the future with our guest, Mike Maples, Jr. Mike Maples, Jr. is the co-founder of Floodgate Capital. Floodgate has led early-stage investments in companies like Twitter, Lyft, and much more. His podcast, Starting Greatness, is truly one of the greatest business podcasts there is. That said, let’s get into the discussion of how to think about the future. From Value Creators to Rent Seekers Mike Maples, Jr. dives into the idea of the industries and business leader’s mindset and drive for creating new ideas or the lack thereof. At the time when the animating forces behind industrial economy was mass production, mass distribution, and eventually mass computation, the focus in new technology and ideas revolved around improving performance. Over time, it evolved into developing networks, whether physical or via software, and value was derived on how vast your network reached. Fast forward to recent years, in which Mike started noticing that there was a disconnect with most of the ideas from the founder of a company, to its current inheritors. A lot of them are starting to focus on creating a status quo, rather than moving forward. As a result, a lot of people in business make money through financial engineering rather than things that improve productivity. “They've transition from being value creators to rent seekers. And they've started to become more interested in preserving their institutional power than in fulfilling their mission to their constituents.” – Mike Maples, Jr. Mike Maples, Jr. on Nurturing an Economy that Rewards Productivity According to Mike, the issue nowadays is that people make money from the market without creating new ideas, and are incentivized to do it in the current financial economy. In order to become a successful society, we need to incentivize productive behaviors to move forward. “So hedge fund guy borrows money close to 0%, and then buys IBM stock or loans at IBM so they can buy back their own stock. And since they know they're gonna do that they front run it. And so Okay, did any jobs get created in that? No. Did any new products get created in that? No. But people who played financial engineering games did well. And what you want is an economy that is not financialized. You want an economy that rewards productivity gains, because fundamentally all abundance and standard of living advancement comes from people being more productive.” – Mike Maples, Jr. Engaging in fakery and keeping this charade of an economy will just lead to a cycle of economic bubbles and bursts in the future. Startup Capitalism If the current system won’t lend itself to shifting back to a productive economy, then the third option is to exit. Though it was not as feasible before as it is now, Bitcoin and other non-Fiat currencies have given us the chance to break free and start over, without being tied down by Fiat economies. That said, Mike has been playing around the idea of a Startup Capitalism. As with most startups, they focus on creating a different future than just following the current flow of things. Which is why startups are born from the pursuit of new ideas, and could be the drive to a more productive economy that Mike wanted. And you don’t necessarily need to start a new company to create a startup. It could be born inside a bigger one, much like the iPhone inside Apple. “At the very least, you get to exercise the option of doing things in a different way. “– Mike Maples, Jr. To hear more from Mike Maples, Jr. and his ideas on how to Rethink the Future, download and listen to this episode. Bio Mike Maples, Jr. is the Co-Founder and Partner at Floodgate, the host of the Starting Greatness podcast and a Co-conspirator with awesome Startup Founders. Links Connect with Mike! Website: Floodgate |Twitter: @m2jr | LinkedIn: in/Ma...

286 How Category Designers Create The Future with Lauren Dunford of Guidewheel & Kevin Maney of Category Design Advisors Aug 29, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, our guests Lauren Dunford and Kevin Maney discuss how Category Designers work to create the future. On this topic, we also talk about how do you create a company that makes a difference and makes money at the same time. Lauren Dunford is the cofounder and CEO of an extraordinarily exciting new company called Guidewheel. They are a mission to empower all the world's factories to reach sustainable peak performance. Kevin Maney is a legendary bestselling author and award-winning columnist. He’s also the co-founder of Category Design Advisors, where he helps companies create and dominate new market categories. He is also one of the co-authors of Play Bigger, and one of the Godfathers of Category Design. If you care about building companies that changed the future, I think you're gonna love everything about this episode. Lauren Dunford and Kevin Maney on Category Design The conversation starts off with an explanation on how Lauren Dunford and Kevin Maney met, and the work they have done together on category design. Kevin knows Lauren from the work they have done on the category design project on Lauren’s company, Guidewheel. Kevin was really interested with Lauren’s work, as he explained: “There are actually two tracks of reasons that I very interested in Lauren, and her company guide wheel and one is the category design aspect, which I feel like was a very exciting project. But then also, there's another track of the book that I wrote that came out earlier this year called Intended Consequences. The idea behind that book was that there's been lots of conversation out there about responsible innovation and how a company's ESG had companies to do good and everything. And hang on. And we were talking about the fact that there wasn't really a real playbook for like, if you wanted to start a company that was like this.” – Kevin Maney As he was writing the book, Kevin realized that a lot of conversations he had with Lauren Dunford line up with the ideas that they were talking about in the book; mainly how to setup a company that from the beginning, will be a company that is profitable and does something really good. Lauren Dunford on Guidewheel We then pivot to a discussion on Lauren’s company, Guidewheel, and the work they are doing to make the business a force for good. Lauren and her co-founder were undergrads in Stanford, where they ran competing climate change groups. Afterwards, they consolidated their efforts and aimed to create a profitable business objective that still had a massive impact on climate change. “We work with factories, and the category we're building is Factory Ops. Our goal is let's have all of the world's 10 million factories, having the tools to reach sustainable peak performance, if we can do that at scale huge for their businesses. And then, of course, your massive impact for the planet because of how much emissions results from how we make those guitars and everything else on the planet.” – Lauren Dunford Lauren describes the category of Factory Ops as making the tools of the biggest factories run efficiently, so there are less waste and by-products. This in turn meant that companies will have the same, if not more, output while contributing less to factors that cause climate change. To hear more from Lauren Dunford and Kevin Maney on how to create a company that makes a difference and makes money at the same time, download and listen to this episode. Bio Lauren Dunford Lauren Dunford is the co-founder and CEO of Guidewheel, on a mission to empower all the world's factories to reach sustainable peak performance and recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of the 100 most promising companies globally poised to have a significant impact on business and society. Kevin Maney Kevin Maney is a bestselling author and award-winning columnist. He’s also the co-founder of Category Design Advisors where he helps companies create a...

285 How Category Contenders Become Category Leaders with Al Ramadan, Co-Author of Play Bigger Aug 22, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, our guest Al Ramadan talks about what’s at stake when it comes to category battles, how you can spot the category challengers who can become category kings and queens, and what they need to become category leaders that earn 76% of the economics. There comes a time in every startup’s life, where they face an epic, typically 18-to-36-month category battle. As we reported in our first book Play Bigger, the company that wins that battle earns 76% of the total value created in the category as measured by the market caps for public companies and valuations for private companies. What that means is, in any space, one company earns two thirds of the economics, which makes that category battle, which is typically 18 to 36 months long, arguably the highest stakes game in business. This episode will be available on both Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different and Lochhead on Marketing, because we think it is that important that everyone must hear about it. So without further ado, let’s dive into this dialogue. Play Bigger: Looking back, and its impact today Al Ramadan comes into the conversation bearing data about the businesses and companies we’ve observed when writing Play Bigger, as well as some new players that have achieve the same feat since then. To recap, Al Ramadan and Christopher Lochhead wrote a book back in 2014 called Play Bigger, which talks about category design and how it can make you become a category leader in your chosen space. One of the things they’ve found out in the course of their research is that Category Leaders tend to corner 76% of the value of said space. Though when they wrote Play Bigger, the world was nowhere near as digitized as it is today. So a lot of the research was based on tech companies back then. But now, as more and more categories are behaving like tech categories due to digital scalability and digital reach, these findings are becoming true for every category. Category Kings to Category Leaders Al Ramadan shares that he and his team looked into the 35 Category Kings that they have observed back in Play Bigger, and check on their current situation in the market sphere. In Play Bigger, we originally published a set of research and tracked 35 Category Kings in the tech space and their market caps at the time were 465 billion and those same companies today are now worth 1.9 trillion. “If you track what happened to those 35 kings, as we call them back then, between the year of 2014 to the year of 2021. You want to know what the numbers are? At the time in 2014, the entire pool of the 35 category kings were valued at 465 billion. They are now valued at 1.9 trillion. That is, they’ve created more than $1,000,001.5 in market cap and the annual for those people who care about this stuff like Investors and Financial people. The compound interest growth rate of those kings. Market cap wise, is 22.46%.” – Al Ramadan Given this data, it begs the question of how many understand that this is the new dynamic, and how many entrepreneurs and marketers still think that it’s a big leap of faith to follow. To hear more from Al Ramadan and how Category Kings can become legendary Category Leaders, download and listen to this episode. Bio Al Ramadan is a co-founding partner of Play Bigger Advisors and coauthor of the book, Play Bigger. He also co-founded Quokka Sports, which revolutionized the way people experience sport online. Al then joined Macromedia and Adobe, where he spent almost ten years changing the way people think about great digital experiences. At Adobe, Al led teams that created the Rich Internet Applications category and helped develop the discipline of experience design. In the early ‘90s he applied data science to Australia’s Americas Cup — an innovation in sports performance analytics. His work in sailing led directly to the idea for Quokka. He lives in Santa Cruz, California. Links Connect with Al Ramadan!

284 Building a 10,000 Year Clock, Jeff Bezos, Long-Term Thinking, & Being A Good Ancestor with Alexander Rose, The Long Now Foundation Aug 15, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, our guest Alexander Rose asked me a question that stopped me in my tracks. We go deep into that question, and a myriad of other topics in today’s dialogue. Alexander Rose is the executive director of the Long Now Foundation. And their mission is to foster long-time, long-term thinking. And they're probably most known for the building of this massive 10,000-year clock with the support of Jeff Bezos. If you are anyone who cares about products, if you're an engineer, a product leader, or frankly, anyone else who cares about creating products, or a different future, you're going to love this conversation. Alexander Rose on The Long Now Foundation The conversation starts off with Alexander describing the purpose of The Long Now Foundation and The Long Now Idea itself. It was started by a set of both technologist and artists, who are part of the earlier generation of Silicon Valley. “It was a group of people that were realizing that by the kind of fetishization of speed that was happening, especially around Silicon Valley, in technology, circles, that we were taking a lot of things off the table. So things like climate change, if you were only given a few years to solve something like that, you basically won't even start. But if you are willing to think about something, at least in terms of centuries or generations, you could imagine how you might solve these large challenges that humanity is now facing.” – Alexander Rose Brian Eno, one of the founders of the Long Now Foundation, coined the term, and he really stretched it out to the 10,000 years we’ve had, to the 10,000 years in the future, making it a 20,000-year story. Humanity 10,000 Years into the Future The focus then shifts into the story of what will happen 10,000 years into the future. For Alexander, he believes that humanity will still be there, but it depends on what we do today if they are thriving or struggling by then. “I very much believe that humanity is going to be around for the next 10,000 years. The question is, are we making decisions that are going to help those future generations right now? As Jonas Salk originally asked: Are we being good ancestors, or are we being bad ancestors? And how can we be better ones?” – Alexander Rose Alexander then proceeds to discuss our ongoing report card on the matter. Alexander Rose on Thinking of the "Good Old Days" Talking about the past, particularly the notion of the good old days, Alexander firmly thinks that we definitely have it better today than in the distant past. It is just that, we are used to modern comforts and the ever-growing technology at the palm of our hands, that we take those things for granted and focus on the bad things todays and reminisce on the good memories from the past. Alexander describes it like a pendulum swinging back and forth. While there are swings on both directions, the momentum for the forward / positive swing is oftentimes bigger than the backwards or negative one. Though granted in today’s climate, it’s hard to see the positives than the negatives. While the past would be nice to visit, a person from this time would find it a horrendous place to live in, minus the comforts that they have been accustomed to. To learn more about Alexander Rose and The Long Now Foundation and mindset, download and listen to this episode. Bio Alexander Rose Links Connect with Alexander Rose! The 10,000-year clock We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

283 A Country Worth Fighting For: Celebrating U.S. Veterans & Active Military with Christian Anschuetz, Marine Captain (retd.) of Task Force Tribute Aug 08, 2022

Today’s episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different is a love letter to our military and veterans. Our guest Christian Anschuetz shares his story of how he looked up to these brave heroes growing up, and how he became one of the heroes that serve our country. Christian Anschuetz retired from the U.S. military as a Marine Captain. After his service, he had a long and successful career as both an entrepreneur and an S&P 500, Senior C-level executive. After hanging up his uniform as and executive and advisor, he continues to serve as one of the leaders of the organization called Project RELO and will be spearheading an upcoming endeavor called Task Force Tribute. If you are interested in his story, and the story of thousands of active military and veterans who have served our country, stay tuned to this episode. Christian Anschuetz & the Legendary Humans of the US Military Imagine being 12 years old at home with your dad, as you watch a strange car pull up in front of your house. Two men in uniform get out, and one's a chaplain. This is an experience only Goldstar families know. This was also the moment a 12-year-old Christian Anschuetz, learned that his older brother and hero, Norman, had died serving his country. Years later, Christian finds himself joining the military himself. He did so to honor the memory of his brother, and the love of country in his heart. He eventually became a Marine Captain and went to serve for several years. We often forget that military service in our country is completely voluntary. So it takes a tough and brave soul to go through all the harsh training, and eventually deploy to dangerous and unknown territories. To sacrifice so much to serve speaks volumes to their love and loyalty to our country. After Christian retired from service, he found himself in the entrepreneurial side of things, where he utilized his expertise in advising and training business leaders and executives on how to hone their leadership skills. Project RELO Christian talks about Project RELO, a veteran non-profit that he founded. He provides a quick description of what they do, and how they help hone the nation’s top CEOs and management teams to think different. “What we do is we take some of the nation's top executive leadership of fortune 500, CEOs and their management teams, and we provide leadership training to them. But what we do is we actually go on to military bases, and we conduct full military operations for three days. We do everything from convoy operations, communications, weapons handling, etc.” – Christian Anschuetz The beauty of Project RELO is that the people teaching these leadership training are transitioning military members. So it not only trains future business leaders to focus and learn leadership skills from another perspective, it also helps these transitioning military members and veterans have an idea on how they can use their previous experience to find work, or even build up new careers. Task Force Tribute Christian then talks about Task Force Tribute, which is a huge undertaking that Project RELO will be undertaking soon. One thing he pointed out was that not a lot of people know that people they mingle with on a day-to-day basics is a veteran, or is serving in some capacity in the military. Part of it is the depiction of what military does in the media. So when they eventually leave the service, there are certain preconceptions on what they could do for a career or business moving forward. As said earlier, Project RELO helps shine a light to both business leaders and military members that these military members’ skills are not just confined to military-related activities. They are well-equipped with other talents and skills, plus the military discipline that has been trained to them for years. Task Force Tribute aims to tell their story in a more elaborate way. They want to tell the story of these legendary people, both active and veterans alike,

282 How To Do The Impossible with Colin O’Brady, First Man To Solo Cross Antarctica & Author of The 12-Hour Walk Aug 01, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk about how ordinary people do legendary things and push ourselves to go beyond ourselves with our guest, Colin O’Brady. Colin O’Brady is an extraordinary extreme athlete. He has summited Everest twice, and he is the first person ever to solo trek across Antarctica. And he's a 10-time world record breaking explorer and adventurer, and is considered to be one of the most legendary endurance athletes on the planet. Yet Colin considers himself a regular dude, and will share his story on how we can all do some serious legendary things in our lives. Colin O’Brady on his reasons for doing what he does The conversation starts off with the question of why Colin does what he does. “Why do I do what I do? Yeah, it's an easy question as you’re like, “Why would somebody walk alone across Antarctica for 54 days, dragging a 375-pound sled by themselves?” I asked myself that question sometimes.” – Colin O’Brady That said, Colin is very happy with his achievements, especially with his wife as his number one supporter. They have built their business together, and she has helped Colin with these world record expeditions and how to execute them. And they don’t forget to have fun while doing so. “I remember calling her around day 35 and in a sadly scrapped crackly sat phone connection I said to her, “Hey, if I ever tell you I want to do this again. Make sure to remind me that I don't.”” – Colin O’Brady Type 2 Fun Colin asks if we are familiar with the phrase, type 2 fun. “So type one fun is like fun. We you know, normal fun. You know, you're drinking with your buddies, you're dancing, you're partying, you're hanging out with your wife and are watching a beautiful sunset. It's just fun, just fun for fun. Type two fun is it's not super fun.” – Colin O’Brady For Colin, type 2 fun is the fulfillment one gets from pushing their body to the limits, and exploring the human potential. Not just in the physical sense, but also emotional and mental sense. The Desire to be outside is part of our DNA We talk about our outdoor trips, and while it is not as extreme as Colin’s adventures, we do get that exhilaration and joy of exploring the outdoors. Colin agrees with this, and remarks that as human, it is in our DNA to explore the outdoors. “I think it's in our DNA to be outside in nature. Like you said, kind of those moments where after a busy week, or a busy month, you look up and you kind of watch the clouds go pass for a second, or something like that. There's something very grounding in those experiences.” – Colin O’Brady To hear more from Colin O’Brady and how to do the impossible, download and listen to this episode. Bio Colin O’Brady is a 10-time world record breaking explorer and one of the world’s best endurance athletes. He isn’t your typical adventurer despite his unmatched athletic accomplishments including a world-first solo crossing of Antarctica, a world-first ocean row across Drake Passage (from South America to Antarctica), and summiting Mt. Everest twice. Colin is an expert on mindset, a highly sought-after keynote speaker and a New York Times bestselling author. Colin is also a television host, an executive producer and an entrepreneur who has built and sold companies. And, he’s done it all after overcoming a devastating accident - that nearly left him unable to walk - to prove that anything is possible. Links Connect with Colin O’Brady! Website | Youtube Check out his new book: 12 Hour Walk: Invest One Day, Conquer Your Mind, and Unlock Your Best Life We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

281 How To Overcome Anything with World Champion Power Lifter Chris Duffin Jul 25, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk about how we can create & design your life, and overcome anything with our guest, Chris Duffin. Chris Duffin is the world record holder in 1000-pound deadlifts and squats. He is one of the strongest men on planet Earth, which is a very legendary achievement. He's also an author of a fascinating riveting book called The Eagle and the Dragon, a story of Strength and Reinvention. Those achievement on themselves are amazing, but when you hear more about his background, it becomes a whole new level of legendary. Liquid Courage The conversation starts on the topic of alcohol, and how it helps take down the defenses that people normally have with strangers or on speaking in public. Chris Duffin follows up with a related piece that he wrote about drinking back in 2014, which was called Whiskey and Deadlifts. “It actually talks about how alcohol can be used as a performance enhancer. And I talked about the history of it actually being used as that which a lot of people aren't aware of.” – Chris Duffin It's certainly not an endorsement of excessive alcohol drinking by any means. But it gives a good glimpse on the world of powerlifting. Chris also says that he might update it soon, so look out for that. Chris Duffin on his journey The conversation shifts to Chris’ life story, which he admits took him a while to tell it comfortably. For him, it shows how you can move the needle in life with the right approaches from a mental aspect. For Chris, it’s not exactly a “woe is me” story, as he has created what he wants to do with his life now, and moving forward. The story is actually opening from his book, The Eagle and the Dragon. It starts when he was six years old and living in the wilderness. Not just for camping and vacationing, but full-on living in the wilds, exposed to deadly animals and the like. “On that first story, I was being taught how to handle and capture live rattlesnakes, we were killing them, so that we could sell the skins and try to make ends meet. But also, I was being taught at six years old, because that was the environment we lived in. And then I needed to have that for my safety.” – Chris Duffin Creating His Own Path Other stories in Chris’ childhood involved other dangerous elements in their life, in this case it was traffickers and serial killers. To be exposed to such situations at such a young age, it was not an environment that someone should be exposed to growing out. Which is why Chris found himself gravitating to sports, trying to bring in some money to help the family, and he also found comfort in doing athletic activities. Due to his efforts, he eventually got a full-ride academic scholarship to go to a school for a dual engineering degree, and eventually worked on his MBA. As he was working and studying away from his family most of the while, it apparently got worse on the home situation. So much that he had to take custody of his little sisters, so he could help and guide them towards better choices in life, and help heal the trauma that they have been through as well. To hear more about Chris Duffin and how to overcome anything in your life, download and listen to this episode. Bio Chris Duffin Links Connect with Chris Duffin! Website | Instagram | Linkedin | Facebook | Youtube Check out his book, The Eagle and the Dragon, a story of Strength and Reinvention We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

280 Future of Crypto, The Economy, Silicon Valley Startups & More with Sequoia Partner Michelle Bailhe Jul 18, 2022

The turmoil in the economy and stock market has created massive turmoil not only in Fiat currencies, but also in Cryptocurrency. As such, Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs are bracing for tough times. Today at Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we are here to make sense of it all with Sequoia Partner Michelle Bailhe. As you know, Sequoia is one of the giants of venture tech in Silicon Valley, and I have known and worked with the folks at Sequoia for over 20 years. Today, we get to hear from one of their partners and learn what advice Sequoia is currently giving to their entrepreneurs and much more. Michelle Bailhe and I go deep on what’s really going on with the crypto markets as they face their first meaningful downturn. Why bad times tend to yield great entrepreneurs and startups, and what we can learn from the 1600s. Michelle Bailhe on the crypto market The conversation starts off on the topic of the crypto markets. Michelle shares that she thinks crypto is in a very interesting moment, for a lot of reasons. While crypto has its own problems, on top of the current economic conditions, Michelle thinks it can weather the situation. “Crypto has been through a lot of bear and bull markets, or winters and summers. And so there’s a sense of, well this is winter, and we have been here before. We know what it’s like, and we know how to build through it.” – Michelle Bailhe Though according to Michelle, it’s worth noting that what lies in the future may be way different than before. For one thing, valuation will be unlike before when crypto was on the rise, and investors are savvier than before. So it’s all a matter of how crypto will adapt and integrate itself into the market in the long run. Crypto’s first downturn When asked when the first downturn was for crypto, Michelle explains that crypto has had its ups and downs over the years. As to why it went unnoticed, it was mostly due to the issues being with crypto itself, and not due to external factors. As for whether Covid had anything to do with it, 2020 was actually an explosion of new cryptos due to people taking an interest in investing and growing their current funds. Though it wasn’t all for the better. Much like the tech boom in 2000, where there was a hunger for new tech, but not enough focus on quality. So a lot of new cryptocurrencies were minted, only to collapse on themselves in a few months. What’s different this 2022 is that crypto, along with other markets, is going through a global macro issue. As it becomes more ingrained in other sectors, companies, and markets, it also incurs the problems those systems have. That will be the fundamental difference between the winters before and the upcoming one now. Hedging against Inflation There has been a prevailing thought that crypto would be a good hedge against inflation, particularly around the time when Bitcoin has more or less stabilized. While Michelle thinks of it as a novel idea and has heard the arguments for it, crypto has never been created and traded as a hedge against inflation. “Bitcoin has not at all traded as a hedge against inflation. It has been extremely correlated to technology stocks, and it looks much more like an unprofitable technology stock, partly because money people are still wrapping their heads around how to think about it: Do I think about it like equity? Do I think about it like a commodity? What are the demand and supply drivers?” – Michelle Bailhe As for whether you should invest in crypto or not, Michelle Bailhe gives her thought on the matter. So download the episode and continue to listen. Bio Michelle Bailhe is a Partner at Sequoia, a leader in technology venture capital. She focuses on crypto, fintech & software. Learn more about Michelle Bailhe. Links Connect with Michelle Bailhe! LinkedIn | Twitter We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,

279 How To Improve Your Mental Health with Sarah Fay, PhD, Author of Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses Jul 11, 2022

Welcome to the second part of a two-part series on neuro-diversity and mental health. If you happened to miss the first one, you can check out our dialogue with M.E. Thomas on psychopathy (FYD 277). On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk about how to improve your mental health. And who better to have that conversation but with Sarah Fay, PhD. Sarah Fay is a bestselling author, and her new book is called Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses. Apple books said Sarah’s new book is “a powerful memoir by a deeply compelling person and a fantastic writer.” Whether you are curious about neuro-diversity, or looking for ways to improve your mental health, you can’t go wrong with listening to this episode. The world that Sarah Fay lives in The conversation starts off on the topic of how Sarah is processing the world we live in today. As someone who was in the vacuum of the academe for a while, one might not even notice the world outside. Sarah admits that she pretty much missed the Obama administration while she was working on her PhD. There is a certain appeal of the academe of being away from the world and being surrounded by actual books, and being in pursuit of knowledge. That is, until the world comes calling. How things have changed Sarah shares that she has been writing about how different things have changed for her and how she saw herself. One of the things she has noticed is the change in her mental health, and how it has changed for the better. “I was writing about how different things have changed for me and how I see myself. Now as someone who had a mental illness, I believe I've been cured. There's no evidence to suggest that we cannot fully heal from mental illness, even serious mental illness like what I had.” – Sarah Fay Sarah finds the notion that mental illness only lies dormant at times very pessimistic, as it sets the precedent that it could never be fully healed. The Metaphor of Mental Illness Sarah shares the metaphor of mental illness that she absolutely loves, which is much like breaking a bone. “When you break a bone after it heals (which I didn't know, this is in physical medicine), the point of the break becomes the strongest part. And so if we think of mental illness, or some sort of psychosis as a break, then we heal stronger.” – Sarah Fay And if you look how resilient and strong people are who have recovered from mental illness, it makes a whole lot of sense for Sarah. To hear more from Sarah Fay and how to improve your mental health, download and listen to this episode. Bio Sarah Fay (Ph.D., MFA) is an award-winning author and mental health advocate working to improve how we think and talk about our mental health. Her experience of being diagnosed with six different mental health disorders and finding no relief led her to write her journalistic memoir Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses, an Apple Best Books pick that was hailed in The New York Times as a “fiery manifesto of a memoir.” Sarah has shared her story on NPR’s 1A, Oprah Daily, Salon, NPR’s KERA/Think, The Rumpus, in The Los Angeles Times, and more. Pathological has been featured in Forbes, mindbodygreen, Thrive Global, Lit Hub, Psychology Today, and others. Links Connect with Sarah Fay! Website | Instagram We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

278 A Love Letter To The United States of America Jun 27, 2022

This episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different is a love letter to America. I recently posted something on LinkedIn and on social media about the court's decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and I wanted to share that with you and reflect on it with you for a moment. So, let's talk about America. Roe v. Wade People are saying this ruling put abortion back in the hands of the states. Sort of, but not really. It puts it back where it belongs in our hands. You and me get to decide what the future will be by voting. A poll with 235,613 responses says that 58% support women's rights to choose. Now, if the Democrats pick up seats in November, it will in large part demonstrate what Americans think about some combination of the abortion issue. And broadly, the Democratic agenda and how the Democrats have been performing in the White House and in Washington. With Biden at 38% approval, it seems very likely that the Dems will pick up seats in November. If the predicted red wave hits Washington, it will for sure tell us that some combination of dislike for Biden, the GOP’s ideas resonating. and pro-life momentum are things that Americans are focused on. Continue to have Meaningful Dialogue Whether you're currently celebrating or reverberating over the road decision. It's important to underscore this is how it's supposed to work. We argue, we debate and hopefully we even listen radical idea, right? to each other. We come to our own conclusions, and we vote for candidates who most reflect our beliefs. Hating someone because they disagree with you might be the biggest stupid of all. Now, to be clear, I am pro-choice. And I could tell you why if you cared, and I respect that pro-life people truly believe they are doing what's best what's right. And I know and love people who I know to be legendary, very good people who are pro-life. I just disagree with them. That's okay. Steel sharpens steel. This is how it's supposed to work. Please participate in thoughtful dialogue. And let's all do some thinking, then let's vote. So that was the post and it seems to have blown up and hopefully caused some thought for a conversation. Some people have commented No, this is not how it's supposed to work. And they have an opinion about why that's the case. They might be right. But at a very high level. The difference between democracy and insanity is we dialogue. We vote. We create leaders and create laws and then we live by them. What we don't do is hate each other. And we don't fight with each other physically. That's called anarchy. And so I think what this tells all of us is, democracy is a participation sport. To hear more of Christopher Lochhead’s love letter to the United States of America, download and listen to this episode. Bio Christopher Lochhead We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

277 Confessions of a Sociopath with M.E. Thomas Jun 20, 2022

On this remarkable episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk with M.E. Thomas about psychopathy, and how you can be in a relationship that works with a psychopath. M.E. Thomas is a pseudonym of the bestselling author of Confessions of a Sociopath. She’s a lawyer, musician, and now a teacher. She is among the first psychopaths or sociopaths to come out of the closet, and share her life and experience. This episode will have you thinking deeply about your identity, relationships, and the masks that we all wear. So stay tuned. M.E. Thomas on Knowing she was “Different” The conversation started with the question of identity. Specifically, about when M.E. Thomas found out she was “Different”. “I always knew that I was different. But I had so many things that they’d be different, I just assumed it was one those – like, I was raised in a big Mormon family, so I grew up with five siblings. We just had weird idiosyncrasies. My dad was kind of a crazy guy. Even now, they call him Einstein because he wears his hair, kind of like white and crazy, and his eyebrows were long and curly. He says, he thinks that makes him look distinguished.” – M.E. Thomas Aside from this, there were a lot of things that people would think weird about her. But it came off most of the times as precocious and charming as a child, and cool and collected growing up. M.E. Thomas on Not Experiencing the Same Things Another way M.E. Thomas knew she was different from others was when she and the other kids her age hit puberty. Simply put, she wasn’t experiencing the same things that others were being self-conscious or worried about. “During puberty, everybody was kind of losing their collective minds. And I was just like, “I don’t get it”. I didn’t get the self-consciousness, and I didn’t get the awkwardness. And I didn’t get the kind of like, “we’re going through some sort of new identity”. I kind of didn’t get that, although I got it in a way because I would kind of choose a new identity every day for whatever situation I was in.” – M.E. Thomas Looking back, M.E. Thomas was kind of relieved that she didn’t go through all that, citing a Reddit page that showed teenagers and all the stupid things they did and wear growing up. How to Work the Social System M.E. Thomas muses that she was glad that she didn’t go through the same experience, as she’s heard stories of how people were both very happy and unhappy during those times in their life. She particularly calls out peer pressure, which is probably the number one reason teenagers do stupid things for stupid reasons. She herself wasn’t subjected to peer pressure, because she admits that she already knew how to work the social system even then. Given the cool demeanor she portrays, she was easily part of every social circle and friends with different groups. Though she does say that being that much of a social butterfly should’ve been an indicator of a personality disorder. To learn more about M.E. Thomas and her experiences growing up, download and listen to this episode. Bio M. E. Thomas (a pseudonym) is the author of Confessions of a Sociopath: A Life Spent Hiding in Plain Sight. (Penguin Random House) She is a former law professor who has written extensively on music copyright issues, a current California attorney, and the founder of a non-profit. She is also, most recently, a professional musician. Links Connect with M.E. Thomas! Website | Twitter | More about the Author More about M.E. Thomas NYTimes: Confessions of a Sociopath Slate: American Psychopath’s Patrick Bateman Reviews M.E. Thomas’ Confession of a Sociopath YouTube: Ask a Psychopath - What is your background? YouTube: Ask a Psychopath - What are some things you've done? We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

276 The Voice In Your Head, Why It Matters, & How To Harness It with Psychologist & Author of “Chatter” Ethan Kross Jun 14, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk about those voices in your head with our award-winning guest, Dr. Ethan Kross. Who knows, you might learn something useful from listening to it. Dr. Ethan Kross is an award-winning psychologist and professor at the University of Michigan and the Ross School of Business. He has a new book out called Chatter: the voice in your head, why it matters and how to harness it. Bestselling author Adam Grant says, “this book is going to fundamentally change some of the most important conversations in your life, the ones you have with yourself.” So if you want to know how you can work with those voices in your head to make your life better, stay tuned to this episode. Ethan Kross on the Voices in your head The conversation starts off with the topic of Ethan Kross’ new book, Chatter. Ethan explains that we all have an inner voice, which is the ability to silently use language to reflect on our lives. “it's a tool of the mind. It's a tool that that distinguishes us from every single other animal species. You use language silently in your head to do all sorts of things like, simulate and plan for the future. You use this inner voice to do something I find to be magical, which is tell stories about our experiences in this world. Stories that help us understand who we are.” – Ethan Kross Chatter According to Ethan, there are times when this inner voice we possess doesn’t work so well. “Sometimes when you experience adversity, you reflexively tried to use this tool to think through a problem, but you don't come up with a clear solution. You end up for lack of a better term spinning, worry, ruminating catastrophizing. And that's what I call chatter.” – Ethan Kross Chatter sometimes takes the form of an inner critic. Sometimes, it’s a self-disparaging voice. Sometimes it's an inner monologue filled with anger and aggression. But the idea here is that you're just getting stuck in this negative thought loop, and you can't break free. Ethan Kross on Metacognition We bring up the topic of “thinking about thinking”, and Ethan shares his thoughts on the matter. For Ethan, most people actually do a lot of thinking about thinking, or metacognition. “Basically, Metacognition refers to exactly what you're talking about: thinking about thinking. And I think we spend a lot of time doing this in ways that create misery. And, like, when we're worried about stuff we keep on, you know, we start worrying, like, think about what worry is, there's something in the future that you're concerned about. At some point, you start worrying about the fact that you're worrying.” – Ethan Kross He then used sleep as an example. At first, it’s simple: you sleep when you are tired. But as we think about other things like “are we getting enough sleep,” and the effects of not staying up late, etc. We start to worry about too many hypothetical things in our head, and we, ironically, lose sleep over it. To hear more from Ethan Kross and how to channel your inner voice to be more productive in life, download and listen to this episode. Bio Ethan Kross, PhD, is one of the world's leading experts on controlling the conscious mind. An award-winning professor at the University of Michigan and the Ross School of Business, he is the director of the Emotion & Self Control Laboratory. He has participated in policy discussion at the White House and has been interviewed on CBS Evening News, Good Morning America, Anderson Cooper Full Circle, and NPR's Morning Edition. His pioneering research has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New England Journal of Medicine, and Science. He completed his BA at the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD at Columbia University. Links Connect with Ethan Kross! Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | More about Ethan | Chatter We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™!

275 Sonic Brand & Why You Need One with Emmy™Award-Winning Sonic Branding Category Queen Audrey Arbeeny Jun 06, 2022

If you’ve ever watched the Olympics, gone to a Major League game, or even turned on your Xbox, chances are you’ve seen our guest’s great work. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a dialogue with Audrey Arbeeny, the Category Queen of Sonic Branding. Audrey Arbeeny presented the discipline of Sonic Branding, way back in 1993 at the Design Management Institute in Amsterdam. Now that Sonic Branding has exploded, particularly as digital products have, it has been become a giant category across all kinds of areas marketing, branding, product design, and experience design in the arts world and the film to entertainment world. So if you are interested about Sonic Branding, and how it blitzed through the competition, stay tuned to this episode. Audrey Arbeeny on Sonic Branding The conversation starts off with defining what Sonic Branding is. Audrey has this to say on the matter: “I believe what you're doing is the same thing as when we did the original Major League Soccer, Anthem, and we do our Sonic Branding. The deputy commissioner in the interview said, he heard from player after player that when they heard that song, it put them in the right frame of mind it put them in a place that they wanted to be in, and it prepared them to get ready for the game. I have certain songs I play also, when I need to get in a certain frame of mind. And that's what Sonic Branding is. You want to get to that emotional center of the brain that triggers play.” – Audrey Arbeeny Biomusicology If you’re wondering if there is a word for that, yes there is. It’s called Biomusicology, and it covers how sounds and music can affect our brain and biology. Sometimes, music can even evoke physical reactions from us, as seen in the revelry in anthems, or that welling feeling you might get while listening to an orchestra. “We're a vibratory system. And that's what it is. And from as early as time as you could remember, that's what sound did. It connected people. It communicated and it made people feel, feel physically emotionally connected.” – Audrey Arbeeny Audio Brain Advocates for Health and Well-being Audrey shares a personal experience where music and hearing familiar sounds in someone’s vicinity had helped people ease their pain and their well-being. So while Sonic Branding is being used on all these global brands, Audrey also hopes to advocate the use of music and different sounds to promote health and well-being to everyone. “Yes, we do all these global brands? We've been music supervisors for 10 Olympics for NBC Olympics. That's 25 years. Yes, we've done great things like that. But we've also done a lot in health care. And I've done a lot of research in health and well-being. And I've worked with kids that were deaf and blind, and done music therapy with them. Because when you're in that situation, nobody really takes the time to make sure you're enjoying that meal and spends a lot of time they have a lot of kids to take care of. So that's my North Star. That's my passion point. And audio brain has done a lot of a lot of pro bono work in that area.” – Audrey Arbeeny To hear more from Audrey Arbeeny, Sonic Branding, and how music can help your well-being, download and listen to this episode. Bio Audrey Arbeeny As Owner and Emmy™ Award-Winning Executive Producer/ Creative Director for Audiobrain, a globally recognized sonic branding boutique dedicated to the intentional development of music and sound, Audrey Arbeeny has realized her dream of combining her lifelong love of music and science with proven business skills. Audrey oversees Audiobrain’s projects from start to finish, coordinating logistics, strategy, experience design, resources, and talent. In addition, Audrey oversees Audiobrain’s ongoing research in areas of psychoacoustics and biomusicology. With over 20 years of experience, she is recognized throughout the world as a pioneer in sonic branding, presenting on this discipline as early as the 1993...

274 How To Make Money In A Recession: 5 Steps To Create Demand For Your Product, Service, Or Platform Jun 03, 2022

Welcome to a very special episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, where we talk about how to make money in a recession. In times that are challenging, one of the greatest things we all can do is contribute what we can contribute. Given that it looks like we're about to be in a recession, what Eddie Yoon Nicolas Cole, and I aka the Category Pirates decided to do was to write a new mini book newsletter. It’s called How To Make Money In A Recession: Five steps to create demand for your product, service or platform. We elected to make the written version of this free. There'll be a link to it at the end of this show notes. So consider this episode, a mini book audio read. We are in a Recession Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate, We are in a recession. (Not officially, but it is not looking good.) Stocks are down. Startup valuations have plummeted. Bitcoin and Ethereum have lost more than 50% of their total value since their respective highs back in November, 2021. And sentiment around Silicon Valley is that the next 12-18 months are going to be challenging for companies looking to raise money. But where there is chaos, there is opportunity. Approximately 10% of companies get stronger in downturns. And you can’t be in the 10% unless you do some serious thinking. Through the category lens, downturns are simple to understand—and have a clear path to navigate. When times get tough, businesses, governments, households, and individuals all do the same thing: they create two lists. “Must Haves” “Nice To Haves” Then they start cutting the “Nice To Haves” to lower costs—as a direct response to their revenue / income / buying power shrinking. The Question Every Business Should Ask Which means the seminal question is: what makes people put some categories/brands/products on the “Must Have” list versus the “Nice To Have” list? Perceived value. (Everything we value, we’ve been taught to value.) The difference between a dumb idea and a great one, or the difference between useful products and useless ones is the perception we have based on what we have been taught. (Don’t forget: pet rocks used to be in demand.) The trick is to get your product/service/platform on the “Must Have” list, and to be as high up on the list as possible. Because the higher the category is on the hierarchy of perceived value in the consumer’s mind, the greater the likelihood they will keep buying from you. Which is why savvy leaders market the category in downturns. Because people make their lists by category first, and brand second. The Net-Positive Effects of Recession Elon Musk was a guest on the All In podcast and summarized the net-positive effects of recessions well: “Recessions are not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve been through a few of them. What tends to happen, if you have a boom that goes on for too long, you get misallocation of capital. It starts raining money on fools, basically. Any dumb thing gets money. At some point, it gets out of control… and the bullshit companies go bankrupt and the ones that are building useful products are prosperous.” When most people hear the word “recession,” they imagine the housing crisis of 2008 or the dot-com bubble in the late 90s—and all of the businesses that went under as a result. But what doesn’t get talked about enough are the incredible companies that emerged out of these challenging times as well. Google and Amazon both came out of the dot-com bubble in the 90s (as did hundreds of other world-changing companies). And Uber, Spotify, Airbnb, Square, and dozens of other next-gen technology companies were founded between 2006 and 2009, right in the middle of the greatest financial crisis to ever threaten America. Recessions are pressure-cookers that rid the system of businesses failing to live up to the value they are promising society. To hear more on how you can make money even during a recession, download and listen to this episode. Bio

273 A New Way To Think with World’s #1 Management Thinker Roger Martin May 23, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a radically different dialogue about thinking with the legendary Roger Martin – a man who has been called, “the world's number one management thinker” by former Ford CEO Jim Hackett. Roger Martin is a Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, where he served as Dean from 98 to 2013, and as Institutional Director of the Martin Prosperity Interest Institute from 2013 to 2019. In 2013, he was also named Global Dean of the Year. In this remarkable conversation, we dig into the definition of thinking. We also discuss the difference between what Roger calls reflexive versus reflective thinking, and why thinking is a meta skill. So if you are interested on expanding the way you think, stay and listen to learn more. Roger Martin on Thinking about Thinking The conversation starts off on the topic of thinking about thinking, and if it’s weird to do so. Roger offers his thoughts on the matter: “I don't think so, no. But you know, I am surprised at the number of people who seem to not think about how they think – they just think. And then when something kind of bad happens, they're kind of flummoxed. The ones who are more inclined to think about how they're thinking are more likely to say, “well, maybe I wasn't thinking about that the best way I could, what would be a different way to think about it?” ” – Roger Martin The Definition of Thinking Before heading into deeper topics, we discuss the definition of thinking. Roger gives an explanation of his definition of thinking below: “I see it as the process of reflecting on your world against a model you have of it. So you'd be thinking, if you say, that person just smiled at me as we walked by each other. So that was stimulus to your senses. And to think about it, you have to have some kind of a model in your head interpreting it. So you would say, when the corners of the lips go up like that, it generally means that that person is kind of happy, or is favorably disposed toward me, and not they have a nervous tic. But that could be another interpretation of it. But you have some kind of model that says, “this is my method of interpreting what is happening to me.” “ – Roger Martin The thing is, other people might not have the same model as you do, unless you are privy that information. This often results in clashes in models, or a misinterpretation of other people’s model because they are unfamiliar, or radically different from yours. That is where thinking about thinking plays a role. Reflexive versus Reflective Thinking Roger was then presented with a thought about the current way of thinking: “We live in a world today that what that says that what most people call thinking is actually the mental retweeting of something they heard that they like, that often confirms and existing thought. And that existing thought was something they were taught to think, ergo, what most people call thinking today is actually not thinking.” Roger’s response is that conceptually, that is correct. But in a way, it is also another type of thinking. “What you describe is also thinking, but it is a much more reflexive form of thinking, then reflective form of thinking. So it's sort of a bit of a, like a reflexive pattern recognition. But I don't object to calling non reflective thinking to be just barely thinking or maybe not thinking at all.” – Roger Martin To learn more about Roger Martin & the different kinds of thinking, download and listen to this episode. Bio Roger L. Martin is Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto, where he served as Dean from 1998 to 2013, and as Institute Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute from 2013 to 2019. In 2013, he was named Global Dean of the Year and in 2017, he was named the world's number one management thinker by Thinkers50. He has published 12 previous books including When More Is Not Better and Play...

272 The Culture Playbook with NYT Bestselling Author Daniel Coyle May 16, 2022

Many people are asking how do we create legendary cultures in a digital / hybrid work environment. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we ask Daniel Coyle this question: how can we create legendary cultures? Daniel Coyle is a New York Times bestselling author. His book, The Culture Code, was named the Best Business Book of the Year a little while back by Bloomberg. He has a new book out now, called The Culture Playbook: 60 highly effective actions to help your group succeed. He is the man on all things culture, so stay and listen to learn more. Daniel Coyle on Writing His New Book The conversation starts of with congratulating Daniel Coyle on publishing his latest book, The Culture Playbook. Daniel follows up on his thoughts on how he feels when launching a new project or book. “We are living through a moment, aren't we? It's like, when you start a project like this, you're never quite sure when it's going to land. And everybody's trying to figure out, “How are we going? How are we going to do this? How are we going to work together now? Everybody's having that conversation now. It is a moment, and it's kind of fun to explore what's possible” – Daniel Coyle The Transition Period Daniel was then asked about his thoughts on certain huge companies that are telling their people to go back to the office. Another thing to note was that those who are pushing for these things are usually those who are Native Analogs – people whose life don’t revolve in the digital sphere. Daniel thinks that this current period is a transitional phase, and it’s a way for companies to see what works and what doesn’t. “Is it transition and it is totally fascinating to see us people self-organize in this new world. And there's basically two schools of thought about it. The first school of thought is, this was a rupture. People things will never go back to the way they were, people discovered that they had lives outside of work. Then there's another school of thought, which says, Yeah, this is kind of part of a larger, longer journey, there was a sort of zoom out where people realized, hey, life's a lot bigger than work. But at the same time, that there is kind of a joy and a pleasure and a positivity and a productivity that comes out of being in the office. It's maybe not five days a week, maybe it's three, maybe it's two.” – Daniel Coyle Daniel admits that he himself falls under the second school of thought, and that going to the office can be quite beneficial for productivity, even if it’s just 2 to 3 days off a week. Organizing Your Office for the New Work Experience On the topic of adopting the hybrid workplace, one of the issues brought up was the lack of coordination. For example, one could be scheduled to be at the office, yet the people who they have to work or have a meeting with are staying at home. Daniel agrees that this is currently happening in a lot of offices, and is something that the teams and management need to address. They have to be intentional and work out schedules where everyone in the team is in the office at the same time, so they can meet and collaborate on what needs to be done for their projects. Management can also help in coordinating schedules, so that different teams that need to work together can have overlapping schedules. But at the end of the day, the initiative to coordinate should come from the teams themselves. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck in your cubicle, still doing zoom calls with your teammates. To hear more from Daniel Coyle and how to create a legendary culture in your workplace, download and listen to this episode. Bio Daniel Coyle is the New York Times best-selling author of The Culture Playbook, The Culture Code, The Secret Race, The Little Book of Talent, The Talent Code, Lance Armstrong's War, Hardball: A Season in the Projects and the novel Waking Samuel. Winner (with Tyler Hamilton) of the 2012 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Prize,

271 David Gergen, Hearts Touched By Fire May 09, 2022

Welcome to the second part of our extraordinary, unfiltered, unfettered real dialogue with David Gergen. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we dive into the key themes of his new book about leadership, called Hearts on Fire: How great leaders are made. David Gergen has served as an adviser to four United States President Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and most recently, Clinton. He is the rare political leader to serve his country from both Republican and Democratic vantage points. Professor Gergen also teaches public service, and as the founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also the winner of two Peabody awards for excellence in broadcasting. If you want to check out the first part our dialogue with David Gergen, you can check out FYD episode 266, where he talked about his thoughts on the war in Ukraine, and the people with important roles to play in it. David Gergen: Hearts on Fire The conversation starts off on the topic of David’s new book, and how it is different from his previous work. His new book, Hearts on Fire, felt more like a love letter to the Native Digital generation, and encouraging them as they face the future ahead. David explains that he felt as though people that are currently handling the reins are going in the wrong direction. But he could see potential in the new generation, and would like to share his knowledge to them and help them grow. “There were a lot of individuals in my classroom. So I thought the world of them, and I thought they were really impressive. They have the capacity to change the world, or just manage to change this country. So this was a an attempt to call them, to summon who would like to get in the arena. I think they can make a huge difference.” – David Gergen For David, his latest work was like a Legacy book; a message he wanted to leave for the next generation. Turning Adversity into Purpose A huge topic in this book is how to tackle adversity – not just to overcome it, but to use it to find your purpose. David explains that a lot of the younger generations can do great things. But they are hampered by the fact that they have not figured out what their purpose is. “We can draw hope from the quality of the people who are coming in these next generations. They're just people who will knock your socks off when you spend time with them. But they're still searching how they can make a difference.” – David Gergen Like David said, he wanted his book to be a guide, or at the very least, share his own experiences so that the new generation can derive what they can do better in their life. David Gergen on Passing the Baton For David, writing this book was like passing the baton to the next generation. That said, he thinks that the older folks should be willing to do so, rather than clinging to power. This also leads to the discussion about how leadership is evolving nowadays. We are no longer living in a world in which leaders are only formed in our nation's most lead institutions. Rather, the current leaders of the generation come from the crowd themselves, like Greta, the Parkland students, and Malala. To hear more from David Gergen and how the younger generation’s hearts of fire can help spark change in the world, download and listen to this episode. Bio David Gergen is a professor of public service and founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. In addition, he serves as a senior political analyst for CNN and works actively with a rising generation of new leaders. In the past, he has served as a White House adviser to four U.S. presidents of both parties: Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He wrote about those experiences in his New York Times best-seller, Eyewitness to Power: The Essence of Leadership, Nixon to Clinton (Simon & Schuster, 2001). In the 1980s, he began a career in journalism. Starting with the MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour in 1984,

270 Free Speech with Jacob Mchangama, Author of “Free Speech: A History from Socrates to Social Media” May 02, 2022

Free speech is often called the first freedom and the bedrock of democracy. Our guest today says that on one hand, free speech around the world has never been better. But right now, we are experiencing a free speech entropy in the United States. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead, we have a deep dialogue about Free Speech with Jacob Mchangama. Jacob Mchangama is a global expert on free speech. Political satirist PJ O'Rourke says that his new book is. “The best history of free speech ever written, and the best defense of free speech ever made.” That book is called Free Speech: a history from Socrates to social media, and it is out now. Jacob is a Danish lawyer, and the founder of Justicia, a Copenhagen-based think tank that focuses on human rights, freedom of speech, and the rule of law. So if you want to learn more about free speech, how it has evolved through history, and what it will look like in the future, stay tuned to this episode. Jacob Mchangama on Free Speech The conversation begins on Jacob’s work on free speech, and his new book about it. He was then asked about what his thoughts on the current state of free speech in the world today. According to Jacob, we’ve never had it better. It may not be as apparent in the US, but if you consider the rest of the world, people get to speak out more than ever before. Most of which was born with the proliferation of the internet, and the wide reach it provides. “You and I can speak there's no censor, making sure that we don't say inappropriate things. And you know, so technology, internet has given us unprecedented opportunities.” – Jacob Mchangama Recession of Free Speech It is really the golden age of free speech. Though according to Jacob, it is an age that is currently in decline. As things enter a more stable period after a boom of ideas, a state of entropy starts to set in. It is no different with free speech, as Jacob explains: “Every time there's a period in history where free speech is now sort of secure and we've turned the corner, a process of free speech entropy sets in. “ – Jacob Mchangama This comes after the European Union is in the process of adopting a law which would, which says that social media companies have to remove your illegal content within a short timeframe or risk huge fines. Social media themselves are almost self-censoring to a point, restricting certain content from appearing on people’s search results and feeds. The Evolution of Free Speech in the US Moving the topic to the US side of things, Jacob finds the US and its take on free speech fascinating. According to him, it seems that free speech has evolved and grown over the years, and yet the first amendment and its wording has remained the same. The evolution stems on how the US society interprets these words, leading to the growth of its scope and reach. As Jacob puts it, nowadays it’s difficult to imagine what you could say to a sitting US president that would get you in jail, short of direct threats or incitement of violence. Yet in the old days, you could go to jail for making a snide remark about an incumbent president. But this same flexibility and reach is what’s putting free speech in a tight spot. With the wide reach of the internet also comes rampant misinformation. The issue is some of the people peddling misinformation is hiding behind the notion of free speech, which makes it difficult to remove once and for all. Though for Jacob, it will all boil down to how we, as a society, will decide on what's acceptable or not. “Ultimately, I think that the culture of free speech is probably more important than the legal language, or a legal statute, or constitutional protection. Because ultimately, the culture of free speech is what will inform where we draw the limits, and how we interpret the legal protections that we have.” – Jacob Mchangama To learn more about Jacob Mchangama and the current state of free speech in the US and around the world,

269 Inside Ukraine/Russia War: What Are Real Cyber Threats? How Will It End? with Dmitri Alperovitch, US Homeland Security Advisory, Co-Founder of CrowdStrike, Chairman Silverado Policy Accelerator Apr 25, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we go deep into topics that traditional television could and would not go. Specifically, we talk about the war in Ukraine, and where all of this might end with our guest, Dmitri Alperovitch. We also talk about cyber threats, and how capable the US is against it. Dmitri Alperovitch is one of America's top cybersecurity experts. He is on the US homeland security advisory council, and the co-founder and former Chief Technology Officer of the $50 billion market cap CrowdStrike. Right now, he is also the chairman of Silverado Policy Accelerator. So when he talks about cyber threats and security, you’d best listen in. Achieving Escalation Dominance The conversation starts off with Dmitri explaining that the United States has the capability to take Russia off the internet. They could it temporarily, or even permanently – though it could prove complicated to do so. Both of which can be escalatory and provocative. Dmitri’s point on this is that rather than slowly matching Russia’s actions with certain sanctions or retaliating in a similar manner, the US can use this to send a message and stop those attacks from further escalating in the first place. “If they do launch those attacks, in my opinion, we need to be very thoughtful about our response. We need to make sure that we achieve escalation dominance, in that we stop those attacks that in their tracks that we send a very strong message to Moscow: that this is not going to be tolerated, this is not going to be acceptable.” – Dmitri Alperovitch Life Without Internet As to why this would serve as a great deterrent, Dmitri explains that while they could still send people to do cyberattacks on the US from other places, this would send a strong signal to make them think twice about it. Because like the rest of the world, they are also dependent on this digital resource to run their country. Nowadays, energy sectors, healthcare, and logistics see the highest usage rate for it. So in effect, shutting down their internet capabilities could have a strong effect on their economy as well. “The goal of the internet shutdown is not to stop cyber attacks; that is an impossibility because they can launch them from any place. And we're not going to go around the world shutting down countries from the internet. That's not an interest in the United States. The goal is to demonstrate the type of effect we can have on their economy, if they continue to judge those attacks from wherever they may launch them, from Russia or elsewhere.” – Dmitri Alperovitch Though Dmitri warns that this should only be done as a retaliatory action or response to an attack, rather than a pre-emptive strike. Because if they decide to do the latter, it might suddenly invite attacks, so the US should consider things carefully first. The Effectivity of Cyber Attacks Dmitri describes cyber attacks as a perfect tool for inflicting damage but having the option of anonymity or deniability. One can execute it remotely, and still have impact on a far-away area or country. Though for something as overt as what Russia was doing, defaulting to kinetic weapons and outright war could achieve their objectives. Though it is not to say that cyber attacks is ineffective in this case, as Dmitri shares what happened in the first few hours or the Russian attacks on Ukraine. “One of the attacks that has not gotten a lot of attention was the hack of a US-based satellite provider called ViaSat that has a subsidiary that provides satellite communication services to Eastern Europe, particularly the Ukraine military. The Russians had actually hacked that satellite provider, or actors are believed to be Russian. They were able to essentially cripple satellite modems, thousands of them that the Ukrainians were using in the first hours of the war. My understanding is that that actually did have a significant impact on their ability to communicate in those initial hours and potent...

You: Why Legendary Leaders Are Themselves. A very different Dialogue with Minter Dial, Award-Winning Author of “You Lead” Apr 19, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we ask the question: Who are You? What do you want to be? What's the difference between being and doing? And who better to help us answer those questions that the legendary Minter Dial. Minter Dial is a B2C Branding Master, having had a legendary career with L’Oreal and the CEO of hair care brand REDKEN. He’s also an extraordinary storyteller; his first two published books be international prize winners. His new book, called You Lead, is definitely a must-read. If you believe in the power of dialogue to change thinking, you’re going to love everything about this episode. You Lead The conversation starts off about Minter Dial’s new book, and how it has brought up several great points as you progress through it. One of the most thought-provoking ones is the idea of being yourself makes you a better leader. This makes sense, as one of the biggest causes of struggle and pain in life and one’s career is trying to be something you are not, just to accommodate others. Minter explains that one of the issues that bad leaders face is that they probably do not have the proper people skills for the job. That disconnect, more often than not, stems from their lack of awareness about who they are. “Essentially, there are probably very few good leaders. And the reason for that isn't that they don't have people skills, its that they haven't done the work to figure out who they truly are. My observation is that a lot of people think they know who they are. They might have a broad idea of who they want to be. But they haven't done the hard work that says more precisely “who I want to be.” “ – Minter Dial The Ability to be Good Christopher shares that one of his friends think that his superpower was the ability to go deep in anger. That he was able to embrace and utilize it to make powerful statements, but not let it consume his rationale. Minter explains that he thinks that people are wired to be good, in general. The reason why we are like that is the need to be together rather than stand alone. The only way that would work is if we are good to each other. “If you're an evil person, as a CEO, you might do well in the short term. But as soon as you leave the vacuum that you've created, and all the damage that you have sown will cause an impossibility for the follow up act. And so it might be a short term approach. So the bottom line is, I think that we all have the ability to be good.” – Minter Dial Sure, all people have dirt, a bit of evil and naughtiness in all of us. But it is important to be aware and understand how much of that we should bring to the table. But it’s also not good to hide it all. Showing some of your foils or imperfections shows that you are still human. Minter Dial on Radical Self-Awareness and Roundedness Christopher continues with this line of thought, saying that it isn’t radical transparency that CEOs need, but radical self-awareness. To know your own strengths and weakness, so you know what to work on and keep yourself well-rounded. You are also then aware of what you lack, and can surround yourself with people that can fill those gaps. Minter agrees with this assessment, and adds that sometimes, we tend to exclude people that could attribute to this roundedness. His example for this is journalists. If you’re building a tech team, you’d get the usual suspects: HR, finance, and marketing. But what a bout hiring a journalist? At first, you might think it’s an odd fit. But if you think of what journalists do rather than the industry they came from, they are probably really good at discerning the tastes of the people. They would have to be when writing up articles to entice people to read them. His point is, learn to diversify in your choices, and it could end up with a more rounded group than you normally would. To hear more from Minter Dial and how to figure yourself out, download and listen to this episode. Bio Minter Dial is a storyteller,

267 David Sacks: All In Podcast “Rain Man” & Top Tech VC on Ukraine/Russia, Biden, The Coming “Red” GOP Wave, The Economy, California Politics, Venture Capital & What Startups Should Do Now Apr 04, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we continue our focus on the current situation in the world and in the United States. Because in times of great change and great uncertainty, we turn to great, though in some cases, counterintuitive minds. Today, we talk to one of the great minds of today, David Sacks. David Sacks is a legendary entrepreneur, category, and company builder – and now, venture capitalist. He is the founder of Craft Ventures. In Silicon Valley, David is a living legend. You see, he was the co-founding CEO of Paypal, founder and CEO of Yammer, which sold to Microsoft for over a billion dollars. He has been an early investor and advisor to companies like Facebook, Twitter, Uber, SpaceX, Airbnb, Slack, and so much more. He’s also co-hosting an amazing podcast called All In, which has become one of the most popular dialogue podcasts in the world. So if you want to listen to the thoughts of this legendary individual, stay tuned to this episode. If you want to check out our past dialogues with David Sacks, you can check them out here. This episode was recorded on March 29th, 2022 David Sacks Goes All In The conversation starts off with what’s new with David, particularly, his relatively-new podcast. David explains that it started out as a conversation pod with his “besties”. It was something they did to pass the time during COVID. Little did they know, it would grow into what it is today. “It's been kind of a surprise. We started doing it at the beginning of COVID when we were all trapped in our houses and had nothing else to do. So it's me and three friends, the four besties as we ironically say, and yeah, we've been doing this weekly pod. Amazingly, it's climbed the charts. I think the new episodes tend to be in the top 30 or 40 podcasts. And it's done really well.” – David Sacks David shares that at first, they tried to focus on talking business and markets, as well as private investing in VC. But there was only so much you could talk about that without circling back on itself. So they eventually started talking about current events, politics and world affairs, and how it can affect the world of business. Having a Healthy Conversation David muses that what makes them different from other business and marketing podcasts, except for their discussion on current affairs, is that they get to have a healthy conversation. Unlike your typical podcast that has the host and maybe one or two guests to discuss a certain topic, the four of them talk it out amongst themselves, and sometimes even lead to heated discussions. Because it’s not simply an echo chamber, it’s a place where ideas are presented, and confirmed or challenged by the other hosts. “One of the things people say they like about it is the fact that we can get into debates, vigorous debates about politics, and yet we're all still friends. There's that vibe to it. But there's also people on the show breaking each other's balls, that kind of stuff. And they like that vibe, too.” – David Sacks Since it’s the same four people having the conversation each week, each episode feels like a continuation of the last. Which makes you want to listen to it and look forward to the next. David Sacks on the War in Ukraine When asked about his thoughts on the current situation in Ukraine, David responds that it can be difficult to say what exactly is happening at a particular time. Despite technology giving us easier access to information, there is just too much conflicting information being touted around. That said, he felt that some US media is escalating the current situation to the point that as if we are already at the brink of World War III. As a man who preaches for peace rather than an escalation of conflict, David hopes that our politicians and leaders steer clear of the war and help pursue for peace in the region. To hear more on David Sacks and his thoughts on the current affairs of the world,

266 David Gergen, Adviser to 4 US Presidents, On The War in Ukraine, Zelenskyy, Putin, Biden, & The Path Forward Mar 25, 2022

This is an extraordinary time in history COVID recession, radical social change. The shift from native analogues to native Digital's increased internal violence in the US and in many other democracies. In times of great crisis, we turn to great minds for deeper understanding and perspective. So, on this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we ask David Gergen: what's really going on here in the world? David Gergen has served as an adviser to four United States President Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and most recently, Clinton. He is the rare political leader to serve his country from both Republican and Democratic vantage points. Professor Gergen also teaches public service, and as the founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also the winner of two Peabody awards for excellence in broadcasting. So when it comes to the world of politics, there is no other better suited to make sense of everything that is going on. So if you are interested, stay tuned to this episode. David Gergen on the State of World The conversation starts off with David getting asked about what he thought about the current situation of the world today. David says that it’s looking pretty grim at the moment. “We've just had a cascade of crises over the last 20 years and it is sort of bewildering. How many have hit us? And you know, some have come and gone and some would remain with us. The latest one? Ukraine. I it's just really hard to see a good outcome in this.” – David Gergen A lot has happened over the past weeks in the development of the Russian Invasion of the Ukraine, and David shares that it may last for a while until both sides have exhausted their arsenal, like two punch- drunk fighters. But he still hopes that Putin sees reason at cuts his losses, and start accepting peace talks sincerely. Because as it is, their current situation doesn’t only affect them, but the rest of the world as well. Choosing Sides When asked about the weird rise of support for Putin from some politicians and celebrities, David agrees that the trend is not mainstream, but it is visible now. He also comments that this line of thought is dangerous, and could only serve to prolong the war, as Putin might continue thinking that he is justified for doing so. “I think the degree to which people move over to Putin's hog(wash) will only prolong this war, and very, very likely would politicize it. We will pay a price for that for a long time to come, because we'll never settle down. We'll never get back to a smoothly running democracy again, if we keep playing games.” – David Gergen He adds that we should all double down with our original stance and that is one of morality. Putin is being a tyrant, and we must support Ukraine in any way we can. On Bush and Biden’s Responses to Crises David was then asked how he compares Bush’s actions right after 9-11 and Biden’s response in the current Ukraine crisis. He first makes a point that both took a stateman’s approach, which is to protect the United States first and foremost. In Bush’s case, he protected the people of Islamic faith that reside in the US, while simultaneously planning a precision strike on the people responsible for the attack. As for Biden, he did his best to keep us out of war. He prevented us from being directly being involved by not deploying troops to Ukraine. Now, whether that turns out to be the right decision as a policy, I think is still uncertain. Whether it proves to be the right thing or not will remain to be seen in the coming days. To hear more from David Gergen and his thoughts on the current state of the world, download and listen to this episode. Bio David Gergen is a professor of public service and founding director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. In addition, he serves as a senior political analyst for CNN and works actively with a rising generation of new leaders. In the past,

265 How To Design The Future, The Power Of Communities, What We Can Learn About Native Digital Marketing From President Zelenskyy with Gina Bianchini, Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks Mar 21, 2022

We live in a time of radical acceleration in the creation of very different futures with marketing category after marketing category. That goes the same for the world overall as well, which also adds a threat and challenge to most businesses. But at the same time, it can also be a great opportunity. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we make sense of it all with our guest, Gina Bianchini. Gina Bianchini is the founder and CEO of Mighty Networks. She is in the business of creating different futures. She has raised over $67 million in top tier Venture Capital, and a pioneer in the digital and social space on creating a platform for businesses and creators to build communities. Gina has also been a guest before. You can check out what she has said on The Power of Niche Networks in FYD episode 65. So if you want to hear more from her about the power of communities, stay tuned to this episode. The Importance of Knowing Category Design Gina starts off the conversation by stating that she loved what they were doing with Category Pirates, and how it being a collaboration means ideas are more fleshed out and multi-POV than just having one person do it. That said, she mentions being in a conference recently that was showing a product that she immediately recognized as someone who took category design and ran with it. “I was at this conference yesterday, I saw one of the best category design presentations in like, eight minutes. It was it was it was a masterclass in category design. It's a company called Coalition. And they do cyber insurance. And their category that they have is active insurance.” – Gina Bianchini Gina could tell that the company was not going to compete in the cybersecurity market, it was creating a new market for itself with a new category. So if all things go well, Coalition could find themselves the Category Kings in this new market they are trying to create. Overdone Languaging is Bad Languaging They then talk about how languaging seems to be going to a bad trend nowadays. While languaging in business itself is not bad, it is bad when done to an excess. We call it Technobabble, and it’s when you just spout out jargons and techspeak just to make yourself sound competent in the tech field and to potential clients. While smooth-talkers who sell snake oil are not new in the business world, it screams lazy and incompetent when you just take a bunch of technobabble and dump it in your company’s mission statement, in hopes of sounding smart. Languaging is supposed to help you differentiate yourself from the rest, not to obscure and hide your business’ lack of ingenuity. The Big Brand Lie Gina brings up one of the articles and minibooks that Category Pirates has created, which was the Big Brand Lie. I share with her the story on what happened after we released that article on Category Pirates. Because a lot of marketing people were upset, some as a knee-jerk reaction, others because it challenged their prior knowledge and ideas in marketing. But at the end of it all, whether it changed someone’s ideas on marketing or not, it did start a conversation on how to approach marketing. If nothing else, that spark alone is rewarding in and of itself. Gina agrees and also echoes the sentiment that product alone is not enough to dominate a market. And if you want to create different futures, you need to look at how you can drag that future into the present. To hear more from Gina Bianchini and her thoughts on Category Design and the power of building a community, download and listen to this episode. Bio Gina Bianchini is an American entrepreneur and investor. She is the Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks. Before Mighty Networks, she was CEO of Ning, which she co-founded with Marc Andreessen. In addition to Mighty Networks, Gina serves as a board director of TEGNA, a $3 billion broadcast and digital media company, and served as a board director of Scripps Networks,

264 Why Startups Should Slow Down, Why Hospitals Are Like Airlines, What’s Next with Covid19, Theranos, & The War In Europe with #1 HealthTech Investor Bryan Roberts Mar 07, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a conversation about a wide range of topics. From why startups should slow down, the current state of Covid19 and how it has affected our healthcare systems, to Silicon Valley’s response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Who better to have this conversation than with one of the smartest minds I know, Bryan Roberts. Bryan Roberts is a Senior Partner at legendary venture capital firm Venrock in Silicon Valley. He is the man that many people consider the number one healthcare tech VC on the planet. So if you want to know our thoughts and be part of the dialogue, stay tuned to this episode. Also, pay special attention to what Bryan thinks CEOs should be thinking about and doing to survive and thrive over the next 12 months. Bryan Roberts on the Growth of Startups We open up the conversation about the state of startups over the past 6 months. According to Bryan, the have been some noticeable changes on how the public and markets interact recently. Before, when the public markets go down, it usually takes 6-12 months before the private markets also start going down. This is because those two markets are working on different capitals. But recently, there has been a crossing over of public to private and vice-versa, which has made the shifts in the market almost simultaneous due to these crossovers. Bryan Roberts then talks about how he wishes startups would slow down a bit. He knows that this is contrary to the current popular belief that blitz-scaling and creating value quickly for your product is better, but he has this to say on the matter: “I think there's something to be said for, for getting your stuff right. Like, it takes 10 years to build a good product, and probably takes 5 years to build a functional product that you’re embarrassed about.” – Bryan Roberts For Bryan, rushing growth might look good in the short term, but it might not translate the same long term. In 2-4 years, all your customers will figure out that the products are not delivering the value you are selling them for, and you are left with a declining product and scrambling for the next short-term fix. Covid19 and Its Effects on Healthcare On the topic of the pandemic, Bryan thinks that it has pushed changes in behavior towards healthcare forward for a decade or two in the span of a year. People suddenly have to learn things about healthcare they never bothered about before. They might get pissy or annoyed about it, but they still did it because it was an essential knowledge now. Virtual Primary Care and telemedicine are some of the examples of the things even older people had to learn and have access to. Of course, it won’t replace the brick-and-mortar / traditional way we have access to medicine and healthcare. There are still some things that cannot be handled virtually or over the phone. But it is good that services that can transition over to remote access are doing so, and is reaching more people than ever. Bryan Roberts on Covid Deniers Despite all the evidence and news that has been going on, it seems that there are still people who downplay the severity of Covid19. While it has been tempered to lower numbers nowadays due to vaccines and weaker strains, it still doesn’t deny the fact that we got our collective asses kicked by this pandemic this past two years. For Bryan, it would be a disservice to the countless healthcare workers and their efforts for the past couple of years if people continue to say that this pandemic was some government ploy or a way for healthcare to make more money. He also stresses that it’s a dangerous line of thought, given how this particular virus operates. While past viruses like Ebola had such a high mortality rate that it eventually dies out when contained, Covid does not. Which means it has more time to spread. It can even spread before the person spreading it shows symptoms, so it’s really hard to say if a public space is safe or not,

263 What’s the Role of Business, Beyond Business? Mar 02, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, let’s ask what is the role of business, beyond just business. Today marks the 5th day into the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the first attack of its kind since Sept. 1, 1939 – the start of World War 2. So let’s talk about how this affects businesses, and how businesses can affect it. Roll Call for Companies According to the Wall Street Journal, the US is still buying 8% of its oil from Russia. On the commercial side, there has been no announcements by companies such as McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, and Papa John’s to name a few, on closure of their branches in Russia, temporary or otherwise. On the tech side of things, there have also been no word from Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, nor from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as well as CISCO CEO Chuck Robbins and Oracle CEO Safra Catz on their stance and plans as things progress in Russia. I'm disheartened, somewhat defeated, and absolutely fucking royally mad about the silence from Silicon Valley on this topic. There are some exceptions, of course. Criticize the man all you like, but Elon Musk made a commitment to keep the Ukraine connected to the internet via his Starlink satellite internet. Less than 48 hours after he made that promise, a shipment of Starlink terminals arrived in the Ukraine. Businesses Getting Involved in War There are those on the web that criticize people who celebrate when big corporations do something in the situation. My response to them is this: “Anyone who supports in any way, a free democratic society, who is being invaded, attacked, and mass murdered is a hero.” – Christopher Lochhead Now, if you wish to join me in making a financial contribution, we took a list of charities helping in the Ukraine(published by NBC News). You can check out that list of charities and I encourage you to crack open your wallet and see if you can make a difference for the people of Ukraine. You can also donate to Doctors Without Borders as they mobilize to help Ukraine and nearby countries that were affected. The Role of Businesses beyond Business As a business owner or entrepreneur, you might be asking – how exactly can businesses help in this situation? Well, imagine what would happen if all the tech security companies pulled the plug on the Russian government and on major Russian enterprise. Imagine if all tech infrastructure companies pulled the plug on Russia. Imagine if all of the SAS application companies, the database companies, the gaming companies, the IT operations companies shut down Russia's digital world, the digital world is as important today as the analog world. if they manage to shut down the Russians government's ability to do things in the digital world, we're going to shut down a lot. Of course, there are certain companies and certain situations where it makes sense to keep doing business. In Russia, for example, communication, and social platforms is critical for Russian citizens to be able to see and hear what their government is doing in the Ukraine. So what leaders do in times of crisis matters, what you and I do in times of crisis matters. If the US federal government will not stop buying Russian blood oil, will we stop doing business with Russia? Will our CEOs put peace before profits? Or will businesses do whatever they want to do? It's easy to be great when everything's great. But what defines our lives is who we choose to be in times of crisis. Bio Christopher Lochhead We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

262 The $21.7T Metaverse Economy, Web 3.0, & The “Great Refactoring”, with #1 Tech Analyst R. Ray Wang, Founder of Constellation Research Feb 21, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, Ray Wang is back. Like always, we are in for a treat as we go deep into a whole bunch of topics. Ray Wang is the world’s number one Tech Analyst, and the founds of Constellation Research. He is the author of the bestselling book; Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Ray also hosts his own very popular podcast, called DisrupTV. So sit back and join us as we have a deep dialogue about Metaverse, the current status of Web 3.0, and the recent major events that are still affecting everyone to this day. Ray Wang on the Metaverse Economy The conversation starts off about the Metaverse and the Metaverse Economy. Ray explains that people’s concept of the Metaverse are still in the infancy stages right now. When they hear metaverse, they think AR, VR, or maybe gaming. Simply put, it’s 2D becoming 3D. Yet according to Ray, there are bigger implications, particularly in the market it will bring in the future. “The metaverse economy is something that we're seeing as a $21.7 trillion market by 2030.” – Ray Wang That sounds like a big number, because it is. Right now, publicly traded tech companies are valued at around $24 trillion. But if you look at it closely, these companies are gradually shifting into the digital space, which is what we now call as “metaverse”. Slowly but surely, the big companies have been positioning themselves in a strategic spot for when the technology catches up to the concept. Ray Wang on Web 3.0 All of these changes have been possible by the advent of Web 3.0, which is powered by the blockchain and cryptocurrency. But what exactly is Web 3.0? In order to explain it, you have to understand what the previous iterations were. Web 1.0 is basically a “Read” aspect of the internet. You can have access to websites, but there aren’t a lot of ways to interact with them. Web 2.0 changed that, moving into the “Read/Write” era of the internet. Now there are more services and functions that we can use over the net, but it comes at the exchange of data and information about the users. Web 3.0 aims to give the users control over their data, like how blockchains can track every step of the transaction made, or how some can limit the amount of data or even restrict outgoing data from their device and browsers, much like what Apple did to Facebook and other social media platforms. Or at least that’s the idea scenario. But according to Ray, it all depends on who’s holding the reins to the operation. “These Metaverse economies by design are hopefully going to favor privacy and anonymity of the user, right? It's gonna be about creating transparency of the seller and protecting your privacy in a transaction. That's the intent, right? But like all good technology, it's really about the people behind the intent.” – Ray Wang Transparency vs Privacy Speaking of data control, Ray mentions the recent move by Apple to give users the option to turn off data tracking from various apps has got Facebook bothered. Likely because that’s how Facebook gets most of its revenue by using said data to do targeted advertising and such. Moreover, showing that it could be done could open the floodgates to other tech companies to add such a feature in the future. It seems Apple is taking it a step further, allowing its users to encrypt emails and essential use the iCloud as their own personal VPN when doing their business over the internet. On the other hand, as FANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) seems to be reaching their saturation point (particularly Facebook and Netflix), Facebook moved to launch the Metaverse and rebranded the company to Meta. Though the metaverse itself seems like a mega category waiting to happen, the issue lies on the fact that it doesn’t seem to be well-defined yet as to what its goals are. People have a vague idea, and some ideas that support the concept already exist. But it all seems like a premature move by Facebook,

261 The Future of School with Ted Dintersmith, Bestselling Author of “What School Could Be” Feb 14, 2022

We are currently at the start of a radical change in education of all levels. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, Ted Dintersmith explains what the future of school will be like as the new category of humans begin to shape it anew. Ted Dintersmith had a career in venture capitalism, but has now dedicated himself in the field of education and improving it. He is the author of a bestselling book, What School Could Be. It is quite an interesting read, and I would recommend you picking it up to learn more about the current state of education. On this dialogue, we discuss how school can be reimagined, redesigned, and recreated to become legendary. We also discuss what parents, students, and education leaders can do now to develop young people to thrive in the new world. Also, to hear about my thoughts and position on Spotify and the recent Joe Rogan scandal, please listen to the intro of this episode. The Current School Systems are Outdated The dialogue starts as Ted points out how relevant the difference is between Native Digitals and Native Analogs are. If you are not aware what a Native Digital is, check out one of our previous episodes (FYD 250) that talks extensively on the matter. It is important to recognize the difference, because then you’ll realize that the current school systems are still being run by Native Analogs that prepare students for a world that’s Native Analog. With the rapid growth of technology and the birth of Native Digitals and services that cater to them and them alone, a Native Analog school system will and is slowly becoming obsolete. The First Step is Recognizing the Problem The other issue according to Ted, is that when you talk to Native Analogs, they don’t think there’s a profound difference on the matter. Whereas Native Digitals can easily spot the difference. “You realize that, when you live in a digital world, you have control over what you do. You're able to go deep on what you're interested in, the content is either really compelling, or you just switch to something else. Plop that same kid over into school, and oftentimes, it's programmed, scripted, boring content that the student has no interest in or voice in, that the teacher really is not that interested in either. But some state legislator, some College Board, or some curriculum writer says, “This is what you got to learn.” And the kids just check out, because I think kids find school boring. They don't feel they have any real sense of purpose in it. And they know there's an alternative universe that's much more compelling.” – Ted Dintersmith Ted Dintersmith on What School Could Be The conversation steers to the topic on what the future of school should look like. Ted was then asked this question: “Besides the baseline subjects such as history, math, science, etc., should the student have the agency to say, “I really want to focus on this or that”?” Ted shares that he has seen schools that have employed these types of learning system. What he saw was that students were very engaged, and they were easily retaining what they were learning. Also, both student and educator were really excited to be in the classroom every day. Unfortunately, these school systems were quite rare across classrooms in America. One issue was the disconnect between what students find enjoyable and engaging, to what the current system thinks the student needs to have a good career when they finish their education. Add to that the rift that growing between Native Analog frameworks and curriculum, and the gap grows bigger. To hear more from Ted Dintersmith and how we can bring the current school systems to a new era, download and listen to this episode. Bio About Ted Links Connect with Ted Dintersmith today! Website | What School Could Be | LinkedIn Other Related Links: Category Pirates: The Digital Education Crisis NPR: More than 1 Million fewer students are in college CNBC: More Colleges face bankruptcy but top schoo...

260 The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People, and the Fight for Our Future with NY Times Bestselling Author Alec Ross Jan 31, 2022

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we ask the question: Will the future of the United States of America look more like Star Trek or Road Warrior? With us to answer that question is Alec Ross. Alec Ross is the author of The New York Times bestseller, The Industries of the Future. And he has a brand-new bestseller out called The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People and the Fight for our Future. Alec is a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Bologna business school, and he's a venture capitalist at Amplo, a global VC firm. If you have listened to our recent episode with Dr. Cedric Alexander, this dialogue will serve as a great continuation on the State of America (FYD 259), albeit from a different perspective. If you haven’t, why not give it a listen as well? Alec Ross on Channeling Your Rage The conversation starts on the topic of Alec Ross’ new book, The Raging 2020s. While the term “raging” often has the connotation of being good, it also can have a bad meaning. While it can denote people having a rolling good time, it can also mean anger, on the verge of violence. Which is not to say that we should always suppress our anger. For Alec, powerful emotions like that can be a huge part of the creative progress. “Figuring out how you can harness emotion, anger, volatility, and produce beautiful words, beautiful music, (and/or) beautiful oil on canvas. Also, the greatest athletes are those who know how to focus their rage.” – Alec Ross For Alec, it’s all about focusing and channeling those powerful emotions into something creative or productive, rather than letting it take over your life. The Raging 2020s Exploring further into the book, Alec explains that he wrote The Raging 2020s to show in part why everybody seems so angry right now. As discussed earlier, anger and rage could be channeled into ways that it could be productive. But when the rage becomes more collective, and entire segments of society are angry, what you get is violence. “I do feel like a lot, there is rage coming right now in America, both from the parts of America that have nothing to lose, as well of those parts of America that have something to protect, and believe that they can't necessarily grow what they have.” – Alec Ross Oftentimes, this is what happens when the when there isn't a shared sense of what we can get together. For Alec, it is something both interesting yet terrifying to observe. Star Trek or Mad Max? Alec then talks about the question that is in the heart of his new book. Which is, will our future look more like Mad Max, or Star Trek? If you aren’t familiar, Star Trek is set on a future where humanity has reached for the stars and enjoys continued progress and abundance. Whereas in Mad Max, we get a dystopian future with scarce resources and chaos all around. Alec says the future is entirely up to us. “The degree to which the future does look more like Star Trek or more like Mad Max, is entirely up to us. And I do think that if you have a mindset and an approach that's rooted in production and creation, as opposed to destruction, that's the beginning of any sort of progress.” – Alec Ross To hear more from Alec Ross and how the United States of America will end up in the future, download and listen to this episode. Bio Alec Ross is a New York Times best-selling author and Distinguished Visiting Professor at l’Universitá di Bologna Business School. He is the author of the recently published The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People and the Fight for Our Future. His prior book The Industries of the Future has been translated into 24 languages and been a best-seller on 5 continents. He is a Board Partner at Amplo, a global venture capital firm and sits on the board of directors or advisors for companies in the fields of technology, finance, education, human capital and cybersecurity. He is also an adviser to investors, start-ups and government leaders to help them understan...

259 The State of America with Dr. Cedric Alexander, Former Police Chief & President of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives Jan 17, 2022

On today’s special episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a deep conversation about the State of America. The United States of America is facing some meaningful challenges right now, and who better to help us unravel everything than Dr. Cedric Alexander. Dr. Cedric Alexander had a 40-year career in policing, public service, and mental health. He is the former police chief and Public Safety Director in DeKalb County, Georgia. He is also the former police chief of Rochester, New York, where he served as the federal security director in the TSA. Dr. Alexander also served on President Obama’s Task Force on 21st century policing. He is also the author of the hit book, The New Guardians: Policing in America’s Communities for the 21st century. Now, you often see Dr. Alexander on TV, or even up on a stage giving a speech. But unlike the TV where you only get a few minutes with him, today we go deep in an incredibly thoughtful conversation in a way that you only can on a real dialogue podcast. Dr. Cedric Alexander on the Upcoming Elections The conversation started off on the topic of the upcoming midterms on 2022, and the subsequent presidential election on 2024. Particularly, on whether people could expect violence during these times, with regards to the events that unfolded last election. Being a former lawman himself, Dr. Cedric Alexander can’t help but think about it as well. With regards to what happened in the 6th of January in 2021, it has certainly created a great deal of pause and concern for the country. As for his perspective, Dr. Alexander thinks that there is too much politics and taking sides involved that the Right and the Left are so divided. He finds it difficult to take sides with one or the other, because his concern and ideas require both sides to work together to fix the nation. “It's very difficult to me for me to take sides with one over the other, because I think politics get played all the way around. What I'm concerned about is not their politics, but this nation as we know it.” – Dr. Cedric Alexander Sit Down and Talk When asked if there is a chance for both sides to have a more civil dialogue as opposed to inciting violence whenever they don’t get the desired results, Dr. Alexander has this to say: “My thought is that both sides of the aisle, in my humble opinion, struggle for good leadership. Leadership that is not grounded in the party you belong to. Leadership that is grounded in the fact that we have to work together to find a way, or we’re going to continue to be in this very risky posture that we are in right now. “ – Dr. Cedric Alexander In order to avoid a repeat of what happened on January 6, it’s going to take leadership coming from both sides of the aisle. Not political leadership, but humanistic leadership. A leadership with proper morals, and one that comes from the heart. The Perpetuation of the Election Fraud Claims They then talk briefly about the continuous perpetuation that the election was stolen, despite numerous proofs and actual recounts done in some states. Dr. Alexander says that this is a dangerous precedent. “We're almost at a point where even if I show you that clear evidence of anything, is still not believed. That is dangerous, brother.” – Dr. Cedric Alexander According to him, this also all boils down to leadership problems, as some of the leaders themselves are perpetuating this belief, in order to curry favor or not be ostracized by their party. To hear more from Dr. Cedric Alexander and the State of America, download and listen to this episode. Bio Dr. Cedric L. Alexander A visionary leader who has served over four decades in law enforcement and public service, there’s few more qualified to speak on the growing strife between race, communities, and the police. In his frequent, high profile commentary on CNN’s Amanpour, NBC News, and MSNBC, he poses the hard questions about systemic racism in our country and the need for police refo...

258 Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation with Ayelet Fishbach, PhD Jan 05, 2022

What is the source of human motivation? In this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, Dr. Ayelet Fishbach shares the real science behind what motivates people to get things done. Dr. Ayelet Fischbach is the author of the no.1 bestselling and deeply researched book, Get It Done: Surprising lessons from the science of motivation. She is an award-winning psychologist at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the past president of the Society for the Study of Motivation. What you are about to hear is a powerful dialogue about what it really takes to get and stay motivated, and ultimately get it done. Dr. Ayelet Fischbach on Tying Productivity with Activity The conversation starts with Christopher commenting that he feels that he has been less productive compared to his previous career. This was mostly due to his past work being so fast-paced and packed with activity, that he feels he is not as effective as he once was. Dr. Fishbach responds that this is something that people often get confused about, which is associating productivity with activity. Sometimes people bombard themselves with a lot mundane tasks and call it a productive day, rather than getting something meaningful done that actually makes progress. “If you took the day to think about a new idea, if you had a new idea for a book today, that would play an incredible day, right? Like, these are the best days for you. And they don't involve their eight meetings. Back-to-back meetings are often a waste of time and we just fill up our time with all this nonsense.” – Dr. Ayelet Fishbach You Can’t Put a Schedule on Creativity One of the things that can be hard to put a schedule on is getting the motivation or inspiration to be creative. You could of course schedule times where you can get yourself in the “zone” to be creative, but it is not a guaranteed thing most of the time. Dr. Fishbach agrees with this, and says that sometimes, you need to allot time and bandwidth for it to happen. This means that you might have to allow big chunks of your day on just letting your mind think. You might even have to shelve it for later, or sleep on an idea to let it develop further in your head. “Well, creativity requires that you are able to sleep on something that you are able to, to think about it without reaching a conclusion without having the solution yet.” – Dr. Ayelet Fishbach Dr. Ayelet Fishbach on the Definition of being Productive That being said, what is the definition of being productive or effective? What does it mean to get things done? To answer this, Dr. Fishbach shares the story behind her book’s cover. While thinking of a cover for her book, one of the designs her publisher presented had a to-do list. Dr. Fishbach said that that particular design would not work. Because for her, being productive does not mean having a to-do list. “(Having a list) is not what I mean by getting things done. (You start off by) thinking about what goals are important for you. Okay, what gets priority? Is it your creativity? Is it taking care of something, of someone, and how these goals work with each other? So we start by identifying where we want to be, what we want to do, and then that the second element is monitoring your progress. The third element is managing all the other things that are going on in your life. You never want just one thing. So what happens with the rest? And the fourth is gathering social support. Who in your life is helping you? Who stands in the way? How do you get closer to the people that are helping you be the person that you want to be? This is a very broad overview of the framework of my world, the book, Get it Done, and not the to-do list.” – Dr. Ayelet Fishbach To hear more from Dr. Ayelet Fishbach and how you can get things done, download and listen to this episode. Bio Dr. Ayelet Fishbach studies social psychology, management and consumer behavior. She is an expert on motivation and decision making.

257 How Entrepreneurs Change Lives & Communities with “IRON” Mike Steadman; Marine Officer, Boxing Champion & Veteran Entrepreneur Advocate Dec 20, 2021

For some, entrepreneurship is a way up in the world. For others, it’s a way out of their current situation. But no matter what the motivation, entrepreneurship is ultimately an opportunity to create a different future. Not only for the entrepreneur themselves, but for their customers, employees, and ultimately an entire community. This is the reason why me and our guest, “IRON” Mike Steadman, love entrepreneurship. “IRON” Mike Steadman is a retired combat Marine officer. He is also a three-time National Collegiate boxing champion in the military. He’s the founder of Iron Bound Boxing and Education, which is a non-profit in New Jersey. He also founded a company called Dog Whistle Branding, a marketing agency that helps veteran-owned businesses with podcasting, brand, and category design. In this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we have a dialogue with “IRON” Mike Steadman as we talk about all things entrepreneurship, including topics such as helping veteran entrepreneurs. This is a conversation you’re going to find incredibly inspiring and empowering, so stay tuned. “IRON” Mike Steadman on Losing the Ability to Communicate The conversation starts as Mike responds to a comment about sounding like a podcaster. He shares that being a podcaster helped him become better at public speaking. Now, when he does interviews, people are surprised on how Mike can do it all in one take. Nowadays, being able to communicate with each other in a clear and articulate way seems like an outlier than the norm. Mike thinks that this is due to the internet and the anonymity it provides, that we lost something essential when talking to other people. “I think we’re struggling with it. It’s because we’ve lost the ability to communicate with empathy. That’s the thing, right? You can communicate, share your opinion, or something. But you can also be an asshole about it. And I don’t think we are very empathetic anymore.” – Mike Steadman “IRON” Mike Steadman on being the Loudest in a Conversation One of the problems we have with communicating nowadays is that there seems to be a lot of yelling going on. Some do it mostly for attention, others to push their ideas further than the others. For Mike, it’s a matter of respecting the people you are conversing with. “If you're the loudest person in the room, you're also the weakest person in the room. And sometimes I think yelling is, I don't want to call it a cop out, right? But yelling is we just write (comments), we don't know how to communicate. We don't know how to respect people's opinion.” – Mike Steadman “IRON” Mike Steadman on Social Media It is ironic that “social media” has made a lot of people antisocial. Mike thinks it is because people find it easier to just hide behind a computer screen and interact with people that way. Unfortunately, some people who start a business has the same mindset. But for Mike, it’s just not the best way to do things. Regardless of whether you’re doing things digitally or analog, you still need to communicate with people properly and build proper relationships with them. “I’ve been saying (that) business is a contact sport. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the generation now when they start a business, they think they can just go on social media. But human to human, you still have to look someone in the eye (and) talk to him convey your value. And I think the default (now) is social media. Even dating girls, the default is an app. So I think we have lost the ability to communicate, actually.” – Mike Steadman To hear more from “IRON” Mike Steadman and how Social Media is both the cause and the cure for proper communication, as well as how he helps veteran entrepreneurs connect with the current market, download and listen to this episode. Bio “IRON” Mike Steadman is a serial entrepreneur based in Newark, NJ, who's committed to improving the economic and social outcomes of urban youth and military veterans through boxing, entrepreneurship,

256 Mission Driven: Saving Lives in Afghanistan with Valerie Edmondson Bolaños Dec 13, 2021

In this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, you will hear one of the most inspiring, horrifying, and yet deeply moving conversations from our guest, Valerie Edmondson Bolaños. Valerie Edmondson Bolaños is the founder of an extraordinary NGO called Warrior Angels Rescue. She started her own NGO in the way of Hurricane Maria. It was a Category Five storm that devastated her home island of Puerto Rico back in 2017. What started off as an effort to rescue her own family grew into a much larger scale over time. Since August of 2021, Valerie and the Warrior Angels Rescue has been evacuating girls, women, and their families from the humanitarian crisis that is escalating in Afghanistan after the United States left. What you’re about to hear is really one of the most inspiring mission-driven founders you can listen to. We hope that it moves you as well. Valerie Edmondson Bolaños on the Afghanistan Situation The conversation starts as Valerie gives a perspective of what the situation is in Afghanistan at this moment after the United States withdrawal last August of 2021. “It’s pretty horrific, which should come as no surprise. We’ve noticed (that) just in the three months that we’ve been working there. It just descended from an absolutely apocalyptic situation into the depths of hell. The messages and videos that we’re receiving directly from the families that we’re helping that are in our evacuation lists are just horrifying. I’ve had nightmares, and I’m not even living through it firsthand.” – Valerie Edmondson Bolaños These horrors stem from the local terrorist organizations who are trying to root out those who have worked with the US forces when they were still on the ground. They torture and beat them publicly, while abducting and interrogating those who they think had close ties or worked directly with the US forces. This was on top of the different terrorist organizations jockeying for power amongst themselves, which adds another layer of suffering for those on the ground. The Taliban Taking Away the Power Valerie shares that are a lot of shortages on the ground. The economy has all but shut down entirely because people are in hiding. People who had decent homes and careers had to leave almost everything to stay with families that are less conspicuous. “The Taliban is literally trying to take away power from the people who have even the slightest bit of power. And so much power comes from being educated and being having a profession. So they want to quash any potential viable resistance to their takeover by not only literally taking away power and electricity and connectivity from everyone, but they're targeting middle class families and upper class families. So everyone's gone into hiding, which means that most of the mechanisms that keep society going and keep the economy going are completely shut down.” – Valerie Edmondson Bolaños While the medical care is not completely gone, it’s can still be hard to get in the current circumstances. There are simply too much people that are now relying on volunteer medical professionals who are scared but also want to save as many lives as they can. How the Pandemic Factors In On the topic of medical care, Valerie was asked about the COVID spread and deaths in Afghanistan. She shares that there isn’t really any visible evidence of any data being collected at this point. Not to mention any effort for vaccination programs to speak of. “There's no data being collected. People aren't going to hospitals for the most part, because then they're afraid they'll be killed. So yeah, I don't I don't think any data is really coming out, or being collected. I mean, that would require a functioning government, which is not what the Taliban has created.” – Valerie Edmondson Bolaños The pandemic really added a few levels of complication of how volunteer NGOs like the Warrior Angels Rescue can operate on the ground, as not only are you worried about getting shot,

255 Security, Ransomware, Geo-Political Threats, New Domains of Warfare & “Game of Crimes” with Morgan Wright Dec 06, 2021

Today on Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, Morgan Wright is back to talk about all things Security: new geopolitical threats, the new domains of warfare, and how they look at evil crimes through the eyes of the legendary public servants who solve them. This is a very fun, insight-packed real conversation with one of America’s highest profile crime fighting voices. Morgan Wright is an internationally recognized expert on cybersecurity and terrorism, identity theft, and privacy. He was also a senior adviser to the US State Department, anti-terrorism program, and a senior law enforcement adviser for the 2012 Republican National Convention. Morgan has developed solutions in defense, justice and intelligence for the largest technology companies in the world. He is now also the co-host of a red-hot new podcast called Game of Crimes. This new podcast shines a light to the men and women who serve and protect. So if you are looking for an in-depth update on how our cybersecurity stands today, stay tuned to this episode. Game of Crimes with Morgan Wright We open up on the topic of Morgan’s new podcast. Game of Crimes is a podcast that he co-hosts with Steve Murphy, and it is a long-form true crime podcast. Morgan shares that they were inspired with Follow Your Different, where they go deep into the topic and explore multiple topics related to the guests. They enjoyed the format so much that most episodes end up as two-parters, because they find a lot to explore on each guest and topic. “Our interviews are long. When I mean (long), we're they're always a two--parter. So that's actually been a fun part because it kind of gets you back into it.” – Morgan Wright There’s a risk to doing two-parters, but the payoff is if you get people hooked, they’d have to hear both episodes to get more of their fix. Morgan Wright on Looking at the Problem Wrong Morgan then talks about the Cybersecurity conferences that he has attended over the years. His shares that his recent favorite opener is what Elon Musk did different to become a rich guy in the world. That is, he thought differently, and revolutionized the space industry through SpaceX. He then explains that sometimes the problem is not the biggest problem, but the way we think about the problem. “What I say is the problem isn't the problem. The problem is the way we think about the problem. That's not what counts. What really counts is the way our adversaries think about the problem. And they beat us every time because they out-think us about what to do.” – Morgan Wright Another example he has is about bank robberies. It makes sense that if you want to beef up your security, you need to learn how the people on the other side thinks. Instead, managers and bank owners just get into their conference rooms and say what they think works, which often turns into an echo chamber of sorts. Prevention is ALWAYS Better than a Cure In line with this train of thought, Morgan Wright mentions that cybersecurity experts need to start looking at the problem from a different perspective. Because up until recently, the implications on cybersecurity have always been Response and Recovery. While that it all well and good, the problem with that is your systems are reactionary. Morgan thinks that cybersecurity should be proactive, where you stop and prevent cyber attacks from happening in the first place. “The reason we keep getting the results we have is because of the words you keep using you keep talking about Response and Recovery. That means it's already happened to you. What you're saying is that we should continue to buy effective fire alarms that say congrats, your house is successfully burned down. So let's start talking about stopping and preventing. And the minute we start doing that, we will start changing what we think about the problem.” – Morgan Wright To hear more from Morgan Wright and the current state of Cybersecurity and how the fight against cyberterrorism is done,

254 How To Create Different Futures with Kevin Maney, Co-Author of Play Bigger & Co-Founder of Category Design Advisors Nov 29, 2021

As we all know, Context is everything. Around here, we believe that thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking. So if you want to design a different future, the context of your thinking matters. In this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we discuss context and much more with Kevin Maney. Kevin Maney is the co-founder of Category Design Advisors, where he and his partners advise CEOs on how to design and dominate market categories. He is also one of the godfathers of Category Design, and one of the co-authors of Play Bigger, alongside Al Ramadan and myself. We talk about a lot of topics that will help frame your think, and why the barriers to entry for Category Design keep dropping. We also discuss why Category Design is more important now than it was in 2006. To know why that’s the case, stay tuned to this episode. Kevin Maney On Playing Bigger It has been five years since Play Bigger came out, and there have been a lot of changes in Category Design over the years. Kevin suggests that they should get together again and pool together what they have learned over the years. That said, Kevin has noticed a few things that were big drivers of why category creation and design is so important. Some of them they have touched on in Play Bigger, but did not have the bandwidth to delve deeper into. These drivers are what Kevin and the others have been explaining to CEOs over the past years, so they can be aware of how important it is in dominating the market. Though the most obvious catalyst in the recent years has been COVID. COVID has accelerated the amount of category breakthroughs, mostly brought about by necessity. “One of the things that always happens in these times of crisis or radical change like wars, a pandemic, or other things that truly shake up the world (is that) everybody starts doing things in different ways, or looking for new solutions. And it really opens up the possibility of creating new things and new categories that didn't exist before, solving old problems in new ways or, or addressing problems that have never existed before that arise because of what's going on.” – Kevin Maney Kevin Maney on the End of Friction In any business or market, there will always be friction present. One of the friction Kevin talks about is the friction of geography, and how that can affect the market. Because of such frictions, most people are limited to choose what is available, instead of the category leader for that market. Fast forward to today, and those frictions are slowly being removed. Now that people have access to a wider variety of the market, they will tend to gravitate towards the category leaders of said category. Which makes aiming to be a category leader is a must now, lest you get left behind. “The more that the friction of geography disappears, the more we can all choose the global, or at least national category leader of any particular category. So that makes it all the more important in whatever business you're in to try to be that category leader, or you're really just going to get sucked down the drain.” – Kevin Maney The Prevalence of Disintermediation Today The conversation then shifts to how different things are done today compared to just a few years back. In a way, there’s more disintermediation nowadays compared to the .com era. One of the way it’s very visible now is how we consume entertainment. With the advent of different social media platforms, normal people can interact directly with their idols, rather than having to go to concerts or shows. On the entertainers themselves, the old formula is getting discovered and debuting on TV or film. Nowadays, people could go viral on their own efforts, or at least without the backing of a major corporation and such. All this because we have reduced the friction required to make things possible. In the early 2000s, you’d need a lot of equipment, money, and know-how to shoot a simple video,

253 America’s Biggest Problem: The Lack of Authentic Dialogue Nov 24, 2021

In this special solo episode of Christopher Lochhead - Follow Your Different, I just want to share with you an element of conversation around the most recent Kyle Rittenhouse case. What I wanted to talk about is America’s biggest problem when it comes to situations like this. That is, the lack of any authentic dialogue about the matter. Too Much Yelling, Not Enough Listening Regardless on where you come out of the issue, there are some things that wasn’t properly address or we didn’t hear from at all. What I hoped we’d hear more was thoughtful, nuanced dialogue and conversation. Instead, what we got is what we've been getting a lot of in the United States of late, which is yelling and hardened positions. You’re only pro or anti-something. As part of that, whatever one side does, if you're on that side, everything they do is right, and everything the other side does is wrong, and vice versa. I think that's really sad. Because thinking about thinking is the most important kind of thinking. And it's only through dialogue, where human beings can achieve greater levels of understanding. There was no dialogue sparked by this horrible circumstance, horrible situation around what do we as Americans want to do about protests and riots? There wasn't a discussion about that. Nor was there a discussion about self-defense, what do we mean by self-defense? Who decides where there's a line where we can no longer defend ourselves or not? “What I do know is we're not having conversation. We're not having dialogue. There's a lot of yelling, and not a lot of listening.” – Christopher Lochhead Bring Back the Willingness to Listen If you’re a long-time listener of this podcast, you know that our mission has always been to celebrate real, authentic dialogue. In our case, dialogue around what it takes to design legendary business and legendary life. In hopes that we can bring back curiosity, we can bring back a willingness to listen, a willingness to co create our lives and ultimately, our culture and country together. I got to tell you: sometimes, particularly of late, it feels like we're losing that war. We might even have lost it completely, and we might never get it back. But I do know that a conversation about authentic dialogue, and why we don't have it, and how we can have more is an important thing to do, even if very few people want to participate in that. Bio Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

252 Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization with Professor Edward Slingerland, Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Philosophy UBC Nov 22, 2021

Almost everything academic ever written about drinking and alcohol is centered on why it is bad for us. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we have the audacity to ask, “How does drinking and getting drunk make a difference to humanity?” And to answer that question, we have Edward Slingerland with us. A bit of a disclaimer before we proceed: it is clear that for some people, drinking is a horrible thing. If you're somebody for whom drinking represents a problem, then please know you have our thoughts and empathy. However, this episode is one that is going to celebrate the difference that drinking has made to society. Our guest today delves into that and more on his new book that studied how drinking is great for us as a society. Professor Edward Slingerland is a distinguished university scholar and professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Canada. His new book is called Drunk: How we sipped, danced, and stumbled our way into civilization. We dive deep into that and more on this episode, so stay tuned. Edward Slingerland on Getting Drunk Prof. Edward shared that he had fun writing his book, Drunk. On one hand, it’s a topic people are interested in a lot, because it’s about drinking. For Edward, it’s also a mystery worth exploring, despite most people not even realizing it. Finding books about different drinks and how to get drunk around the world is easy. Finding one about why people like getting drunk, is not. “I don't think anyone's ever explored just the underlying question of why we like to get drunk in the first place. And so, it's fun to actually problematize something that people take for granted.” – Edward Slingerland Evolutionary Hijacks So, why do we get drunk? The easiest answer is that it makes us feel good. But that’s not really an answer, according to Prof. Edward. That answer just opens up another one, which is “why does evolution allow us to get drunk?” In simpler terms, “Why?” This is the central mystery that Prof. Edward wants to explore. The standard story we’ve been told in psych textbooks is that it was an evolutionary mistake. We somehow discovered something that just happened to randomly hijack reward circuits in our brain. So as clever primates, we figured that we could just take a shortcut and feel good without doing anything. Prof Edward likens it to masturbation, which is another evolutionary hijack. Orgasms given us pleasure, and pleasure is the best carrot that evolution has to encourage us to pass on our genes to the next generation. Yet we have managed to hijack that with all sorts of non-reproductive sexual hijacks. “But evolution lets us get away with that because it's not interested in a perfect system. It's happy with good enough. And this system is good enough.” – Edward Slingerland Although unlike masturbation that old people say will make you blind, excessive alcohol consumption will literally blind you. Reasons to Get Drunk Despite all that, people have been gathering around the fire and drinking to their hearts content since the start of civilization. This just makes everything all the more mysterious, according to Prof. Edward. Another thing that Prof. Edward noticed is that the evolutionary mistake story might not have been accurate. For one thing, most of our ancestors that domesticize plants didn’t do it for food. They were hunter-gatherers; they could just simply pick food up in the wilderness. Yet they still tried to grow such plants near their living spaces for easy access. It was the same for the civilizations that discovered the ancestor of maize. It was a terrible grain to use as a food source, yet people chose to settle and raise this crop. All for the sake of getting drunk. So it was by no means an accident. “There's one estimate from ancient Sumer, is that half of the grain production went to making beer. So you're taking in a place where people are on the edge of starvation, even in large scale civilizations,

251 Unlocking Native Digitals with Hannah Grady Williams, author of Unlocking Gen Z Nov 15, 2021

Welcome to part two of our Native Digitals series here at Follow Your Different. On this episode, we have a conversation with Hannah Grady Williams on how your business can tap into the Native Digitals workforce. For those who are not familiar of what Native Digitals are, give part one of this series a quick listen (FYD 250). Hannah Grady Williams is the Gen Z CEO Advisor, sort of like a Gen Z whisperer for CEOs and executive. She is the author of a new book called A Leader’s Guide to Unlocking Gen Z: Inside strategies to empower your team. If you are over the age of 35, which is a Native Analog, this is a must-listen podcast. Because Hannah has a tremendous amount of insight for how Native Analogs can bridge the gap to work, recruit, and build our companies with a whole new slew of Native Digitals workforce. Generation Differences: Gen X vs Gen Z, Native Digital vs Native Analog When asked if the generation differences also coincide with the category of Native Analogs and Native Digitals, Hannah says that there are overlaps, but they are not completely the same. These overlaps are more on how each generation treats technology. “Well, Gen Z, you think about all the kids sitting around the table constantly on their phones, not paying attention to anything. To you, you think it's a distraction or something that's taking my mind and my presence away from the people around me. The way I see it is a door that opens me to experiences I never could have had in my natural environment. As I've grown older, I've realized that distinction of the way that my generation looks at the world.” – Hannah Grady Williams How Native Digitals Use Technology, and Why Analogs Don’t Get It Hannah then talks about the time his brother mentioned what he has learned from Tik Tok. If you are a casual user, you might think that the platform is just all dance and viral memes. Yet there are people who use the platform to share important life lessons and tips they have learned themselves, in digestible, bite-size content. Sadly, most parents’ reaction to someone just spending their time on social media is to just strip their phones or tablets from them. Rather than engaging with them and understanding, they just stop the activity. Because again, to them that is all just distraction. “What they don't realize, you know, if I'm looking from a Gen Xers perspective, or a Boomer’s perspective, I think of technology maybe the same way as any other technological innovation that might distract you from family time at the dinner table. But the way my generation sees it is, not only are we getting access to an entirely new world of people. It's actually a portal to a new world. it's a portal, it's a new way of thinking.” – Hannah Grady Williams Millennials and Gen Z are the New Category of Humans Hannah states that Native Digitals is a great way of describing the New Age of Humans that we have now. She also thinks that it will become more pronounced once the next generation Gen Alpha, comes around. Hannah then brings up a book called Ready Player One. It is about living immersed in a digital world and treating the real world as the alternative. While the real-world economy is at a downfall, it didn’t really matter to its citizens. As their life is spent in their digital selves, they saw no need to be lavish in real life. While it is an exaggerated version, it does mirror how Native Digitals prioritize their digital lives over their physical ones. You see people buying expensive digital products while in real life, they barely buy new clothes and the like. That’s what Native Analogs should take note this early. Otherwise, they might be left hanging once almost everything goes fully digital. To hear more from Hannah Grady Williams and how your business can reel in the Gen Z and Native Digitals of the world, download and listen to this episode. Bio Hannah Williams’s story began in a blue pickup truck when her father handed 12-year-old Hannah the phone and a...

250 New Category of Humans: Native Digitals Are Transforming The World & No One’s Paying Attention! Nov 08, 2021

Originally published in ?‍☠️ Category Pirates: It’s not a weekly newsletter. It’s a weekly mini-book. Lately, there has been a fundamental, dare I say, seminal change in the category design of human beings. That is to say, the definition of what a human is has changed. You see, if you're 35 and up, you are the last of a dying breed called Native Analogs. If you’re 35 or younger, you are the first generation of Native Digitals. Native Digital's experience life in a digital first way, and an analog way, second. Native Digitals have come of age integrated with the machines. Your smartphone and technology overall is like part of who you are as a person. Most Native Analogs do not get this. Most people are not ready for the fact that everything is moving from an analog paradigm to a native digital world. So in this two-part series of Follow Your Different, we explore Native Digitals versus Native Analogs, and how it is important to realize that we are shifting to a digital paradigm faster than you think. Category Neglect First off, we start as to why it is important to recognize category shifts like the one we are experiencing now. Most category kings and queens tend to fall into a trap, in which they ignore new categories that may be adjacent or indirectly related to theirs. When a new category arises (seemingly out of nowhere), the incumbent doesn’t topple over because they were unaware of the new category queen. More often than not, they fall because they dismissed what was happening right before their very eyes. It’s not ignorance. It is arrogance coupled with the gravitational pull of “the way it is.” Because the people profiting in the present want things to stay the same. This is called Category Neglect. Category Neglect doesn’t come from people being stupid or lacking sufficient data and resources to spot the headwinds and tailwinds of the future. It comes from a refusal to acknowledge which direction the wind is really blowing. Why do they fall to such a seemingly obvious trap? This happens because the gravitational pull is too strong. A company gets used to earning hundreds of millions, or billions of dollars per year, and thinks it can do no wrong. The company becomes deeply invested in the present. Anything that threatens the way it is now is dismissed. Native Analogs vs Native Digitals One of the most profound shifts happening in the world today is rooted in the ever-escalating debate between generations young and old. It is a shift hiding in plain sight. Just like the Tymshare executives staring out the window at Apple’s cranes building the headquarters of the company that would ultimately put them out of business, most people over 35 years old can’t see this shift happening. Instead, they say to themselves, “Eh, we’ve got nothing to worry about.” As Category Pirates, we feel it is our obligation to sound the alarm when we see rocky shores ahead. Some of us are facing a once-in-a-generation set of headwinds that could not just stymie growth, but sink our entire ship. If those of us over age 35 aren’t careful, this divide could result in one of the greatest instances of Category Neglect. However, those who see this mega shift and act on it, on the other hand, will sail into the sunset a lot of happy pirates, make more money, and make a way bigger difference in the world. With that said, let’s first give a better definition of what a Native Analog and Native Digital are. We'll also define where their biggest difference lies. There are two types of people on planet earth today. The first are Native Analogs. These are Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, born anywhere from the 1940s all the way up to the early ‘80s. Today, they range between the ages of 40 to 75, and make up approximately 136.8 million Americans. The second are Native Digitals. These are Millennials and Gen Zers, born between the early 1980s to as recently as the 2010s. These demographics are around 35 years of age on the high end,

249 Decoding Greatness with Social Psychologist Ron Friedman, PhD Nov 01, 2021

Most people want to have a great life and do great work. But we are told that the way to achieve legendary results is either to have talent, or “practice” 10,000 hours a day. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Dr. Ron Friedman talks about a different, more proven way to achieve greatness that even mere mortals can embrace. Dr. Ron Friedman is a PhD and award-winning Social Psychologist. He is the author of the no.1 bestseller called Decoding Greatness. In this episode, we go deep on how you can decode greatness. We also discuss what legends before us have done using their approaches, models, and thinking to turbocharge our lives, our success, and our ability to make a difference. Dr. Ron Friedman on Decoding Greatness Dr. Friedman talks about his new book, Decoding Greatness and where he got the idea for it. His first book, The Best Place to Work, focused on giving people access to the best research on what it takes to perform at the highest levels and create a great workplace. Though Dr. Friedman felt that there was something missing in his first book. He figured that even within a top-performing business or team, there’s still a range of performance levels. Some people are top performers, while some are still great but not at that level yet. “In this book, Decoding Greatness, I was curious about what is it that top performers are doing differently. And what I discovered is that they're using a method that most people don't talk about. And yet it is far more common than we recognize.” – Dr. Ron Friedman What We were Led to Believe Dr. Friedman comments that there are two main stories that we are told about when it comes to achieving the highest levels. One of which is that it takes talent to do so, that you have to be born with certain strengths. You then have to match your talents to the appropriate fields that allow those strengths to shine. Then there’s the big story about Practice. You know the one: 10,000 hours, practice, practice, practice. You have to exert yourself and have the right practice to be able to succeed. Though according to Dr. Friedman, there is a third story that people don’t often talk about. “There's a third story and people don't often talk about it. Yet it is remarkably common from entrepreneurs to inventors. to marketers. And that approach is reverse engineering, which simply means finding extraordinary examples in your field. By taking them apart, working backward, and figuring out how they were created, you can then apply those lessons to create something entirely new.” – Dr. Ron Friedman Turning the Gap to a Learning Experience There are those who say that those who perform at the top level are there because of their talents. Which can be insulting to all the work that person has also done to achieve his goals. Sometimes, people forget that even those who have certain advantages need to work their butts off to achieve greatness. Dr. Friedman chooses to view it from another angle. He explains that if you apply Reverse Engineering on these extraordinary people and their achievements, you can turn it into a guideline for yourself. “When you look at extraordinary performances through the lens of reverse engineering, you’ll have a different perspective. That different perspective is, “what can I learn from this? How can I improve my game through unpacking the methodologies and strategies that they are applying?” So now that emotion, which would have been negative and uncomfortable and probably unhelpful in a way, I can turn that into a positive emotion and apply it to new learnings and insights, because now I have a mechanism by which to understand how he succeeded.” – Dr. Ron Friedman To hear more from Dr. Ron Friedman and how to Decode Greatness and become a top performer, download and listen to this episode. Bio Ron Friedman, Ph.D., is an award-winning social psychologist who specializes in human motivation. His new book, The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creatin...

248 The Burnout Epidemic with #1 Bestselling Author Jennifer Moss Oct 28, 2021

Have you been feeling burned out over the last handful of months? Well, you are not alone. We live at a time that is extraordinarily challenging, yet exciting. This has caused many to freak out, or feel blown out or burned out. Our guest today, Jennifer Moss, calls what has been happening a “Macro Stress Event”. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we explore the Burnout Epidemic and more. Jennifer Moss is the author of the brand-new number one bestseller Burnout Epidemic: The rise of Chronic Stress and how we can fix it. She has an extraordinary point of view on the matter, particularly on how to transform this stress experience into what she calls a post-traumatic growth. We get into what are the real causes of burnout, and what organizations can do to prevent it. There’s also the idea of building an anti-burnout strategy based on prevention, and not offering them after the fact. We also discuss why traditional wellness initiatives seem to fall short these days. Jennifer Moss and Working on Happiness Jennifer Moss has always worked on the domain of happiness. Which makes it seem weird that she is talking about burnout, which is the direct opposite of it. Though according to Jennifer, happiness and unhappiness go hand-in-hand. “You can’t actually experience an increase in happiness set point, unless you've gone through some sort of challenge in your life that gives you that ability to experience resilience and rebound.” – Jennifer Moss Having the Right Mindset is the Key For Jennifer, this experience came from seeing his husband come back from being acutely paralyzed to recovering remarkably well in an unanticipated rate. A huge part of this was that athletes go through an incredible amount of psychological fitness training very early on in their lives. They go through that process of learning how to rebound, how to deal with loss, how to have emotional flexibility. All these things that actually lead to high levels of happiness, and be able to have post traumatic growth moments after they go through these pretty serious things. “Part of what we noticed when Jim was in the hospital rehabbing was that this attitude played a big role in his healing. So six weeks later, he was walking out of the hospital. They had said, he may not ever walk again, or then it was a year, yet he's walking out after six weeks. So it sort of became our mindset shift at that point to understand what it was that that contributed to that healing.” – Jennifer Moss Prevention is Better than Cure With this shift of mindset, Jennifer and her husband founded Plasticity Labs, and worked on the happiness space and how to help companies further develop theirs in the workplace. Though Jennifer noticed that they were working with companies that already have good happiness spaces and burnout prevention strategies in place. They just needed to improve on it and take it to the next level. But what about those companies who didn’t have any semblance of one, and are burning out their employees left and right? Which is why she wanted find a way to let such businesses and companies know how to prevent burnout from happening in the first place, rather than having to put the fires down later. To hear more from Jennifer Moss and how to prevent burnout for yourself and your team, download and listen to this episode. Bio Jennifer Moss is a Harvard Business Review contributor and nationally syndicated radio columnist. She also sits on the Global Happiness Council—a small group of leading scientists and economists that support the UN’s sustainable goals related to global well-being and the Annual Global Happiness Policy Report. Prior to this, Moss worked in Silicon Valley, eventually joining Barack Obama’s California social team during his historic presidential campaign. To acknowledge her contributions to business and public service, Moss was named a Canadian Innovator of the Year, an International Female Entrepreneur of the Year,

247 Speaking Of Race with Journalist and Bestselling Author Celeste Headlee Oct 25, 2021

Our ability to communicate and collaborate is core to our humanity. Yet we live in a time where many of us seem to have a very tough time having real, powerful dialogues. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Celeste Headlee shows us how it’s done. Celeste Headlee is the author of the bestselling book; We Need to Talk: How to have conversations that matter. She has also given out a TED talk, titled 10 Ways to have Better Conversations, which has 25 million views. Her most recent book is called Speaking of Race, which emphasizes the need to talk about racism, and how to do it. What you're about to hear is a deep conversation on why authentic conversations matter and how to have them. Also, pay close attention to her ideas on how you can be a more powerful conversationalist, and why our brain rewards us when we have real dialogue. Celeste Headlee and the Passion for Conversation The conversation starts off with Celeste sharing where her passion for conversations came from. Celeste shares that there are a few things that bother her as one gets older. Though the one thing that upsets her is when there are things that can be fixed, that are totally fixable, though having proper conversations. “I mean, there's just very little that we can't talk through as human beings. And so I'm passionate about it because it's universal. Every single person on the planet needs to be able to converse with others and communicate with others well, and be it's just the root of problem solving. I mean, this is what solves problems, period, whatever they are.” – Celeste Headlee Why People are not having Meaningful Conversations Celeste shares her thoughts as to why people seem to have lost the ability to have a meaningful conversation. She has discovered an interesting tidbit while researching for her second book, and it dates all the way back to the Industrial Revolution. While recent developments and social norms may have exacerbated the situation, the turning point seems to have happened when one guy discovered how to use steam to make our lives better. “Prior to the Industrial Revolution. Most people lived in rural areas, most people interacted with maybe 100 or 150 people over the course of their lives. Then all of a sudden, the Industrial Revolution came in. Everybody flips over till most people are living in urban areas. Because of that, most people are encountering 1000s of people over the course of a week or a month instead. And it just happened too quickly. We weren't able to adjust evolve that fast.” – Celeste Headlee Bringing Back Good and Meaningful Conversations Celeste thinks that most people don’t know what conversation is anymore. There are some who say that they are good conversationalists. That is, they are good talkers. Those are not the same thing at all. In order to be a good conversationalist, you have to not only be a good talker. You also have to listen as well as you talk. “I imagine (Oscar Wilde) was not a good conversationalist. Fantastic talker, but not good in conversation. Why? Because you have to be able to listen as well as you talk. And the smarter you are, the harder that challenge becomes. The wittier you are, the funnier you are, the harder that becomes. But also, listening is just hard. It's hard for our species. I think that some of the people that we think of as not being good in conversations are much better than they get credit for. And those are the people who speak less than they listen.” – Celeste Headlee To hear more from Celeste Headlee on the importance of having a meaningful conversation, download and listen to this episode. Bio Celeste Headlee is an award-winning journalist who has appeared on NPR, PBS World, PRI, CNN, BBC and other international networks. She was formerly a host at National Public Radio, anchoring shows including Tell Me More, Talk of the Nation, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition. For many years, Celeste has been a mentor and managing editor for NPR’s Next Gener...

246 How To Create A New Product, Company, and Category While Having A Baby, All At The Same Time with Malibu Mylk Founder Brittany Fuisz Oct 21, 2021

In this episode of Follow Your Different, we are joined by Brittany Fuisz, the founder of Malibu Mylk. She is an entrepreneur and a friend who I respect and admire deeply. When Brittany was trying to have a baby for the first time, she was having some difficulty. So she went to work, specifically on improving her diet. She then discovered some huge problems with some of the major categories of alternate milk, like oat and almond milk. So she got busy in her kitchen. What you're about to hear is an extraordinarily powerful example of what a mission driven founder is. Someone with a point of view, someone who wants to move the world from the way it is, to a new and different place. Brittany Fuisz and How Malibu Mylk came to be Brittany starts off by sharing how she got the idea for Malibu Mylk. She got the idea for it around March of 2018, when she was still working at Yelp. Though she didn’t really go for it full time until she left Yelp later that year. She had the idea for it when she was trying to have a baby for the first time. After consulting with the doctor, she opted to try a strict diet called the Elimination Diet or Autoimmune Protocol. Basically, she had to eliminate all major allergens in her diet. This means no dairy, nuts, gluten, soy, etc. So while looking for milk alternatives, she discovered a huge problem: most milk substitutes either have nuts, soy, or gluten. That’s when she had the idea to use something different. “I was driving past downtown LA and I thought, what if I make milk from flaxseed? Like it was just a sign in the sky. I needed to make flax milk. And so I went home that day, I pulled out my blender. I did go to culinary school many years ago. So I know how to cook.” – Brittany Fuisz Hitting the Ground Running with Malibu Mylk After trying out and getting her desired results with the flaxseed milk, Brittany did what any aspiring entrepreneur would do. She reached out to Whole Foods Market with her idea. Brittany pitched the idea for Malibu Mylk, and was surprised when the buyer immediately set up a meeting for it. While Brittany wanted to delay the meeting to better prepare for it, the buyer said that the meeting was set. So she had to take a crash course on the food and beverage industry and learn the ropes quickly. “I did a crash course in food and beverage with a friend who's in the industry the day before the meeting. And I went in with little samples. I had some mock packaging made up. Then I learned about margins, which is how the grocery world works. I went in and I pitched the buyer on the dream that is now Malibu Mylk. She tasted my samples and she said, “Well, I'd love to get this in stores the coming weeks”. I thought well I can't do the coming weeks, but we can do it in the coming months. Actually, the timing worked out beautifully because I'd have to go into my first production run, knowing that Whole Foods is going to be a customer.” – Brittany Fuisz Brittany’s Challenges with Malibu Mylk Brittany further explains the challenges she had at the beginning of Malibu Mylk. The biggest challenge for her was finding a great manufacturer, a co-packer. There weren’t many that produced her type of product, and the ones she found were awful and expensive. When she finally found one she liked, they said no to her. So she got an acquaintance who was already manufacturing something in that company, and asked for an introduction. She wasn’t deterred by the first and succeeding No’s that she received, and kept pushing on. “You're gonna hear a lot of No's that you're gonna hear no, again and again and again. And if you're not willing to turn it into a yes, some way or another, it won't work.” – Brittany Fuisz To hear more from Brittany Fuisz and how she created Malibu Mylk to what it is today, download and listen to this episode. Bio Brittany Fuisz is the Founder/CEO of Malibu Mylk, the world's first organic flax milk. Allergen-free (dairy free, gluten free, nut free, soy free),

245 Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married with Bestselling Author Abby Ellin Oct 18, 2021

Do you know what it feels like to be duped, or lied to in an extraordinarily manner? Imagine falling in love, and having a whirlwind romance with a doctor, who also serves in the military, claimed to have been stationed at Guantanamo Bay for a time, and claim many other extraordinary things about his life and career. Imagine being proposed to and expecting to marry this amazing man who also worked at the Pentagon. Then imagine it was all a big lie. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Abby Ellin shares her story and more. Abby Ellin is an extraordinary bestselling author, New York Times writer, and contributor to a ton of other prestigious publications. Her book is called Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married. In our dialogue, we go deep into her story, and find out why agrees that you can't see red flags through rose colored glasses. Abby Ellin on being Duped The conversation starts off reminiscing about meeting famous people in the past, when we can all actually go outside. The topic then got to Leonard Cohen, and how they were a fan of his work. This segues into the topic at hand, as Leonard Cohen himself was duped by his longtime manager. Abby Ellin’s book, Duped, seems very personal, and it was radically transparent on what transpired in her life. She didn’t appear to do anything to make herself look good. It was an unembellished account of what she had gone through, and the manipulation that she was subjected to. “When I write, I can write something but I'm also controlling what you know, and I was totally willing to sound like an asshole and duped because that was part of what needed to be done for that story. I was trying to channel the way other people think about someone who gets deceived, that I was engaged to a pathological liar. He went to jail. And everyone I know who I said that story to have their own story or knew somebody who did. Some of them didn't want to tell the story publicly or use their names because they felt like such idiots. I was like, “Hey, man. I'm an idiot and I own it. Because it happens and it's real.” – Abby Ellin Monetized Suffering I then comment on Abby’s book, and how it reads and feels like a suspense novel. Abby appreciates the description, and shares that she actually sold the rights to it. So at the very least, someone shares that sentiment as well. “The operative words here are monetize suffering. So when, when life gives you lemons, you make lemon meringue pie and you eat it and you don't worry about getting fat. I saw the podcast writes and it's coming out in September, I think, but it's going to be like a six part series, and it’s like a suspense thing.” – Abby Ellin Abby Ellin on Quitting Diet Coke We then talk about the article that Abby wrote about Diet Coke, and how she quit from it. She has had it since she was around 12 years old, and had been drinking it ever since. People have told her to quit, but she told them to mind their own business. Yet she knew she was addicted. She was drinking three to four cans a day, and go looking for it when she didn’t have any in reach. But something happened that prompted her to consider quitting. “My stomach started hurting a lot recently and no one knew why. And I was tasting this diet coke and it started to taste really chemical-y. I asked them if they changed the formula and they said no, but I just was like, I'm done. And I that was it.” – Abby Ellin To hear more from Abby Ellin and her story on being duped, diet cokes and her thoughts on the Madoff scam, download and listen to this episode. Bio Abby Ellin is an award-winning journalist and the author of "Duped: Double Lives, False Identities and the Con Man I Almost Married" and "Teenage Waistland: A Former Fat Kid Weighs In On Living Large, Losing Weight and How Parents Can (and Can't) Help." For five years she wrote the "Preludes" column about young people and money for the Sunday Money and Business section of the New York Times...

244 Digital and Analog Businesses with Robert Siegel, VC and Author of “The Brains and the Brawn Company” Oct 14, 2021

Most businesses are now a hybrid of analog and digital. The question is, how do we get the right mix? Also, how do we know what and when to digitally transform, or keep parts of our business analog? These are just some of the questions that board CEOs and executive teams are grappling with. In this episode of Follow your Different, Robert Siegel will help us get a better grasp at it. Robert Siegel is a Venture Capitalist and a Stanford lecturer. He has a new book out called The Brains and Brawn Company, and it cracks open many of these kinds of questions. It also provides real research and insight from leading companies in their respective industries, coupled with Robert’s years in Silicon Valley and the entrepreneurial world. If you're building companies today, or you want to build a legendary company heading into the future, you're going to love everything about our dialogue. Robert Siegel on Digital Transformation Digital Transformation seems to have become a catch-all phrase that people in the industry use to describe new technology or migrating certain things online. While it may not seem like much of an issue. It becomes a problem when the supposed “experts” start suggesting that undergoing a Digital Transformation should be done ASAP to improve your company. “I think that what I've learned in my time as a venture capitalist, and also in the teaching that I do at Stanford, is that digital transformation is kind of necessary, but not sufficient. That the world that we're living in, is increasingly a blend of digital and physical. And so if you only talk about digital transformation, everything talks about the ones and zeros. Everyone talks about software and connectivity. But people forget, we actually live in a physical world.” – Robert Siegel The Brain and Brawn Company We then get into the discussion of Robert’s new book, The Brain and Brawn Company. Robert explains that having both Brain and Brawns is necessary for a company. The Brain being the creative and analytical aspects of business, as well as the digital parts of it. While the Brawn is the physical aspects, like dealing with logistics, manufacturing, and such. So the optimal setup is having a good mix of “brains” and “brawn” in your company. According to Robert, they don’t deal with those who wish to have a pure digital software platform, because that is not a sustainable model. “Those companies aren't going to be successful as we get into a world where things are increasingly blended between digital and physical, and every product and service that we make is connected. And every industry is going to be impacted from not only things like mobility, but healthcare, financial services, there really is education, there isn't an industry that won't be impacted by this blend of digital and physical.” – Robert Siegel Of course, there are business that can go pure digital, but companies in general still need a good blend of digital and analog systems in place to function efficiently. The Right Mix of Digital and Analog That said, what is a good mix of digital and analog for a business? According to Robert, it depends for each business. One of the things to look at is how different systems work in your company. After understanding them, find out if going digital can improve the service, or make it more efficient in the long run. Of course, there are certain aspects that still need analog aspects, even within digital spaces. Take for instance ordering online. While the whole thing can be made digital nowadays, there are still analog competencies like logistics and customer experience that need to be accounted for. Or the opposite can also be true, like adding digital improvements to delivery tracking, so that customers know the real-time location of their on-going delivery. So in the end, it’s best to find the right mix for your own company. To hear more from Robert Siegel and how to find the right mix of digital and analog in your business,

243 The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche with Dave Jilk Oct 11, 2021

Frederick Nietzsche was one of the most important philosophers of all time. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Dave Jilk and I talk about a new book that fuses Nietzsche and modern entrepreneurship in a fascinating, provocative, and very thought-provoking way. The new book is called Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche, and Dave co-authored it with Brad Feld (FYD 175). In this dialogue, we go deep on many of the dichotomies we face as company founders and builders. We examine the difference between passion and obsession, and what Nietzsche means by creativity and super abundance. We also talk about how to know you should keep driving forward with your idea or maybe change course. You can also listen to us discuss how founders should evolve their role in the company that they started over time. This is a super-smart, deep-insight bearing conversation about some ideas for company creators with a big-brain, been-there-done-that kind of guy. So fire up your cerebellum and get ready for a fun ride through thinking town! Dave Jilk on Fusing Nietzsche and Entrepreneurship The dialogue starts off with the elephant in the room: why fuse Nietzsche and the world of entrepreneurship? Dave explains that he wasn’t very fond of most business books, in general. For him, most of them contain a few important things, but wrapped around in 200 pages of text. Though reading them is an unavoidable occupational hazard for him and his co-author, Brad Feld. So he and Brad got the idea of writing their own book, containing their thoughts and experiences in entrepreneurship. But they don’t want it to be just another business book. That’s where their attention turned to Nietzsche and his works. “I was reading him (Nietzsche) a little earlier than Brad. When I was reading it, we notice things that apply to entrepreneurship. It was striking though, and of course his languages is very interesting and colorful, right? So we started playing with, “Hey, could we write something”, and we wrote a few of the essays and grabbed a couple of Brad's blog posts and stuck them in his stories to see how that worked and, and it kind of clicked.” – Dave Jilk From there, they managed to get enough content to write an entire book. Nietzsche, Entrepreneurs, and Being a Little Bit Crazy There are some people who referred to Nietzsche as sort of a crazy person. Dave thinks the better word to use is “Wacky”, and that Nietzsche himself revels in that description. As someone studying human nature, he was open to exploring different situations and experiences, which might have gotten him this reputation. Going back to entrepreneurs, Dave thinks that one has to be a little bit crazy and explore the possibility without worrying about looking bad or weird. That is especially true for startups and early stages of most businesses. “Some people would argue that you have to be extremely rational, analytical about this. But we say, to create something truly disruptive, you have to have a vision. You have to have a vision of what the world could be like, after your disruption is successful. What is the world going to be like, with no evidence whatsoever, no particularly good reason to believe that the world will adopt that. You have to have to be, as you say, a little bit crazy.” – Dave Jilk Being Brave and Different When asked if Nietzsche had been very courageous because he was challenging the preconceived norms despite the pushbacks, Dave agreed to some degree. For him, Nietzsche was more like someone who bravely dives headfirst into something before worrying about the consequences to his reputation and the like. “Nietzsche’s essential project was to transform the moral tradition of Europe. It's a moral tradition that that went back, at least, two millennia, and possibly longer. He was trying to dis to disrupt that, to change it to, and to explore what it would be like when it did change. And the that exploration is, was frightening to him.

242 Thursday Is the New Friday with Joe Sanok Oct 07, 2021

Welcome to the first of two episodes that we are doing on the new work paradigms that are emerging. In this episode of Follow Your Different, I talk with Joe Sanok about designing a life that works for you by in part, making Thursday the new Friday. Joe Sanok is the opposite of many hustle porn stars, who’ve been screaming at entrepreneurs, marketers, and executives to work until they drop. When in reality, if you never stop hustling, you’ll likely end up dead with nothing to show for it. No matter what stage you’re at in your career, this dialogue with Joe will stimulate your thoughts and get you thinking… Thursday is the New Friday Joe talks about his new book, Thursday is the New Friday, and how the timing of it seems to be spot on. There have always been discussions of how to balance your life between work and personal stuff. Though said discussion has hit its peak because of the current situation with COVID, and people working from their homes. People who usually spend the 8 hour daily grind have figured out that they don’t really need the whole 8 hours for it. “Looking at Spain moving to the four day workweek, Denmark trying it out. There’s so many companies trying a four day workweek. Even if it's not a four day workweek, to start to think about why are we working the number of hours we’re working. But then we realized that, you know, if you're in a traditional job, you didn't need 40 hours. A lot of people started saying, “Well, why are we working this way, our outcomes are the same, we're doing the same or better work, working fewer hours. “Then people with the industrialist mindset are like, “We want butts in the chairs, we want to get back to the cog in the big machine.” And that's just not gonna work anymore. Like it's already blown up, we've seen behind the curtain and things are shifting.” - Joe Sanok Joe Sanok on the Evolution of the Work Week Joe talks about how humans eventually ended up with our current notion of a work week. In his book, he looked into why we have the seven-day week, and how we even got to have weekends. It even delves into how Ford started the 40-hour work week. The point of all this is that humanity, or at least the business and working people, are the ones to decide what a work week would be like. With today’s tech and the evolution of business from industrialist to a new frontier, people are looking for ways to make lives easier for everyone, without the drop in quality of work. “I would actually argue we actually are leaving that industrialist mindset behind and that we're in the messy middle of what's emerging next. And we get to decide the same way the Babylonians said seven days a week, we get to decide what that looks like. And that autonomy to me is so important that we do this well, that we think about it, we look at the research, we look at case studies, we look at even just how we feel on the inside. When I tell people I wrote a book about taking Friday's off they're like yeah, it's about time because they know Fridays are a blow off day. But everyone sits there and talks for 20 minutes and we're already blowing it off. Why don't we actually just call it what it is and have a three day weekend.” - Joe Sanok Joe Sanok on Hustle Culture Joe talks about how he has dedicated a whole chapter to the hustle narrative and why it is wrong. He points out that looking at productivity alone, “hustling” is not a very efficient way of doing it. “There's so many better ways to do it. We see it in big businesses or community colleges. (There) are tons of the case studies that I've seen and researched that it actually is better for business, for mental health, and for health outcomes (not to hustle). That people actually make more money at it. So why would we keep hustling 90 hours a week so that we can have the “status that Instagram gives us” when it's not even needed?” - Joe Sanok To hear more from Joe Sanok and how to be more efficient and not fall into the Hustle trap,

241 The Korean Vegan with Joanne Molinaro Oct 04, 2021

In this episode of Follow Your Different, let’s talk about food. On the base level, food is about survival, sustenance, and safety. Yet it is also a centering point for life and culture, and even expressing love. Joanne Molinaro joins us today to talk more about it. Joanne Molinaro is a lawyer-turned-author and Tik Tok info-tainer, as well as a social media rockstar. She has developed a massive following by fusing Korean cooking, veganism, life lessons, and story-telling into a legendary stew that her fans can’t get enough of. Her food blog “The Korean Vegan” is one of the top in the world, and her social media and Tik Tok have millions of followers. She also has a new book called The Korean Vegan Cookbook. We get into it and much more in this episode, so stay tuned. Joanne Molinaro‘s Relationship with Food The conversation starts off with checking in on Joanne and how she feels about her new book. Joanne shares that she’s a bit nervous since it was her first cookbook, and she’s worried that people might not like the recipes in it. Though given the quality of her content, it should not be a problem at all. From there, Joanne shares her relationship with food, in which she loves it so much. She loves cooking, but she especially loves eating, as well as trying out new foods and cuisines. Though she realized early on that she particularly like eating her own food best. “I realized pretty quickly that I like eating my own food best. Not because I’m persnickety about what goes into my food, although that's part of it. But mostly because I think my food tastes the best, because I know what I like, and I know how to make my food the way that I like. I think a lot of people are like, Oh, I love eating grandma's food, I love eating my mom's food. And sure I love eating my mom's food too. But a lot of times I'm like, I can make this better for me.” - Joanne Molinaro For Joanne, food makes her very happy, and it is something she looks forward to. Joanne Molinaro on the Contradiction of Safety and Danger in Food For a lot of people, food gives them a sense of safety, because it gives them sustenance, and they are made with love by our parents and grandparents when we are young. It reminds them that they are loved and cared for. Although for some, it can be a source of insecurity as well, and Joanne had to deal with both when she was younger. As society’s views on a “healthy and proper” body leaned on being slim and thin, eating and enjoying food seems like a bad thing to do. Not being to enjoy what you like can cause anxiety. Not being able to comfort that anxiety by eating your favorite food just adds to the stack. “In the past, I've also had a very fraught relationship with food. I was told very, very young that part of my value was tied to how I look and how thin I was. Unfortunately, food consumption contributes to your size. And as a result of that, however much I love eating food and how much I love cooking food, it also creates a great deal of anxiety and danger. So it's sort of that very strange juxtaposition where a bowl of kimchi-jjigae makes me feel so safe, but a bowl of kimchi-jjigae also equals calories which makes me feel unsafe.”- Joanne Molinaro Being at the Forefront of Food Creation Now that she has become a food superstar, Joanne feels like she has to be more fastidious about guarding against or obsessing about food she eats. While it has become an impulse that was brought on by years of being careful of what she ate, she does not want it to influence her work as a food creator. “Now that I'm front facing about my relationship with food, and as a food creator, I feel very responsible about not just sending the correct message out into the world, but by living in accordance with that message. I can't, on the one hand, tell people, “Hey, stop counting calories!” While I, myself, am counting calories. That doesn't make sense.” - Joanne Molinaro Instead of focusing on calorie counts,

240 “Your Life Depends on It”: What You Can Do to Make Better Choices About Your Health with Talya Miron-Shatz , PhD Sep 30, 2021

Nothing is more important than your health. Though learning to make smart, complex health care choices is hard and is getting harder, especially in a world of massive healthcare information, and disinformation. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Talya Miron-Shatz aims to help us make the right health choices. Talya Miron-Shatz has her doctorate in Psychology from the Hebrew University, and studied with Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. She is also a professor at the Ono Academic College, as well as a visiting research at Cambridge University. Talya offers a clear and useful guidance for the hardest decisions in life. We go deep into her new book, Your Life Depends on It, to find out more on what you and your family needs to know about making critical health care decisions. Talya Miron-Shatz on Studying Happiness Talya talks about what it meant to study happiness. She explains that the way they study happiness is not like what most people would think to do it. Rather than just focusing on what activities bring happiness, they look at various activities and find out what brings people happiness in those activities. One example that she gives was with colonoscopy, which isn’t exactly a happy activity. “For example, he (Daniel Kahneman) did work with colonoscopies. And he showed with Dr. Reto Meier that when the end is more gentle people remember the whole episode is better. So it can be weird because nobody likes a colonoscopy. But apparently when it's milder, when the end is milder, it's better. “ - Talya Miron-Shatz Measuring Happiness With regards to measuring happiness, there are what is called Peak and Low moments. Low moments are the parts of the activity that makes us unhappy, and we try to avoid those parts as much as possible. Yet avoiding all lows would be impossible. Which is why Talya encourages people to cherish the peaks we experience, however small or short they may be. “We should just cherish and be happy with those moments and sort of elevate them and give them attention. Whatever draws your attention, whatever you pay attention to, determines how you feel.” - Talya Miron-Shatz Finding Ways to be Happy Talya continues with how we use attention, or divert it to something else, to find a way to feel happy. One example is how people try to keep themselves busy with work or other activities when they have recently experienced something unhappy. Some might put physical distance between their worries, and find that it helps them feel less depressed and think more clearly afterwards. It’s literally taking your mind off the thing that is upsetting. Though there’s a part of avoidance that Talya doesn’t like, and it pertains to medicine. Particularly, the discussion of death… To hear more from Talya Miron-Shatz and how to make better choices with your health, download and listen to this episode. Bio For two decades author, consultant, researcher, writer, speaker, and entrepreneur Dr. Talya Miron-Shatz has been dedicated to the issue of health and medical decision making. The questions she asks, and the answers she gives, are increasingly larger, and relate to the intersection of psychology and medicine. How do patients make choices? What do they need to understand their care and options? How can they be brought to enjoy the benefits of digital health? How can the human touch make a difference in times when medical challenges are inevitable? She identified barriers to better decision making and shows how they can be overcome – by patients, physicians, and healthcare organizations. She contends that while patients experience their challenges as very personal, these are rooted in institutional practices, and need to be considered as what constitutes good care. Often, it is beyond the doctors’ control, and they too can benefit from an overhaul of the patient role. Miron-Shatz did her BA, MA at Hebrew University’s psychology department, and worked for over a decade as an organizational psychologist.

239 How A U.S. Army Paratrooper Went From Homeless to Successful Entrepreneur with Jaime Jay, Author of Quit Repeating Yourself Sep 27, 2021

We hear a lot of talk about courage, grit, and being mission-driven. Well, imagine being a young man who decides to serve his country and become a US Army paratrooper, only to become homeless after his active duty. Now imaging finding a way out of complete desperation to become a successful entrepreneur, and now bestselling author. That is Jaime Jay, and he is our guest in this episode of Follow Your Different. Jaime Jay is the co-founder of Bottleneck Distant Assistants, and the author of the new bestselling book, Quit Repeating Yourself. Jaime and I have been working together for years, and he has helped me in most of my digital endeavors. This includes building Lochhead.com, as well as handling all of the technical issues with my podcasts and much more. What you’re about to hear is an inspiring story of how Jaime designed a legendary business and life with his partner, Sara. Pay special attention to how Covid19 almost destroyed Jaime’s business, and how a new category design helped it to come back from the brink and power the company to even greater heights. Jaime Jay in the US Army There is a special place in my heart for our vets, and even more so for those who have become entrepreneurs after serving their duty. So I asked Jaime about his military service. Jaime was part of the elite 82nd Airborne Division, and was trained as a paratrooper. He recalls how intense the training was to be part of such an elite organization, and be battle-ready for when the country needs them. “I was part of the elite 82nd Airborne Division, 2nd 325 Airborne Infantry Regiment and I had a blast. It was is fantastic. I was really proud to be part of that organization. They man, they run a tip top organization. And that was blessed to be be part of the 82nd. That's pretty cool.” - Jaime Jay Jaime Jay on Being Homeless Jaime shares that he has been homeless on two separate times of his life. The first one being related to his younger days, and the latter was after he had left the military. Yet he never let these circumstances weigh him down, and he continued to strive for a better life. He talks about these points in the book as well, not for people to feel bad for him, but to see that despite all of that, you can still persevere and live a good life. “By the way, the reason I tell these stories is not for people to ever feel bad for me or anything like that. But I want people to realize what all of this led to. I'm actually blessed that all this happened because all of this led to a better life where I appreciated so much more. The friendships like the friendship that I have with you, I will forever appreciate this for the rest of my life. I was able to find the woman of my dreams. And I appreciate it on such a different level, just the same way that I appreciate the work that we're doing. So the reason that I tell these stories in here is because I really want people to understand that, hey, it's possible to do whatever it is you're passionate about. So it's kind of motivating, but there's a method to the madness. “ - Jaime Jay Creating a New Category: Distant Assistants One of the things Jaime and I have worked on this past year was when we created a new category that deals with remote assistance. You might say we already have that, and it’s called virtual assistants. Though the problem with virtual assistants nowadays is that the category has been inundated with big corporations who deal more with technology rather than the human aspect of it. While there are merits to automated assistance run by AI and such, there is something to be said for having an actual person handling it for you, and that flexible decision-making that can’t be achieved by AI yet. “People are using a lot of AI and stuff to manage the calendar to send out emails, automation. That's all fine and dandy, and there are some great use cases for that. I'm not here to argue that, but I also think there's something to be said for having that human,

238 Hear Yourself: How To Find Peace In A Noisy World with Prem Rawat Sep 23, 2021

Is peace really possible? Our guest today says it is. In this special episode of Follow Your Different, Prem Rawat talks about how to find peace in a noisy world. Prem Rawat has been teaching peace since he was a little boy in India. He became a counterculture icon in the 60s and the 70s, as Americans sought out different ideas and beliefs. He’s been a source of great controversy and massive followership over the years. Prem has been sought out and welcomed by spiritual, social and political and business leaders around the world. Prem Rawat has a new book out, called Hear Yourself: How to Find Peace in a Noisy World. We are here to discuss all that and more, so stay tuned. Prem Rawat on the Current State of the World When asked about his current thoughts, Prem talks about the current state of the world. For him, it seems that there’s just too much drama and chaos in the world right now. Though the current situation right now plays a big factor as to why it may be so, people are still whipping it up and causing drama left and right. While it is the nature of humanity to seek out exciting events and drama, it seems that we have become morbidly so, despite the situation being something as it is right now. Much so that we choose to forgo peace to chase the next drama. “Well, you know, here's the paradox, because (when) you look at human beings, human beings are remarkable. We've been able to conquer disease, we've been able to invent so many wonderful things that that has helped other people. Though at the same time we can create medicine that can that can prolong life, we can also create machine guns that can take away the lives. So we always live in this paradox. I always feel that we have to choose, and I talk about peace. I feel that we have to choose peace. It's not just going to happen automatically, that is not going to drop from the sky, on people, whether they like it or not. It's just that Something that we have to choose. And the question then becomes, is that what we're choosing?” – Prem Rawat Choosing Peace Prem continues on how we should actively choose peace. Because the way we are treating it right now, it’s just something that we expect to happen to us, despite being distracted by everyday noise. If you want peace for yourself, you have to distance yourself from the noise and drama, and choose peace. “Well, peace is already within you, (but) you have to gain access to it. And that's what this book is all about: getting in touch with yourself. Because we are so distracted. In fact, being with yourself, in an environment is considered the worst form of punishment you can possibly have. We have become so attracted to everything else that we became distracted from ourselves. That is a pretty sad state of affairs, when it comes to ourselves. That being with you, just being with you, is the worst thing you could ever do.” – Prem Rawat Can We Really Have Peace? Prem shares his life of going around the world and speaking to the international crowd about peace. Though he thinks that just doing that was not enough, and that is why he wrote his book. With it, he hopes that it can spark a meaningful conversation or even a debate about peace. Though there are those who say peace is not possible, that it is in the human nature to seek conflict or drama. For Prem, this is not so, as peace is already within all of us. So for him, these people can be considered sourgraping, in a sense. “It's a question of sour grapes. there's a lot of people say it this way. It's like, oh no, peace is not possible. It’s not going to happen. But when peace is already inside of us, why isn't that ever going to happen? And isn't it up to us? If we can create wars, why can't we create peace?” – Prem Rawat To hear more from Prem Rawat and how to find peace in this noisy world, download and listen to this episode. Bio Prem Rawat For more than fifty years, Prem has shared his enduring message with people of any age, race, gender,

237 Creative Acts for Curious People with Stanford Design School Executive Director Sarah Stein Greenberg Sep 20, 2021

In this episode of Follow Your Different, we talk about all things creativity, innovation, and design. Our guest today is Sarah Stein Greenberg, the Executive Director of Stanford’s Design School, aka the d.school. She has a new book out called Creative Acts for Curious People: How to Think, Create, and Lead in Unconventional Ways. They have taken years of learning and ideas from Stanford’s Design school and put it in this awesome new book, and we get to dive in to all of it. Sarah shares why reflections matter so much, and also tells why metacognition is important. We dig into what it's like running one of the most well-known design schools in the world, and how design students are different today than they were in the not-so-distant past. Also, pay special attention to Sarah's ideas on weird and the role of curiosity in creativity and design. Sarah Stein Greenberg on Reflections and Creativity Sarah talks about finally being back in the physical space of Stanford campus. She describes the space that she has a space for reflection, full of writing space to record her thoughts as they come. When asked if reflection is really important in design, Sara shares that it plays a part in it. That it is something that should go hand-in-hand with action. “I think reflection is kind of the underappreciated partner of action. In a lot of cases, when people think about creativity, they think about brainstorming and exuberance, and that that spark of inspiration. But reflection, I think about it as it's like the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, those two things are, inextricably linked action and reflection. So yeah, I'm a big proponent of those quiet moments, where you're trying to make sense or really think about what might be the implications of your creative work.” = Sarah Stein Greenberg What? So What? Now What? Sarah shares about the difference between thinking and reflection. Thinking might include everything from coming up with new ideas, charting the vision, or even some parts of analysis / research. Reflection focuses more on thinking about your own process or practice, or looking back at your data more critically. Sarah goes on to say that reflection in particular benefits from specific scaffolding and practices, and brings up one of her favorite one: the What? / So What? / Now What?, which a few of her colleagues have originated. “The scaffold is called What? So what? Now What? You can kind of have a scaffolded reflection and think about, what did I just learn in that particular class or that particular project? How do I want to improve my own work? But if you use a scaffold like What, So What, and Now What, you really get into the details. You might write down everything that happened, then you might think about what did all of that mean? Why is that important? Why did that feel like what I wanted to capture? And then Now What is the opportunity to think for each of those. So what for each of those implications? What do I want to do about that? Is that something I want to practice? Is that something I want to improve?” = Sarah Stein Greenberg For Sarah, the quality of reflections changes dramatically if you have a detailed flow on how to approach and assess what you currently have. Sarah Stein Greenberg on Metacognition The conversation then steers into how a lot of people nowadays aren’t really thinking, or thinking about thinking. Most content or “new things” in the market are just variations of the same things that we already have, just rebranded or given a new “spin”. Sarah agrees with this sentiment, and also talks about metacognition, which is the technical term for “thinking about thinking”. For her, it's a skill that should be embedded in the heart of our education. “(Metacognition) is one of those kinds of secret skills that I firmly believe should be embedded in the heart of our education. What goes along with that is the idea of learning how you learn, is actually the key to like being able to then con...

236 “My Family Is Trapped In Afghanistan” An Entrepreneur’s Story with Noorullah Akbari, Founder of Rosalyn AI Sep 15, 2021

Imagine the life you love, the freedoms you enjoy, and the opportunities you have. All the safety and security you take for granted, vaporized in a matter of days. Imagine that many in your family, friends, and loved ones are now hostages. Noorullah Akbari doesn't have to imagine any of that. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Noorullah Akbari talks about the situation of his family and millions of Afghan citizens that are still living in Kabul at this time. Noor is the founder and CEO of a company called Rosalyn.AI, and they are on a mission to use advanced technology in making a difference for students’ education. He's also a former Afghan refugee living in the United States of America. Right now as we speak, Noor is fighting to get about 20 members of his family out of Kabul, Afghanistan. Our hope is that this dialogue will help humanize the plight of the very real people in Afghanistan who are suffering right now who want out, and that this very real dialogue will be shared, emailed, tweeted and posted broadly in the United States. Because no matter what you think about the US’ withdrawal in Afghanistan, there are now 35 million people who are experiencing the most horrifying change imaginable in their lives through no fault of their own. Noorullah Akbari on the Taliban We start the conversation by asking about the situation with Noor’s family. He shares that his sisters and their family, as well as some of his relatives are still in Kabul. They are quite afraid, and thought that there would be a massacre once the Taliban solidifies their hold. While the Taliban has said that they will not do such a thing, the family do not trust their word. According to Noor, they think that the Taliban hasn’t done so because they do not want any negative perception at this time. As we live in a technological age, phones and the internet are everywhere. A simple picture depicting their violence could derail the "good image" they want to portray. Though technology might be keeping the Taliban in check for now, there are limits to what it can do. “When there are no cameras, they go after those who they believe have aided the infidels and foreigners. They (The Taliban) tell them now, they don't do that currently in Kabul. And the main reason is, there are cell phones out there. They haven't banned the internet yet, so that people can take pictures. That will cause them trouble with the international community. But the practice has always been to come after their enemies, kill them and take revenge. So no, you can't trust the terrorists.” - Noorullah Akbari Life on the Ground Noor explains that while he wants to get all their relatives out of Kabul as soon as possible, there are some who are in immediate danger due to their previous involvement with the US forces. Though he also stresses that most of the people in Kabul have worked directly or indirectly with the US at various times. So it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to think that all of those people will also be considered as enemies by the Taliban. Yet some might be looking for a way out, simply because they do not want to live under another Taliban regime. “I can tell you, they have all lived a life under the previous regime of Taliban. When you were going to watch soccer, right after there were public executions, or stoning of people, or beating of women. Women did not have the ability to walk around without men or without the Burqa. It was pretty brutal. You didn't have any personal freedom, the economy was bad. People were walking around like zombies. And everybody remembers that.” - Noorullah Akbari So when the US forces drove out the Taliban from Kabul 20 years ago, it was like a new lease of life was given to the citizens living there. To have that freedom taken away now, it’s understandable why people do not want to experience it all over again. Getting Out of Kabul When asked about the progress on getting his family out,

235 Moby’s Different Life, Extreme Ways, and New Little Pine Cookbook Sep 13, 2021

If you’re a long-time listener, you know that we do not have many celebrities as guests on Follow Your Different. We take a pass on most of them because frankly, they're not that interesting. However, Moby is not your typical celebrity or Hollywood type. Moby is a breakout musician, DJ, and songwriter. He's sold over 20 million records worldwide, and he is credited with helping to bring electronic dance music to a mainstream global audience. He is also an animal advocate and a deeply-committed vegan, and he’s got a brand-new cookbook out. It’s called Little Pine Cookbook, which is based on the recipes of Little Pine, a restaurant that he had founded. What you're about to hear is a real dialogue like none other: from Moby’s tough start in life, to making and breaking it and having it all fall apart, then building yourself back again. You’ll also hear stories on Moby meeting his heroes, including what it was like to hang out with none other than David Bowie. Moby on Meeting Your Heroes To Moby, making the cover for David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ has a personal context. He shares that when he was around 12, he had bought two David Bowie albums. Since then, David Bowie became his favorite musician of all time. Then in the late 90’s, they became friends. Then neighbors. They even went on tours together, worked on music together, and enjoyed each other’s company. “We had this one amazing day where he was in my apartment in New York. We played an acoustic version of heroes together. It was such a magical moment that the version of Heroes on Reprise is sort of a tribute to the song; a tribute to the fact that I was friends with my favorite musician of all time, and a tribute to this moment of playing Heroes with the greatest musician of all time.” - Moby That said, there is a saying that goes, “you should never meet your heroes, because they are sure to disappoint you.” Moby acknowledges that there are times that it is true. Though in David Bowie’s case, it only made him appreciate the person and his music more after meeting him. Moby on Being a Public Figure It’s not unusual to look up to icons and dream of one day becoming one. Being famous or a public figure is a dream that a lot of people have. Though according to Moby, being a public figure can be more stressful than it’s worth. It might sound pretentious or narcissistic coming from a place of having achieved it already, but it is something Moby wishes to share through his book, ‘Then It Fell Apart’. His documentary, Moby Doc, also shines a bit of light into this: “The idea is that the human condition is one of confusion. You know, as long as we're human, we're baffled. So It seems like we all gravitate towards things that give us a sense of meaning, structure, and status. And so the book ‘Then It Fell Apart’ and ‘Moby Doc’ is sort of looking at that. Like how I had my own individual experience of bafflement, and how I tried to find anything that would give me that sense of meaning, purpose, status, comfort, what have you.” - Moby Living the Rockstar Life When asked whether he thinks that he’s “living the rockstar life”, Moby thinks that he has lived a life so far that has given him a unique perspective. As someone who has been to the extreme ends of both poverty, wealth, and varying degrees of fame, it has given him an insight that is undenyingly his own. Yet while the specific details are unique to him alone, the general circumstance is not. That is why Moby felt that he had to share his story. Not so much as to show everyone what he has achieved in his life so far, but as a reference for those who are aspiring for such a lifestyle, or those who might be in a similar situation. To hear more from Moby and his insights on meeting your heroes and living an accomplished life, download and listen to this episode. Bio Richard Melville Hall, known professionally as Moby, is an American musician, songwriter, singer, producer, and animal rights activist.

234 How Misfits Succeed with Tech Legend, Co-Founder of Intel Capital Avram Miller, Author of “Flight of The Wild Duck” Sep 06, 2021

A few companies have had the impact in the technology industry that Intel has had. Without Intel, the personal computer might never have happened the way that it did. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we go inside Intel, and inside the life of one of the tech industry’s true living legends, Avram Miller. Avram Miller is best known as the co-founder of Intel Capital, the most successful corporate venture group in the history of the technology industry. What Avram and his partners created became the model for corporate venture capital in Silicon Valley. In addition, he's also famous for spotting and leading Intel's initiative to create and expand residential broadband internet access. He’s got a new book out, called Flight of the Wild Duck, and improbably journey through life and technology. So for those who call the Internet your home, stay tuned and have a deep, meaningful, and unedited real dialogue with a true legend. Avram Miller on Being a 'Misfit' When asked about the term ‘misfit’ and what it means for him, Avram shares that for him, it was somebody who wasn’t really right for the system. Though it’s not like that somebody has a problem or is not doing anything, but more of that they couldn’t do what was expected of them. Which was not to say that he himself was a misfit growing up. Rather, that was how he thought others perceived him. This left him confused and eventually getting the impression that there might be something wrong with him. Nowadays, he doesn’t get the feeling of being a misfit anymore, though there’s still the notion of feeling like the odd man out. “I think I still feel like the odd man out. Often, and not so much because of my life today. If I were to be back in my previous life, I would guess I would still feel like I didn't quite fit in. You know, I was at Intel for 15 years, I achieved a fairly high position at Intel one of the when I was there. And that's actually kind of what caused me to use the title of my book, which was the Flight of a Wild Duck, which is what Andy Grove, he referred to me as that. But you know, the, the Wild Duck is the duck does not going in the same direction as the other ducks.” - Avram Miller Life at Intel Despite all this, Avram did not have any problems working for Intel, and the feeling was mutual. That’s because he has something to give to the company that they needed. So while he doesn’t think he fits in completely, he still had a lot to offer on the table, and Intel valued him for it. “At Intel, things really based on results. And I had results, I could make things happen. So once I could show that I could make results, once I could achieve things, everything was pretty much okay, because I was judged on my contributions.” - Avram Miller The Strengths and Weaknesses of Fitting In That said, he thinks that while these systems are great for finding people that fit, there can also be drawbacks to it. While you can get people that might fit in to your idea of a perfect system, you might miss out on those ‘misfits’ that end up changing the landscape of business. “Most people go through life, and they go through some system, which was devised in the industrial age. You should think of that process is a funnel that’s filtering out people, it's filtering out misfits. And at the end, you have people that are really, really good at doing certain things, and no good at doing other things. But those other things are needed. And it's a strength, because you have all these people that are very, very good at doing certain things, like showing up on time. But it's a weakness, because they don't have the creativity, the imagination, the intuition, all this has been filtered out. Either they've suppressed it, or the people that had it just didn't make it through the funnel.” - Avram Miller To learn more about Avram Miller and his thoughts on how misfits can succeed in the tech world, download and listen to this episode. Bio

233 How Ten Global Cities Take On Homelessness with Linda Gibbs & Muzzy Rosenblatt Aug 30, 2021

Homelessness is a daunting, heartbreaking, and complex problem. There are currently about half a million Americans experiencing homelessness to this day. So in this episode of Follow Your Different, let’s dig into what we can do to make a difference with our guests Linda Gibbs and Muzzy Rosenblatt, two of the authors of a powerful new book called How 10 Global Cities Take On Homelessness. Linda Gibbs served as a Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Resources for New York City from 2005 to 2013. During her tenure, New York City was the only top 20 city in America whose poverty rate did not rise. Today, Linda is a principal at Bloomberg Associates, which is a philanthropic consulting arm of Michael Bloomberg’s nonprofit organization. They work with cities globally to make a difference, particularly in areas of homelessness. Also with us is Muzzy Rosenblatt, who is the CEO of BRC, a nonprofit that has worked for 50 years to provide housing and treatment services to homeless adults in New York City. It's safe to say that Linda and Muzzy are definitely experts in grappling with homelessness. The insights they share in their book are based on two extraordinary careers that are dedicated on solving the issue of homelessness. So if you have ever been homeless at some point in your life, or know someone who is in this situation, this dialogue is something you will want to hear from start to finish. Linda Gibbs on Solving the Homelessness Problem When asked why we can’t seem to solve the homelessness problem, Linda shares that it’s not really a complex problem, but it is hard one to tackle. It doesn’t take a brilliant idea, or a new, innovative solution to solve it. The solution is easily staring us in the face, but we can’t implement them due to certain factors. One of the reasons is the vast amounts of resources that needs to be allocated to make it happen. You need to have the money to put the basic programs that can help people in motion. Though according to Linda, that’s not even the biggest issue. “The harder part, quite frankly, is it requires people who work in many different organizations at different levels of government. It requires that they all work together, like a well-oiled machine. The biggest problem is that these different systems, they all have their flaws. Also, many of the systems who have to be working together to fix the problem, are the very systems that generate the problem. And so, getting them to the table and working together toward one unified objective is the biggest challenge by far.” – Linda Gibbs Linda Gibbs on Why They Care Before going further with the discussion, we asked both our guests why they people should care about the homeless. Linda shares that this is not something that people choose willingly for themselves. There are multiple factors as to why someone would be homeless. As a community, Linda thinks that we can do better for ourselves and our neighbors, especially those who are in dire need of our help. “We live in, in many ways, a deeply flawed society, and we have to do better. We have to address the consequences of those flaws. And it's incumbent on us that we need to fix those flaws, and we need to be committed to the longer-term reforms. Though we also have to address the faults now while we focus on those longer-term strategies.” – Linda Gibbs Muzzy Rosenblatt on the Importance of Solving Homelessness Muzzy agrees with Linda’s views, but also recognize that some people might not see the same as them. He would encourage everyone to help, but doesn’t force them to do so. Though he points out that it can be beneficial for cities to tackle their city’s issue of homelessness instead of just doing temporary measures to alleviate them. For one thing, the money being spent on keeping things in the current status quo is coming from taxpayer’s money, so instead of having a stop gap or a short-term solution, why not solve the problem once and for all? Also,

232 How To Create The Future with Martin “Marty” Cooper, Father of the Cell Phone Aug 23, 2021

In this incredibly special episode of Follow Your Different, we have a person that is like no other that has ever been on this podcast. We know the names of many of the legendary innovators and category creators of the modern era: people like Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and many others are rightfully celebrated worldwide. Yet most people don't know who the father of the cell phone is. The man behind it all is Martin Cooper, and he is our guest for today. In the last 100 years, there is no category of technological breakthrough more important than the cell phone. While there are others that are equally important, it is not an exaggeration to say that the mobile phone changed the trajectory of humanity. The cell phone created a radically different future that has created and it continues to create exponential benefits for humankind. I'm very grateful that Marty took the time to write his new riveting book, it's called Cutting the Cord. Because now, we have a first-person account of the life and the learnings of a legendary innovator, engineer, and category creator, and frankly, American, Martin “Marty” Cooper. What follows is an unedited, uninterrupted conversation with Martin Cooper. We cover everything from his definition of what technology is, to why he's irked by how the mobile companies have rolled out 5G. We also talk about his thoughts on how to bridge the digital divide and how to bring the internet to everyone, which he is really passionate about. So if you want to hear more from the Father of the Cellular Phone himself, stay tuned to this episode. Martin Cooper on Bridging the Digital Divide When asked about his current thoughts on technology, Marty’s initial thoughts were on the digital divide with regards to education. Particularly, it’s due to the fact that people cannot get a decent education in modern times without having access to the internet. One reason is that having access to the internet means having access to anything all the time. You also have access to all the knowledge of society at your fingertips. Unfortunately, that access is only afforded to half the students nowadays, even in an advanced country like the United States. Others either have no access to it because of the cost, while some have no decent service available to them at all. For Marty, the idea is simply ridiculous, especially during this day. “There is no technological reason for that to be the case. The carriers that provide us with service, people like AT&T, T Mobile, Verizon, and many other carriers license the radio spectrum from us. Their licenses have one basic requirement: and that is that the use of the spectrum should be in the public interest and convenience. And yet, there we have it 25% of our country is not covered, and 25% of our population can't afford the service.” – Martin Cooper Some of Marty’s suggestion regarding the matter is to make it more accessible to the public, either by lowering rates, or building a system where its almost a necessity for each household to have such a connection. Even if it means having the government shoulder the cost. Because the alternative is having a population where half of it is being left behind in terms of education. Martin Cooper on 5G For Marty, 5G doesn’t really affect the average consumer. It is mostly targeted on businesses, companies, and other structures of that nature. What irks him about this is how they are promoting it, saying that they will be useful to industries such as autonomous cars and remote surgery. The main thing about those two examples is that it’s not only fast connection that will enable it to be effective. You also need a network where it can operate at very low latency, so that reaction times will be instantaneous. It would be bad if two autonomous cars that are about to crash to have a few seconds delay on their response. You definitely do not want a doctor doing a crucial operation on someone being hampered by lag.

231 The Science and Technology of Growing Young with Sergey Young Aug 16, 2021

In this episode of Follow Your Different, we’ll have a dialogue that just might change how you think about aging, and maybe even life itself. Who better to have this dialogue than with Sergey Young, author of the book called The Science and Technology of Growing Young. Sergey believes that entrepreneurs and startups are already creating the longevity, technology, and category breakthroughs needed to design a new category of human that lives to 200 and beyond. He also believes that people in the future will have a health span well past 150, and that most of us living right now can get to 120. We dig deep into this new into what’s happening in this new mega category of longevity. We also talk about what Sergey calls the near and far horizons of longevity breakthroughs, and how the conversion of bio and tech is already saving and extending lives. The Science and Technology of Growing Young Sergey talks about the journey on writing his book, The Science and Technology of Growing Young. He misses it so much that he’s already thinking about his next book, which will be as legendary as the current one. When asked about any particular topic in the book that he wanted to discuss, Sergey points to the last chapter, which talked about the morality of immortality. The reason for this is that his publisher thinks that the last chapter deserved its own book. To which Sergey responded: “My response was like, each chapter in the Growing Young book deserves to be a separate book. Because human health, happiness, or desire to live longer is such a complex subject. So you can do like 1000 books on the back of that.” – Sergey Young Sergey Young on the Morality of Immortality Following up on the publisher’s comment, Sergey believes that the morality of immortality is probably the most contentious topic, because it is always very shocking. He shared that most polls, depending on the country, have 60 to 80 percent of the people saying no to life extension. “I was always surprised why. And what I learned is, we have created the science and technology to extend our lives. But we haven't created life that we want to extend.” – Sergey Young This is because when most people hear about longevity of life, they think it’s just to extend their lives for 5-10 years. Though in this case, Sergey’s book discusses working on healthspan, and not necessarily lifespan. “What I want to do is to insert another 20 to 25 years, right in the middle of your life cycle, to give you more time on Earth, to be with your loved ones, to realize your dreams, to change your career, and to have kids from multiple generations.” – Sergey Young Sergey Young on Virtual Avatars Sergey then talks about virtual avatars, and what he thinks will be a good use for it in the future. He shares that he misses his conversations with his grandfather, and would give anything to be able to talk to him again. Virtual Avatars could be a way to have such moments with your love ones, even as they have moved on. “I'm actually expecting this with a weird combination of excitement and fear. At the same time, like many of us, I always try to think about the application of this new technologies, which sounds scary. But if applied in the right person at the right time, they actually doing a lot of good things.” – Sergey Young Sergey also mentions Elon Musk and the research on neuro link. While some people think this is really against human nature, it might eventually be helpful to those suffering from neuro-genetic diseases. Also, being able to integrate with computers mean that we can explore more depths and harsher environments without sacrificing human life. If you want to hear more from Sergey Young and his thoughts on how to grow young, download and listen to this episode. Bio Sergey Young is a longevity investor and visionary on a mission to extend healthy lifespans of one billion people. To do that, Sergey founded Longevity Vision Fund to accelerate life extension technological breakt...

230 Aliens, UFOs, And UAPs with Harvard’s Top Astronomer Dr. Avi Loeb, Author of Extraterrestrial Aug 09, 2021

In this episode of Follow Your Different, Dr. Avi Loeb makes a return to give us an update about his work after he released his book, Extraterrestrial. If you are not familiar with Dr. Avi Loeb and his work, you can check out our previous conversation with him (FYD episode 202). Dr. Avi Loeb is the most credential scientist and astronomer ever to say that we have been visited by something outside of our galaxy that is alien in nature. In 2021, Professor Loeb published a book called Extraterrestrial, The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. For me, the ideas shared in this book can be a game changer for humanity. This time, Professor Loeb tells us why you can't use the internet without using quantum mechanics, and about the connection between theoretical physics and Bernie Madoff. Also, if you have been paying attention to UFOs, Dr. Loeb unpacks what he thinks the US government's latest disclosures on the existence of UFOs really mean. All these and more on this episode, so stay tuned to the end. Dr. Avi Loeb on Letting the Scientists Handle Science When asked whether he had a particular though he’d like to share, Professor Loeb remarks that he wishes that these unidentified phenomena in the sky be explored through scientific experiments. There have been a lot of people giving their thoughts on the matter, but they’re simply not qualified to give such statements. While data might be sensitive and are often classified, at the very least have someone with a scientific background deliver the explanation to such events. Rather than a politician who is not equipped to assess the nature of these phenomena, it’s better to have an expert digest the information and deliver it in a concise manner. “These are serious people and they had access to the classified information, they talk about it seriously. But they cannot really assess the nature of this phenomenon, and they were trained as either politicians or administrators. When you go to a shoe maker, you don't expect the shoe maker to make you a cake. I mean, it makes no sense for them to make statements that are scientific.” – Dr. Avi Loeb The Stigma and Taboo of Anomalies Regarding the UFO sighting report, Professor Loeb comments that there could be a lot more that have not been reported. This is because of the stigma of bringing up UFOs or certain unusual phenomenon. In this day and age, it’s almost seen as a taboo to discuss such things. Professor Loeb finds it strange that it is the case. For some reason, anomalous evidence is unpopular, almost to the point of being shunned. Though if you look at the history of science, these anomalous evidences are what brought a lot of progress in different fields. “Why is anomalous evidence so unpopular? To me, it's really strange, because if you look at the history of science, most of the progress was a result of experimental anomalies. We saw something that we didn't expect, we learn something new about nature. What you need to do, of course, is to verify that the evidence is robust. If it's robust, then nature's telling you, you didn't really understand me. Here is something new that you have to figure out.” – Dr. Avi Loeb Quantum Mechanics Professor Loeb shares that it was the same before with Quantum Mechanics. Nobody really expected it, and it was something that was discovered through experiments. Although scientists like Albert Einstein resisted the notion at first. He even sought out to disprove it at some point. Yet today, we build new technology and instruments that are based on these principles, particularly in communication. We might not fully understand it yet, but it shouldn’t stop us from exploring these anomalous behaviors and find out more about what nature has to offer. “Quantum mechanics is definitely a facet of reality. We know that we use it and so forth, but we don't fully understand it. And nature is under no obligation to make itself agree with our preconceptions.

229 How To Live A Creative Life with NYT Bestselling Fiction Author of “Did I Say You Could Go” & “Wife 22” Melanie Gideon Aug 02, 2021

Many of us would like to be more creative. Some would even aspire to make a living with their creativity. Yet without legendary role models like Melanie Gideon, it’s hard to learn what it really takes. Melanie Gideon is willing to get real with us and go deep about her experience in making it happen. She is a New York Times bestselling fiction author of monster hits like Wife 22, The Slippery Year, The Valley of the Moon, and much more. Her new book, Did I Say You Can Go, is one of the most anticipated novels of 2021. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we dig into what it really takes to be a professional fiction writer and how Melanie works on her craft. If you care about creativity, I think you're going to fall in love with Melanie and what she has to share on the topic. Melanie Gideon on Tours The discussion starts off with a question about Melanie, and how she approaches book tours as an introvert. She shares that it can be quite an excruciating experience for her. She loves the writing aspect of her craft: from thinking of the story’s design and structure to writing and even editing it afterwards. “I do (love editing) because you're streamlining the story. You are sometimes finding the story in the editing. And you're just making it tighter and creating what you want for your reader. What I want for my reader is to create a page turner where they just have to know what happens next, no matter what genre I'm writing in. That is what I endeavor to do. So I love that.” – Melanie Gideon Though Melanie says she’s starting to like the publishing aspect more nowadays, since everything can be done online. Being able to do it from the comfort of your home, and engaging with fellow authors rather than just having a conversation with herself was a nice change of pace. Not only that, her family can attend her virtual book events now that everything is online, not to mention all her fans from different places. How to be Like Melanie A lot of people certainly would love to achieve their dreams like Melanie. I remember asking her once how she did it. Her response was: “I just didn’t stop writing” – Melanie Gideon She thinks not giving up is a huge part of being successful. This applies to a lot of things in life, but for Melanie it is more so when it comes to writing. Plus, her urgency and passion for storytelling was always there to drive her forward. “You know, since I was eight years old, I read voraciously. I always just wanted to be in another world alongside the world I was living in. I was a weird little kid. And I would walk around in the woods, and hope that I would find the portal to Narnia. As I grew older, and I became more serious about writing, I realized that every book that I wrote, I was creating a portal to another world that I got to live in for however long it took me to write the book. So that was magic. I found the secret that solved the mystery.” – Melanie Gideon Melanie’s Approach to Writing While some people get inspiration to hit them from their surroundings, Melanie prefers to go out and look for it herself. She often goes out to find inspiration, to find the story. For some writers, they wait for the story to materialize, to develop in their mind and they go from there. That does not work for Melanie. “I'm always actively looking for the story that will make something flutter inside me. And I know I have to follow that. It might not be the book that I write. But it will probably bring me to another path and another path, and eventually I'll stumble upon it.” – Melanie Gideon When asked where she goes to find her story, Melanie shares that she reads, a lot. Magazines, articles, sometimes other fiction novels that strike her interest. Which is interesting, as most writers would say, “I don’t have time to read, I’m too busy writing”. Clearly, Melanie is not like most writers. To hear more from Melanie Gideon and her new book, Did I Say You Can Go, download and listen to this episode.

228 Make It, Don’t Fake It with #1 Amazon Author Sabrina Horn Jul 26, 2021

We live at a time when there’s plenty of dumb and unquestioned business and live advice floating around the internet. Most of it comes from an avalanche of problematic stupidities from hustle porn stars. There’s also “Follow your passion”, which doesn’t always work out. Of course, there's the tried and true, "Fake it until you make it." Our guest today, Sabrina Horn, is the opposite of that. Sabrina Horn has seen those situations play out in her career as a Communications Entrepreneur and eventually, CEO of HORN Strategy, LLC. Her new book, “Make it, don’t fake it” is out, and has hit no.1 on the Amazon charts as soon as it was released. In this episode of Follow Your Different, what you’ll hear from her is a fun, no BS dialogue about what success really takes. If you’re interested in hearing more from Sabrina Horn, stay tuned to this episode. Catching Up with Sabrina Horn I talk with Sabrina Horn about the Silicon Valley days. When asked if a lot has changed over the years, Sabrina shares that it has changed, but not by much. According to conversations she’s heard around, CMOs often last for around 4 years before moving on. A few years ago, the shelf life for CMOs is usually 18-24 months before moving on to another or building their own company. Sabrina then asks if I would go back. “Not for two seconds. I hung up my gloves, I have no desire to, and I got nothing left to prove. Most importantly, I love my life the way it is. Now I get to make a difference at scale through podcasting and writing. I'll do some advising and I still enjoy that very much, particularly under the right circumstances. But no, I don't have any desire to do it. I'm at a different stage of my life like you are right, I'm in the throw down the rope stage, not continue to collect merit badges stage.” – Christopher Lochhead Sabrina agrees and thinks that even while outside Silicon Valley, the podcasts and books still fills a hole and affects the overall meta in the industry. Make It, Don’t Fake It We then talk about Sabrina’s new book, Make It, Don’t Fake It. What’s amazing about the book is that it’s almost sort of a hybrid between a business book and a memoir. There were a lot of stories from personal experiences, the most of the advice that was given has a real-life situation that she has personally been through. Sabrina shares that this structure was intentional. “(These are) The stories of my profession and my career, bring the message that I wanted to deliver to life. And I didn't want to write a book and do a ton of, you know, external research and take yours and do surveys. I thought, I've got 25 years of running a company. That's my research. “ – Sabrina Horn The Problem with Faking It Sabrina then shares one of the things that the book tackles right from the get-go. It’s the mantra of “Fake it until you make it”. Because the biggest problem with this mantra is that you’re exposed. Either you get caught up in the lie, or get exposed right from the onset. “It is initially which was sort of an innocent like tongue in cheek, little quip, right has, has become like a way of doing business a way of living. it's an it's a really bad excuse for bad behavior. And it's not just, you do it at work, you do it in your personal life. And in nine times out of 10, you get caught.” – Sabrina Horn While one would think that the biggest problem with faking it is getting caught, there is another aspect of it. If you think you’ll just fake it and learn along the way, that means you are not working optimally for the job you have. Instead on improving yourself and doing better, you are playing catch-up to get the skills you said you already have. So it is better to just be yourself. Tell them what you can and cannot do, so everyone knows what to expect from you. Nowadays, being authentic can be refreshing, and it might even earn you the respect of the person who you are trying to impress. To learn more from Sabrina Horn and her new book, “Make It,

227 A.I. And The Future with Greatest Chess Player Ever Garry Kasparov and Noodle.AI CEO Steve Pratt Jul 21, 2021

In many circles, Chess is viewed as the ultimate display of intellectual might. If you think about it, chess is a fighting game that is purely intellectual and excludes all chance. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we talk to one of Chess’ ultimate combatants, Garry Kasparov. At age 22, Garry Kasparov became the world’s youngest chess champion, and from 1984 to his retirement in 2005, he was ranked the number one Chess player on the planet for a record 255 months of his career. He is also known as the man who competed against an IBM supercomputer in 1997. Today, Garry Kasparov is a political activist and an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin. He is also the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, and the author of the best-seller called Deep Thinking, Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins. In addition to all of this, he’s also working with a few advanced technology companies, in which I had the pleasure of meeting him. He has started working with a good friend of mine, Steve Pratt of Noodle.AI. So listen in as the three of us talk about Covid-19, the relationship between humans and machines, and how Garry jokes about being the first knowledge worker to have his job taken by a computer. Garry Kasparov and Steve Pratt on COVID-19 When asked how they were doing nowadays, Steve comments that it felt strange now that everything is slowly opening up. Nowadays, it seems weird when you see people not wearing masks when you go out, as compared to only a few months ago of masks and lockdowns. Garry shared that while it is slowly opening up in America and Europe, the rest of the world is going through a very different experience. He laments the current situation in Russia particularly, where his family and friends reside. “We know from history that the innovative power of undemocratic states is cannot be compared to the power of the free mind. It's not an accident that the virus came from China, but the response came from the United States.” – Garry Kasparov Garry also points out the disparity on how people trust the vaccines compared to the Russian-made Sputnik vaccine. He attributes this mostly to having the proper data to prove its efficacy, which the Sputnik vaccine is sorely lacking at the moment. While there are vaccines that have lower efficacy rates compared to those made by Pfizer and Moderna, they’re still widely preferred due to the fact that they have data and tests to back those numbers up. Working Together and Freeing the Mind When asked if the low vaccination rates can be attributed to the vaccine or implementation, Garry answered that it was both happening at the same time. While the vaccine hesitancy was expected due to the lack of data on their vaccine, Russian government tried to promote Sputnik as the ultimate cure against COVID. They went as far as donating it to other countries, some of which flat-out refused, which further damaged its credibility. Moving away from Russia, Garry then compared China and the United States’ response to the virus. He notes that while China had a huge head start in studying the COVID virus, it still took them a while to create a vaccine that had low efficacy ratings. Enter US and the combined effort of the public and private sectors, and you have two working vaccines in just 10 months, both of which boast great efficacy. “So again, it's very important to recognize that it's this the free world, when we lift all the restrictions on risk. It could realize the wildest dreams, and somehow, I think the pandemics served us well, because it proved that we have to go back to the spirit of innovation and become pioneers, to become explorers. What's important, again, the free world has potential, and now this potential have been exposed in a positive way.” – Garry Kasparov Human and A.I. We then talked about technology and A.I., how people are still against it in fears of somehow making an evil sentient A.I. that will rule us all.

226 Real Digital Relationships | HalloApp Launch with Founders Neeraj Arora & Michael Donohue Jul 19, 2021

Welcome to this very special episode of Follow Your Different. We’ll talk about one of the most anticipated startups in Silicon Valley today, HalloApp. We sit down with HalloApp founders Neeraj Arora and Michael Donohue in the first and probably only – for some time – podcast. Michael and Neeraj were two of the senior leaders who built WhatsApp, a category defining company in the messaging category. Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 for $22 billion, in one of the largest tech acquisitions of all time. Today, there are over 2.5 billion WhatsApp users, and it dominates the messaging category. Now, Michael and Neeraj are on route in pioneering a new category of “Real Relationship” app. It is a new model of communication app that is a combination of messaging and social functionality in a simple, private way. They have the audacity to think they can change the future again by being radically different, and I all for it. If you are interested to learn more about what they have to offer, stay tuned to this episode. WhatsApp Never Left Stealth Mode When asked about something that most people don’t know about WhatsApp, Neeraj and Michael share an interesting story. If you’ve ever notice, WhatsApp never really talks to the press that much. It turns out that this particular quirk is something that the WhatsApp founders have developed into almost a culture, or a code if you will. It goes as such: “Brass kicks up dust that gets into your eyes and makes you not focus on the product or the company” Simply put, the higherups on WhatsApp just wants to focus on developing their products and services and let it speak for itself. Why worry about tech press when they can just impress their users with their amazing product? Plus when you create the attention, it just means added distractions and things to facilitate. Which in turn leads to less focus on the product and more on keeping up appearances. So you could almost say that WhatsApp never came out of stealth mode. HalloApp with Neeraj Arora and Michael Donohue It seems that Michael and Neeraj plan to follow the same code on their new endeavor, which is HalloApp. They will follow the same strategy of focusing on the user and the product, with minimal distractions. This practice seems unorthodox and almost counterintuitive to what current companies are doing with their products, which is to hype up their products and make it popular even before its launch. Yet for them, the focus is not to become famous or popular as an app of choice for most people. Their aim is to solve a problem, and find users that are looking for a solution. In the end, they will let the product speak for itself. “I think the product should speak for itself. That's it. Like if you do a good job of it, if you create user loyalty and trust, you don't have to talk about anything about yourself or at all. Like, why do you need it, right? In the end, you should ask yourself the question, “why am I doing this?” And if the answer is I'm not getting to build a better product and more users, which is the case then then why would I do it?” – Neeraj Arora Neeraj and Michael on Fast Growth When asked further on PR and marketing, they believe the current way of pre-hyping the product won’t work for them. Their goal is to have users appreciate the product that they will share it to their family and peers, and let it grow almost naturally. It’s almost like they’re going back to the word-of-mouth approach in marketing, but digitally. As for making it big, Neeraj comments that having a fast growth for a company is not always a good thing. Sometimes it even hurts your company in the long run. Neeraj and Michael would rather take it slow and build a product that will last forever, rather than aiming for large numbers at Day One. “It actually hurts you, I think, fast growth. And fast growth is like the worst thing you can do for your product and your company. You would rather take a part of growing in a very thoughtful way and gr...

225 Everybody Wants To Rule The World with #1 Tech Analyst Ray Wang, Chairman of Constellation Research Jul 12, 2021

In this episode of Follow Your Different, Ray Wang is back to talk about how to survive and thrive in a world of Digital Giants. Ray Wang is the world’s number one Tech Analyst, and the founder of Constellation Research. He has a brand-new book called Everybody Wants to Rule the World: Surviving and Thriving in a World of Digital Giants. We talk about the points he wrote in the book, as well as other recent tech-related events and breakthroughs. This is a fascinating conversation with one of the smartest guys in tech, so you wouldn’t want to miss this episode. Tech Breaches and Cybersecurity When asked on the recent tech security breaches, Ray comments how we are vulnerable at the moment. It seems the current tech for protection available to the public is vastly outpaced by these breachers. As to why these tech breaches keep happening, Ray quotes the Willie Sutton Rule: “Because that's where the money is.” He also thinks it is scary that if it is occurring here in the US, then how about other countries that might have less defense mechanisms in place? While you can expect corporations to have systems in place to counter that, it can be harrowing for smaller companies. Ray’s advice is that your company should always have a back disaster recovery ready to go. So if your company was unlucky enough to get hit these breachers and ransomware hackers, you can just revert your system using that backup. You might lose a few hours work due to it, but it’s better than succumbing to these malicious entities. Ray Wang: Everybody Wants to Rule the World Ray shares that when you think Digital Giants, you think large corporations. While large corporations can be Digital Giants, the reverse is not always true. It’s not about the size or the market that the company dominates, it goes a bit deeper than that. With the cost of access to fast internet and tech becoming cheaper by the minute, more people are swarming the net as we speak. One commodity that is often overlooked when moving around the web is your personal information. “First thing is, you have to believe in the fact that your personal data, genomics, and digital exhaust should all be property rights. The reason that's important is because we have laws that talk about how you treat and give consent to property. Land rights, invention, IP and trademarks, right? The good news is property laws exist. And in every state, country, and jurisdiction, you just have to say, “look, your personal data is a property, right?” And if somebody wants to use it, you need their consent. Suddenly, boom, you actually now have a whole economy around data. You've actually put the ownership of data back in the hands of the people that are creating that data.” – Ray Wang So why is this important? Because for something that should be property, we seem to be giving it away easily in exchange for simple access. These Digital Giants then use that information to further benefit on our behalf, turning you into a product rather than a user. Amazon, the Ultimate Digital Giant Ray elaborates further by comparing Facebook and Google, and how these two Digital Giants operate. What’s fascinating is how Google is often perceived as the good guy, while Facebook is the bad one. When in truth, both giants have the same aim, it’s just that their delivery varies. While talking about these two giants, Ray brings up the ultimate digital giant, Amazon. Why is it the ultimate digital giant? Unlike Facebook and Google, who are focused on one or two aspects to dominate in, Amazon seems to have its fingers dipped into multiple cookie jars. “Amazon is the ultimate digital giant. I mean, it's got ads. It's got search. It even has subscriptions via memberships and prime. It's got the goods and the services and their own network that's on the back end. So that's really what's going on. We see a rise of these things called Digital Giants that have dominated markets, but they're battling each other out for every digital monetiz...

224 The Power of Trust with Harvard Business School Professor Sandra Sucher Jun 28, 2021

Trust is a cornerstone of society. It’s the seminal component that’s required for everything to work, including everything in business. Professor Sandra Sucher says that trust at every level of business and society has never mattered as much as it does right now. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Professor Sandra Sucher talks about The Power of Trust, and how companies could earn, lose, and regain people's trust. So if you are interested in learning about the different levels of trust across different levels in business, stay tuned to this episode. Why Trust is Important When asked what she thinks is the most important thing to learn about trust, Professor Sandra points out that it is important to know that trust is a type of relationship. It’s a relationship of almost like trusting your vulnerabilities to another person and believing in their actions. While not entirely quantifiable, this insight makes us aware of how we should handle trusting another person, whether in business or in our daily lives. “This is not like terra incognita, to any of us. And it says the trust is something you can get your arms around. It's not ether, nor magic. And it's not fairy dust. It's resolved.” – Professor Sandra Sucher Knowing this, we now have an idea as to where to think about how we can become a trustworthy person. Culture and Trust in the Company One of the things Professor Sandra have found in their research is that developing culture in a company is also based on trust. People often associate culture as a kind of reputation management, more on handling how people think about them and the company. Though it’s better defined as building trust from within. When the people in your company trust the management and the company, they will be more invested in making it better. They trust that the company is doing its best, so they should do their best as well. “So if you don't have trust inside the company, kiss it goodbye. It's not going to get it outside the company.” – Professor Sandra Sucher Trust is a Judgement Call Professor Sandra also defines trust as a judgement call people make, based on different factors that they perceive from someone. In terms of business, it could be with regards to their competence, their motives, and whose interests they are serving, among other things. Another thing to note is that people also focus on how companies treat their people. So it’s not just about getting results. How you accomplish your goals also matter. Professor Sandra thinks that one of the key things that set them apart from other research is their focus on Impact. While that previous point pertains to knowing how they interact with equals and those who work below them, a person or company’s impact pertains to how they affected others with their actions, whether directly or indirectly. This is quite important because then, you are basing your judgement on actual experience rather than information from second to third hand information. With all this information, at hand, we make our judgement call. Are they competent? Do they care about other people’s interest? Have their actions impacted you in some way? If that was the case, did they take accountability for unintended impacts? So while you can’t entirely quantify how Trust can be gain or lost by a company, having these parameters to have an estimate is a great way of gauging the current level of trust. To learn more about Professor Sandra Sucher and The Power of Trust, download and listen to this episode. Bio Sandra Sucher Sandra Sucher is a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, where she has been teaching for the last twenty years. She's an advisor to the Edelman Trust Barometer, and has spoken about trust at Edelman and numerous companies and at Harvard Business School events. She provides expert commentary for Bloomberg, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, NPR and Fortune. Prior to teaching at Harvard,

223 How To Produce Breakthroughs With “Alien Thinking” with Dr. Michael Wade Jun 21, 2021

We are living at a time where the world needs breakthroughs more than ever. People who want to develop the ability to create a different future have never been more in demand. Though in order to do this, we need models and framework, as well as ideas and inspiration to help create those breakthroughs in our lives and businesses. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Dr. Michael Wade shares with us on how to see the world with fresh eyes and the power of different thinking. He also explains how to navigate such that your breakthroughs can actually come to life, and so much more! Professor Michael Wade’s new book, Alien Thinking, blows open much needed research and insight in this regard. ALIEN is actually an acronym that he and his co-authors came up with, and it stands for Attention, Levitation, Imagination, Experimentation, and Navigation. If you want to know the story behind it, stay tuned to this episode. The Definition of a Breakthrough The conversation starts of by establishing their definition of a breakthrough. When talking about a breakthrough, Dr. Mike thinks that it should be something a large improvement, or something that hasn’t been done before. It has to be enough to take something to the next level. “It’s not just having an idea, which is hard enough. It’s about taking that idea and kind of break through the process to become a breakthrough solution.” – Dr. Michael Wade Which is not to say that small changes and incremental innovation is bad. They are great for optimizing those big breakthroughs you have further down the line. It can also help you reach some short-term goals for yourself. Dr. Mike just chooses to focus on studying and looking an eye out for breakthrough innovations. Exponential Breakthroughs are Harder to Reach When asked why people seem to find it easier to go incremental than exponential, Dr. Mike thinks that we are simply not built for it. It takes extra effort to break away from the norm and challenge our usual assumptions about how things are done. If you can’t even bring yourself to challenge those assumptions and preconceptions, making a breakthrough will just be a pipe dream. ALIEN Thinking with Dr. Michael Wade Dr. Mike talks about how they try to break down what it means to do something original in an original way. This is because having an exponential or radical innovation often requires being original. Which is why the title of the book, Alien Thinking, fits so well with the idea. Aside from the acronym it stands for, the metaphor of the alien can help you see things in a fresh perspective. “Every day, we go through life without really questioning things after a while. So what we’re challenging people to do when they read the book is to see the world like an alien, and see things for the very first time without preconceived notions about the way things should work. So a lot of what we talked about in the book is about is about how to do that how to regain that ability to see things in, in new ways with fresh eyes.” – Dr. Michael Wade To hear more from Dr. Michael Wade and how to see the world through Alien Thinking, download and listen to this episode. Bio Michael Wade is a Professor of Innovation and Strategy at IMD and holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation. He is the Director of the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. His areas of expertise relate to strategy, innovation, and digital transformation. He obtained Honours BA, MBA and PhD degrees from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada. Previously, he was the Academic Director of the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA Program. Michael has been nominated for teaching awards in the MBA, International MBA, and Executive MBA programs. RESEARCH AND THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Michael has published works on a variety of topics, including digital business transformation, innovation, strategy, and digital leadership. He has published nine books,

222 America’s Time of Great Questioning with Pastor Quentin M. Mumphery Jun 14, 2021

We are living in a time of historical, cultural, and racial consequence in the United States. People are asking very big questions about fundamental design points around their life. How do they want to work, live and play? Many thoughtful Americans are also asking themselves about our country’s design, and the kind of future they want for themselves and their family. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we talk about all these and more with Pastor Quentin Mumphery. Pastor Quentin is a native of Chicago's South Side and is the founder and senior pastor at New Hope covenant church. Pastor Quentin is also the co-author with Eddie Yun, Pastor Dave Ferguson and myself, of a Harvard Business Review post about justice deposits, encouraging people, people in companies for that matter to move some of their cash deposits to black owned banks. If you want to learn more about it, stay tuned to this episode. Being a Pastor in Today’s Society Pastor Quentin shares how he grew up on the south side of Chicago, and some of his influences growing up. He muses that Chicago has always been a great yet troubled city, and has the best and worst of everything. Everyone is exposed to the same extremes, though their reactions can be quite different. People clamor for change and a better future, while at the same time focus on finding ways to live at the moment. This dynamic tension of sorts is the reality that each of us is living with at the moment, and which Pastor Quentin hopes to understand. “I'm a believer that people want the best, but sometimes do the worst. And I think that part of that is just the human condition.” – Pastor Quentin Mumphery Serving God in Different Ways Pastor Quentin talks about his inspirations in church, and how they approach serving the Lord and the community in different ways. As a teen in a youth ministry of the church, they would go where the hurting people were. Whether it was the best place in town or places where you wouldn’t normally expect a man of cloth to be in, they would go and pray. “Part of what I believe it means to be a man of God and a man of faith is that we don't just run and turn our head when trouble is there. The scriptures call us to be soft and light. And I believe part of that is showing up where light is needed.” – Pastor Quentin Mumphery When given the example of St. Christopher, Pastor Quentin wholeheartedly agrees and states that there are a lot of ways you can serve God. You just have to find the best way you can do it. Taking Things into Perspective Pastor Quentin talks about the theological and philosophical sides of being good or bad. We often see people do bad things and justify them because they are doing it for a good cause. But according to who though? If you flip that and see it from the other side’s perspective, you’re the bad one doing the awful things to them. “I tell this to people all the time, too. I said, every one of us are the villain in someone's story. The thing is when we tell our own story, we're always the hero. We're always the hero, right? Anything bad to happen, it's always someone did this to me.” – Pastor Quentin Mumphery So Pastor Quentin tells us to keep this question in mind: “Who determines whether you’re good?” It will help in considering other people’s perspective, and prevent the mindset of always having the moral high ground on things. To hear more from Pastor Quentin Mumphery and his questions for America, download and listen to this episode. Bio A native of Chicago’s south side, Pastor Quentin M. Mumphery is the Founder and Senior Pastor of New Hope Covenant Church, A contemporary urban church with classic experience in a modern environment, located on Chicago’s south east side. Pastor Mumphery previously served as Lead Pastor of Windsor Park Lutheran Church, as well as Associate Pastor of New Life Covenant Church Southeast, under the leadership of Pastor John Hannah. Pastor Mumphery received his foundation in the Kingdom at the Salem Ba...

221 How To Be A Mission-Driven Pirate with Co-Founder of Greenpeace & Founder of Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson Jun 07, 2021

According to NOAA, the US National Ocean Service scientists estimate that 50 to 80% of the oxygen production on earth comes from the ocean. Furthermore, the ocean absorbs 50% more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere does. Scientists also estimate that about 1 million species of animals live in our oceans. So to say that the oceans matter is an understatement. It's a fact that our oceans are the reason for life on our planet. Our guest today Captain Paul Watson says, “We are the ocean.” In this episode of Follow Your Different, Captain Paul Watson shares his experience as a Sea Shepherd and what it takes to dedicate your life to be on a cause that matters to you. Captain Paul Watson is the founder of Sea Shepherd, a nonprofit focused on saving marine wildlife through direct interventions with poachers and the like. He was also a co-founder of Greenpeace, and talks about why he parted ways with the organization. That said, whether you love him or hate him, every second of this dialogue is riveting. So stay tuned. Dedication to His Cause When asked about how he got started in his cause, Captain Paul shares that even as a child, he had always helped animals that needed it. He would free them from traps that he found around his hometown. Captain Paul then took it to the next level by cofounding Greenpeace Foundation back in 1969, and eventually established Sea Shepherd in 1977. As for the challenges he has faced, there was a particular one that stuck with him. This was back in 1973, when he was a volunteer medic for the American Indian Movement. Even as they were surrounded and overwhelmed, Russell Means said this to him: “Well, we're not concerned about the odds. And we're not concerned about winning or losing, we're here because it's the right place to be the right thing to do in the right time to do it. Don't worry about the future, focus on the present, what we do in the present will define what the future will be.” – Russell Means The Sea Shepherd Society Captain Paul talks about the activities of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and their partnerships with several countries to protect marine wildlife. As most of their activities tend to cross over country boundaries, cooperation and coordination with local authorities is important in having an effective campaign. He then further explains that 40% of the fish that is caught in the world is illegally caught. By illegal, it either was caught by fishing vessels crossing country boundaries without permission, by illegal or unsustainable means, or by overfishing certain species of fish due to demand. Yet no one questions how their favorite fish arrives in the market. Worse still, not all of the fish that are caught are for human consumption. “The other problem we have is that a good percentage of the fish caught isn't even eaten by people. It's fed to animals to pigs to chickens to house cats, to domestic salmon to fur bearing animals. 2.8 million tons of fish go just for cat food all the time.” – Captain Paul Watson Plundering the Oceans Captain Paul points out that it's sad that not a lot of people seem to understand how devastating it would be for everyone if we continue this way. Plundering the oceans is causing incredible diminishment in both its biodiversity and interdependence. As he said before, we are the ocean. If the ocean dies, we die. Simply put, the ocean is the life support system of our planet. The ocean plays a huge role in our lives: from providing many households with food, down to the air we breathe. Did you know that 70% of the oxygen we breathe are generated by Phytoplankton? Yet since 1950, we have lost 40% of our phytoplankton populations in the sea. This means less oxygen for everyone. This also means less food for certain marine life, which then provide nutrients to phytoplankton to thrive. Hence the destructive cycle continues. “The real problem that we have is we have this anthropocentric point of view, we look on the planet,

220 Think Like Amazon with John Rossman May 31, 2021

In 2020, Amazon.com became an essential service in America. The company is now worth $1.6 trillion, and has become one of the greatest B2B companies in history, the Category King of E-commerce. Amazon Web Services is also the fastest growing B2B tech company ever. It’s shocking that one company is dominating on both the consumer and enterprise technology side in a way that we’ve never seen one company do before. On this episode of Follow Your Different, our guest today is the expert on the Amazon Way. As a matter of fact, he wrote the book on it. John Rossman is an extraordinarily sought-after author, speaker, and thinker in business, because he is teaching all of us how to be like Amazon. John Rossman is the author of The Amazon Way, a former Amazon Leader and Managing Partner at Rossman Partners. In his new book, John breaks down the Amazon leadership principles and how we can learn to innovate and compete in the digital era. So if you’re interested in learning more, you’ll love everything about this conversation. Compete Differently John Rossman shares what his inspiration was to making the book. For him, it was a matter of getting the word out and letting people know what you can learn from Amazon’s business strategies. You can then use these to incorporate into your business culture and leadership approach so you can better compete in the market. “That's kind of the fair way that I play. And I just love the notion of like, we got to compete differently and that is what you Amazon is teaching us. That's what I try to take away and give to my readers.” – John Rossman The American Story John talks about a bit of history on how Amazon came to be, and thinks that it doesn’t get highlighted enough that Amazon and Jeff Bezos is the American Story people aspire to have. He’s someone who bet on himself, left his cushy job and went all in on his idea. It took Amazon literally two decades to become the juggernaut we know them to be right now, and it was not without its problems. Though despite these problems, Amazon continued to push on and in these bad times came the leadership principles that they continue to follow to this day. “Those are the leadership lessons I learned so much from and his consistency in beliefs, like them or not, at least they're consistent, and they're super well-articulated. And so I think that that is a big story that that doesn't get told enough.” – John Rossman Pushing On Despite Criticisms John recalls how it was like in the early 2000s, particularly on how media and the public perceived Amazon. Other entrepreneurs and business leaders didn’t believe that they could succeed, and they were always doubted. Yet when you look at Amazon today, it’s as though it is an essential service for everyone. That’s saying a lot for something that is owned by a private entity. He also shares how Amazon handled the situation once the pandemic hit. Unlike other businesses and services that bided its time and waited, Amazon focused their attention on how to deliver the best service they could despite the on-going situation. To say it paid off would be the understatement of the year. “All you remember the days of like, the grocery store shelves being barren and everything, right? Amazon was the answer, dude on toilet paper for Fox, and food and things like that. They did an amazing job at quickly shifting, and the thing I was pointing out to everybody is like, it didn't happen by accident.” – John Rossman To hear more from John Rossman and on how your business can be like Amazon, download and listen to this episode. Bio John Rossman Digital and Innovation Advisor Mr. Rossman is an expert at digital business models, operations and organizing programs. He has led engagements on developing innovation processes, Internet of Things strategies, marketplace and API driven platform business models. He is a sought-after speaker on creating a culture of operational excellence and innovation. Mr.

219 Be Where Your Feet Are: Scott O’Neil, CEO of Philadelphia 76ers & New Jersey Devils May 25, 2021

In this episode of Follow Your Different, we continue our run of legendary authors with today’s guest, Scott O’ Neil. He is the author of a hot new book called Be Where Your Feet Are: Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving. Scott O’Neil is the CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment. Which makes Scott the CEO of: The Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA The New Jersey Devils of the NHL The Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey Dignitas, a pioneer in eSports A number of minor league teams A Venture Fund Real Estate developer / investor An Innovation Lab Today, we get to hear what it takes to manage not one, but two of North America’s elite professional sports teams, and how they have dealt with COVID and its effect on the category. We also dig in to Scott’s view on what sports role is in society, and how leaders should deal with social change and justice. Of course, we’ll have Scott pop the hood on how they turned the 76ers around and make them a winning team again. So if you love taking the long term in business and trying to figure out how business can make a difference as well as be successful, you're going to love everything about this episode. The Role of Sports in Society Scott talks about his enthusiasm on work, and being able to do so in areas that could use the work generated by his businesses. Though at the end of the day, he says that he is more of a “run to work, run home” type of guy. He also shares his thoughts on the role of sports in a society. While there are some that argue that it shouldn’t have that much of an impact and influence, it is undeniable that it’s there. The question now is, how do you use that influence to make the world a bit better than before. “The argument is, sports shouldn't have this kind of influence and impact. And I say, great, it does. I actually have an opportunity to help people and drive change in communities and bring people together and create community. Coming off a pandemic, where we've had a year of being isolated, I don't think there's a better platform to build and deliver what we need more than anything else in the world right now, which is connection, and a bit of escapism, and community. And to do that where I get to do it every day is quite a blessing.” - Scott O’Neil The New Roaring 20’s When asked about how some companies are already gearing up for the end of the pandemic, Scott thinks that we are on the verge of a new Roaring 20s, much like what happened in the 1900s. He is not far off the mark on this. Wall Street Journal has reported that companies today have more cash on hand than at any point in history, and the US consumer is wealthier now than at any point in US history. Which sounds so insane in the heels of this pandemic. As the desire of people to reconnect and the mental health strain of being isolated escalates, there will be a huge demand for the category that builds up community and togetherness in the future, as everything opens up again. “So you can imagine to watch an NBA game and be the only fan which I was at the game. I had this incredible boost of mental health, which I think is going to be the next great challenge over the decade. I think all this isolation and separation and anxiety that that we are feeling is going to put quite a bit of strain on us as leaders, as dads and moms, and people in the community. As we've set out to define what that new normal is, I just felt the boost of of kind of happiness and energy and connection. I will say that I think these roaring 20s are going to be coming at us just like they were in the 1900s.” - Scott O’Neil Being Role Models Scott then shares his insights on players and executives as role models for the future. While he thinks that our Frontliners make for better role models, players should not disparage themselves in this regard. Being in a sport that has a massive reach, whether you are an NBA player or an eSport star, means that you have an audience that you can infl...

218 Legendary Musicians’ Insights on Innovation with Panos Panay and Michael Hendrix, Authors of “Two Beats Ahead” May 17, 2021

Creativity, innovation, and collaboration. These are words that get thrown around a lot in business. Yet too many business environments and company culture cultivate the exact opposite. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we discuss what business leaders, entrepreneurs, and creators of all times can learn from some of the greatest musicians in the world. Our guests today are Panos Panay & Michael Hendrix, the authors of a rockin’ new book called “Two Beats Ahead: What Musical Minds Teach Us About Innovation”. Dr. Deepak Chopra says, “For a long time, researchers have that musical intelligence can awaken the non-linear mind to healing, creativity, and innovation. This book is a roadmap for innovators, entrepreneurs, and those seeking new avenues for exploring and reimagining the future.” You’ll want to stay tuned for this dialogue about the power of music as an insight to innovation and creativity. Pay close attention to why musicians are constantly creating and not editing, the power of curiosity, and their thoughts on how to build a legendary team. Music is Everywhere When asked why music seems to be all around and how it affects us, Panos Panay thinks it’s because music is primordial. Even as we are in our mother’s womb, our sense of hearing develops before everything else and we get exposed to our mother’s heartbeats. For him, there’s something really elemental about music that is unlike anything else. “It's the most basic human sense. It's what connects us to our humanity. And I would say what connects us to the broader universe. That's the universe is made of sound. Ultimately, we are made of sound.” – Panos Panay Building Designs that Delve into the Unconscious Michael Hendrix talks about Embodied Cognition. Simply put, it is the understanding of the world though our bodies, specifically through our five senses. What got him interested on the topic was when he started to wonder why some designs do better than others. What he found is that it all boils down to how it feels when using said design. If you are given two tools with the same functionality but one feels more weighted or balance, chances are you’ll buy that one over the other. “There's been plenty of studies that show that we humans give importance to thing that have weight. So in design, and we that's translated, for example, the tension on a car door is increased to make the car deal for heavier when you shut it. So you feel safer in the car, because they're actually been valued. They've been engineered to be so light to make the fuel efficiency better. But if you didn't have that tension, you wouldn't have the resistance. And you would go, oh man, this thing's too flimsy.” – Michael Hendrix Panos adds that this was a problem with the early designs for electric vehicles, which they discussed in the book. They were designed to be lightweight for energy efficiency, but that backfired on itself. People thought it was too light, therefore it might not be as safe as traditional vehicles. So that’s one more thing to think about when creating your product designs. Something Different Michael talks about their book, Two Beats Ahead, and their thought process when writing it. First and foremost, they didn’t want it to be like most business books out there. While they are informative and helpful to some, it’s not exactly fun reading them. So they are committed to not writing one of those books. They want something that is not repetitive and redundant to the point of making you exhausted by the end. Their aim was to write a book that was full of surprises and fun to read from cover to cover, while sharing their thoughts and insights at the same time. “As we were talking about beginning, the first chapter is about listening. It's about opening yourself up to the things or the unexpected around you, not prejudging them. So we thought what a better way to start the book than to start the book with 12 blank pages. That before you read anything,

217 Madoff Talks: Uncovering the Untold Story Behind the Most Notorious Ponzi Scheme in History with Author Jim Campbell May 10, 2021

There’s scams, crimes, and frauds. Then there’s what Bernie Madoff did. CNBC says that he committed the nation’s biggest investment fraud. The Wall Street Journal called it “the biggest ponzi scheme in history.” At sentencing, Judge Denny Chin called Madoff’s crimes “extraordinarily evil”. In the end, many people lost everything they had. For those who are unaware, Madoff stole $19.5 billion, which he said had grown to $64.8 billion. Though not a single dollar or penny was ever invested in anything. He stole it, plain and simple. Jim Campbell joins us in this episode of Follow Your Different, as we cover his book about the topic. His book, Madoff Talks, is already being considered as an authoritative source on this massive crime committed by Bernie Madoff that impoverished thousands of investors around the world. What you are about to hear is a deep, shocking, and riveting dialogue that takes you through it all. From how Madoff did it, to the systemic problems with US regulators and the ongoing failure of the SEC. The Hows and Whys of the Book When asked how the book came to be, Jim talks about how he had built a connection with Bernie Madoff. What started as a simple correspondence culminated in over 400 pages of communication over several years. Jim figured that with all the information he has, it would be a shame to not do anything with it. So began his mission to investigate and sort out the truths and lies about Madoff’s claims. As to why he wrote the book, he had 3 major motives for it: He wanted to know how Bernie’s mind operated The architecture of the whole failure: It was not just Madoff acting alone, but the system enabling him to do so Whether or not Madoff's family knew about it “The mission to expose the failure of the system is the real takeaway of the book. People were interested in the sexy part: Bernie talking, what did Ruth know, and how the heck did he get away with it. Which is all fascinating and riveting stuff, but the takeaway is this is what had happened and how it happened.” – Jim Campbell How Madoff Exploited the System Jim shares how Madoff worked his way around the system, subverting 5 SEC investigations before someone finally figured it out. Madoff did so by exploiting the system itself, in small ways to keep it unnoticeable. What surprised Jim is how Madoff ran a legitimate, squeaky-clean company to hide his other dealings. So while the company took the brunt of investigations, they couldn’t catch him on anything. Simply because there was nothing to catch on that front. He further explains that the SEC did not have the right examiners on the case. They kept exonerating him on the wrong crime, which was Frontrunning. The final piece of it was the examiners were never allowed to talk to anyone else in the firm except for Bernie or his right-hand man. “So he blocked them, he took advantage of the silos, and they kept investigating the wrong (thing). They chased the wrong rabbit.” – Jim Campbell Penalties, or Lack Thereof Jim goes on to iterate how Bernie Madoff gamed the system and played to its weaknesses. By studying how individual silos operate and the lack of communication thereof, he got away with a lot of things. What’s fascinating and horrendous at the same time is that he could’ve easily been called out on his subterfuges had people been more thorough in their line of work. Yet Bernie had a trick for this as well, by usually calling in right before the weekend or after trade hours and seemingly burying details in “paperwork”, or having to check in a foreign office that doesn’t really exist. When asked if heads rolled after the whole ordeal was made public, here’s what Jim Campbell had to say: “The SEC reports were excellent reports. None of them were censored, so you got to give them credit. Except they issued it on a Labor Day weekend, with hardly any coverage. Eight people were demoted at the SEC, none at the management level. So yeah, nobody was penalized.

216 The Comfort Crisis with Michael Easter of Men’s Health Magazine & Outside Magazine May 03, 2021

It’s easy to make the case that we are currently living at the most comfortable time in history. A lot of things are accessible to us with a push of a button. From getting information, entertainment, and even communicating over long distances, there’s an app to solve our problems. Though according to our guest, Michael Easter, we are having a “Comfort Crisis”. According to the US CDC, 73.6% of Americans are either overweight or obese. That said, Obesity is a global problem, with at least 2.8 million people dying from it each year. Our mental health is not exactly doing great either. Nearly 8 in 10 adults say the coronavirus pandemic is a significant source of stress in their lives, as reported by the American Psychological Association. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Michael Easter discusses how we need to be active and outside to have a legendary life. We also talk about how to “embrace discomfort to reclaim ourselves”, and why being hungry is legendary. The Comfort Crisis Michael Easter shares how much more comfortable we are living right now compared to before. You don’t even have to go too far to compare; most of our modern-day comforts didn’t even exist a couple of decades ago. According to Michael, the main issue with all this comfort is that nowadays, getting something you need takes little to no effort. This means have to move around less and being less active. This can lead not only to physical degradation, but mental health problems over time. “We are moving about 14 times less than our ancestors. We spend 95 percent of our time indoors, and spend 11 hours and 6 minutes a day engaging with digital media. So we went from never having these digital media in our lives to now it's essentially become our lives. And that's had consequences for our attention, or awareness, how we spend our time and also our interactions with others. Things have really changed, and we're too comfortable now.” – Michael Easter Changing The Perspective One of the things Michael wants to point out is that we tend to take for granted how good we have it nowadays because we are constantly surrounded by convenience and comfort. We can’t really appreciate them unless there were periods of struggle or challenges to acquire them. It’s like going to your favorite restaurant almost every day compared to only going after a long and tiring business trip. You tend to appreciate it more compared to when you are having the same thing almost every day. “We don't have these moments that push back and are essential. Essentially, what are First World Problems anymore? So I think getting yourself out of your comfort zone in a variety of ways can do that, and give you a little more perspective on your life.” – Michael Easter Challenge Yourself Michael talks about how children are raised differently nowadays. Some parents only let their children do what they think is best, rather than letting the children experience it themselves. This often leads to mental health issues when they go out into the world. They can’t cope with the daily struggles and challenges because they weren’t allowed to experience them beforehand. Michael explains this concept as toughening. He adds that it is important that we insert real challenges in our lives from time to time. Not only as we are growing up, but even as adults. “In the book I talked about, there's a guy whose name is Marcus Eliot, and he's sort of the foremost sports scientist in the world. He does this concept that he calls Misogi, where once a year, they choose one challenging, truly epic task. The only rules are that it has to be really hard, meaning that you have a 50% chance of finishing it, and number two, you can't die. These are things that are truly out of their comfort zones and so challenging for them. But they learn something about themselves by getting put into position where “Damn, I really want to quit”, and “this is awful”. When he does this with athletes,

215 How To Be A Mission-Driven Entrepreneur with Sylvie Leotin, Founder/CEO of Equify Health Apr 26, 2021

As children, most of us had a wide range of interests, ideas, and dreams. We all wanted to do and be a lot of things. Though somehow, Life can beat us up. Sylvie Leotin grew up pursuing those interests and dreams. She did ballet, became a visiting scholar at Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and now a Healthcare Entrepreneur. Sylvie also has a deep background in engineering, robotics, artificial intelligence, as well as product marketing and management. She is also a cancer survivor. As a woman of color who have dealt with cancer, Sylvie has had a front row seat to the racial injustice faced by minorities in the American Healthcare System. So like other legendary missionary entrepreneurs, Sylvie decided to do something about it. She founded a company called Equify Health, and is on a mission to “elevate the experience and outcomes of patients of color in healthcare and medical research”. In this episode of Follow Your Different, we have a very real, very deep, and personal conversation with Sylvie Leotin about empathy, survival, entrepreneurship, and many more. Sylvie’s Mission As someone who has navigated through the American Healthcare System, Sylvie Leotin knew the hardships that a person of color goes through to get proper healthcare. So when the COVID pandemic started, she started looking into reports on mortality rates and such. What she found was heart-breaking. She learned that people of color were dying at higher rates. Upon digging further, she observed that it was not just for COVID or cancer-related ones, but every serious chronic illness. “As a cancer survivor and someone that got a second chance to live, I felt really deeply distraught. I really felt that this is unfair. It really shouldn't be your race, your ethnicity, that is dictating that you have a right to health. So I started to do some research to look into this more deeply.” – Sylvie Leotin Using Her Setbacks as Motivation When asked why she felt deeply connected to this cause, Sylvie shares that it was probably because she battled cancer and experienced these healthcare issues herself. While she would still be distraught and concerned about these issues regardless, she feels that she wouldn’t be doing all she is doing right now had she not had cancer. “I think cancer took me close to mortality, close to being hopeless, close to feeling the biggest pain that I have ever felt in my life. And I really understood what it's like to be so sick, that you can die of the sickness. I don't think I would’ve understood if I just knew people, or even my family who died of cancer. I think cancer really opened up this huge well of compassion inside me, for the suffering of people in the world, but even more specially for the suffering of people that are affected by life threatening illnesses. And if there is anything I can do to help change that and make some people less hopeless, it will be a life worth living.” – Sylvie Leotin Mission-Driven Entrepreneurship Sylvie talks about how she had the insight on her current mission. As a designer, she can see the things that were poorly designed in the system as she experienced things firsthand. If she can relate it to healthcare providers, it can make a difference for future patients. The opportunity to turn her pain and experience into easing the experience for other people felt transformative for her. While it started as something to improve other cancer patient’s experience, it soon expanded to other serious illnesses as Sylvie saw more of the disparity and how Equify Health can help those in need. “I have witnessed so my first experience was more altruistic. But it was very visceral to go to treatment every day. While I was in the waiting room for a long time, and I was very distraught by the fact that I went to one of the top five cancer centers in the country. I didn't see a single Black patient during my entire treatment, and I knew that this hospital is located less than three miles away fro...

214 Sex with Amy Baldwin & April Lampert of Shameless Sex Podcast Apr 19, 2021

In this episode of Follow Your Different, let’s have a very different dialogue about Sex. It seems like we might be living at a time where the very category of sex is changing, and there are a few megatrends going on. First, we seem to be in what The Atlantic calls a “sexual recession”. The Atlantic reports: “In the space of a generation, sex has gone from something most high school students have experienced to something most haven’t.” It turns out that people in their early 20s are two and a half times as likely to be abstinent. Though it’s not only limited to the younger generation. Even Gen Xers and Baby Boomers are having less traditional sex over the years. The second one is about increased loneliness. According to the HBR, rates of loneliness in the US have doubled over the past 50 years. Nowadays, around 40% of Americans say that they are lonely. The third is about Digital Sex. It has been reported that the porn industry is now worth nearly $100 billion, and uses more bandwidth than Facebook, Amazon, or Netflix. It seems that porn continues to reach new heights with the advent of new technologies and categories: In 2018, a Japanese man spent 2 million Yen on his wedding to an AI hologram. Toronto has opened a new category in the form of Sex Doll Brothels. OnlyFans has seen a spike of creators and registered users since Covid, who are mostly there for adult content. AR and VR sex is on the rise We talk about all this and more with our guests, Amy Baldwin and April Lampert of the Shameless Sex Podcast. They are here for a fascinating, no-holds-barred dialogue about Sex. This is a very frank, descriptive, and dare I say deep conversation. Sex Education Amy and April talk about the current state of sex education in the US. To most families, sex is not a topic that they are comfortable talking with their children. Though there are schools that have sex education classes, it mostly consists of anatomy and topics about abstinence. Most young adults tend to learn on their own, either through their friends, from experience, or from porn. While they do not shun consumption of porn, both think that porn should not be used as an educational tool. “I think it really depends on where you're growing up. Luckily, we have the internet now. But like April said, there's porn, and we are not anti porn. We are anti porn as a sex educator, unless it's educational pornography.” – Amy Baldwin They believe this is where they come in, to correct misconceptions brought about by bad information or unrealistic expectations people get from hearing stories or watching porn. Shameless Sex Podcast When asked about how open they were when talking on their podcast, Amy shares that they didn’t begin like that. While they do talk boldly and bravely about sexuality in their podcast, it wasn’t the case when they were younger. They also believe that we can all talk boldly about sex if we want to. “I believe we all can speak really openly and boldly about sexuality. Just like with anything, if we practice enough and we want to, (but) not everyone needs to speak the way we do.” – Amy Baldwin “It's normalizing the conversation around sex. I think someone Emily Morris was specifically saying this treating another podcaster in sexuality, she was saying she wants to normalize sex so we can talk about it like it's the weather and I think we do the same thing.” – April Lampert Designing Relationships In the topic of relationships, it is weird how rather than sitting down and talking about it, we just end up having to guess each other’s desires and objectives as we go along. April thinks that it’s because we find it easier to point out what we don’t like rather than honing in on the things we do. “In my opinion, and I know from my experience throughout the course of my life, I was always talking about what I didn't want. I noticed that when I when I speak to folks, they are really great about ‘I don't want this’ or ‘I don't want to fight.

213 George Floyd, The U.S. Capitol Attack, And The Future of Policing in America with Dr. Cedric Alexander, Former Police Chief & President of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives Apr 12, 2021

As you know, the United States of America is in a deep, much-needed conversation about race, equality, justice and policing. This was sparked in large part by the killing of George Floyd and now his murder trial. In this very special episode of Follow Your Different, we are honored to bring you this legendary dialogue with one of the most qualified, experienced, and highest-profile law enforcement leaders in America, Dr. Cedric Alexander. You've probably seen Dr. Alexander on stage giving a speech or on television. Yet unlike TV, where you only get a few minutes with him today, we go deep, like you can only go on a real dialogue podcast. This is a very special conversation that you'll surely enjoy. Reimagining Policing According to Dr. Cedric, rethinking policing is not a new thing. They have been thinking of new ways for policing to serve the community and get them involved. He said that they have made significant progress with it under the former President Obama’s directive, as part of the Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Unfortunately, it got shelved as a new administration was ushered in. Though regardless of which administration is in play, police departments and officers have to understand that the times are changing. They might get tired of the community asking for transparency from them, but this is not a bad thing. It only means that the community wants to be involved in ensuring public safety, and they should embrace that. “Because public safety is only as strong as the public in the police department joined together, police cannot do it by themselves. And the community cannot do it by themselves.” – Dr. Cedric Alexander On Defunding the Police Dr. Cedric Alexander then talks about the calls to defund the police, and how he thinks it is the wrong approach to reimagining Policing as a whole. Police departments need that budget to do the things that solve their cases and carry out their mission to the community. What Dr. Cedric suggests is that the police should be specific on what they have to do for the community, and focus on that alone. Set standards on those specific tasks and duties, and hold them to those standards. As of right now, he believes that people are asking police to do things that they're not trained to do. “We have to really define and be very clear about what we want police to do in our communities, and not take monies away from them. Though they need to find other monies to fund some of these other social service organizations that can get the people who are struggling with homelessness, mental health issues, and domestic issues. You don't take that out of police budgets. You let them have what they need in order to provide good public safety. Hold them accountable to that, with some ways to measure that success.” – Dr. Cedric Alexander The Importance of Community Policing Dr. Cedric goes back to his point on Community Policing, and how important it is to build a great relationship with the community you protect. Since no matter how technologically advanced or highly-skilled your police department is, getting information to solve crimes will be harder when no one in the community is cooperating with you. That's exactly what Community Policing means in its most basic fundamental term. It means that the police and the community have a relationship. It means that both are supportive of public safety in the community. Since at the end of the day, all that authority that comes with the police officers’ job is only as valuable as the community giving them the legitimacy to do it. “I tell police officers this all the time, you've been given the authority by the state. But it is the communities that give you alone your legitimacy, in order to carry out your function. When we have a trusting relationship, and we're constantly working on that relationship, when something happens, we don't separate from each other, we join together to try to find resolve to it.” – Dr. Cedric Alexander

212 How To Be An Entrepreneur Category Designer With John Spagnola, CEO of Ublendit and Pioneer of the Custom Spirits Category Apr 05, 2021

Have you ever wondered what it takes to upend one of the oldest categories ever? To create real, radical innovation and do something that almost everyone in the industry said was impossible? If so, you're going to love this dialogue with our guest, John Spagnola. In this episode of Follow Your Different, John Spagnola talks about how he redesigned an old category and broke through expectations and preexisting ideas in the Spirits category. He is the epitome of a pirate , dreamer, and innovator. John Spagnola is the founder of Ublendit, THE pioneer in custom Spirits category. They create custom blended spirits for hotels, bars, nightclubs, and restaurants so they can have their own unique, custom-branded and blended spirits. Ublendit: Breaking the Fixed Mindset John talks about Ublendit and how he didn’t want it to be just another spirits company. At the time, the formula for making a spirits company was as follows: You build a brand, market it to distributors, and hopefully get your brand into different establishments through said distributors. There were those who commented that while John might start out with this completely new idea he had, he’ll eventually move into the same model eventually. John was having none of it. “The more I go into it, the more I thought: no, you're totally wrong. The way you're thinking about is totally wrong. There are so many angles that we can manipulate here, that you're not even thinking about.” – John Spagnola John has always been into trying new things. Creating something that was game-changing and can disrupt the status quo was the dream. He feels fortunate that his investors shared the same views as he did and were willing to take risks. Going Against the Grain John further elaborates as to why most spirits companies follow the traditional category model. Eventually, it all boiled down to how big of an investment it can be, that they think it won’t be worth their time. Most of the people who tried having multiple blends end up discarding underperforming ones and just focusing their effort to their best-selling ones. “I kind of understand where people come from for there, but there's all these new, different elements that have opened up to allow us to, to be so versatile.” – John Spagnola John went against the grain and pushed forward with his custom-blended and branded spirits, and have not look back since. Nowadays, there are technologies that allow businesses to blend spirits in smaller scales, much like what Ublendit is doing. Yet John and Ublendit has the distinction of being the trailblazers for the category. Knowing Your Market As a Category Designer, one has to do their due diligence and know what you are working with. Otherwise, how can you change a category to something your target audience cares about? This is exactly what John did by going around and doing research on the target market. He identified what the pain points of various businesses are, and create something new that solves those issues. After doing his market research, he found two major factors that interest people. The first one was price, because they need to make money. The other one was having custom labels to promote their own brand. So John got to work in combining these two factors, and a new category was born. As for his clients, they wished Ublendit was created sooner. “The thing that stuck with me is (he said,) you're giving me goose for $5. He literally said, I wish that I had found you 10 years ago when I started this company. I was like, well, we weren't there yet. We didn't exist yet. He's like, well, now you have us forever.” – John Spagnola To hear more from John Spagnola and how to be a legendary category designer, download and listen to this episode. BIO: John Spagnola is the CEO of Ublendit, LLC. Ublendit is a pioneer in the custom spirts category. They are the first to create custom spirits for hotels, bars, nightclubs, restaurants and special events.

211 How A Grandfather Survived The Holocaust, And A Grandson Became An Entrepreneur with Daniel Gefen Mar 29, 2021

In Hebrew, the name “Mosha” means “Salvation”. That was the name of a 13-year-old boy who was forced into a Nazi concentration camp, and spent the next five years in 18 more. Yet somehow, he lived. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Daniel Gefen shares a real, raw dialogue about his grandfather Mosha, and how he has influenced Daniel’s life and his drive to become a podcasting entrepreneur. You’ll also hear about how Daniel embraces faith, family, and philosophy to guide his life, and how he turns frustration into fascination. Mosha, the Survivor Daniel shares the story of his grandfather, Mosha. Mosha was a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. He was shot, buried alive, and hanged twice, yet he somehow managed to live on. After the war, Mosha fled to Switzerland. He had no money, no connections, and couldn’t even speak the language. While all he had was himself, he made full use of his talents. He built a farm by himself, and continued to build himself up until he had his own hotel business. Yet even as a multimillionaire hotel owner, Mosha had always strived to live a simpler life. All his focus was on how he could help others be happy. “The reason he opened the hotel wasn't to make money. The reason he opened the hotel was because he wanted to serve people. That's how he lived his life. He lived in a very small little apartment above the hotel his whole life, didn't drive a car, and gave away pretty much almost all of his money to charities.” - Daniel Gefen Giving Voice to Others through Podcasting Daniel talks about how the more recent generations have become too focused on themselves. While it’s not a bad thing to have some self-love, being too wrapped up with oneself can narrow one’s view. Sometimes, focusing outwardly and living for something or someone else can give you a higher purpose. For Daniel, it was giving voice to those who have long yearned to share their stories through his podcasts. “I kind of feel like my career is all about giving people exposure right through podcasting. My whole career is all about giving people the opportunity to promote and share their stories and get themselves out there on the biggest podcast. Ironically, I feel like I'm doing something that my grandfather couldn't do.” - Daniel Gefen Don’t Lock Yourself in a Should Prison Daniel describes how his grandfather’s past trauma has also affected future generations of the family. One of the affected parties is his father and Daniel's relationship with him growing up. Yet he doesn’t blame his grandfather nor his father for it. Instead of letting things stay as it is, Daniel strived to reach out and build a strong connection with his father. Rather than focusing on what other people should do, Daniel decided to focus on what he could do for them. He also learned to choose what’s best given the situation, rather than hoping for that perfect ending. “I have a mentor, a rabbi, who many times has said to me, “You know, do you want to be right? Or do you want to be happy? You can't always have both. Sometimes you can. But a lot of times, you cannot have both. So what do you want? You get to choose.” ” - Daniel Gefen To hear more from Daniel Gefen and on how his grandfather inspired him to be an entrepreneur, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Daniel Gefen is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Gefen Media Group - a podcast production and booking agency helping clients build a loyal following through the power of podcasting. He is also the host of the top-rated podcast show called 'Can I Pick Your Brain?' which has exceeded over 150,000 downloads and was named top 26 podcasts to listen to by CIO Magazine. He has interviewed over 100 thought leaders, Billionaires and celebrities. In 2017, he was named one of the top 25 most influential influencers and has been featured in dozens of media publications including Forbes Inc, CIO, Influencive, Success Radio and over 70 leading podcasts.

210 How To Build a Business That Makes Money And A Difference with Gero Leson of Dr. Bronner’s Mar 22, 2021

Most leaders want to build a legendary business and be socially and environmentally responsible at the same time. Sadly, many get caught in a false dilemma between doing good in business and doing good in the world. In spite of that, there are companies that strive to do both and continue to prosper to this day. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Dr. Gero Leson shares how Dr. Bronner’s has become the pioneer in the global movement to establish socially just and environmentally responsible supply chains. So if you care about building a long term, successful business that dominates its niche and makes a giant difference in the world, you're going to love everything about this conversation. Having an Impact on the World If you’re looking for a company that has an impact on the world, look no further than Dr. Bronner’s. They have spent 70 years showing everyone that you don’t have to choose just one to maintain good growth. They back up this claim by ranking as the second highest scoring B Corp in the world. Dr. Gero Leson attributes this success to having an authentic brand and being consistent about it all these years. He believes that the causes they address speak to the general public, particularly to people who advocate saving the planet. “There are many other things. Of course, it's the quality of our product, no doubt. But I think it's also the messaging and then the action (we take). It's what we do to have an impact beyond just making soap. I think that package speaks to people, and we have a fantastic team that's all driven by the same vision.” – Dr. Gero Leson Standing the Test of Time Dr. Gero shares his thoughts on how Dr. Bronner’s is still relevant after all these years. Despite having new ideas and products launched, they have stayed true to their desire to have more natural and sustainable products and ingredients in the market. As for their sustained growth, Dr. Gero explains that they don’t focus on it. He knows it sounds like a cliché, but that mindset helped them explore new ideas that others would find risky. “This is not about cashing out, getting a few millions in the bank and then retire and just sit on the board of philanthropic organizations. The Bronners’ and most of our executive team just love being able to make decisions and bring about change, and that drives me alive. This is the biggest fun ever. I could retire, but that would be so boring. It's just so much fun to use your business to bring about change, honestly.” – Dr. Gero Leson Precision and Creativity Nowadays, it is normal to have your Executive offices and your production line separate. Yet for the longest time, Dr. Bronner’s has kept it all in one place. This leads to a unique contrast of seeing everything work with exact precision, but in an environment driven by everyone’s creativity and individuality. “It is really fun to watch normal people respond to this. I sometimes bring in the chiefs of our projects and they're very normal people. They come there and they say, “Huh, there's a very interesting, great atmosphere here”. Its a very unique contrast of normality, efficiency, planning and at the same time, you have wildness and independence driving.” – Dr. Gero Leson To hear more from Dr. Gero Leson and his thoughts on building a business that thrives while making a difference, download and listen to this episode. Bio: DR. GERO LESON is Vice President of Special Operations at Dr. Bronner’s, the top-selling brand of natural soaps in North America. After joining the company in 2005, he helped it transition to sourcing all its major ingredients directly from certified fair trade and organic projects. Under his leadership, Dr. Bronner’s has become a pioneer in the global movement to establish socially just and environmentally responsible supply chains. Leson speaks regularly on business, sustainability, fair trade, and regenerative agriculture. He lives in Berkeley, California. Links Website: DrBronner.com

209 How To Live A Creative Life w/ Nasri: Grammy-Award Winning Artist, Producer, and Collaborator with John Legend, Robin Thicke, Shakira & more Mar 15, 2021

Most people would like to be more creative, and some would like to make a living with their creativity. Though without legendary role models, particularly those who are willing to get real and go deep about their experience, it's hard to learn what it really takes. In today's dialogue with Nasri, you're going to learn about it and a lot more. In this episode of Follow Your Different, it is all about Nasri. His music has been streamed over 4 billion times to date. He's a Grammy Award winning songwriter, producer, and singer who's worked with literally the biggest names in music today. Nasri has won a Grammy Award for his works, including Best Latin Pop Album for his work with Shakira on her record Eldorado in 2017, and Best R&B album for his work on Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. record. His band Magic! released three successful chart-topping albums with RCA Records, and he's probably best known for their international smash hit “Rude”. He also just released a brand-new EP, a solo EP called “Here for You” to much critical acclaim. This is also Nasri’s first podcast experience, so join him and Christopher as they discuss Grammys, working with great musicians, and how to live a creative life. On Nasri Winning the Grammys Christopher starts off with the big one, and asks what it was like winning the Grammys. Nasri shares his thoughts on collaborating with a lot of talented artists and producers in the industry, and the experience of creating Grammy Award-winning songs. He also adds that nowadays, producing music is different than before. It’s normal to see five or more people being credited in one song, and that’s okay. All of it is necessary to create great music. Though it is understandable why some might be confused when they see multiple names in the credits. “Now when you make music, everybody has a little piece of everything. It's kind of confusing when you see four or five names on a credit, or even seven or eight, nine names on a credit of a song. It's confusing to the audience to like “Seven people wrote this song?” No, seven people didn't write the song. Two or three people wrote the song, and then it goes through a process of like, “hey, let's team up with this sound designer”, and they also want a piece of the publishing.” - Nasri On Creatives Self-Producing Christopher brings up his experience on publications, and on why he chose to self-publish later on. Nasri agrees with the sentiment, and points out that it’s not a bad idea to work with a company first before trying to publish or produce on your own. At the very least, you’ll get some much-needed experience from them first and commit less mistakes when you are on our own afterwards. “I think the beginning stages, if you look at why you may need a publisher, it has made me learn a couple things, you know. To see kind of what the scope of marketing for this medium is, and that's what I went through. In the band Magic!, we were signed to RCA Records, and I was like, “Okay, cool.” When I went now to make my solo project, I felt like I had a pretty good grip of how to market something.” - Nasri He’s also glad that he got into self-production. He talks about how he’s not on other people’s clock but his own, and he take his time and perfect his craft. “I'm in no rush. I own the master. I have nobody telling me in some sort of meeting that is not moving fast enough. That's (part of) what I didn't like.” - Nasri Nasri’s New EP Speaking of producing something, Nasri recently released his new EP, “Here For You”. Nasri talks about how it came to be, and how much fun it was to create. He also got into the finer details and how happy he is with its reception. “So all of a sudden, this whole thing just came together through us just being passionate about it. And some of the stories that in all the years of him making music, this is one of the first times that his wife has actually listened to the music on repeat, you know? Because generally,

208 The Power of Ethics with Bestselling Author Dr. Susan Liautaud Mar 08, 2021

Nowadays, people live at a time when discerning what’s right and wrong is getting more complex. As your choices can have profound, long term implications, it’s best to know where your moral compass lies. In this episode of Follow Your Different, Dr. Susan Liautaud talks about Ethics and why it is more than just common sense. She explains why it matters more today, and how to apply an Ethics lens to critical areas of society. This is a fascinating conversation that will matter to anyone who cares about making the world a different place. Dr. Susan Liautaud is the author of the new bestseller, The Power of Ethics: How to Make Good Choices in a Complicated World. She is an Ethics Advisor to major corporations and institutions, and also teaches Ethics at Stanford. She serves as Chair of the London School of Economics and Political Science Council. Why Ethics is Not Common Sense It used to be that people grew up on stories that gave examples of what’s right and wrong. Everything seemed black and white, and the lines in the sand were clear. In today’s world, where information is but a touch of a screen away, these lines have seemingly been blurred. Dr. Susan Liautaud uses media platforms like Facebook or Twitter as examples for this. On one hand, it serves as a tool to connect people together and have lively conversations. On the other hand, there are some that use it to bully people and spread misinformation. “In today's world, you know, good and bad are all mixed. We are in this gray zone and things that can be used for the good like social media. Yet they can also be used for harm, like bullying on social media or spread of disinformation. So I think largely because the world has just gotten so complicated and technology and all the forces driving it aren't really common sense for a lot of people.” - Dr. Susan Liautaud The World is Changing so Fast Christopher shares that for him, changing your opinion on something is not a bad thing. It means that you are open to new ideas and correcting your own. “If you haven't changed your mind lately, how do you know you have one?” - Christopher Lochhead Dr. Susan agrees with this sentiment, and describes that Ethics can be the same way. The things we find ethical or otherwise can be flipped due to recent events or newly-available information. For her, it’s better to be in-the-know rather than to always stick with the old ways. “I think one of the things about ethics that's different today is that the world is changing so fast. The complexity I referred to earlier is evolving so quickly that we need to be monitoring, instead of holding our nose and leaping into a decision and being sure that we're absolutely right. So I don't call it flip flopping. I call it staying grounded in reality.” - Dr. Susan Liautaud Finding Non-Binary Solutions As more people get access to information and the lines between black and white get even more blurred, people’s definition of Ethics changes even further. For Dr. Susan, this is not a bad thing. Her main concern lies with people still looking for binary solutions to solve ethical problems. Dr. Susan explains how people can get stuck behind a yes or no mindset for different situations, which limits their thinking to binary solutions. She elaborates further by using Christopher’s foil board example: “What I would say is, can't we find a solution that is non-binary, other than you can't foil board on a public beach. Maybe you can foil board at certain times of day, in a place where there are only foil boarders who are willing to put themselves at that risk. We get ourselves into this Yes, No, black, white, one side of the wall or the other binary thinking, and we never get to seizing opportunity and mitigating risk.” - Dr. Susan Liautaud To know more about Dr. Susan Liautaud and how Ethics is not common sense in some companies, download and listen to this episode. Bio Dr. Susan Liautaud teaches cutting-edge ethics at Stanford University and se...

206 Wild Rituals: Dr. Caitlin O’Connell of Harvard on Lessons Animals Teach Us About Connection, Community, and Ourselves Feb 22, 2021

In today’s episode of Follow Your Different, we are joined by Behavioral Ecologist and world-renowned Elephant Scientist, Dr. Caitlin O'Connell. She spent more than 30 years studying animals in their natural habitats. Dr. Caitlin has also taught at places like Stanford and Harvard. She’s got a brand-new book out called Wild Rituals, where she explores 10 lessons animals can teach us about connection, community, and our own humanity. Her book comes out at a time in history when the human race is dealing with some pretty deep existential questions. Dr. O'Connell is here to help us deepen our understanding of ourselves by teaching us all about these legendary animals. Taking Social Rituals for Granted As the pandemic continues to keep everyone socially distant, people have started noticing social rituals and activities that we used to take for granted. Dr. Caitlin talks about the rituals in wild animal societies and how intense each social interaction was, even for something as simple as a greeting. She further explains that in our current isolation, people have realized the importance of these rituals in our lives, no matter how basic it may have seemed. “The reason I was inspired to write about rituals in wild animal societies was really just to remind us of how important ritual is in our own lives, and how similar our rituals are to other animals.” - Dr. Caitlin O’Connell Different, But the Same Dr. Caitlin discusses how we as a species have evolved, and how tools like language have accelerated our growth. Yet it is important to remember that everyone came from the same humble beginnings, but took different paths. She reminds everyone we all evolved this need for ritual for the same purpose, despite the differences we display them. “It's easy for people to do that because we are the only species that evolved language. Then by that language, suddenly we just accelerated away from the branch on our evolutionary tree. But the thing to remember is that we all came from the same humble beginnings, whether or not we moved in another direction." - Dr. Caitlin O’Connell The Importance of Rituals Dr. Caitlin and Christopher dive into the importance of social rituals, and why we cling to them almost instinctively. Dr. Caitlin shares that inclusion in such rituals makes us feel comfortable and connected. “Well, rituals are very calming, they're very soothing, they comfort us and, and make us feel connected. They, especially group rituals, when you're doing something as a group, let's say in a marching band or synchronized swimming, or singing with your friends to cheer your team on. They make you feel included and more bonded to the people that you're with." - Dr. Caitlin O’Connell She also explains that as the population grew and society became more diverse, some social rituals have evolved to help identify each other from different groups. Yet as all of these group rituals help people feel bonded to the group, rituals can also lead down a dark path. To know more about Dr. Caitlin O’Connell, as well as the dark path and how we can avoid it as social animals, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Dr. Caitlin O’Connell has been called a modern renaissance creative. She is currently on the faculty at the Eaton Peabody Lab at Harvard Medical School studying elephant low-frequency hearing while also overseeing a non-profit foundation, (Utopia Scientific) promoting the importance of science and conservation. Dr. Caitlin is an award-winning author and photographer and has been studying elephants in the wild for the last thirty years, having written dozens of scientific papers and numerous feature magazine articles and two memoirs about her experiences. She taught creative science writing for Stanford and The New York Times and co-developed the award-winning Smithsonian documentary, Elephant King. Dr. Caitlin is currently developing a new elephant docu-drama, Elephant Crown,

205 Legendary Author Dushka Zapata Feb 15, 2021

In today’s episode of Follow Your Different, we are joined yet again by the breathtaking Dushka Zapata. Dushka is one of our regular guests in the podcast and one of the most important and prolific writers this world has to offer. The world truly needs more of Dushka. Additionally, in an act of radical generosity, Dushka has decided to make all e-versions of her published books available on Amazon, for free, starting March 17, 2021. Everything she has published will be available in ebook form for free within a 24-hour period. We highly recommend going and check out the link and read her astounding books. The Prioritization of Well-Being The pandemic has changed everyone’s relationship landscape, and the glue that has held those relationships has modified its fundamental composition. Dushka discusses that the difficulty in prioritizing one’s well-being is due to the fact that oftentimes it is impossible to tell what exactly is the best for one’s well-being. She shares that the only way to find the answer is to spend time alone, compassionately and gently, giving thought to what is genuinely best for oneself. “We are all like boats and we all carry other people who take care of the maintenance of the boat. If the boat sinks, you are useless to others. So what is it that you need to do for the boat, which is you? You need to be functional for others. The most responsible thing that we can do is to think about the best ways we can take care of ourselves.” - Dushka Zapata The Pursuit of Happiness Dushka discusses that her definition for the pursuit of happiness is less about being happy and more about the feeling of whether her actions have a sense of purpose. Most people are trapped in a constant state of sabotaging their own happiness because they feel like it’s too much. When in reality, there is no logical limit to how happy one can become. She encourages people to never believe in mediocrity, low-grade despair, and to devise small steps to interests that bring one closer to happiness. “There isn't a higher being monitoring your amount of happiness. I think that if there were a first step, it would be to remove your own tendency to sabotage your own happiness. If there were a second step, it would be about identifying the wants that are real. And, if there were a third step, it would be about truly understanding what the difference is between the superficial want and the deeper wants.” - Dushka Zapata The Architecture of One’s Fabrication Dushka and Christopher discuss how life is just the story that people tell themselves about the facts, people live in the architecture of their own fabrication. Dushka shares how it is worthwhile to perceive oneself as the person who thinks their thoughts rather than being one’s thoughts. This guarantees a life not filled with suffering over things that are uncontrollable and non-existent. “To me, a really central part about learning how to love myself has to do with making a distinction between the things I believe that are not true.” - Dushka Zapata To know more about the legendary Dushka Zapata and how to prioritize your well-being, download and listen to this episode. Bio: After working for more than 20 years in the communications industry, Dushka noticed a theme. People find it very difficult to articulate who they are and what they do. This holds true for both companies and for individuals. For companies, this is an impediment to the development of an identity, a reputation, a brand. It makes it hard for customers to see how companies are different from their competitors. For individuals, in a new world order of personal brands, it makes it hard to develop one that feels real. This is the focus of Dushka's work: she helps companies and people put into simple terms who they are, what they do, and where to go next. Her work comes to life through message development, presentation training, media training and personal brand development.

204 Equality Through Wealth w/ Teri Williams | President of Largest Black-Owned Bank in America OneUnited Feb 08, 2021

Teri Williams is the legendary President and Chief Operating Officer of OneUnited Bank. She is helping transform the country with the empire she is currently building. From purchasing a small struggling community bank in Boston to creating OneUnited Bank, the largest black-owned bank in the United States of America. Since they have started, Teri and her husband, Kevin, with their team have made over $1 billion in loans together. Along with being an entrepreneur, she is also an author with her book, I Got Bank!: What My Granddad Taught Me About Money. Today, we have a powerful conversation about OneUnited Bank’s mission and how the couple runs a successful powerful business while raising two wonderful children. Teri has some fascinating insights on what it really means to make money and the statistics of the black community in the financial system. We also talk about how Teri and Kevin are showing how banking and entrepreneurship can change lives, communities, and even a country. The OneUnitedBank OneUnited Bank is the largest black-owned bank in the country. It has not only started as a community but is also transforming to becoming a digital bank. The goal they have is to make financial literacy a core value in the black community. Teri gives a bit of her personal background and story, and how she learned business from her grandmother. She shares how one of the important things for the black community is to recognize those individuals who have been there, eliminate the carried shame, and value one’s experiences. “We're finding ourselves not being able to speak in our authentic voice. We're finding that our community is not listening to us because we're not speaking in our authentic voice. So we have changed our communication. It was important for us, as a bank, to speak to the challenges that our community faces, not to run away from them. From that came this bank black movement. It is a bank black movement where black people can speak how they are going to move their money to black owned banks and are going to support black businesses.” - Teri Williams Black Communities in the Financial System Teri discusses the statistics and the poor treatment of the black community in the financial system. She shares how the homeownership rate in the black community is 30 percent lower compared to the white community. The number of loans and mortgages from national banks is 1 to 2 percent of all mortgages that are given to black families. Though, there is hope. OneUnited Banks is creating partnerships and transacting with big corporations that are currently making big differences to the community. “Netflix was the first to come out with this. Because of corporations like them, a lot of corporations have followed. I think the corporations realize that this is a way to contribute to what these banks are trying to do. It's also important for people to know what we do. Over 70% of our lending actually goes into the community and our credit losses are almost zero. It's not like we're doing lending that is risky. We are just doing lending that isn't being done by other institutions. That lending is giving our community an opportunity to build well.” - Teri Williams OneTransaction Campaign and Conference For Black History Month, Teri shares the OneTransaction Campaign and Conference that will be held on Juneteenth (June 19, 2021) from 1:00 - 6:00 PM ET (Eastern Time). The campaign will be a free virtual conference encouraging the black community to focus on one transaction in 2021. It will be filled with amazing speakers who are passionate to educate the community on how they can create generational wealth and close the racial wealth gap. We hope you can virtually join and register for the OneTransaction Campaign and Conference and be part of the conversation. “We give them a choice of six transactions. It could be a will, life insurance, home ownership, having a profitable business, improving their credit score or savings,

203 How To Be A Bootstrap Entrepreneur On A Mission w/ Thousand Helmets CEO Gloria Hwang Feb 01, 2021

Gloria Hwang was a long-time cyclist who never wore a helmet. She thought they were too bulky, inconvenient, and space-agey looking. Then, a friend of hers died in a bike accident. She decided something had to be done about helmets. Gloria, a savvy professional who’s been working for five years inside the legendary Tom's shoes, saw the new mobility category designed right in front of her eyes. With a very small amount of money and a Kickstarter campaign, she started Thousand Helmets. In this episode, we talk about Gloria’s story, as an entrepreneur and category designer and her mission of saving lives. The Mission of Thousand Helmets When Gloria decided to buy a helmet for herself, she saw a bunch of passable-looking helmets, but there's nothing she wanted to wear. The number one reason people don't ride a bike, skateboard, or scooter is they just don't feel safe. So, she believed that making a helmet that people would want to wear could help save a lot of lives: "I really believe that I can create a product that people want to wear and I could solve a lot of problems. They could help save lives, and I could get people moving around cities in a different way." - Gloria Hwang Prioritizing the Customer's Perspective As helmets have been around since forever, Christopher asks Gloria how she saw an opportunity to create a different category of helmets. She says that it was all about customer insight as she was once a customer. Their first products were based on a human-centered design perspective and not on a market perspective. "As a consumer, you have a whole different set of customer needs and problems than what's on the shelves. Then you kind of know that there is something out there for you that needs to be created." - Gloria Hwang Design Philosophy Gloria shares the fundamental concepts in their product development process. The first one is style, and the second one is safety so that people can be safe and look stylish at the same time. The last one is convenience, which created the idea of their secret PopLock function to avoid theft when people leave their helmets behind. "There's the execution where things need to be beautiful and high quality, but it always goes back down to what the customer would be thinking right now and what problem they encounter when they're deciding to pick up a helmet. So, at the end of the day, it's kind of trying to get a good understanding of what that customer wants." - Gloria Hwang To know more about Gloria Hwang and how to be a bootstrap entrepreneur, download and listen to this episode. Links: Thousand Helmets - Our Story Instagram: @explorethousand Twitter: @explorethousand Linkedin: Gloria Hwang Designer Spotlight: Thousand Bike Helmets Become A Stylish Safety Accessory Pinterest We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes

202 Harvard’s Top Astronomer Says Aliens Tried to Contact Us | Dr. Avi Loeb, Author, Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth Jan 25, 2021

Harvard's top astronomer professor Avi Loeb, just published a book called Extra-Terrestrial, The First Sign Of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. He believes that in 2017, the highly unusual object that passed by earth called Oumuamua, was likely alien. So in this episode, we go deep into obvious hypotheses, the attributes and characteristics that prove that Oumuamua was not a comet or an asteroid or anything else we've seen before. We also dig into why the good professor thinks it was likely alien. We discuss why he thinks science is a “dialogue with nature” and why at massive personal risk, he decided to come forward with his theory. Science as a Dialogue with Nature Avi says that science is a way of appreciating and understanding the world. It is not in conflict with religion either. Science explains how things work and it increases your own understanding of nature. Additionally, he says that he's frustrated because many scientists focus on concepts without evidence and have no connection to experiments: "There is no evidence that these ideas are valued and that they actually describe nature. To me, that's a betrayal of traditional physics, where we were supposed to have a dialogue with nature, not a monologue. We're not supposed to tell nature what it is but listen for experiments to what nature is." - Avi Loeb The Discovery of Oumuamua Christopher and Avi talk all about the likely alien, Oumuamua. Avi says that before discovering Oumuamua, they haven't seen an object in outer space that moves too fast and more powerful from the gravitational pull. This ability to escape the gravitational pull of the sun was a huge discovery and led to the idea that an alien passed by the Earth for a visit. "It's just that it's relative speed. If a bullet moves too fast relative to the earth or, if a spacecraft moves too fast, it will never fall. It would just escape. So the issue is how fast does an object move relative to the source of gravity? All the objects we have seen before were bound to the sun that was relics from the formation process of the solar system." - Avi Loeb Claims About Oumuamua After discovering Oumuamua, astronomers claimed that it was just a comet or an asteroid that came near the Earth. Another object with an extra push similar to Oumuamua's was also discovered. However, it turns out it was a rocket booster that left the Arabs in 1966. This event somehow proved that Oumuamua is indeed peculiar. "The actual discovery of Oumuamua is by itself a puzzle. It means that the abundance of such objects is much greater than would be expected from the rocks that occupied the solar system at any event. Putting that aside, this object was peculiar. It exhibited an extra push of the type that you expect from a comet." - Avi Loeb To know more about Harvard’s Top Astronomer and the Aliens Who Tried to Contact Us, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University. He received a Ph.D. in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel at age 24 (1980-1986), led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense Initiative (1983-1988), and was subsequently a long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1988-1993). Loeb has written 8 books. These includes most recently, Extraterrestrial (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), and about 800 papers (with an h-index of 113) on a wide range of topics. Topics include black holes, the first stars, the search for extraterrestrial life and the future of the Universe. He had been the longest-serving Chair of Harvard's Department of Astronomy (2011-2020), Founding Director of Harvard's Black Hole Initiative (2016-present), and Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (2007-present) within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He is the Chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies (2018-present). Additionally,

201 The Art of The Impossible w/ Steven Kotler NY Times Bestselling Author Jan 18, 2021

Today, we have the legendary Steven Kotler to talk about how we can turn the impossible into possible, using insights from his book, The Art of Impossible. The book is about peak performance and it aims to teach us how to stretch far beyond our capabilities to attain our dreams and anything we want. Personality vs. Biology Steven states that in the field of peak performance, personality doesn't scale because biology does. Personality is composed of traits that are immutable and locked in. He also describes neurobiology as a mechanism of brain work. "If you try to figure out what works for me and use it to train you and if you're not exactly the same kind of person I am with the same personality traits, this is not going to work. But underneath that one level down, there is a level of biology. A way the system has been designed to work, and that is the part that we all share. The stuff that evolution designed for all of us to share." - Steven Kotler Focus Comes with Motivation Steven says that you always have to focus on what you pay attention to, or what you ignore. Curiosity, passion, purpose, and autonomy are designed to work in a specific sequence, but all of them give us focus for free. He also says that the whole point about biology and the human system is you get farther and faster with less work. "We are hardwired for the extraordinary. It is one of the surprising things about being human that most people don't realize. To take it a step farther, not going big, is actually bad for us. That's an equally important point here." - Steven Kotler Turning Anxiety into Excitement Today, we live in a world filled with probabilistic threats, which is the reason why most people have anxiety. Steven concludes that the brain doesn't turn off until the danger is gone completely. So, you have to take steps to calm nervous system down because it won't shut down on its own: “Most humans can feel curiosity and anxiety at the same time. Talk about reframe and cognitive reframing, a technique for turning anxiety into excitement. Because it's the same chemical and it's very easy to do. An example of giving biology to work for you rather than against you. We're plagued by anxiety, and yet we're hardwired to turn anxiety into excitement very easily just with the right tools.” - Steven Kotler To know more about the art of the impossible with Steven Kotler, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, an award-winning journalist, and the Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective. He is one of the world’s leading experts on human performance. He is the author of nine bestsellers (out of thirteen books), including The Art of Impossible, The Future is Faster Than You Think, Stealing Fire, The Rise of Superman, Bold, and Abundance. His work has been nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes, translated into over 40 languages, and has appeared in over 100 publications, including the New York Times Magazine, Wired, Atlantic Monthly, Wall Street Journal, TIME, and the Harvard Business Review. Links: Website: Steven Kotler Twitter: @steven_kotler Linkedin: Steven Kotler We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes

200 Ministry of Common Sense w/ Martin Lindstrom Jan 11, 2021

Our guest today is Martin Lindstrom, best-selling author and branding and culture guru. Time Magazine calls him one of the 100 World's Most Influential People. He's got an important and timely, brand new book out called The Ministry of Common Sense: How To Eliminate Bureaucratic Red Tape, Bad Excuses And Corporate Bullshit. We have a captivating conversation and Martin sheds light on some very eye opening ideas, like why empathy is dying and what we can do about it, why common sense has eroded and what we can do about that too. There’s going to be fascinating things like how Botox is hurting the relationships between mothers and babies, why Netflix has a bizarre hugging policy, the impact of women driving in Saudi Arabia and a lot more. Listen closely for Martin's theory on why some people get a lot more opportunities in life than others. It's quite fascinating. The Impact of Women Driving In Saudi Arabia Martin shares his travels in Saudi Arabia and how the country is transforming in a historic moment. He discusses how he helped bring driving schools to Saudi Arabia. This elevation of women’s freedom brought him a different kind of purpose. “For you and I, it sounds like an ordinary thing, but in Saudi Arabia it has never existed before. My driver was a woman. It was the second time she's been out driving. She was almost shaking because she was so excited about being liberated. So it's just amazing and such a warm hearted experience to see how these suppressed women are suddenly getting freedom.” - Martin Lindstrom Empathy is Dying The thing that everyone is missing in the world is empathy. Martin discusses factors such as the use of phones, the absence of observation, and the "easiness" of social apps has contributed to the lack of empathy. “There was a study done recently showing that the degree of empathy among more than 10,000 students in the US have dropped around 50% over the last decade. The reason why it's disappearing is not just because of the smart phones, where we don't look at each other during meals, but also because we no longer observe.” - Martin Lindstrom Common Sense Has Eroded Martin points out that along with empathy, the world seems to have lost its common sense. He explains that when he refers to common sense eroding, he meant that no one questions things at all. This is because people have become so attached to becoming politically correct in every aspect that they no longer dare see things anymore as they are. “One of the things that are disappearing out of our society, along with empathy, is the lack of common sense. There is no common sense in our society at all. Common sense is first of all, like muscle memory. You have to train it and in turn it becomes stronger. If you don't use it, it becomes weaker and guess what? It's incredibly weak at the moment because remember by empathy, I say you put yourself in the shoes of another person. That's really common sense because sometimes you actually have to look at things from a different point of view, exactly as if you’ve experienced it with your own eyes. - Martin Lindstrom To know more about Martin Lindstrom and hear more about his fantastic book and theories on life, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Martin Lindstrom is the founder and chairman of Lindstrom Company, the world’s leading brand & culture transformation group, operating across five continents and more than 30 countries. TIME Magazine has named Lindstrom one of the “World’s 100 Most Influential People”. And for three years running, Thinkers50, the world’s premier ranking resource of business icons, has selected Lindstrom to be among the world’s top 50 business thinkers. Lindstrom is a high profile speaker and author of 7 New York Times best-selling books, translated into 60 languages. His book Brand Sense was critically acclaimed by The Wall Street Journal as “one of the five best marketing books ever published”, Small Data was praised as “revolutionary” and TIME M...

199 How to Redesign Your Life w/ Eric Jorgensen Jan 04, 2021

At the moment, there is a big rise in “diseases of despair.” These are things like substance abuse, alcohol dependency, suicidal thoughts and behaviors. As a matter of fact, according to the medical journal BMJ, diseases of despair have soared in the United States over the past decade, rising 68% between 2009 and 2018. The study also shows suicidal thoughts and behaviors were up 70%. And all of that was of course before COVID. However, despair doesn't have to mean defeat. Our guest today, Eric Jorgensen is an extraordinary man. His son, William was born with significant disabilities. What you're about to hear is the extraordinary tale of how Eric's life turned to tragedy, the horrible suffering that he endured and the painful events of Eric and William's life. You'll also hear how this real American hero transformed, unbearable despair into triumph. Road to Healing Life often throws us whirlwinds of challenges, tragedy, and sometimes even despair. Eric shares his tale of how he has withstood the hardships of having cancer and taking care of his son with significant disabilities. He shares his extraordinary story of recovery, all the while dealing with the global pandemic, Covid-19. “When I found out it was grade IIA cancer. I guess in the scheme of things, I was somewhere in the middle. I didn't need chemo. I didn't need radiation. In terms of recovery, I got really lucky. It was just a matter of taking care of my wound and letting it heal...In regard to COVID, alI I could think about is holy crap. It was scary. If I get sick, on top of cancer, and I can't help my son out on his day to day stuff, what's going to happen. Who's going to do that for me?” - Eric Jorgensen Channel Your Anger The ability to appropriately express and channel one’s anger is one of the most important things about being human. Eric discusses how his anger, while not always constructive, was the driving force for him to start his own company. Rising through all this frustration and anger, it was able to lead him into where he is now. “I was getting frustrated because what I was being asked to do, wasn't what I wanted to do. It wasn't helping the people I wanted to help. It wasn't addressing the need I thought it needed to be filled... Now that I started my company ,I get to help families who are where I was eight years ago. Not knowing what to do and I'm catching them before they get there.” - Eric Jorgensen Know You're Not Alone Eric shares his big learnings as he looks back over the last eight years of his life and how he has navigated through his challenges. One of the things he wants people to remember is that don’t try and do everything alone. Everyone is strong but oftentimes, one needs someone they can lean on and trust. “I kept it balled in and then it would shockingly blow up at the worst possible time. I would take it out on people that I had absolutely no reason for me to take it out on. So try to build a team or a tribe or whatever you call it. Try to build a group of people. I keep my circle pretty small. Get a couple of really tight people that you can really really trust.” - Eric Jorgensen To know more how to redesign your life with Eric Jorgensen, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Eric has been helping families with intellectual and developmental disabilities since his retirement from the Navy in 2012. He was widowed the same year he retired. At the time his 12 y/o autistic son, William, was completely dependent on his wife for everything. It was his frustration with the difficulty of figuring out what to do and navigating services for his son which led him to found Special Needs Navigator. Eric created the category of Special Needs Planning to help families, individuals and caregivers connect the dots when working with attorneys, financial advisors, and other professionals. His specialty is helping them identify what they don’t know and provide clarity.

Year End Message From Christopher Dec 31, 2020

This is Christopher and I just wanted to take a little moment to share a couple quick things with you. First, just big thank you. Thank you for making me and our entire team part of your 2020. The second thing, I know it's been a horrible year for many of us, for me and my family, it's been the most horrible year of all. I also want you to know that I thought about quitting a lot this year, both podcasting and writing. Knowing that you were there, if you sent email or tweets or LinkedIn messages or just knowing you were there, has made a big difference. I didn't know (when I started writing and podcasting) how much the friendships that I would develop with our listeners and readers would mean to me. Even if we've never met or exchanged a message, I just want you to know how much I appreciate you. Thank you because for the last 15 months, it's really been the worst time of my life. Having you with me has made a giant difference. I know you being there has made a giant difference to our entire team. So thank you so much. I also wanted to share a little piece that I put on social media, for those of you who might have lost someone. So I'll just read that to you quickly. If you have an empty chair, this holiday, I'm truly sorry. If you have an empty chair, this holiday, please know that your family does not cry alone. And if you do not have an empty chair this holiday, please remember to tell your friends and family how much you love them. In times like these, it really calls for inspiration and who better to turn to than Winston Churchill. So I thought I'd share this quote with you. If you will, as a toast to 2021, without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning. So I'm going to grab hold of this Macallan 12. I have a little squirt and say, thank you. Bless you. Here's to 2021.

198 The Future of Tech with #1 Tech Analyst R “Ray” Wang Chairman Constellation Research Dec 28, 2020

What really happened in 2020? Where's the world of technology heading? What does the future of software look like and what do we all have to be prepared for? We discuss all these and a whole lot more with Ray Wang. He's the number one tech analyst in the world and the founder of Constellation Research. Today, give us some powerful insights as we go forward into 2021. Salesforce Slack Christopher and Ray dive into the discussion with COVID hypocrisy and Ray's thoughts on the Salesforce Slack $27 billion deal, and where he sees the future of technology headed. He emphasizes the idea of business graphs and how this can potentially tap tribal knowledge for business and become a great acquisition. It is the kind of category acceleration deal that is fit for category designers, visionary entrepreneurs and CEOs who are trying to shape the future as opposed to monetizing the present or past. “Why would we want a business graph in our business? The goal of the business graph is so that we can start making better decisions. We call them precision decisions and the goal is to improve this concept called decision velocity. Which, I talk a lot about in my book, are basically machines making decisions a hundred times per second.” - Ray Wang Ad Revenue Ray discusses how top companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are competing head-on for digital advertising revenue. A massive winner takes all market and digital ads of category kings who are running some of the largest market shares in each of their categories. These category kings are battling for six areas of monetization: ad revenues, search revenues, goods, services, and membership subscriptions. “There's all your digital monetization models. Now I won't say too much before my book comes out. That's what we spent a lot of time talking about. These different monetization plays that are happening. We talk about how value chains are collapsing, but in Salesforce and in Microsoft's case, they're building this business operating system or this business nervous system. That's actually coming in the transactions between sales orders.” - Ray Wang Zoom in Light of Slack Salesforce Deal Through every single video revolution the problem with video was there was never enough bandwidth. Ray shares how Zoom needs to go beyond meetings and discover the ability to integrate with everyone else. Whether this means selling at their peak and letting other people build or integrate into a future broadcast platform. “You have your own personal ad network with the zoom. You're basically internal only. I mean, they have the ability to do all those kinds of things. You can actually do broadcasts. You are a video property. You are basically a media property. They haven't taken it from tool to where now the broadcast property kind of like YouTube is the broadcast pot property. So someone who's creative enough thinking about this market that wants to go after it pretty hard could attempt to kind of work with them in that regard. Though the valuation is so high, right? That's the challenge.” - Ray Wang Bio: R "Ray" Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research, Inc. He's also the author of the popular business strategy and technology blog "A Software Insider’s Point of View". With viewership in the 10's of millions of page views a year, his blog provides insight into how disruptive technologies and new business models such as digital transformation impact brands, enterprises, and organizations. Wang has held executive roles in product, marketing, strategy, and consulting at companies such as Forrester Research, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. His new best selling book Disrupting Digital Business, published by Harvard Business Review Press and now globally available provides insights on why 52% of the Fortune 500 have been merged, acquired, gone bankrupt,

197 Embrace The Suck w/ Navy SEAL Brent Gleeson Dec 21, 2020

In today’s episode, we have legendary combat veteran Navy seal Brent Gleason. He's got a red, hot, rocking, new book out called Embrace The Suck. Brent is a successful entrepreneur, author and speaker and his new book is catching everybody's attention. Today, we get into why Brent thinks we need to lean into pain, how to deal with failure and rise up to any challenge, no matter what. Leading Through Change Brent gives us an inside look on what it was like as a legendary combat veteran Navy seal. Moreover, he shares his perspective on the pandemic and what he thinks leaders should be doing. He thinks organizations should reevaluate the needs of its people based on a lot of factors. “The global pandemic has caused an even heightened level of leadership, complexity, and challenge. As leaders, we're supposed to show empathy and be innately in tune with what motivates each individual on our team, within our direct reports and our peers. Now with everybody working predominantly in a remote setting, everybody has a different environment that they're now in. In addition, some people thrive in remote settings and others feel isolation and uncertainty. Greater levels of digital silos are now creating communication challenges. Obviously your organization is going to go through a lot of change.” - Brent Gleeson Leaning Into The Pain In his book, he shares psychological, emotional, and physical pain and suffering and how various people deal with pain. There is a purposeful suffering that everyone must engage in to achieve loftier goals and causes greater than ourselves. These will serve to develop individuals in expanding the boundaries of one’s comfort zone. In turn, lead to a more fulfilling, happier, and purpose-driven life. “When have you ever achieved anything meaningful in your life that did not have something attached to it? Like some level of pain, suffering, or adversity. The answer is nothing. When have you ever done something that gave you true fulfillment that was trapped within the confines of your comfort zone? Nothing. It's only when we peak beyond the boundaries of the comfort zone and see what's out there. That is what expands your comfort zone and moves the goalposts. You make it a ritual part of your existence and part of your mindset.” - Brent Gleeson Taming The Tiger Brent discusses how in life there are choices down the road that lead you to temptation. He shares how one can tame the tiger and resist temptation. In life, humans are inevitably tempted and human centered, the goal is to mend the relationships or goals one is focusing on. He shares how it ultimately comes down to the philosophy of simply limiting choices and creating an environment that supports your objective. He discusses how one should set themselves up for success by being purposeful in the environment and what one creates. Lessening the opportunity to be distracted or tempted by things that do not align with the actions necessary to achieve the desired outcome. “In order to tame my tiger, I had to transform my entire lifestyle and mindsets to limit the choices. I removed every possible element of temptation from my life that would stand in the way of the goals I had made. So my social life, my dietary habits, workout regimen, even going as far as removing people from my life that I knew would stand in the way of achieving that goal. If I wanted to achieve my goal, all that stuff had to go.” - Brent Gleeson To know more about the legendary Brent Gleeson, his new book and his incredible life journey. Download and listen to this episode. Bio: Brent Gleeson was a member of SEAL Team 5, some of the first SEALs deployed to Iraq in early 2003. He completed combat deployments in Iraq, Africa, and other theaters of war. After returning to civilian life, Brent earned an MBA and has built award-winning, multi-million dollar organizations that have repeatedly landed on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies.

196 The Last Wine Frontier: Bhutan W/Michael Juergens Dec 14, 2020

Our guest today Michael Juergens, is a senior partner at Deloitte. He's also a super wine geek of the highest order and on a trip to the Bhutan in 2016 , he discovered there was no vineyards there at all. What you're about to listen to is the real story of how Michael, by accident, connected with government leaders in this magic little country to become the founder of a new industry and is pioneering the last great wine frontier. Bio: Michael Juergens doesn't fit into a simple box. As a senior partner in a large global consulting firm, he's a seasoned business executive who spends his time advising Fortune 500 organizations. His passion for wine has led him to be a candidate to become the 45th American to qualify as a Master of Wine and he started the wine industry in the Kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas. He also owns the award winning SoCal Rum company. He's an internationally known speaker and author, and also is a professor at the University of CA, Irvine. He plays the drums in a punk rock band, and spends his free time diving with great whites, building motorcycles and hot rods, and running adventure races in remote locations around the world. Links: Linkedin: Michael Juergens The World’s Newest Wine Frontier Is the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan The wine industry said I’m crazy: US pioneer to create ‘next Napa Valley’ in Himalayan hills of Bhutan First Vineyard Planted In Bhutan Bhutan, Land of the Thunder Dragon Gross National Happiness The 4 Pillars of GNH Bhutan: Committed to Conservation We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

195 Neil Pearlberg, Santa Cruz Surf & Skateboard Podcast Legend Dec 07, 2020

Imagine sitting on a wonderful backdoor deck, overlooking the vast beautiful bluey green Pacific ocean as sets of waves. Roll in on a perfect warm sunny fall day in beautiful Santa Cruz, California. Then imagine a funny, ADHD infused conversation between two buddies with the beers and tequila flowing. Well, that's what we have today, with none other than Santa Cruz, icon, surf/skate legend, host of the mega popular podcast Off The Lip, Neil Pearlberg. In this episode, we get silly. We swear a lot and have tons of fun. I invite you to crack open a cold one and join Chris and Neil for a lot of fun. Bio: Since September 2009, Neil Pearlberg has written over 200 articles covering the sport of surfing, as well as skateboarding, and soccer, for the Bay Area News Group, & Santa Cruz Waves. He is also the host of the “Off the Lip Radio Show”, & Hour Local Radio Show aired on Santa Cruz Radio Show KSCO AM 1080, FM 104.1, ksco.com and streamed on Santa Cruz Waves Facebook Page. Neil has also published articles in Adventure Sports Journal, National Geographic, Stand Up Paddle Board Magazine. Links: Off the Lip Radio Instagram: @offthelipradioshow Twitter: @offthelipradio Linkedin: Neil Pearlberg We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

194 The Life of A Legendary Songwriter w/ Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer Sharon Vaughn Nov 30, 2020

Today, we go deep into the life, lessons and learnings of a legendary musician, singer, producer, and songwriter Sharon Vaughn. Sharon has written hits for legends like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Reba McEntire, The Oak Ridge Boys, George Jones, Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, Patty Loveless, Agnes, and Kate Ryan. In 2019 Sharon was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. If you’re a creative person, if you love music and if you find inspiration in stories of amazing triumph, you’ll love this episode. Pay special attention to Sharon’s thoughts on the grand dame of country music, Dolly Parton. A Creative Writing Instrument Sharon discusses her professional and personal background and how she developed an interest in singing and songwriting. She goes into detail about how her writing process has been a schizophrenia lifestyle. “It's a very difficult line to walk because if you're writing for strictly commercial, it gets vapid. If you're writing strictly for an emotional purging, then it gets selfish and self centered. But if you walk that straight and narrow line between commercial and genuine emotion. That's where the tension lies.” - Sharon Vaughn Admiration of Musical Genius Sharon continues to discuss her professional journey. She lets us in on her joys and difficulties of what it was like to work as a harmony singer. Further, she shares what it was like working with Jimmy Buffet, Porter Wagoner, Bill Anderson, and Dolly Parton. Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Sharon describes her excitement and her thankfulness for being inducted to Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Further, she expresses her gratefulness to the people along the way who have been instrumental to her life. This all had contributed to her becoming a great listener and a legendary storyteller. “Everybody on this planet has a story. Most of them are very eager for you to hear it, to tell it. All you have to do is have enough curiosity to listen and respect what they're saying. You have to realize that everybody in this world is worthy of listening to. I, for one, have been the recipient of listening to people and that's the main thing I'm most grateful for. ” - Sharon Vaughn To know more about the legendary Sharon Vaugh and her incredible life journey, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Vaughn moved to Nashville in her early 20s. In 1974, she charted two singles as a performer for Cinnamon Records: a duet with Narvel Felts titled "Until the End of Time", and "Never a Night Goes By". A year later, she signed with Dot Records and released a third single, "You and Me, Me and You". She was also the lead singer in the Lea Jane Singers, and worked with the Jordanaires, the Nashville Edition and The Holladay Sisters. Vaughn’s first big songwriting success was Waylon Jennings (1976) "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys." Willie Nelson later popularized the song in 1980 for the soundtrack of the movie The Electric Horseman. Her next songwriting hit was The Oak Ridge Boys (1977)'s "Y'all Come Back Saloon." Since then she has worked with country artists such as Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Tanya Tucker and Kenny Rogers. Vaughn was a nominee for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame three times, and was inducted in 2019. Vaughn has during the last couple of years had over 100 cuts with European artists and four number ones in Japan. She has worked with several Swedish Idol artists including the winner Jay Smith (2010) and a number one hit for Ola. She has also worked with many Scandinavian songwriters and artists including Agnes, Mutt Lange, Tony Nilsson, Vendela, Anders Hanson and Emilia. In 2009, her co-written song Release Me by Swedish pop artist Agnes reached #1 on the U.S Billboard Dance Club Songs Chart.[8] In 2013, Vaughn received a JASRAC Award as #1 of the Top 10 Foreign Works for her 2011 co-written song "Rising Sun" by the Japanese pop band EXILE. ...

193 Ryan Holiday NY #1 Best Seller On “Lives Of The Stoics” Nov 23, 2020

We continue our run on legendary authors today with none other than NY #1 Best Selling Author, Ryan Holiday. You see, the only authors we ever have are the ones that we think have ideas, teachings, and stories that are worth digging into. Today, we go deep into the teachings of some of the greatest thinkers in history. Ryan helps us see the events of today through the lens of powerful philosophers and history, providing today, in an incredible context. We deal with big topics like truth, character, pain, and suffering humor, and a lot more. Invest Time in Reading Chris lauded Ryan for writing a historical book in the age where almost everyone is addicted to selfies. Ryan was actually amazed himself how in this age and time, people still invest in time and money reading books. He shares what he thinks about good books and why people still opt for a book, instead of getting validation in social media. “I opened the book, there's a story about Xenos, the founder of Stoicism. You get this prophecy as a young man that the Oracle tells him ‘you will become wise when you begin to have conversations with the dead.’ Years later at a chance encounter in a bookstore, do you come to realize that this prophecy was about reading, that books are a way to speak to the dead.” - Ryan Holiday Condensed Life Experiences Ryan and Chris discuss life-changing books. Ryan shares an anecdote from Socrates saying: “the reason you read is that you gain quite easily what others learned quite painfully.” He further describes his new book Lives Of The Stoics, as something less about him and more about the wisdom of the past. “Reading is condensed information. It's distilled down information. In reading one book, you could jump forward a year of your life, or 10 years of your life. It can save you painful trial and error.” - Ryan Holiday An Escape and Reassurance Ryan further shares what he thinks about good books being an escape and reassurance. Reading books, especially historical ones, will make you realize that you are not alone dealing with your feelings or that there are universal truths that span from generations. One of which is human struggling and the fight between good and evil. “I find whenever I'm stressed about what's happening, I try to study the past. This gives me a clear view of what's happening right now.” - Ryan Holiday To know more about Ryan Holiday and his new NY best-selling book, Lives of the Stoics, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Ryan Holiday is one of the world’s foremost thinkers and writers on ancient philosophy and its place in everyday life. He is a sought-after speaker, strategist, and the author of many bestselling books including The Obstacle Is the Way; Ego Is the Enemy; and The Daily Stoic. He’s newest book Lives Of The Stoics is an instant New York Times Advice & Business Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller, and Wall Street Journal #1 Bestseller. His books have been translated into over 30 languages and read by over two million people worldwide. He lives outside Austin, Texas, with his family. Links: Website: Ryan Holiday Twitter: @ryanholiday Instagram: @ryanholiday Amazon - Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman: Book Review, Key Lessons, Best Quotes, and More We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

192 How Heroes Fight Wildfires w/ CAL FIRE Chief Jonathan Cox & ZoneHaven CEO Charlie Crocker Nov 17, 2020

In this episode, a truly legendary conversation with two extraordinary men, men who are on a mission to stop deadly wildfires. First, we have Charlie Croker, the founder and CEO of Zone Haven. Zone Haven is using data to everything technologies, to help government agencies and citizens both plan for and respond to serious disasters. Our second guest is Chief Jonathan Cox, CalFire Executive who is responsible for fire operations in this region. Together, Charlie and Jonathan share how firefighting heroes stop these fires and save countless lives and billions in property. A Night Californians Will Never Forget The night of Saturday, August 15 2020, a massive lightning storm hit the region. Approximately 12,000 strikes of lightning hit Northern California which caused massive fires. The wildfire lasted for weeks and it destroyed almost 10,000 buildings along with the big basin redwoods State Park, and took the life of one person. “It was a horrifying fire and it started eating the mountainous area that has a lot of underbrush, some of the most beautiful ancient redwoods, and a lot of wonderful homes, towns and businesses.” - Christopher Lochhead The Worst Fire Season In History Chief Jonathan Cox recounted to Chris how they had expected the worst for the wildfire season. However, they did not expect this horrible incident to have grown into that magnitude. He further explained their process and prioritization and how technology from Zone Haven has contributed a lot to their firefighting efforts. “We're very good when there's one or two large fires burning, getting an incident management team assembled and getting resources drawn throughout the system. But this really was one of those moments where you had concurrent major emergencies happening in a small geographical area, really in the Bay Area, and a little bit north, and it really turned into a prioritization of resources based on the threat to humans and the threat to structures.” - Chief Jonathan Cox Saving Lives and Properties Charlie Crocker, from Zone Haven shares the technology as it relates to helping CalFire make sound decisions during that emergency. He further shares in this episode how their communication strategy, along with the CalFire executives, were in sync and were out of the box, that it made drastic results in terms of preventing more damages. “The main focus of it and why we're called Zone Haven is that we really focus on very small neighborhoods or zones. So these zones are smart. They know the number of people, they know how quick, how long it's going to take for people to get out of there.” - Charlie Crocker To know more about How Heroes Fight Wildfires and for more information about CAL FIRE Chief Jonathan Cox & ZoneHaven CEO Charlie Crocker, download and listen to this episode. Bio: CAL FIRE Deputy Chief Jonathan Cox CalFire Deputy Fire Chief Jonathan Cox oversees fire operations at the San Mateo County Division of CAL FIRE, which includes San Mateo County Fire Department and Coastside Fire Protection District. His passion for the fire service started young, prior to his current role he worked both municipal and wildland fire field operations with CAL FIRE at Coastside Fire District, San Mateo County Fire Department and San Luis Obispo County Fire Department. In addition, he spent several years as the Northern California spokesperson for CAL FIRE. Jonathan was also a founding member for CAL FIRE’s land use planning program at the Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM), working with local jurisdictions to make informed land use decisions related to the threat of wildfire. Jonathan also responds to, and manages, some of California's largest disasters. He spent five years as a member of CAL FIRE's Incident Management Team 6 (FEMA Type 1), where he served on the command staff in the capacity of Public Information Officer (PIO1). He holds a Bachelors Degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a Masters Degree from the University of Copenhagen,...

Time-out for Democracy Nov 01, 2020

This is Christopher. I wanted to let you know that we are going to take the pause that refreshes here as America votes. The entire attention of the United States is on the election as it should be. Much of the attention of Americans and the entire world is focused on this election. We thought the wise thing to do would be to take some time off and come back after the election. The good news is if you love either of our podcasts, we have a tremendous back catalog. Unless you've listened to every Follow Your Different™ and every Lochhead on Marketing™ episode, there's probably some gems in there you could really benefit from. If you want a break from all of the political news over the next handful of days, there are some amazing conversations, legendary even that you might enjoy. I want to ask you to vote If you're an American, I believe voting is a civic duty. I think it's important to remember that. Democracy can't happen without participation from its citizens. I think it's important to remember that people have died for the right to vote. I think it's important to remember that there are many human beings on planet earth who do not get that right, who do not live in a democracy where their voice matters. I'm no political expert, but if you look at the polls and consume information, news and data, it looks like there's a very good chance this could be a very close election. I think the worst outcome we could have would be a rerun of 2000 Bush versus Gore or anything along those lines. I think what we absolutely need in the United States of America is a clear winner at the presidential level and a clear direction for Congress. We need leaders, federally, who have a clear mandate to govern. I think a big part of the problem that we've had is things have been so close lately that many of us our confused by the messages. We have a very divided country. So please vote, make a plan to vote. *** We'll be back with new episodes of both Lochhead on Marketing™ and Follow Your Different™ shortly after the election here in the United States, bless you. Please take care, stay legendary. And until we're together again, follow your different.

191 Kara Goldin Founder/CEO Hint Water is Undaunted Oct 26, 2020

In this episode, we do have a world changer. She's both an entrepreneur, author, and podcaster. She's the category queen of a new category of flavored healthy water. Her name is Kara Goldin and she's the founder and CEO of a product you probably have tried and most likely love called Hint water. Fortune named Kara one of the most powerful women entrepreneurs and Forbes says she's one of the 40 Women To Watch Over 40. Today, she reveals how Hint Water could have just been another idea that never went anywhere if she had let her own doubts or the doubts of others be the end of the story. Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters Kara has recently launched a new book called Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters. It is currently number one on the Amazon charts. IN fact, Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook says it's a great read for entrepreneurs looking for proof that her dream can come true. Even if you're not an entrepreneur, you're going to love this conversation with Kara and the story behind her book. You Don’t Need To Know Everything Christopher asks Kara about the statement, “you don't need to know everything, you just have to know where to start. Kara expounds on her opinion on this statement. A lot of times, people give all sorts of excuses to not get a project starting. Most people say they lack education, or are not well-experienced enough or they spend too much time with their kids. “Once you ultimately start moving it forward, that actually adds up to getting over challenges, making progress. Whatever it is, you just have to start somewhere in order to ultimately get it going in some direction. You may change direction as well, but at least if you start somewhere. That's ultimately what helps you to achieve your dream success.” - Kara Goldin Looking For The Perfect Job Kara made a transition from the technology world — where she was an executive handling 200 people — into starting her own business. She was against incredible odds in creating a whole new beverage category and becoming the category queen. She recounts in this episode what made her decide to do the transition and how while she was looking for the perfect job, she was also scouting to find the best diet and for the best doctors to diagnose her as she gained weight after birthing her kids. “I saw this, ultimately, this void in the market that would lead me to launch my company Hint. A few steps before that was when I finally decided that the best thing for me to really understand why I wasn't as healthy as I wanted to be, would be to actually look at ingredients and everything that I was eating and drinking.” - Kara Goldin To know more about Kara, her journey to a healthy life, and why she is undaunted, download, and listen to this episode. Bio: Kara Goldin is a disruptor, builder, thought leader, and successful entrepreneur. She is the Founder and CEO of Hint, Inc., best known for its award-winning Hint® water, the leading unsweetened flavored water. She has been named one of InStyle’s Badass 50, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs, Fortune's Most Innovative Women in Food & Drink, and EY Entrepreneur of the Year for Northern California. The Huffington Post listed her as one of six disruptors in business, alongside Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. Kara has successfully navigated the world of large companies and startups in many industries including media, tech, and consumer products. In addition, she understands retail and direct to consumer well. She is an active speaker & writer and hosts the podcast Unstoppable with Kara Goldin where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs, and other disruptors across various industries. Kara’s first book, Undaunted, published by Harper Leadership, will be released in October 2020. She lives in the Bay Area. Links: Facebook: @KaraGoldin Twitter: @KaraGoldin Linkedin: @KaraGoldin

190 Lessons Learned From Running Dunkin Donuts For 35 Years | Robert Rosenberg Oct 19, 2020

Robert Rosenberg is a legendary entrepreneur CEO and author who has helped change the world today. He also has a brand new book, Around the Corner to Around the World: A Dozen Lessons. In his book, he talks about how he ran Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins. Today, we have a real conversation with Robert about his story and the lessons that he has learned through the successes and setbacks in his life. He lets us in on the real story behind one of the most legendary marketing campaigns of all time. He even shares with us the story of how munchkins a.k.a doughnuts holes came to be, and so much more exciting topics! The Best and The Brightest Robert specifically talks about David Halberstam’s book: The Best and The Brightest. The book made him realize the importance of humility and listening, rather than talking. He discusses how this has led him to place processes and policies that have helped strengthen and grow the business even further. “It was a learning moment, I was maybe 35. So it was 10 years, I'd love to say I came into the job at 25 and was all grown up, but I wasn't, clearly. This was a grown-up moment, and it was essential for the next four or five years, each with different responses, different strategies. Basically, we never look back and we were well on our way not to make that mistake again. I'm forever thankful and that came out of a book, but a lot of things for me came out of books.” - Robert Rosenberg The Story of Munchkins An interesting part of the conversation is when Robert shared how munchkins came to be. He also shares his amazement on how this Halloween product turned into the phenomenon that it is today. “That was the beginning of a product that now when you look back 50 years later is still a mainstay on the menu. And a treat for people all the time. Not just for Halloween, but 24/7 and 12 months a year.” - Robert Rosenberg Aspiration and Superior Strategy The ability to build the value of the brand, through a real commitment to product quality, and through great organization and an incredible team has led Dunkin Donuts into the industry it is today. Robert even shares his 3 P’s: good planning, great people, and a real commitment to products. “You don't necessarily pick the times it comes. Believe me, for 35 years, it's gone, come and you have to be prepared for that because day to day activities, things come in over the transom constantly at you. It's easy to get waylaid and in my view, if the strategy isn't spot on, if the organization isn't appropriate and spot-on, this little else you can do in terms of activity that can save the day and create success.” - Robert Rosenberg To know more about Robert Rosenberg and his story and Lessons Learned From Running Dunkin Donuts For 35 Years, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Robert M. Rosenberg (born 1938) is an American businessman, professor, and author. He was the chief executive officer of Dunkin' Donuts for thirty-five years from 1963 to 1998 and also served on the board of directors of Sonic Corp and Domino's Pizza. He was also an adjunct professor at Babson College's F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business. In 1963, at the age of 25,[9] Rosenberg assumed leadership of his family business, Universal Food Systems, as CEO and president. At the time, the company consisted of several small businesses grossing $20 million per year, including 100 Dunkin' Donuts locations in the U.S., generating $10 million in annual sales. Rosenberg transformed Universal Food Systems to focus on Dunkin' Donuts. On February 6, 1968, Rosenberg took the company through its initial public offering. In September 1983, Rosenberg became chairman while continuing to serve as CEO of Dunkin' Donuts. The company remained publicly traded until 1989, earning investors a 35% compound rate of return. During his tenure as Dunkin' Donuts CEO, Rosenberg served on the board of the International Franchise Association. In 1970, he served as the association's chairman.

189 How to Decide | Annie Duke, Champion Poker Player Oct 16, 2020

We continue our run on legendary authors with our guest today, Annie Duke. She's got a new book out called How To Decide: Simple Tools For Making Better Choices. In this episode, she teaches us about how she thinks about decisions, and how building stronger decision skills can make a difference at a time of crisis, particularly like the kind of time we're living in now. She was one of the world's top professional poker players. She tells us how to think about the possible and the probable, how to think about the different futures that could occur. Anne’s got a very provocative point of view about luck that I think you'll find fascinating. In addition, I would suggest you pay close attention to her thoughts on the power of a hedge. Every Decision Is A Bet Annie briefly tells us what has been going on in her life and family, especially during the pandemic. She shares her personal journey and professional background on how she got into poker. Take note where she shares how to decisions while facing massive amounts of uncertainty. “The point is to hold all those possibilities in your head at once. To be thinking when you should be making the decision. What does that look like under different futures that might occur? So how much money might you win or gain under those futures, or I might be setting up a play. If one of those futures were to occur, you might do something now that allows you to do something later. You have to be thinking about all those things at once. So you always have to have it in mind that the future is uncertain.” - Annie Duke Hedging Bets On this topic, Annie discusses the companions to bets, which are called a ‘hedge’. This, diving in deeper, can refer to the different ways the future can unfold and the negative impact it can have in life. Annie shares with us further its meaning as well as examples to help set the tone of the message. Further, she advises to mitigate and weigh in the cost that comes with the negative outcomes. She then connects hedging with what she calls ‘the paradox of experience’. “It fits into this broad category of something I call the paradox of experience, which is that you need experience in order to become a better decision maker. Any single experience could interfere with the lessons that you learn. There's many, many possible futures, but only one past. Once we know the past that occur, we sort of think of it as inevitable. Then we regret having done anything that would plan for any other future.” - Annie Duke Good Decision Process Annie discusses how choosing different options can contribute to the likelihood of receiving luck. This luck can influence life in different ways, whether for the good or bad. In addition, she discusses beliefs as a foundation of the decision making process and how the information gathered from this can contribute to the decisions made. “There's different probabilities of each option occurring. It could be that you have the same set of possibilities, but they have different impacts. The magnitude of those things is different. So this kind of tells you now if you can think about those two options. You want to understand what that set looks like. And then when you choose an option, what you’ve done is you’ve decided on the set of possibilities, and how probable each of those things is to occur. Which thing actually happens.” - Annie Duke To know more about how to make better decisions and the challenges that come with it, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Annie Duke has leveraged her expertise in the science of smart decision making to excel at pursuits as varied as championship poker to public speaking. Annie’s latest book, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices, is available on September 15, 2020, from Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint. Her previous book, Thinking in Bets, is a national bestseller. In the book, Annie reveals to readers the lessons she regularly shares with her corporate audiences,

188 Inside President Trump’s Business, Taxes & More w/ Author of Whitehouse Inc. Dan Alexander (Part 2) Oct 12, 2020

This is a giant one! Our prediction is that this episode will break the internet. Today, the second part of the series, we go deep with the Forbes reporter who, in all likelihood knows more about President Trump’s business, than anyone outside The Trump Organization, Dan Alexander. He’s got a deeply researched book called Whitehouse Inc. How Donald Trump Turned The Presidency Into A Business. We think it is important for every American voter, whether you love President Trump or not, to know what kind of business person he is. President Trump has promoted himself as an entrepreneur, so now we get to go deep into his business. Stunning Revelations There are many stunning revelations in this first part of the series. Dan answers the question, is the President actually a billionaire. He examines for us how well or how poorly the president businesses are currently doing, where he makes money, and loses money. He also dives deep into how much the President would have made if he had sold all of his assets, and put them in a blind trust and whether or not that would have been a better move for him. “I believe it was 1982. Donald Trump was on the first one [Forbes 400]. He should not have been, but he snuck his way onto that list. His father deserves to be on it. He did not. He sort of conned his way onto the list.” - Dan Alexander Owning Complex Businesses Also, you're going to discover what happened politically, after the Government of Qatar rented office space in a building in San Francisco, that the President owns 30% of. We also get into the potential conflicts of interest the President faces as he owns such a complex business organization. Further, we get Dan's take on the New York Times report on Mr. Trump's taxes. Conversation with Eric Trump You can also find in this episode about Dan’s conversation with Eric Trump and what Eric Trump told Dan, about his father's involvement in the business during the presidency. Eric also revealed to Dan, what the Trump organization's real business strategy is, and a whole lot more. Dan and Christopher try to unpack this information as best as possible. “I asked Eric about it. I said, ‘what are your plans here?’ He told me, flat-out, that he planned on updating his dad on the financials of the business. This was like a month or two after his dad said the exact opposite. So right there, upfront, one of the core promises falls by the wayside. Then you have Trump promises that he's not going to do any new foreign deals. He does limit some of his foreign deals, as I mentioned earlier. He does do new foreign deals, he ends up selling land in the Dominican Republic while he's in office.” - Dan Alexander To know more inside information on President Trump’s Business, Taxes & More and for more information about the author of Whitehouse Inc., Dan Alexander, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Dan Alexander is a Senior Editor at Forbes where he covers President Donald Trump and he’s the author of White House, Inc. Links: Book: White House, Inc. Linkedin: Dan Alexander Twitter: @danalexander21 Forbes.com, Yes, Donald Trump Is Still A Billionaire. That Makes His $750 Tax Payment Even More Scandalous Sfchronicle.com, SF’s 555 California, partly owned by Trump, could be sold Forbes: Dan Alexander NY Times Book Review: White House Inc. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

187 Inside President Trump’s Business, Taxes & More w/ Author of Whitehouse Inc. Dan Alexander (Part 1) Oct 08, 2020

This is a giant one! Our prediction is that this episode will break the internet. Today, the first of two episodes, we go deep with the Forbes reporter who, in all likelihood knows more about President Trump’s business, than anyone outside The Trump Organization, Dan Alexander. He’s got a deeply researched book called Whitehouse Inc. How Donald Trump Turned The Presidency Into A Business. We think it is important for every American voter, whether you love President Trump or not, to know what kind of business person he is. President Trump has promoted himself as an entrepreneur, so now we get to go deep into his business. Stunning Revelations There are many stunning revelations in this first part of the series. Dan answers the question, is the President actually a billionaire. He examines for us how well or how poorly the president businesses are currently doing, where he makes money, and loses money. He also dives deep into how much the President would have made if he had sold all of his assets, and put them in a blind trust and whether or not that would have been a better move for him. “I believe it was 1982. Donald Trump was on the first one [Forbes 400]. He should not have been, but he snuck his way onto that list. His father deserves to be on it. He did not. He sort of conned his way onto the list.” - Dan Alexander Owning Complex Businesses Also, you're going to discover what happened politically, after the Government of Qatar rented office space in a building in San Francisco, that the President owns 30% of. We also get into the potential conflicts of interest the President faces as he owns such a complex business organization. Further, we get Dan's take on the New York Times report on Mr. Trump's taxes. Conversation with Eric Trump You can also find in this episode about Dan’s conversation with Eric Trump and what Eric Trump told Dan, about his father's involvement in the business during the presidency. Eric also revealed to Dan, what the Trump organization's real business strategy is, and a whole lot more. Dan and Christopher try to unpack this information as best as possible. “I asked Eric about it. I said, ‘what are your plans here?’ He told me, flat-out, that he planned on updating his dad on the financials of the business. This was like a month or two after his dad said the exact opposite. So right there, upfront, one of the core promises falls by the wayside. Then you have Trump promises that he's not going to do any new foreign deals. He does limit some of his foreign deals, as I mentioned earlier. He does do new foreign deals, he ends up selling land in the Dominican Republic while he's in office.” - Dan Alexander To know more inside information on President Trump’s Business, Taxes & More and for more information about the author of Whitehouse Inc., Dan Alexander, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Dan Alexander is a Senior Editor at Forbes where he covers President Donald Trump and he’s the author of White House, Inc. Links: Book: White House, Inc. Linkedin: Dan Alexander Twitter: @danalexander21 Forbes.com, Yes, Donald Trump Is Still A Billionaire. That Makes His $750 Tax Payment Even More Scandalous Sfchronicle.com, SF’s 555 California, partly owned by Trump, could be sold Forbes: Dan Alexander NY Times Book Review: White House Inc. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

186 Purpose Driven with Sal Khan (Khan Academy) & Navin Chaddha (Mayfield) Oct 02, 2020

We have another super special episode for you today. Recently, Christopher was lucky enough to get an opportunity to start a new podcast with Navin Chaddha, who leads Mayfield, one of the top venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. What you're about to listen to is a recent episode of the brand new podcast called Conscious VC. It's with an extraordinary man named Sal Khan. In this episode of Conscious VC, Naveen and Christopher have a riveting conversation with Sal, he takes you into why his mission is free education for everyone in the world. He unveils some of his biggest learnings in building an incredible education nonprofit, the Khan Academy, and his key learnings for entrepreneurs. Free World Class Education Navin, Sal, and Christopher discuss Sal’s professional and personal achievements, as well as, Khan Academy, its mission and what it stands for. Sal goes into detail about Khan Academy’s mission not being about profit, but rather establishing free world class education for anyone anywhere. He hopes that this platform can lead to various opportunities for the children. Whether that be through college admissions, apprenticeships, and job opportunities. “You know, I think these days, it's very easy to beat up on public education. There's a lot of things that are imperfect, a lot of things that need to be fixed. We're trying to work in partnership with school districts and teachers to help address some of that. I think it is worth it. Giving credit for how much the world has transformed because of this very aspirational public education.” - Sal Khan Be Authentic and Honest Sal and Navin dive deeper into the factors that have contributed to Khan Academy and Mayfield’s success. Sal shares his key learnings and advice for entrepreneurs who plan to follow in his footsteps. It all starts with the vision, mission, and key insight. These all bring back to the question of how one can make the world a better place. He continues to discuss how content should be based on what you’re excited about and what you truly believe in. Sal hopes Khan Academy can fulfill this potential and create a legacy that can help shape the world. “My role is to make sure that Khan Academy can really stay true to the vision. Now, while hopefully I'm alive for many decades. I want to retain it, that focus on a mission, which historically, nonprofits can be reasonably good at. At the same time, I want to stay nimble. There's one fear that Khan Academy disappears, and it's not able to fulfill its potential. There's another fear that it fulfills its potential, but then it becomes the legacy, it becomes the entrenched interest.” - Sal Khan Creating Pathways to Learning Navin and Sal share more about Mayfield and Khan Academy as well as the programs they offer to help expand the students opportunities for learning and growth. He discusses his fascination on these innovative models and how they have paved a way to the hybrid online world. Sal then goes on to talk about how these programs are truly a fast track opportunity for the students. In addition, he shares the struggles that they have been facing combining both the platforms of education in the midst of the pandemic. “I think from my perspective, we need more people like what Sal has done with his life. People who are helping build businesses, for better and are making a positive impact in the world. I hope many people and entrepreneurs who don't need to do this, including VCs like me, use our time, money, ideas and access. We can even start with 1%. And that's what Mayfield has started with the pledge 1%. And my belief is, each smaller drop in the bucket fills buckets that can fill in a pond, and then sky's the limit. So we have to just get started and have role models like Sal and others who are showing us the way. I think we have endless possibilities.” - Navin Chaddha To know more about the mission and vision of Khan Academy and Mayfield, download and listen to this episode. Bio:

185 UnHealthcare: Why The Future is “Health Assurance” | Kevin Maney Bestselling Author / Category Designer Sep 28, 2020

We continue our run on legendary, bestselling authors today with Kevin Maney. Kevin is a technology executive who's covered tech for over 25 years for outfits like USA Today, Newsweek, and many others. He's the co-author of my first book: Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, Innovators Create and Dominate Markets. Today, we have a fascinating conversation about how technology is driving a massive shift from traditional approaches to health care — which Kevin sort of frames as “sick care”— to a new category that he and his co-authors called health assurance. Conscious Capitalism Kevin believes that consumers will start to embrace new and interesting products and services when the pandemic ends. In fact, the VC community and Fortune 500 companies started to realize a massive shift within their policies and are now focusing on conscious capitalism. “We're actually embarking on a huge project that has around this idea of, call it what you will, conscious capital of responsible innovation.” - Kevin Maney From Book to New Category Design Kevin describes how he got together with Stephen Klasko, the CEO of Jefferson Health, one of the biggest health care systems in the country based in Philadelphia. They took that healthcare chapter of Kevin's book, Unscaled, to write a manifesto. The manifesto is about 60 pages long, describing how new technologies can take apart the old healthcare system, which was based on taking care of people after they were sick. “We actually tried to attempt in this book to literally create a new category of healthcare that we call health assurance.” - Kevin Maney What Healthcare Has Become In part, Kevin describes the word healthcare as becoming an industrial complex, in reality, is not a “healthcare system.” He further shares that the system is designed to take care of us after something bad happens to us, not to help us stay healthy. The economic incentives are around doing operations and not keeping us “out of hospitals.” “We ended up writing about in the book, these health assurance technologies that have been in place before COVID happened. You would have been able to see the patterns happening as it shifts around the globe, in almost real-time. So we ended up redoing the book to reflect all of that.” - Kevin Maney To learn more about healthcare and why the future calls for health assurance, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Kevin Maney is a bestselling author, award-winning columnist, and partner at Category Design Advisors (CDA). He co-authored Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets, which gave birth to the discipline of category design. His book The Maverick and His Machine: Thomas Watson Sr. and the Making of IBM is the definitive biography of the man who built IBM. Maney has been a contributor to Newsweek, Fortune, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Strategy + Business, HBR.com, CNN, and ABC News, among other media outlets. Additionally, he was a contributing editor at Conde Nast Portfolio during its brief run from 2007 to 2009. For 22 years, Maney was a columnist, editor, and reporter at USA Today. He’s appeared frequently on television and radio, including CBS Sunday Morning and NPR, and lectures at conferences and universities, including New York University, UNC in Chapel Hill, and his alma mater, Rutgers. Links: Kevin Maney.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

184 Create Your Own Calm | Bestselling Author Meera Lee Patel Sep 21, 2020

Today, we have a riveting conversation with bestselling author and artist Meera Lee Patel. She’s got a new book out called Create Your Own Calm: A Journal for Quieting Anxiety. We have a powerful conversation about dealing with anxiety and why Meera thinks, “the more you run away from something, the more it follows you.” You’ll also enjoy Meera’s thoughts on self-acceptance, why journaling is a powerful conversation with yourself, and pay special attention to Meera’s ideas around “the only way out – is through.” Dealing With Anxiety Meera describes where she is at the moment. She is in an in-between/transition time where she is feeling overwhelmed. Further, she shares that she is struggling to be “at the moment.” She is at, exactly what Christopher describes as, the “cocoon period.” “I feel unable to act sometimes to take action and that's on several different levels. Personal, emotional professional, I feel like I can't take action or make the changes that I want to make. Some of them are true, some of the limitations that I faced that we're all facing — travel, leaving our homes, things like that. They're real. Some of them, especially the emotional and mental ones, like, in most cases, they're not real. They're self-implemented and I'm working on undoing them.” - Meera Lee Patel What You Resist, Persists Meera describes how we are all in a constant anxious state. She reminds us of the importance of understanding why things are happening to us and the need to address this head-on to be able to work through them. She believes that ignoring what causes your anxiety will run after you in a different setting. “I think that is far more healthy and productive and useful than simply ignoring or pushing aside, or forgetting about what's happening. So often when people say ‘to just suck it up,’ ‘you need to move on,’ ‘don't dwell on this.’ What they're doing is ignoring what's happening to them.” - Meera Lee Patel Different Worlds and Philosophies People are often surprised when they meet Meera as she has “different worlds and philosophies.” She has different sides that are not exactly visible on her Instagram account. “I think in my work, my artwork especially, which tends to be very vibrant, and ethereal, expresses a side of me that would be unseen. Otherwise, that is simply the form it takes. It comes out in my painting, this very upbeat, kind of beautiful, peaceful watercolor, those aspects of my personality and my being come out in my work.” - Meera Lee Patel Meera also talks about why journaling is a form of conversation with oneself and a whole lot more. To know more about Meera and how to create your own calm, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Meera Lee Patel is a self-taught artist and writer who believes that anything is possible. She is the author of My Friend Fear: Finding Magic in the Unknown (TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House) a beautiful meditation on fear and how it can help us become who we really are--if we let it. She is also the author of three journals with TarcherPerigee, an imprint of Penguin Random House: Create Your Own Calm, a journal for quieting anxiety which encourages self-acceptance for quelling anxiety and stress. Made Out of Stars, a journal for self-realization that encourages the belief that we are already whole. Start Where You Are is a journal for self-exploration that is designed to help others understand that the answers they are seeking are contained within themselves. She is currently a core contributor to Uppercase Magazine, where she creates visual essays about the intersection of creativity and mental health. Links: Website: Meera Lee Instagram: @meeraleepatel Etsy: Meera Lee Patel Amazon: Meera Lee Patel We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business,

183 Life Is In The Transitions | Bruce Feiler, 7X NY Times Bestselling Author Sep 18, 2020

Bruce Feiler is a legendary thinker and writer and unlike in a normal interview, we go deep in this episode. Bruce has a monster new book out called Life Is in the Transitions. Today, we have a very big conversation about what Bruce calls “life quakes,” both voluntary (new job, getting married, moving) and involuntary (death of a loved one, loss of a job, divorce, etc). We also talk about why the linear, up and to the right “hero story” we get told about life is bullshit, why C19 is a collective, involuntary, life quake, what that means for all of us, and much more! Life Quakes Bruce shares how all the events that have occurred in his life led to his professional career today. He shares what he calls “life quakes” which pertains to a moment of big wrenching change that happens in one’s life. This pandemic has coincided with his book, Life is in The Transitions, which asks "how do you deal with the life quakes that happen in your lives?" Bruce even shares the “life quake” that he went through in order to have this mindset. Involuntary and Voluntary Bruce talks about how reading helped him discover the false narrative that is being blocked into human beings. He speaks about the narrative of life, being a linear path with only one bump along the way to success and happiness. This has led Bruce to believe that 53% of life quakes are involuntary and only 47% are voluntary, which he further explains in this episode. “I had to figure out what is going on now. How we see the world and how we need to update the way we look at our life. How do people tell their stories? This is what I uncovered. The linear life is dead. It's been replaced by nonlinear life. The nonlinear life involves many more life transitions. That became the big idea that emerged from my experience.” - Bruce Feiler Life Transitions Bruce shares how life quakes can either be voluntary or involuntary. Life transitions, on the other hand, must be voluntary. He advises people to make decisions that will bring back the power to control one’s life. In addition, he discusses how finding a higher calling can make you feel part of the team. A team that will help you get through your life transition together. It may rather be a rough and painful journey but it is a road paved with growth and renewal. “If we look at life transitions as periods that we have to suffer our way through, we are wasting half of our life. If we look at them as periods, they're going to be difficult and painful, but there's also opportunities for growth and renewal. That's the story of your life.” - Bruce Feiler To know more about life quakes and the transitions that come with it, listen to this episode. Bio: BRUCE FEILER is one of America’s most popular voices in contemporary life. He is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers; the presenter of two prime-time series on PBS; and the inspiration for the drama COUNCIL OF DADS on NBC. Bruce’s two TED Talks have been viewed more than two million times. Employing a firsthand approach to his work, Bruce is known for living the experiences he writes about. His work combines timeless wisdom with timely knowledge turned into practical, positive messages that allow people to live with more meaning, passion, and joy. His new book, LIFE IS IN THE TRANSITIONS: Mastering Change at Any Age, describes his journey across America, collecting hundreds of life stories, exploring how we can navigate the growing number of life transitions with greater purpose and skill. “One of those books that’s so profoundly aligned with the zeitgeist that you end up underlining the whole book,” wrote Arianna Huffington in Thrive Global. “Bruce Feiler is the perfect person to lead us on this journey.” The book was a Top 10 New York Times bestseller. For more than a decade, Bruce has explored the intersection of families, relationships, health, and happiness. His book THE SECRETS OF HAPPY FAMILIES collects...

182 From Unicorn Companies To Camels w/ Matthew Cowan, Next47 Venture Capitalist Sep 11, 2020

Today, we have none other than Matthew Cowan of Next47. Matthew and Chris have known each other for almost 20 years now. He's been both an investor and an entrepreneur and has invested in a lot of category queens and kings companies. In this episode, we have a wide-ranging conversation with Matthew about venture capital, entrepreneurship, and a whole lot more. How The Future Looks Like Matthew shares that the first question we have to take into consideration is with respect to opportunities. Every evaluation should start with the question: can businesses scale and grow in the current economic environment? He cites his company as an example, Visible, a platform that has an event management software. Prior to Covid19, they had their fair share of challenges. However, they found themselves on the positive side of this “new normal” as most companies shifted their conferences and events virtually. “All of our customers said, ‘look, I know we can't do these events in person, we still have to do these events. These are mission-critical for our customer relationships, and our forward progress. So we need you to help us figure out how to do events in a virtual construct.’ So very quickly Visible figured out a way to deliver you know, near term and experience that satisfies, you know, the key market requirements, and they just closed their best quarter ever by a factor of two x.” - Matthew Cowan Invest In Product Development Today is a great time for investors to think about the early stages of a new product. Further, Matthew says this is a good time to invest in a team of engineers, lock them in, and come out with a new product to launch. He further shares why this stage of focus is critical for businesses. “It's okay to lose a lot of money building a company you have to, but if your unit economics have never been positive, the only metric you're going to do is figure out how fast you can burn cash.” - Matthew Cowan The Wrong and Right Way In Investing Chris cites that there is a wrong and the right way in investing. Obviously the right way is investing in things that hopefully payoff overtime and the wrong way is in unit economics that will not be fixed. Matthew agrees to Chris saying that the greater fool theory is asking: “how do I just get this to the next level and get someone else to buy it — market investors, private equity firms, and others. “I think we're at the beginning of what's going to be an incredible wave of continued consolidation. We'll probably see that with the scooter companies, as well. Ride-sharing. Companies have to figure out how to create, you know, improve utilization. The way that these businesses could succeed is delivery, density, and utilization. For them to figure out a way to keep the cars full.” - Matthew Cowan on Uber To know more about Matthew Cowan and unicorn and camel VCs, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Matthew joined Next47 in 2018 and is based in Palo Alto. His investment focus runs the gamut from the high-growth supply and logistics market to vertical software applications for the enterprise. Though Matthew is a General Partner in the U.S., he also leads the firm’s activities in Israel and views the region as a vital source for deep tech startup activity. Before joining Next47, Matthew was the CEO and co-founder of Breezeworks, a mobile CRM platform for small business owners. Prior to Breezeworks, he was the co-founder of Bridgescale Partners, a late-stage venture capital fund with investments in companies such as BitGo, Jasper Wireless, Plum Organics and Proofpoint. Matthew was also the founding General Partner of Bowman Capital’s venture capital group, where he was responsible for leading investments in Arrowpoint Communications (sold to Cisco), Atheros (NASDAQ: ATHR), Broadbase (sold to Kana), epinions (sold to eBay), FastForward Networks (sold to Inktomi), Onebox (sold to Phone.com), ONI Systems (sold to Ciena), RemarQ (sold to Critical Path),

181 How To Build Legendary Software | Tim Tully CTO of Splunk Aug 31, 2020

Tim Tully is one of the most legendary technologies and product leaders of this generation. He is the Chief Technology Officer of $35 billion market cap company Splunk. He also runs the engineering, product, and tech operations. In this episode, we get into all of it, how to execute a big, bold product vision, what it takes to run a major technology organization in the era of COVID. Find out why Tim thinks that software needs to be indulgent in the way that it delivers an experience and much more. Born To Code Tim was at Yahoo for years. He did a ton for Yahoo's modern business. Most notably, Tim was on the team that helped to create the open-source database Hadoop. If you're in the tech world, you know how big a deal that is. If you're not, well Google it and you'll see but Hadoop is a major contribution to the data world. He shares in this episode how he grew up from a “tech household,” as both his parents were programmers from Silicon Valley in the 70s. “Obviously coding is one way that I can do a lot of things in a very flexible way and have a lot of control over a system.” - Tim Tully Inside Tim’s Mind Tim shares that his thoughts are classified into two things: what he wants to try to do next or what am he wants to try to improve. He is in constant search of how to improve things and how to solve a problem in front of him. He shares that although its innate in him to solve problems on his own, the real challenge of leading a team is how to help your team solve the problems with you. “If you're like a true engineer, it's really hard to let go of just solving every problem yourself. You have to very quickly learn that there's a team that needs to get the job done. You're not helping the team by solving the problem for them. What your job is to remove roadblocks and help them solve the problem and bring them along.” - Tim Tully Leading The Team Tim also shares how he as Splunk’s CTO is responsible not only for vision but also for delivering products since he is also the head of engineering. He gave a great insight into how his team works and ultimately, how he leads his team of champions. “I learned over time is the very best architects that you can have in a company, I think we have that here at Splunk. You know, they obviously have high IQ, but they have to have high EQ because the problem is they have to be able to influence and persuade large swaths of people without directly managing them.” - Tim Tully To know more about Tim Tully and how to build a legendary software, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Tim has served as Splunk’s Chief Technology Officer since 2017. Prior to joining Splunk, he spent 14 years at Yahoo in various roles, including leading engineering for the Media Organization, where his teams developed leading brands such as Yahoo.com, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Fantasy, Tumblr, Huffington Post, and Flurry. He previously served as Yahoo’s Chief Data Architect, where he led architecture across all data teams and developed much of that stack as well. Before that, Tim served as a Member of Technical Staff at Sun Microsystems in the JavaSoft team. Tim holds an M.S. from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. from the University of California, Davis. Links: Linkedin: Timothy Tully Splunk Blogs Author Tim Tully Splunk CEO Doug Merritt on Episode 166 We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

180 Feel Good Voting | Andy Roo Forrest Aug 28, 2020

Today, we speak with entrepreneur turned activist Andy Roo Forrest. He is the founder of a fascinating nonprofit called FeelGoodVoting.org who is on a mission is to get more people in the United States to vote. We dig into why there is a low voter turnout in the past elections, and most importantly, what can be done about it now. Andy and Chris also talk about how political attacks actually destroy the category called “politician.” Moreover, why this "attacks" drives disengagement and dissatisfaction among the voters. Lastly, find out how Feel Good Voting is creatively and innovatively using social media to encourage people to register and to vote. Apathy For President Did you know who won the last election in the United States? We all know that President Donald Trump won the electoral college and that's why he's president, garnering a total of 63 million votes. Hillary Clinton got 66 million votes. “But here's the truth. Neither one of them is the real winner of the last election in the United States. You see, apathy got 100 million votes because 100 million people did not vote in the 2016 US presidential election in the United States.” - Christopher Lochhead Age and Family Background Andy shares about a recent study from Knight Foundation, surveying 14,000 people and why they didn’t vote. One thing was clear, most of those belong to the 18 to 30 age group. The participants also noted a few more reasons such as “my vote won't matter,” it doesn't make a difference,” or “I don't understand what's going on,” and “I shouldn't vote because I don't know enough.” “A lot of people voted because they grew up in a family where their parents took them to the polling station. They remember their mom voting, and they went into a booth and pulled the curtain, and flipped the levers. A lot of people who don't vote have no tradition of that in their family.” - Andy Roo Forrest Old, White Voters There are a lot of factors at play for the upcoming elections since Covid-19 happened. The average voting age is 58 years old. It can be noted that over 65-year old, white voters take a huge chunk of the voting turn-up. “It boggles some of our minds that there's many white, older Americans who are right now deciding whether they're going to vote for Trump or Biden, that might seem that decision might seem preposterous to many of us. But most of the money in this campaign, upwards of $2 billion is going to be spent on that demographic because they show up and vote. - Andy Roo Forrest To know more about Andy Roo Forrest and his organization Feel Good Voting, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Andy Roo Forrest is a serial entrepreneur, songwriter, and social change activist. He has created restaurants, nightclubs, design studios, publishing companies, Disney Theme Park attractions, and a few experiences that don’t have names. In 1999 Andy co-founded the world’s most prolific board game design studio, which he sold in 2019. At the moment, he is currently the Executive Director of Feel Good Voting, an issues-based media initiative dedicated to the advancement of social justice and environmental action. Links: Feel Good Voting Feel Good Voting 3-minute video Feel Good Voting Strategy Brief We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

179 Black Entrepreneurs Matter / Women Entrepreneurs Matter w/ UCSC Prof. Robert Fairlie Aug 19, 2020

Why is there a disproportionate impact against Black-owned and Women-owned Businesses? Today in Follow your Different, Robert Fairlie, a professor at the University of California and a researcher for the National Bureau of Economic Research, shares his research on the impact of Coronavirus on small businesses and black and women-owned businesses. Impact of COVID-19 Rob shares the alarming figures that small businesses faced. From 15 million active businesses to 12 million, to the 15% unemployment rate in just one month (Bureau of Labor Statistics), Rob gives us facts and figures how devasting Covid-19 has impacted businesses. “I think they are starting to get become more attention focused on the business side of it and the importance of business owners. Not only do they create a route out of poverty or an alternative for income but they also create jobs.” – Rob Fairlie Impact on Black-owned Businesses Prof. Farlie says that there is a hugely disproportionate impact between White-owned businesses and African American-owned businesses. According to the data found from February to April, there’s a 41% decrease of active African-American business owners compared to a 17% decrease of active White business owners. “I'm just worried that this is going to increase racial inequality and gender inequality. It's not just going to be for a few months as we deal with COVID, but it's going to be longer. Retirements kind of maybe setting us back and that's a bigger, much bigger worry.” – Rob Fairlie Impact on Women-owned Businesses One of the reasons why there is a bigger drop in women-owned businesses is because they are in industries that cater to personal services that were shut down because of health risks. Another reason is that women-owned businesses are often smaller in scale and they do not have the resources to face all the regulations to operate during the pandemic. “There has been some new research and I'm working with a couple of co-authors to try to do a little more work on this. This shows that mothers are taking a disproportionate hit compared to fathers in terms of reducing their hours of work, dealing with children, dealing with homecare. This isn't just evidence from the US, this is evidence from a lot of countries around the world.” – Rob Fairlie To learn more about Prof. Rob Fairlie and the impact of COVID-19 on Black and Women-owned businesses, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Robert Fairlie is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and Research Associate, NBER. His research interests include entrepreneurship, education, information technology, inequality, labor economics, and immigration. Further, he received his Ph.D. and M.A. from Northwestern University and B.A. with honors from Stanford University. In addition to this, he has held visiting positions at Stanford University, Yale University, UC Berkeley and Australian National University. He has received funding for his research from numerous government agencies and foundations. He has testified to the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Department of Treasury, and the California State Assembly regarding the findings from his research, and received a joint resolution from the California Legislature. Links: Linkedin: Robert Fairlie UCSC Economics Faculty: Professor Robert Fairlie Research Papers on Impacts of COVID-19 on Small Business Owners Senate Bill referencing research UCSC People: R. Fairlie THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS: EVIDENCE OF EARLY-STAGE LOSSES FROM THE APRIL 2020 CURRENT POPULATION SURVEY IZA Institute of Labor Economics: Robert Fairlie We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

178 Transforming Education In The Era of Covid w/ Ted Dintersmith, Bestselling Author Aug 10, 2020

Today, we have a legendary conversation about schools and education. This is a topic that is not getting enough attention right now. With us today is Ted Dintersmith, the author of a great book called What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration From Teachers Across America. We talk about how we can make school work, especially today that we have a new reality. Ted has some powerful insights and some great ideas about that. We even get into how to make the weirdest school year in modern history as an opportunity to reimagine school and reimagine learning. What School Could Be Ted was with us back in 2019, at Episode 117, shortly after his book came out and he’s back as Chris digs into one of two important issues that we face today during Covid19, education. The other topic he will dive deep into is entrepreneurship. (Watch out for the next episode with the University of California. Santa Cruz, Professor Rob Fairley) He's been talking to a lot of the top educators in the country. Further, he gives us insights as we are standing on the edge of the new school year. If you care about our future, if you care about kids, if you care about education, I think you're going to love this conversation with Ted. Non-traditional Methods of Learning Ted shares with Christopher how he checked back with parents, teachers, school administrators, and students when Covid19 started. One outstanding finding he got was that those who were practicing non-traditional methods of learning were optimistic during this time. “The kids they work with were really good — pre-COVID — on identifying what they wanted to learn, turning that into an initiative. They wanted to manage their own time and draw out appropriate resources, other adults' online stuff, and then sticking with it until they proved something they cared about. In my book, with no sense of a looming pandemic. I said this is a really important skill for adults.” - Ted Dintersmith Anxiety and Stress This time has caused much anxiety and stress for teachers and school administrators. There is no right formula and it involves a lot of variables in deciding how to operate schools come September. Chris and Ted also discussed how "inconvenient" this set-up is for those who can privileged, but how devastating this set-up could be for a single-parent, juggling multiple jobs. “Even if you had a great plan to reopen, it requires money. Now, you just start marching through everything that has to be done safely for you to say, here's our plan to reopen. Here's an effective transportation plan. Here's an effective disinfected plan. Here's how we're going to staff classrooms, here’s what would happen to our students. Here's how we're going to add nurses on call. You look at everything that's required and then you say, ‘oh, by the way, do it with even fewer budget dollars because state local budgets have been hammered.” - Ted Dintersmith To know more about Ted and how school could be during Covid19, download and listen to this episode. Bio: About Ted Links: Ted Dintersmith Twitter: @dintersmith We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

177 God: A Different Dialogue | Pastor Dave Ferguson Aug 07, 2020

Now you might be asking, why are we dealing with God on a business podcast? Well, first of all, if you're a regular listener, you should know this is no normal business podcast. When this crisis started, we decided to steer right into this crisis, to frankly, help and scale ourselves to meet the challenge of this time. In this episode, Pastor Dave Ferguson joins us to talk about God. He is an award-winning author and the founder/lead pastor of Chicago's Community Christian Church. His book Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices For Leaders To Multiply Leaders is a must-read. Pay special attention to pastor Dave's thoughts on what he thinks God wants for all of us. Evil Cloaking As Christians Chris shares with Pastor Dave what has been occupying his mind and heart in the past months. Aside from another recent family accident, Chris shares how the case of the murder of his best friend has finally come to a close. The Santa Cruz police brought his murder to justice after they captured the four murderers. “The other thing you should know is, my dear friend Tushar, was a — and these are his words — a brown guy. They [murderers] we’re young, 19, 22, and 23. These men who murdered Tushar are white Baptists from Southern California.” - Christopher Lochhead Too Much Evil In The World Chris shares he does not expect anything from the baptist church, but at least a public denouncement of evil, especially after they learned that these murderers belonged to the said church. In fact, the father of one of the criminals is a pastor. “But just like with the discussion around the police, Pastor Dave, are there bad police? Yes, there are. Are there bad Muslims? Yes, there are. Are there bad Christians? Yes, there are bad human beings. Evil is a very real thing.” - Christopher Lochhead Having Important Conversations Pastor David recounts to Chris a few stories he had about the racial disparity and the clamor for equality. He spoke about African-American pastors and colleagues and about his parents (also pastors) who also joined the movement to have important conversations in their congregation. Pastor David also shares what he asks others from other people who are searching for meaning. “For people that are really sincerely seeking, I'm going like ‘just continue to search that, continue to pursue that. If it's real, because we're talking about God, in this case, he'll make himself real to you.’ In fact, I'll even sometimes challenge people, ‘hey, take 30 days and just pray ‘God, if you're real, make yourself real to me.’ There have been enough times in your history where God has proven himself real. He’s taking you down a really good path. He has consistently shown up.” - Pastor Dave Ferguson To know more about God from a completely different kind of dialogue with Pastor Dave Ferguson, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Dave Ferguson is an award-winning author, founding and lead pastor of Chicago’s Community Christian Church, a missional multi-site community considered one of the most influential churches in America. Dave is also the visionary for the international church-planting movement NewThing and president of the Exponential Conference. You can get more information about Dave at www.daveferguson.org or check out his latest book, Hero Maker. Links: Email DaveFerguson.org CommunityChristian.org Newthing.org Exponential.org HeroMakerBook.org Book: Hero Maker: Five Essential Practices for Leaders to Multiply Leaders (Exponential Series) We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

176 What is going on? | #1 Tech Analyst R “Ray” Wang Chairman Constellation Research Aug 03, 2020

In this episode, we have an amazing conversation with the world's number one tech analyst, Ray Wang. He's the founder of Constellation Research and the author of a spectacular, bestselling book called Disrupting Digital Business. We talk about what's going on with C19, is C 19 a bioweapon, and what's going on with bioweapons. We also talk about the digital giants and stock investing. Additionally, we talked about the future of enterprise tech and much more. Is C19 A Bioweapon? As a fan of conspiracy theory, Chris asked if indeed, Covid19 is a bioweapon. Ray shares it has not yet been addressed as of the moment but deconstructing the DNA of Covid19 says otherwise. He raised a serious call for treaties among countries as bioweapons are not a thing of the future. “Do we have offensive or defensive capabilities? And the thought crosses through every government's mind as to, what's required? What's within the limits? What treaties have we signed? So I don't think it was intentional. I think the safety protocols were definitely broken. I think it's not necessarily something they were planning to unleash. But it was something that they were studying.” - Ray Wang Currency Crisis and Cryptocurrency Ray also shares some of his views about the current “devaluing of dollars.” They also touched on the efforts of China and Russia to push forward the use of cryptocurrencies. Ray foresees issues with the use of cryptocurrencies, from currency exchange manipulation to funding of terrorists and untraceable purchase of ammunition. “We're seeing some massive shifts, and it's really the attack on the dollar that has been happening for some time. It's as if everybody is not in favor of the dollar being the world's reserve currency.” - Ray Wang Ransomware Gangs Chris and Ray talk about some recent events where some personalities' Twitter accounts got hacked and were asked to send back Bitcoin to get back their accounts. Aside from this, Ray shares a much deeper kind of attacks they receive, targeted to tech professionals like him. “We have insider threats, people inside companies that have either been placed, recruited, or turned. I'll say that again. They've been placed, recruited, scooted, or turned to work against the US, the country or a corporation. And this, we have cyber ransom spies going to work for government agencies and or corporations, with the foreign government agencies, whether knowingly or unknowingly, they have been told that, ‘hey, if you just stick into the drive over here, for a bunch of zero-day vulnerabilities, which we've packaged together very well, you can take out entire networks. And you can do your part, you know, in part of the revolution, or whatever revolution you're in.’” - Ray Wang To know more about Ray Wang and what’s going on in the world and tech world today, download and listen to this episode. Bio: R "Ray" Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Silicon Valley-based Constellation Research, Inc. He's also the author of the popular business strategy and technology blog "A Software Insider’s Point of View". With viewership in the 10's of millions of page views a year, his blog provides insight into how disruptive technologies and new business models such as digital transformation impact brands, enterprises, and organizations. Wang has held executive roles in product, marketing, strategy, and consulting at companies such as Forrester Research, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. His new best selling book Disrupting Digital Business, published by Harvard Business Review Press and now globally available provides insights on why 52% of the Fortune 500 have been merged, acquired, gone bankrupt, or fallen off the list since 2000. In fact, this impact of digital disruption is real. However, it’s not the technologies that drive this change. It’s a shift in how new business models are created.

175 The Startup Community Way w/ Brad Feld Jul 31, 2020

Today, we continue our run on top venture capitalists with none other than the legend, Brad Feld. He's the co-founder of Foundry Group and Tech Stars. He's on the Forbes Midas List and a Top Five Investor. He has a new book called The Startup Community Way. We have wide-ranging conversations from C19, making sense of this time of hyper change complex adaptive systems, the future of startups Silicon Valley and work, and why Brad is not leaving his house. Pay special attention to Brad's thoughts on how to deal with an unpredicted situation and where it can feel like we have a lot less control. The Three Crises Brad shares what’s on his mind at the moment, how he has stepped forward to help the governor of Colorado without leaving the confines of his home, and how he has pondered upon the three crises of the world today. “I referred to the health crisis, which is COVID, which generated an economic crisis, which we wouldn't have had otherwise, our economy was very strong, which has generated a mental health crisis and which is subsequently generated. racial equity crisis. All of these things are interacting with each other.” - Brad Feld Complex Adaptive Systems Brad shares how he realized that all of these crises were complex systems. In fact, in his book, The Startup Community Way, he bases the entire framework of how startup communities develop and evolve on complexity theory and the notion of complex adaptive systems. “I've really been soaked in that intellectually, not just in the COVID crisis, not just in the book, not just in all the dynamics around the businesses that I'm involved in, and I'm an investor in, but just sort of thinking about how as humans, we do such a bad job of understanding how to interact with complex systems. We want everything to become deterministic, linear or well defined and the vast majority of stuff we interact with isn't.” - Brad Feld Simple and Complex Systems Simple is making a coffee drink, complicated is designing a Boeing airplane, or conducting a business audit, and complex is raising a child. “I think a lot of people have been operating against the backdrop of believing that a lot of things are deterministic and predictive, and trying to function in a way where that is not natural. As humans, we want to control stuff. You want to understand what it is you want to do, fix things so that you're not fighting against them and you want to get to an outcome and you want to set a goal and make a goal.” - Brad Feld To know more about Brad Feld, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Brad Feld is co-founder of the Foundry Group and has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Brad previously co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and Techstars, and prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Feld was an early investor in Harmonix, Zynga, MakerBot, and Fitbit. A writer and speaker on venture capital investing and entrepreneurship, Brad has written a number of books as part of the Startup Revolution series, and writes the blogs Feld Thoughts and Venture Deals. He currently is chair of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and on the boards of Path Forward, the Kauffman Fellows, and Defy Ventures. Brad holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from MIT. An art collector and long-distance runner, he has completed 25 marathons as part of his mission to finish a marathon in each of the 50 U.S. states. He lives in Boulder, Colorado. Links: The Foundry Group Team - Brad Feld The Startup Community Way Twitter: @bfeld Linkedin: Brad Feld We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

174 Intentional Integrity | Rob Chestnut, former Airbnb Chief Ethics Officer Jul 27, 2020

In this episode, our host Christopher Lochhead speaks with Rob Chestnut on why integrity matters more than ever. Rob is the former chief ethics officer of Airbnb and the author of the new book Intentional Integrity. Chris and Rob go deep on strategies for handling a crisis and how leaders have to deal with the speed required in this age of canceled culture to get positive results. They talk about what exactly a chief ethics officer is, and why more companies are adding the position. Pay special attention to what Rob says about corporate MBAs and his thoughts on what the work world looks like after C19. Coping With Change Rob shares that the world is changing so rapidly. He says that he admires how we, especially kids, are coping with this incredible rate of change. He also shares the changes in leadership both corporations and governments. “I think the world is moving toward integrity, though. There's a connectedness that has led all of us to think about others in ways that maybe we haven't been thinking about people in the past.” - Rob Chestnut Cancel Culture Christopher shares a recent incident in a Santa Cruz restaurant and how it got a taste of “cancel culture” from its customers and employees, Rob shares his insights into this current movement, where employees and customers rally online. “Customers want to do business with businesses that share their values. Employees want to work in places that share their values. What we're seeing more and more is, if there's a mismatch, customers leave. Customers will leave very quickly and move their business elsewhere. If they perceive a business that isn't in line with their values. The same thing with employees, more than ever today.” - Rob Chestnut Chief Ethics Officer Rob also shares what a chief ethics officer does. Rob shares it is important for employees to know that someone is standing up and speaking about issues. He shares how this was implemented in Airbnb who has 5000 employees now. “The chief ethics officer does not make a company ethical, and a company doesn't need a chief ethics officer to be ethical. That role can help drive integrity into the culture of the company, by being the spokesperson on the leadership team, for ensuring that the company doesn't lose sight of its Northstar, of its purpose and its mission and to ensure that the company is thinking about all of this different shareholder, stakeholders, employees and alike.” - Rob Chestnut To know more about Rob Chestnut and intentional integrity, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Rob Chesnut is the general counsel at Airbnb Inc. As Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Chegg, Rob oversees the company’s corporate and legal relations. Rob brings over twenty-five years of legal experience from high profile e-commerce and technology companies. Prior to Chegg, Rob served as the Senior Vice President and General Counsel for LiveOps, Inc., a leading provider of call center outsourcing services. Before LiveOps Inc., he worked as eBay’s Senior Vice President of the Trust and Safety Department, where he oversaw the development of the company’s global detection infrastructure. With extensive experience in the U.S. Justice Department, Rob is the recipient of the Department’s John Marshall award for litigation, and the CIA’ Outstanding Service Medallion. When he’s not working, Rob loves to spend time with his family or head out to the golf course. Links: The Intentional Integrity Linkedin: Rob Chestnut Twitter: @chestnutrob Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead An Ethical Revolution We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

173 A Unique American Perspective w/ MK Palmore, Marine, FBI Exec & Cybersecurity Advisor Jul 20, 2020

We listen today to an extraordinary and unique perspective on what is happening in the United States right now. Our guest, the legendary MK Palmore, whose entire background positions him to be a leader of this moment that we all find ourselves in. Not only does MK have this incredible career as a Marine, as an FBI agent, now, but he's also a Silicon Valley-based executive at a major tech company. He is African American and his perspective on our world right now is like none other I have seen or heard, and we go deep on all of it. This is a very powerful conversation we hope gets heard by many. To Serve and To Protect Coming from a solid law enforcement background, MK shares the conversations that he is having with his former colleagues. He mentions that there should be an understanding about the basic concept of “being called to serve and protect” among law enforcers. Unfortunately, a number of law enforcers have a different agenda other than this core mission. “It requires, again, an understanding that, ‘hey, a potential problem exists.’ This is from law enforcement to the other side [minorities]. We need to be willing to listen so that we can make adjustments to how it is that we go about policing, which I think will be a huge challenge.” - MK Palmore Police-ing Is Extremely Hard Work MK describes the demands of police work. There are certain challenges involved in that profession that don't lend themselves to flow judgments. As these recent situations arise, he believes that there should probably be some training changes that need to happen on the law enforcement side. “Law enforcement officers are trained in a particular way so that they can make quick judgments or assessment of situations so that they can mitigate and bring down a situation as quickly as possible, to de-escalate a situation quickly as possible.” - MK Palmore Comprise To Let Healing Begin MK shares how strong leadership is needed to talk about issues and to compromise. This is the only route where healing can begin. He shares his experiences as an African American former FBI agent and now a Tech professional and how he contributes to the current issues. “While I do not believe that there is an explicit racism present in law enforcement, I do believe that there is implicit racism in our society. To believe that law enforcement is somehow immune to this, I think, is misplaced.” - MK Palmore To know more about MK Palmore, a Marine, FBI Exec & Cybersecurity Advisor and his unique American perspective, download and listen to this episode. Bio: MK was born and raised in Washington, D.C. It’s no surprise he was influenced daily and at an early age by the formative sights and sounds of our government at work. As a youth, he had already decided to embark on a career of service. This led him to the shores of Annapolis, where he was a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy, and afterward as a commissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps. Following his military service, MK began a 22-year journey as a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a key player behind numerous high-level investigations and an early combatant in the fight against cybercrime. During this impressive career of public service, MK honed his leadership skills, rounding out his tenure in an executive position leading the cybersecurity investigative teams of FBI San Francisco. Links: MK Palmore Linkedin: MKPalmore Twitter: @mk_palmore We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

172 Feelings Are Fickle | Dushka Zapata, Best Selling Author Jul 17, 2020

Today, we have one of our regular guest Dushka Zapata, one of the most prolific and important writers on planet Earth. Her work has been viewed on the Question and Answer site Quora, 165 million times. She's got a brand new book out called Feelings are Fickle, and Other Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me. We have a great conversation and she will definitely help you make sense of all that is happening in the world today. How Are You? Christopher and Dushka discuss how this question has been asked a lot of time during this time of Covid19. They shared how you can respond to this question or how to ask other the same question. Dushka shares the importance of intently asking since most people are suffering during this time. “I think that anyone that you encounter today, anyone is isolated, scared, overwhelmed, maybe unemployed, stressed. It's just like a really, really a moment of reckoning.” - Dushka Zapata Writing During Covid19 Dushka also shares about how she stopped posting online and started listening. She shares her process now as compared to pre-Covid19. The themes of her writing are more about shared experiences and now more than ever, everybody is experiencing the same thing. She finds it universal that everybody can relate now to her writing. “I have friends everywhere. I've lived in many places in the world throughout my life, and I have friends in Italy and friends in Switzerland and friends across Asia. We're all going through the same thing, through similar concerns and similar fears. It's horrible and fascinating.” - Dushka Zapata Cocoon Time and Optimism Christopher asks Dushka about her thoughts about the world being in a cocoon time, where there is pre-Covid19 and then there’s the future. Dushka describes it beautifully as she says this metaphor is full of optimism, as it relates to a caterpillar turning into a colorful and iridescent butterfly. “I think I would want to make a distinction between optimism and toxic optimism. Toxic optimism is: ‘I believe that things will work out in a good way.’ That is optimism. Toxic optimism is ‘me believing that things will work out in a good way’ is a wall between me and understanding the possibilities. So am I putting up other possibilities that people have not considered or am I blind to what's actually happening today?” - Dushka Zapata To hear more about Dushka and why feelings are fickle, download and listen to this episode, Bio: Dushka Zapata is one of the most prolific and popular writers working today. On question and answer site Quora her work has been viewed over 165 million times. She’s the author of ten best-selling books. Dushka has over 20 years experience as a senior communications executive in Silicon Valley. When she’s not writing, she works as a communications executive in San Fransciso. Links: Quora: Dushka Zapata Feelings Are Fickle Twitter: @dushkaamateur Linkedin: Dushka Zapata We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

171 Black Entrepreneurs Matter w/ D’Narius Lewis Jul 13, 2020

Today, we have a very big conversation about social change, entrepreneurship, Black Lives Matter, and a whole lot more with author, entrepreneur, and speaker, D’Narius Lewis. We believe he represents a voice that is not being heard enough right now — the voice of young African American entrepreneurs. D’narius has gone from homeless to successful. He is the founder of Optimum Outreach, a telecom brokerage firm. Frankly, we need to be asking ourselves “how do we foster an environment where there are a lot more D’narius Lewis’ you see denarius amongst many entrepreneurs?” Living in Ground Zero Christopher probes D’narius what it is like to be a young black male American entrepreneur, living in the “hood” in Minneapolis, which, as you know, is where George Floyd was killed. D’narius described how on the same day as his birthday, literally just 30 minutes away, George Floyd suffered from police brutality. “Everyone wants to have this conversation but until you actually put yourself on the ground level and take action and see why people are protesting, see why people are frustrated. There has to be a reform behind everything that's been created. It's a never ending conversation.” - D’Narius Lewis What It Would Take For A Breakthrough D’Narius believes having the right conversations are essentially what needs to be done to get something out of the Black Lives Matter movement. “Right now, we're still having a debate to why this isn't even a conversation. Racism is not real and so having that first conversation is really like ‘let's actually sit down and break this down. Let’s not be defensive. Let's actually break down the facts.’ Once we get down that road, then let’s break down defunding the police department. A lot of people want to defund the police department. The police department defunded funds is not completely defunding a police department. It is taking funds that can be allocated to the community, to allocate for individuals and mental health spaces. ” - D’Narius Lewis Crime is Crime By Humans D’narius shares more about humans committing crimes and how people want to be treated as humans. He also shares about what is happening at the local level, especially why the activists are not the person responsible for the riots. “We're still having the same conversation that Martin Luther King had Malcolm X had. Now we're in the 2020s many years away from that conversation and we're still saying, ‘hey, are we're still being killed on the streets by police brutality,’ ‘hey, we're still living in poverty from from years of being set free, but not actually given a system to be a part of.’ The list goes on and on of all these different roadblocks and loopholes that I might know I've had to go through because the system wasn't built for us.” - - D’Narius Lewis To hear more about D’Narius and social change, entrepreneurship, Black Lives Matter, and a whole lot more, download and listen to this episode. Bio: D’Narius Lewis was born May 25, 1993, in Shelby County, Tennessee. His family then moved to Minnesota in 1998 where he currently resides. D’Narius was raised by his single mother; being the youngest and only boy in his family shaped his outlook on life and the concept of survival and determination. He has stepped up to the plate as being the man of his household to keep his family as a unit. A born entrepreneur, D’Narius Lewis started his sales career at the age of 15 when he began selling iPhones and Androids off Craigslist; this led to his passion for business and entrepreneurship. While in college D’Narius balanced a full time job along with being a student. His balance became overwhelming and he often found himself having to decide to go to work or school. He later got fired from his job and eventually dropped out of college in rebellion to the demanding college lifestyle. During that time, until he was 21, D’Narius had worked over 6 jobs and found his instability to be the result of his lack of passion,

170 Tech Icon Bob Evans of Cloud Wars Live Podcast Jul 10, 2020

Today we have Bob Evans, tech industry icon, the host of Cloud Wars Live Podcast, and a regular guest at Follow Your Different. Yes, he’s back. We have a wide-ranging conversation that intertwines business life, what's going on right now, technology, and many other things. We also talked about several topics such as moments of transformation, stepping up to your calling in times of challenge, and in times of crisis and particularly, about what Bob calls constructive fear. Positive Transformation Being good friends for years now, Bob recounts his previous phone conversations with Chris and how the past year had been very challenging for him. Bob saw how much Chris had endured from all the personal horrific experiences he had, and how he overcame the challenges and successfully launch the world’s first Podstorm. “There are only two choices, continue to walk through fire or just get in a fetal position with a bucket of back Jack Daniels and a big bag of weed and fucking forget it ⁠— which, by the way, I did a lot of too.” - Christopher Lochhead Christopher shared his realizations where many of us in our country are suffering because of Covid19 and the recession. He also shared about the civil unrest and that moving forward with your life is really a matter of personal choice. Constructive Fear Bob also shares how life-changing Akshay Nanavati and his book Fearvana. He was particularly moved with the thought of dealing with fear and taking action, which is he also called constructive fear. “I think fear is one of the most potent human capabilities or weapons we have, but only if it's used in the right way, in a constructive way, when we allow it to overrule our thinking or our higher-level capabilities.” - Bob Evans The Youth, The Future and More Since Chris works with a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of young leaders, who will be big leaders of tomorrow, Bob asked about how to encourage them to answer their calling. They also talk about letting your emotions reign from time to time and how the future will have dazzling opportunities. “There's no time in history you'd pick other than now. Human beings have never been more wealthy than they are now. They've never been more healthy than they are now. Do we have problems? Yeah, of course, we do. But I think now is an extraordinary time and to your question on younger people, do shit that matters. Make a difference.” - Christopher Lochhead To know more about Bob, his thoughts on technology and more, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Bob grew up outside of Pittsburg, with hard-working parents and his 6 siblings. Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978 and entered the business world, flowing his passion for information technology and writing. He rose to become the editor of Information Week, one of the top two publications in technology at the time. He became the SVP and Content Director for Information Week’s parent company TechWeb/CMP After thirty years in the media business, he left to join the world of software vendors, after a quick stop at ERP vendor SAP, Bob was recruited by the world's 5th richest person, a legendary category designer, and entrepreneur — Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle. At Oracle Bob served as SVP and Chief Communications Officer for Larry. Today Bob runs his own strategic communications firm, is a prolific writer, a tech industry commentator, public speaker, and a legendary guy. He hosts the widely popular Cloud Wars Live Podcast. Links: Cloudwars Podcast Twitter: @bobevansIT Linkedin: BobEvansIT We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

169 A Republic, If You Can Keep It | David Crane of Govern For California Jul 06, 2020

Today, we have a very big conversation about how to drive real social and political change with a guy who's a Stanford lecturer, who is a former adviser to Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and today is the founder of Govern for California. His name is David Crane. We go deep on why state and local governments matter so much and matter in ways that the federal government doesn't, as it relates to yours and my day to day life. What really drives politicians, how the call we are having right now, for social and racial change in the US could actually lead to not much change at all, and what needs to happen in order to make real change occur. Figuring Out Politics David spent 25 years in business until he was 50 and ready to retire. Fate must have brought David to politics because his long time friend Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to run for office and asked for his help. He was a bit shocked when he first stepped into the ring as he didn’t realize how to play the game of politics. “I thought I knew everything about politics and policy, that was my principal interest in life. I got up to Sacramento and I learned I knew nothing. It just blew me away at the age of 50 to learn that the area that had been my avocation that I thought I really knew, I didn't know. “ - David Crane Politics is Business New people who get elected into office do not know the way the game is played. It is a business and David placed it into perspective in this episode. He shared how the State operates for its customers, who are the citizens, specifically the students who take Kto12 Education, Medicaid beneficiaries and corporations and business entities. “The State of California alone this year will spend $300 billion 100 billion alone on K through 12. Education, 100 billion dollars alone on Medicaid. For now, more than 13 million Californians one in three Californians is covered by Medicaid. Well, the principal recipients of that 200 billion are employees and corporations and their customers. The state of California will pay very serious attention all the time to what's going on with that government. They're in the state capitol every day and the legislators and the governor see them all the time.” - David Crane The Role of The Federal Government David also shares the structure of state government versus the federal government. The former has three to five times the number of employees since they are service-oriented to the people of the state than the latter. He also likened the federal government as an “insurance company with an army.” “State local governments do everything else. Public education, public safety, public transportation, and that's why there are four times as many employees in the state local government than there are in the federal government, even though the federal government spends much more money.” - David Crane To hear more about David Crane and his thoughts on what drives politicians, and how the call we are having right now for social and racial change in the US will not have much effect, after all, download and listen to this episode. Bio: David Crane is a lecturer in Public Policy at Stanford University and president of Govern for California. From 2004-2010 he served as a special adviser to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and from 1979-2003 he was a partner at Babcock & Brown, a financial services company. Crane also serves on the board of the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California and formerly served on the University of California Board of Regents and as a director of the California State Teachers Retirement System, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Volcker-Ravitch Task Force on the State Budget Crisis. Links: Twitter: @DavidGCrane Website: David G. Crane Govern For California Org Standford University, Public Policy: David Crane TheHill.com: Coronavirus aid should go directly to the people Medium.com: CA Passes A Disappointing Budget

168 Conscious Capitalist Navin Chaddha of Mayfield Jun 29, 2020

In this episode, we continue our run of top Silicon Valley venture capitalists with Navin Chaddha, who leads Mayfield, one of the oldest and most storied venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley startup world. Navin has been on the Forbes Midas list for a long time and is a top-five investor according to Forbes. We have a wide-ranging conversation where we deal with everything from diversity to philanthropy, Navin's backstory, what he calls superhumans, and pay special attention to why Navin thinks that biology is a technology. Leading a 50-Year Old Company Navin leads the company Mayfield, which is on its 51st year of operations in 2020. He considers this opportunity as a real blessing and one that is filled with responsibility as well. He is optimistic about the future, but is wary of serious impending issues of the world such as this widespread disease and racial disparity. “We have to ensure it's all about people because one of the founding mottos of the firm is people make products, products don't make people are everything. So whatever we do, we want to live by the people and do good by others, at the same time, do well as a firm and for our investors and entrepreneurs. - Navin Chaddha Becoming A Conscious Capitalist Navin shares how venture capital needs to change. Instead of investing money and helping entrepreneurs, Navin challenges his fellows to become conscious capitalists. Mayfield pledges to this movement, as they aim to contribute yearly 1% of their management fee and 1% of their carry, to give the opportunity to underrepresented students and entrepreneurs. “There we take a balance of what we can do, not only financially, but what can we do for human and planetary evolution in the form of giving back some of the financial resources we have, but also giving back our time.” - Navin Chaddha Entrepreneurship & Underrepresented Communities Navin shares his thoughts about underrepresented communities and entrepreneurship. He encourages them to reach out to VC’s such as Mayfield, who will launch the program Access For All, with the premise of making capital available across all boards. “It has to be done by people who want to be entrepreneurs. They need to just lean forward and make the plunge. They need to go make sure they get good mentors, whether it's their advisors, whether it's former entrepreneurs, whether it's potential customers, whether it's legal firms, or people like you, beyond venture capitalists, whom they can look upon and get some advice and I call that mentorship capital. Once they have those things in place, please come approach the venture community because we are all focused around funding innovation, and helping people achieve their dreams.” - Navin Chaddha To hear more about Navin Chaddha and becoming a Conscious Capitalist, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Navin Chaddha leads Mayfield. He has ranked on the Forbes Midas List of Global Tech Investors 12 times, including being named a Top Five investor in 2020. During his career as a venture capitalist, he has invested in over 50 companies, 17 of which have gone public and 20 have been acquired. Some of his investments include Lyft, Poshmark, SolarCity, Hashicorp, Elastica, CloudGenix, and CloudSimple. As an entrepreneur, he has co-founded or led three startups including VXtreme, a streaming media platform, acquired by Microsoft to become Windows Media. Navin is a committed philanthropist who directs Mayfield’s 50-year tradition of philanthropy to support many causes including diversity, health, hunger, and education. Interests: Cricket, Bollywood. Links: Navin Chaddha Top VC Unveils Crisis Leadership Strategies For Entrepreneurs We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

167 The State of The United States w/ Asha Rangappa, Ex-FBI Agent, Yale Lecturer & CNN Analyst Jun 22, 2020

Imagine being able to sit down and have a meaningful conversation about the state of the United States. We speak with a woman who is a Yale-educated lawyer, a graduate of the FBI famed Academy in Quantico Virginia, and a former FBI counterintelligence investigator. This woman is a senior lecturer at Yale and a legal and national security analyst for CNN. That woman is none other than Asha Rangappa. We have a powerful conversation about the state of affairs in the United States and the decline of social capital. We talk about the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement, and more. This is a big insight into what's going on in our world today. Shakespeare and Current Events Asha narrated how she became a Shakespeare aficionado. She even found herself playing roles in several Shakespeare theatre adaptations. She shares how she finds Shakespeare's stories as universal, which also explains why these get a lot of modern adaptation. “You can actually look at characters and understand motivations of people today through his words. So I'm a big fan. I don't know if that answers the question of why Shakespeare but I find him especially relevant to current events.” - Asha Rangappa 30% of Americans Don’t Trust Each Other Asha recounted to Christopher how the United States is at a moment of the lowest level of general social trust since World War Two. Social capital is referred to as “the value that we get from our relationships with other people.” She further explained that strong social capital is essential for a healthy democracy. A high social capital means there is a generalized social trust. In short, people care about the well being of their fellow man. “Most Americans don't trust each other. This is actually a question on the General Social Survey they've asked, but asking it since 1972, and we're at the lowest response, which is about 30% of people say that most Americans can be trusted.” - Asha Rangappa Worst Possible Choices Being Made Asha believes we are currently in a crisis point. She agrees with Christopher that circumstances are forcing people to decide on the future that they want to live in. “On the roster of choices have been made, whether it's with the pandemic or the economy or in response to the protest, and I'm talking about, the Trump administration. So, I think that it has brought to the fore what I was talking about before that, we are at a precarious moment. I have felt that this has been a precarious moment, even before this. I think the urgency of it might be brought home to a greater degree, because of this kind of critical state that we're in at this moment.” - Asha Rangappa To know more about Asha and her thoughts on the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement and the general state of the United States, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Asha Rangappa is a Senior Lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and a former Associate Dean at Yale Law School. Prior to her current position, Asha served as a Special Agent in the New York Division of the FBI, specializing in counterintelligence investigations. Her work involved assessing threats to national security, conducting classified investigations on suspected foreign agents, and performing undercover work. While in the FBI, Asha gained experience in electronic surveillance, interview and interrogation techniques, firearms, and the use of deadly force. She has taught National Security Law and related courses at Yale University, Wesleyan University, and the University of New Haven. Asha graduated cum laude from the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study constitutional reform in Bogotá, Colombia. She received her law degree from Yale Law School and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Juan R. Torruella on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

166 Radical Business Transformation | Doug Merritt CEO of Splunk Jun 10, 2020

Today, we speak with a very special guest about a critical topic: radical transformation. Doug Merritt of Splunk joins us for a conversation about Splunk's journey, their radical technology, delivery model, and business model transformation. Pay special attention to Doug’s depth and breadth of detail about their business, their technology modeling stack, business model, and their financial model. I think you’ll find it fascinating to hear what it really takes to be the CEO of a high-growth, high impact company. Radical Transformation Christopher shares that almost all aspects of the world are going through a transformation right now. Doug agrees about the uncertainties and changes in our environment. Likewise, he shares how Splunk has undergone and is continuing the process of radical transformation. “We targeted over four years ago, four simultaneous transformations. First was shifting our business model. The second was completely rethinking and delivering a different product portfolio. The third was the market shift. Fourth, complete rethinking and reimplementation of our business processes and infrastructure technology. It's been a lot of work. We're not done. We're not done yet, but we continue to make good progress.” - Doug Merritt Risk and Reversibility Doug shares an important point if you plan to have a radical transformation, that is to consider risks and reversibility. He relates sheltering in place or shifting to a work-from-home arrangement as a reversible decision. On the other hand, transforming the business model or pricing has an irreversible effect, or would entail a lot of work to reverse the risks. “Jeff Bezos talks about it and I think it's very catchy: is your change a one way door or a two way door? Obviously a one way door, you may get back in, but you have to get an axe and maybe a wrecking ball. It's going to be a lot of pain and effort to get back in to a door like that. A revolving door in a hotel you go out, maybe you don't like it, you can choose to go back in. It's easier to reverse.” - Doug Merritt Growing Splunk Doug shares how fortunate the Splunk team is while undergoing a radical transformation. They initially have revenues and drastically improved it while transitioning, and while maintaining their public status. They also continue to acquire companies, such as their recent $1B SignalFx. “To be able to take on that degree of change of disruption, of difficulty and somehow still over-deliver versus expectations, I think that we are in a category of one right now, but I'm hoping that there are more that come behind us.” - Doug Merritt To hear more about Doug Merritt, CEO of Splunk and more about radical transformation, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Doug Merritt has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer and a member of our Board since 2015. Previously, Merritt served as Senior Vice President of Field Operations at Splunk from 2014 to 2015. Prior to joining Splunk, Merritt served as Senior Vice President of Products and Solutions Marketing at Cisco Systems, Inc., a networking company, from 2012 to 2014. From 2011 to 2012, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Baynote, Inc., a behavioral personalization and marketing technology company. Previously, Merritt served in a number of executive roles and as a member of the extended Executive Board at SAP A.G., from 2005 to 2011. From 2001 to 2004, Merritt served as Group Vice President and General Manager of the Human Capital Management Product Division at PeopleSoft Inc. (acquired by Oracle Corporation). He also co-founded and served as Chief Executive Officer of Icarian, Inc. (since acquired by Workstream Corp.), a cloud-based company, from 1996 to 2001. Merritt holds a B.S. from The University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Links: Splunk Linkedin: Doug Merritt We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him,

A Call For Unity | Yesterday In Santa Cruz Jun 08, 2020

Monday June 8th, 2020 Yesterday in Santa Cruz, I cried at the vigil for Sargent Damon Gutzwiller, of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s department. He was shot to death on Saturday. Yesterday in Santa Cruz, I paddled out for George Floyd. With over 500 people (A paddle out is how surfers mourn). There have been paddle outs for George Floyd all over the world. Yesterday in the Ocean of Santa Cruz, people of many races screamed “Black Lives Matter”. Together. Yesterday the people of Santa Cruz showed that you can stand against evil racism, and stand for good cops. At the same time. Because both are the same thing. Both are stand against violence. Both are stand against evil. Yesterday in Santa Cruz, I cried for these two men. And so did countless others. Of virtually every race. Of all the tears that were cried yesterday in Santa Cruz, every single last one of them, was colorless. Now, I’d like to share a deeply personal story with you. A story I have never shared before. Last year, one of my best friends was brutally murdered, in Santa Cruz. It will always be unbelievable and unbearable. A walk-through fire I wish on no one. If you are ever in this situation, you’ll discover how badly you need the cops. In the moments after I learned what happened, I was over-come by a Mavericks sized wave of horrible emotions and a profound sense of helplessness. Which is not a feeling I am used to. Sometimes, life gives you no choice. You have to grapple with a soul-crushing reality. You have to accept an absoluteness you cannot change. As this washed over me, I realized something. I desperately need the cops. Because, police have the authority and ability to solve heinous crimes in a way that no one else does. In our case, the agency in charge was the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department. After 231 days, over 3,000 hours of work, by countless professionals, across multiple peacekeeping agencies, in multiple states, the Sheriff’s Department caught them. The four evil men took my brother’s life. Now, you should know, he was a “brown guy” (his words). The four men who killed him are white. Over the past months, I’ve had a front-row seat to a massive, complex murder investigation. He’s what I learned. There are legendary cops. A lot of them. The dedicated public servants at the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department, lead by Sheriff Jim Hart, worked tireless to bring this evil to justice. We saw the sleepless nights the investigators endured. They fought as hard as I have ever seen anyone fight. We are forever grateful for the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Department. If I were to name all of the amazing people who worked this case, you’d stop reading this post. What I’d like you to know is, they cried with us. They comforted us. They exhibited extraordinary kindness. Above all, we got to see peacekeepers with an unending commitment to justice. I share this with you, because I have experienced the positive power of policing. I have seen women and men, of every race, get up every day, put on a bulletproof vest and a badge to risk their lives. To serve and protect us. So, the time has come for all of us to demand justice for George Floyd. To demand equality for African Americans and all people of color. And to demand real police reform. It is critical that we remember, that it is possible to demand justice for George Floyd, to demand reform and equality, and support the good cops. At the same time. There are some in our country who would divide us. Let us remember there is no us and them. There is no difference between Black, White, Brown or Blue. Because evil comes in all colors. And tears are colorless. Bless you.

165 The Gladiator Way w/ American Gladiator Dan “Nitro” Clark Jun 05, 2020

Today, we have a super fun episode with American Gladiator superstar Dan Nitro Clark. He's a former NFL player, best selling author, speaker, fitness freak, and heart attack survivor. For a big, manly, strong, muscley looking dude with a reputation like his, you might be surprised to hear he is incredibly open, candid, and vulnerable. We dig into his life as an athlete and a celebrity. He talks about what it's like to be among some of the earliest athletes in America to take steroids and what he learned from that. We talked about coming back from major setbacks and a whole lot more! Steroids Use Dan shares he started using steroids back when he was a freshman College. He wanted to secure a football scholarship badly and he resorted to the “in” thing at that time. Back then, it was unregulated and the only information available about it is that the body recuperates faster. “I think the fallacy in the misinformation is, anybody who takes steroids is going to get huge. No, you're not going to get huge. You still got to wait. You got to move waves. It still takes in a tremendous amount of work and effort and diet. Man, you got to go be willing to die, every workout.” - Dan Nitro Clark The Downside of Steroids As a strong promoter of steroids use, Dan still warns of the responsibilities one must take before, while and after using steroids. Steroids make the blood clot more so there are indications with regard to medical operations and procedures. It also increases estrogen levels in the body which explains why some men grow “manboobs.” “It puts you out on a fair playing field. So in that sense, I don't know if there's a lot of harm. I think the harm comes when you start to do monstrous levels. With anything excess, and there's equally when you have low testosterone, there are increased cardiac incidences. All these other side effects, as well and both sides too much too little. The idea is to be in the optimum range.” - Dan Nitro Clark Wearing The Meatsuit In a rare moment, Dan shares his personal experiences growing up. Looking back, he shares what he experienced with his divorced parents, the untimely death of his older brother at 12 years old, and how he coped with life as a broken young man. “I didn't have anybody to console me. His death my mom was Japanese, she barely spoke the language. So, you know, I learned to take care of myself emotionally. I learned that big boys don't cry. I learned you don't talk about your feelings. I learned you sucked it up. I think that was the thing. Nobody can hurt me. Nobody is going to touch me. I think that was the whole idea Why? You know, I wanted to be bigger, stronger, faster. I wanted to have this meat suit on.” - Dan Nitro Clark To hear more about Dan, the American Gladiator, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Dan is a former pro football player, American Gladiator, #1 Bestselling Author, TV Host, Entrepreneur, and Speaker. He has been featured on Good Morning America, The Early Show, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Tonight, ESPN, EXTRA, People, Time Magazine, Esquire, Men’s Health, Sport’s Illustrated, and the Huffington Post to name a few. If you’re looking for an extraordinary speaker on the topic of resilience and motivation, you just found him. Dan is a thought-leader and storyteller with the rare capability to not only inspire your audience to change but also teach them how. Links: Dan Nitro Clark The Gladiator Way We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

164 How to Build Billion-Dollar Startups | Osman Rashid founder Chegg & Convo.com Jun 01, 2020

Today, the second in a two-part series on entrepreneurship with none other than Osman Rishad, the founder of $8B, publicly-traded Chegg and now Convo.com. This is an inspiring conversation with a legendary entrepreneur about building billion-dollar startups. This is an inspiring, timely conversation between Christopher Lochhead and Osman, as the former believes entrepreneurs are going to play an outsized role in carrying us forward in recovering from the situation we all find ourselves in, and most importantly, in designing a future that really works. Fear of Being Irrelevant Osman narrates to Christopher how some people are still asking why he is continuing to “fight” or spearhead more companies and projects. He shares that he has given this question a thought and realized a lot of things why he keeps on pushing forward. “I felt that I wasn't adding any value. Frankly, that's when I realized maybe my number one fear in life is the fear of being irrelevant, that you have nothing to do. I actually love what I'm doing. I mean, I love building things. So it is not ‘work’ for me.” - Osman Rashid He further shared that nothing will stop him from doing what he loves, because everything else fell into its righteous place, such as marriage and building a family. Do Something of Value Christopher points out how hustle porn stars sold us a false narrative that entrepreneurship should equate to airplanes and Lamborghinis. Both agreed that although there is nothing wrong with financial independence, there are other important goals that should be celebrated. “I get happy when people around me get financial independence, economic freedom, as you said. But the goal is to build a great company. If you are doing something of value, then the financial outcome happens automatically. But if that's your actual focus, I would say the failure rate is going to be even higher than that.” - Osman Rashid Hallmark of Legendary Entrepreneurs Believe it or not, both Christopher and Osman believes you have to be a special kind of stupid to become a legendary entrepreneur. Being stupid means small and ordinary issues do not weigh you down. “At that time, I had no idea, I thought I was just being dumb about the whole thing. That's the beauty of it because I never thought about being a legendary entrepreneur. I'm not even sure I'm one right now. There are some amazing people out there. It was all about ‘look, I've got this problem to solve for tomorrow. If I don't solve this, I'm in deep doo-doo. So I'm going to solve this thing. The way I think of entrepreneurship, you have to be a little bit crazy in the head to go for it.” - Osman Rashid Osman further advises to find a specific problem that bothers you and try to solve it and within those process, you become an entrepreneur. To hear more about building a billion-dollar startup and for more information about Osman, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Osman Rashid is an executive and entrepreneur in the field of education technology. Currently he is the founder and CEO of Galxyz, an intergalactic science adventure that he founded in late 2013. Previously, he was co-founder and CEO of online textbook rental leader and student hub Chegg, remaining involved until early 2010 after dramatically growing the company from its inception in 2005. He was also co-founder and CEO of Kno, Inc., (acquired by Intel in November 2013) a digital education platform company. Kno, Inc. has received funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Intel Capital, Goldman Sachs, FLOODGATE and GSV Capital, while Chegg was funded by KPCB, IVP, Gabriel Ventures and others. Currently he is involved with ChildLife Foundation as a member of the Board of Trustees. Osman Rashid was born in London and did his early schooling in Ghana and finished middle and high school from Islamabad, Pakistan. He later moved to the United States where he received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from University of Minnesota in 1993.

163 How to build a breakthrough | Mike Maples, Jr. Floodgate Capital May 25, 2020

Today, the 1st in a two-part series on entrepreneurship, we have entrepreneur, Co-Founder of FloodGate and host of “Starting Greatness” Mike Maples, Jr. He recently wrote “How to build a breakthrough: the secret of back-casting” and we’re going to go deep on it today! Watch out for our next episode, we’re having founder/CEOs Osman Rashid. He started $8B, publicly-traded Chegg and now Convo.com. Status of Silicon Valley Christopher and Mike starts their discussion about the state of Silicon Valley. Both agreed that most of Silicon Valley companies are the first adopters of sheltering in place and work from home arrangements. It has definitely benefitted some companies who have adjusted early on. However, they also Mike also describes this coronavirus pandemic as a “hand of God” who “punished” some companies and catapulted some to success. “I've never really seen a situation where you have a tale of two types of businesses. Most recessions, they affect some worse than others, but they affect everybody badly to some degree. Whereas what we're seeing in this one is: it's almost like a lot of things that were already starting to gather, got accelerated forward — telemedicine, remote distributed work, distance learning, remote work infrastructure. So you could make the case that this has had a dramatic impact in both directions ironically.” - Mike Maples Jr. Moving Forward By Looking Backward Mike recently created an interesting piece about moving forward by looking backward. He mentions that the future doesn't happen to us. It happens because of us. He further explains why he wrote the piece and how it can help entrepreneurs plan their future. “Great founders design the future. Design is the right word. It's not just about drawings or how things look or even how they function or perform. It's about people with a determined idea of what a better future should be. Not only building that better future, but convincing people in the present to change the trajectory, that they're on.” - Mike Maples Jr. Create A Movement To Move A Market For Mike, entrepreneurs don't discover markets. They create movements that become markets. They move people to their point of view and they move people from the present to a better future. “I thought it might be useful to try to help entrepreneurs get some lessons that I'd received from some of the super performers that I've worked with on how do you build a breakthrough. I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to deconstruct what they do and how it's different from what normal startups look like. That is why I wrote this post on backcasting.” - Mike Maples Jr. To know more about how backcasting can help you design the future that you want and for more information about Mike, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Mike Maples, Jr is a Partner at Floodgate. He has been on the Forbes Midas List since 2010 and was also named one of “8 Rising Stars” by FORTUNE Magazine. Before becoming a full-time investor, Mike was involved as a founder and operating executive at back-to-back startup IPOs, including Tivoli Systems (IPO TIVS, acquired by IBM) and Motive (IPO MOTV, acquired by Alcatel-Lucent.) Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, ngmoco, Weebly, Chegg, Bazaarvoice, Spiceworks, Okta, and Demandforce. Mike is known for coining the term “Thunder Lizards,” which is a metaphor derived from Godzilla that describes the tiny number of truly exceptional companies that are wildly disruptive capitalist mutations. Mike likes to think of himself as a hunter of the “atomic eggs” that beget these companies. Interests: Calligraphy, cinematography, and sporting clays. Links: FloodGate Twitter: @m2jr Linkedin: Maples How to build a breakthrough, Medium We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

162 Tangentially Speaking w/ Dr. Christopher Ryan Bestselling Author & Podcaster May 20, 2020

Today, we continue our run of legendary authors and podcasters with Dr. Christopher Ryan, author of New York Times bestsellers, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships and Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress. He has a chart-topping dialog podcast is called, Tangentially Speaking, We have a fun, some times provocative discussion about everything from Muhammad Ali, what’s wrong with modernity, how the world is fundamentally changing, why living in a van is awesome, to what it’s like making a living as roving, smart person. The Legendary Muhammad Ali Christopher Ryan and Christopher Lochhead went into an insightful exchange of stories about Muhammad Ali. Chris shares during this lockdown, he discovered a YouTube channel that featured several classic fights and he enjoyed binge-watching on these. Chris mentions Pete McCormick, the guy behind a documentary called “Facing Ali” and he interviewed guys who fought Ali. The interesting backstory was, during these tune-up fights, Ali would handpick his opponent. “He would tell his agent, he heard one guy, his wife had been killed in an accident, so he will get a quarter-million dollars. He's beating people up in a charitable, generous way.” - Christopher Ryan Podcasting Has Been Instrumental Lochhead describes Ryan as “an insanely smart Ph.D. dude who seems to make a living being a smart guy, writing smart shit, podcasting smart shit, generally being the smart guy in the world.” He says podcasting has been instrumental in getting his message across. “It used to be, if you want to sit down and share your opinions to a hundred young smart people who are interested in hearing an old guy like me, you had a gig in the university. Universities are designed to filter out people like me or Joe Rogan or you, people who are liable to say something outlandish, to challenge this status quo.” - Christopher Ryan He further shares that he is generally pessimistic about the modern world, but one of the wonderful things that happened recently is that podcasting exploded. “It is almost like a printing press, it just exploded, the opportunity to have direct contact between someone in the audience and the audience chooses whether or not it’s worth listening to. It is not the administrators of the university or publishing house, you know the gatekeepers.” - Christopher Ryan What It Is Like Living In A Van Christopher says he owned an apartment for a while until last fall when he spent 5 months in the van. He ditched his apartment, rented a storage space, and continued living life on the road since then. He traveled across the United States during the summer and flew to tropical countries during the wintertime. “When this stuff got weird, end of January, I flew back. I didn't want to get stranded in Asia. I rented a house in a tiny little town in Colorado. I've been here, it is fantastic, there's no problem with social distancing. I like solitude. I like a good solid chunk of quiet and distance.” - Christopher Ryan To hear more about Christopher and what’s wrong with modernity and how the world is fundamentally changing, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher and his work have been featured just about everywhere, including Netflix, HBO, MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Times of London, Playboy, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, and The Atlantic. Chris has been a featured speaker at TED, SXSW, The Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House, the Einstein Forum in Pottsdam, Germany, and is a frequent guest on The Joe Rogan Experience and many other podcasts. He’s also provided expert testimony in a Canadian constitutional hearing and appeared in dozens of documentary films and television shows. Even before co-authoring the New York Times best-seller, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships (translated into 18 languages), with Cacilda Jethá, MD,

161 What IBM’s Experience In The Great Depression Teaches Today’s CEOs | Kevin Maney May 15, 2020

Today, we continue our run of legendary authors with Kevin Maney. He’s the world’s leading authority on IBM’s history. He shares some amazing insights into what IBM did during the 1930’s that ultimately positioned them for greatness. We also have a fascinating talk about what changes C19 might bring to the world and what that could mean for our businesses and careers. Writing About Thomas Watson Kevin is a multi-time best selling author of Unscaled and Play Bigger. He’s also a co-founder of Category Design Advisors, where he helps companies design and dominate their market categories. Today, Kevin shares how fortunate he was to be able to write a biography of Thomas Watson, the man behind IBM. “I have been watching what’s happening and there's all this economic damage and talk of a long term recession or depression everybody has to get through. Seeing companies laying off people, right and left and the jobless rate going through the roof and all these pain that is being caused made me think back to IBM in the 1930s during the Great Depression.” - Kevin Mahey IBM and The Great Depression Kevin narrates the amazing story of how IBM took the lead during a crisis. It was just a few years after the great depression. Instead of ceasing operations just like any other major corporations, he allocated funds to manufacturing and research and development. “Imagine the tension, there's no revenue coming in, spending all this money keeping these people, building machines and he is running out of time. Then this amazing event happened.” - Kevin Mahey Then-President Roosevelt devised programs to assist companies wherein the government will be needing a lot of reports on salaries. IBM, being the only capable company to fulfill this demand then stepped into the picture. This made IBM as it is now and Thomas Watson, one of the greatest CEOs of all time. Crisis As An Opportunity Rise Kevin shares that similar to the Great Depression crisis, this current crisis could also be an opportunity to build something up, get ahead, and come out of even stronger. “These kinds of moments in time can be seen as a tragedy but it can also be seen as an opportunity. If you can invest in the business, be wise and be careful, come out of the other end in a better position than you went in, and everybody else around you is devastated, I mean you’re in a great place.” - Kevin Mahey To hear more about the inspiring story of Thomas Watson, IBM as told by Kevin Mahey, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Kevin Mahey - About Links: Category Design Advisors Twitter: @kmaney Linkedin - Kevin Maney Book - Play Bigger Book: Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts Are Creating the Economy of the Future We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

160 Radical Business Transformation | Clint Carnell, CEO Hydrafacial May 11, 2020

Today, we have Clint Carnall, CEO of HydraFacial to share an extraordinary story of resilience, creativity, and action in a very short period of time. Clint’s company was one of the many companies that were amassing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, pre-pandemic. Now at zero revenues, they opted to go radically generous and thoughtfully aggressive. This is a legendary and inspiring example of how an entrepreneurial team scaled to meet any challenge, even the greatest challenge frankly that any of us have faced in our lifetime. The HydraFacial Ecosystem HydraFacial, as Christopher described it “is a company that is a part medical procedure, part beauty spa-like experience.” Clint, on the other hand, describes their company as a company built on “partnership.” They are not a “or” company, rather an “and” company, considering hotels, spas, medical physicians as partners rather than competitors. “Absolutely, no matter how good the painter they are, everybody needs a clean canvas. They think about HydraFacial like giving these physician med spas a clean canvas.” - Clint Carnell Clint continues to describe how their company operates in an ecosystem of physicians and nurses and consumers spas, hotels, etc and how this business model helped them to drastically grow the business. From Top-Tier to Zero Revenues A few weeks ago, Clint’s company HydraFacial were on a growth tier, serving different regions worldwide. They were on their A-game until Covid-19 struck their business. Clint shares how he witnessed their markets in China, Japan, Taiwan, and the rest of the world shut down. However, Clint shares why this is an exciting time to be creative and to brush it off and take off. “I say it is a creative time. You know, it feels like an ambush. You are walking along and things are fine and then something hits you out of nowhere that you couldn’t expect. We are a little stunned. We have to brush ourselves off, were up and back, and ready to go.” - Clint Carnell Finding Opportunities Amidst Crisis Clint believes that good companies and executives, as well as creative entrepreneurs, have the capacity to make today as ‘creative times.’ CEOs all over the world have to make hard decisions, especially when you go from that kind of growth to almost zero revenue overnight. “The things that made us good executing the way up were the same things that are serving us during these challenging times and so strategy, but more importantly, solid execution.” - Clint Carnell To hear more about how a category queen company created three new lines of business in a matter of weeks after their core category collapsed to no fault of their own and for more information about Clint, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Clint was born in Anchorage Alaska but receives no royalties from the pipeline, thus he works for a living as our Chief Executive Officer. He grew up in Washington State and chased a soccer ball well enough to attend Duke University on a scholarship where he received grades good enough to land jobs with the likes of Johnson & Johnson, Chiron, Gambro Healthcare and Bausch & Lomb. He's always been an entrepreneur starting in his early days when he would skip the school bus, buy jolly ranchers for a nickel and sell them for a quarter. At thirty, he founded Charleston Renal Care, which was acquired by DaVita. This gave him the ability to take a chance and join a VC backed company named Thermage, which went public, made acquisitions, and is now called Solta Medical. In his very spare time, Clint and his wife are busy raising two kids in Park City, Utah. The family has lots of animals affectionately called "the farm". His biggest fear is breaking all his bones trying to race his kids down the ski slope! Links: HydraFacial Linkedin: Clint Carnell We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

159 Life Design w/ Rhonda Smith May 05, 2020

Today, a magical, mystical bestselling author and podcaster, Rhonda Smith, is with us today. She’s got a new book out called The Whole Method and a soul-affirming podcast called Cosmic Smith. She’s incredibly open about what she calls “radical fullness.” We talk about why it’s ok, that not everyone is going to like you and why we want to experience everything in life and so much more. Radical Fullness Rhonda has overcome becoming a self-described “meth head” to transform her life. has been amazed at what little clean living can do for the body. She described how in the past two and a half years, she was battling a mind-blowing, brutal depression with suicidal tendencies. She copes with the whole situation by what she described as “understanding the darkness of her soul.” “I finally remember how to be me, and allowed it. Radical acceptance, radical fullness.” - Rhonda Smith She further shares the void inside every person, which is the center of our force. The dark is the feminine, the light is the masculine. “Within the dark, and that void, that discomfort, that deep blackness of our soul, in that quiet space, when we learn how to sit there, that is when creation happens, just like the womb. It was learning how to be in that void of myself and not have to do or change anything and just be able to sit with it.” - Rhonda Smith Dealing With Suffering Christopher asks Rhonda to elaborate on the suffering or that void inside each person. He further shares that we have no choice once suffering “comes for us. We can resist it but we have to go through the fire in one way or another. “The way I can best describe is like the thing people run from, the thing that keeps us in distraction, the things that keep us constantly seeking.” - Rhonda Smith Teaching People Compassion One of the biggest things Rhonda shares in this conversation is that one can’t teach someone to become empathetic or to have compassion. It is something that has to be learned through experience. Christopher and Rhonda exchange their point of view on why humanity has deemed homelessness and hunger as “okay.” To know more about Rhonda and her views on designing your life, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Rhonda Smith was born and raised in picturesque Northern California. She spends most of her time between the San Francisco Bay area and the Sierra Nevada mountains with her majestic little wiener dog, Saylor Love. Rhonda shares her message on stage, as well as through podcasting, coaching, and her work with sacred plant medicine. She uses all of these modalities to support people in remembering the truth about who they are. Rhonda believes that only when we embrace the darkest parts of ourselves, do we learn the lessons that lead to remembering and living our deepest truth. The greatest work of our lives is being willing to stand naked with all of our masks removed. The current state of our planet (living earth) and humanity is a catalyst to understand the way we’ve been living isn’t working! This was the spark that ignited Rhonda’s mission. Her newest company, “The Expanded Hueman” is set up to answer the question “What comes next after personal development?” It’s an invitation for us all to stop the madness of endlessly seeking outside ourselves. Her book, The Whole Method, is about remembering how to journey back into ourselves and once there, discover everything we need. It’s when you realize that who you are on the inside doesn’t quite match up to the persona you’ve created on the outside – You’ve done well, people look up to you, but deep inside there’s a niggle that something’s not right… Something is missing. You suspect there’s more for you to learn. Links: CosmicSmith.com We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

158 Turn Barriers Into Windows w/ Marine Akshay Nanavati May 01, 2020

Welcome to another amazing episode with Combat Veteran and US Marine Akshay Nanavati. He joined us at Episode 142, which was one of the top-rated episodes. Due to insistent public demand, he’s back. Akshay is a speaker, entrepreneur, ultra runner, non-profit founder, and best selling author. Today, we specifically talk about dealing with life and moving forward in the face of fear and adversity. He of all people is powerfully equipped to empower those who are having a hard time dealing with C19. Listen carefully to Akshay’s ideas on how to change barriers with questions and more! Solitude During C19 Akshay starts the conversation sharing about coins and medals with the iconic Marines raising a flag in the battle of Iwo Jima. He narrated how honored he is to be a part of the Marines who represents courage and valor in battles. He further shares that he has been living in solitude prior to the Covid19 pandemic. He does some amazing activities to meditate and to practice stillness. “I'm used to it and I don't mind the solitude. I've trained in solitude in the sense like, I spent 7 days in pitch darkness, isolation, and silence, to confront my fear of stillness to master the experience of solitude but at the same time, as we briefly touch on I do have moments that I feel that sense of loss.” - Akshay Nanavati Living in Paradox Living in paradox, Akshay describes himself as someone who is social but likewise, enjoys his solitude. He shares how he cried himself to sleep while reading a book ISIS abducting a woman to become their sex slave. “I read these intense books to remind me of the pain and suffering in the world and to stay focused on my mission. My solitude allows me to go into space that I would not be able to go to if somebody else was here.” - Akshay Nanavati He further shares another activity that he does, which Christopher describes as an activity he wouldn’t do in a million years. “When the world is intense, to me, that's a time to dig deeper into it. I actually put a horrible death metal music. It’s not actually music, its noise, and I put on a strobe light. I meditate and practice stillness with it. It was very intense, but its a great practice to master stillness in the face of chaos.” - Akshay Nanavati Overcoming Solitude in C19 A lot of people have actually improved communications with others during this crisis. A number of people utilized Zoom and social media to communicate with friends, family, and loved ones. Akshay shares that connection is important as humans are naturally tribal creatures. “I think the problem is, what we’re doing right now, is the same as what we’re doing before, which is basically running away from pain, running away to having to confront ourselves and now we’re being forced into that world.” - Akshay Nanavati To hear more about dealing with life and moving forward in the face of fear and adversity and to learn more about Akshay, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Akshay Nanavati (born October 15, 1984) is a United States Marine veteran, speaker, entrepreneur, ultra runner and author. He served in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and was later diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. His book Fearvana was endorsed by the Dalai Lama and Jack Canfield. Links: Fearvana Twitter: @fearvanalife Instagram: @fearvana Wikipedia: Akshay Navati We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

157 How AI Can Work For Everyone w/ Girl Decoded Author, Rana el Kaliouby Apr 29, 2020

Today, we have a riveting conversation with Dr. Rana el Kaliouby. She’s a tech / AI entrepreneur and the author of a brand new book out called Girl Decoded. Rana is the co-founder and CEO of Affectiva. Her work on A.I. is bleeding edge, particularly around human and emotional AI and the ethics of AI and more. This is a stunning, inspiring, real dialogue that you’ll surely love. Top Woman in Tech Rana el Kaliouby is a Muslim woman kicking butt in the American tech entrepreneur world. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge and a Post Doctorate at MIT. She’s one of Fortune’s 40 Under 40 and Forbes says she’s one of America’s Top 50 Women in Tech. She describes her success as a privilege for having supportive parents who made sure she and her siblings get a top-notch education. “I grew up surrounded by strong women but it was always understood that your priority is the family and you do your work on the side, that was the context.” - Rana el Kaliouby EI and AI, Counterintuitive Christopher asks about how Rana speaks about Emotional intelligence in the AI world as it is oftentimes, counterintuitive. Rana shares how her endeavors connected the two. “Even 25 years ago, I saw this pattern, with tech, it empowers us to communicate with more people. But I always felt there was something missing. We were communicating with more and more people so the quantity is there but the quality of the connection wasn't quite there. It was almost like an illusion of a connection. - Rana el Kaliouby Rana shares about her first time living abroad. She was newly married at the time and she found herself away from her family and then-husband who had to stay behind to run a software company. She realized that despite spending a lot of time with her laptop and mobile phone, she always felt alone due to a lack of intimacy of technology. Importance of Emotional Intelligence During Rana’s study abroad, technology served as the main portal of communication between her and her family. However, it fails to communicate the richness of her voice, intonation, facial expressions, and gestures. Non-verbal communications are lost she was chatting over text with her family. “That just got me thinking, emotional intelligence and our emotions, in general, are so important in how we live our lives, how we make decisions, how we connect with one another, how we learn, how our memory gets encoded yet, in the digital universe, its devoid of all of that. That set me on the path of building technology that has AI and emotional intelligence and maybe even someday, empathy.” - Rana el Kaliouby To hear more about Rana ’s views on human and emotional AI and the ethics of AI, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Rana is co-founder and CEO of Affectiva. Having defined the category of Emotion AI, Rana is now pioneering Human Perception AI: technology that can understand all things human. A passionate advocate for innovation, ethics in AI and diversity, Rana has been recognized on Fortune’s 40 Under 40 and Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in Tech. Rana is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and a Post Doctorate at MIT. Links: Linkedin: Kaliouby Twitter: @kaliouby Affectiva Leadership Team We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

156 Samsung Rising: Geoffrey Cain, Bestselling Author Apr 24, 2020

We continue our run of legendary authors with best selling author of the brand new book Samsung Rising, Geoffrey Cain. He takes us into both South and North Korea, what it’s like to live in both places and how relatively small South Korea gained out-sized economic power. We also talk about how Samsung grew from a fish market to a mega-empirical, multi-national, with 300,000 employees. There's a ton here you'll find fascinating. South Korea Geoffrey gives a great visual description of both North and South Korea in this episode. He lived on and off in South Korea from 2009 to 2016 and have visited North Korea as well for two weeks as a reporter. He further describes how South Koreans practice their right to assemble to petition about issues such as powers of major corporations, labor unions, and the like. He relates South Korea to the French who have massive protests, too. “Korean democracy is quite young, it was only 1987 that Korea became a democracy. It wasn't until many years later that it really became a full democracy. It was a corrupted democracy for a long time. The fascinating thing was the fact that I'm standing in the Square, and I could turn north and look north and I would realize that about 45 minutes or an hour drive away from me, is the border of North Korea.” - Geoffrey Cain North Korea On the border of South Korea lies what they call the DMZ or the Demilitarized Zone. It is one of the most heavily mined places on Earth. Former President Bill Clinton even visited and said: “its the scariest place on Earth.” South Korea (SK) is described as orderly but with bustling cars and noise, he describes the DMZ in North Korea as barren land. There were no lush trees like in SK and the whole vibe of Pyongyang, the capital was similar to a dystopian sci-fi movie. Miracle in Han River The unexpected growth of South Korea is often called as the Miracle in Han River. The country was able to come out of nowhere and take on the world. This is what Geoffrey discussed in his book Samsung Rising. “The story of this nation that has been overlooked in the past—it is small, it is seen as inconsequential, it is this little peninsula next to this major giant, China, smash right there with Japan, which is also a big power subject to all kinds of war and sufferings in the past—but somehow managed to become this powerhouse of technology and economy and industry and democracy.” - Geoffrey Cain To hear more about Geoffrey’s views on China and Asia more broadly, the Coronavirus and the battle for worldwide AI supremacy, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Geoffrey Cain is an award-winning foreign correspondent, author, commentator, anthropologist, and scholar of East and Central Asia. His first book, Samsung Rising: The Inside Story of the South Korea Giant That Set Out to Beat Apple and Conquer Tech, from a decade of his coverage of the world’s largest technology conglomerate, was published in March 2020 by Currency at Penguin Random House. A former correspondent at The Economist, Cain is a regular commentator in The Wall Street Journal, Time, Foreign Policy, The New Republic and The Nation, and a frequent guest on CNN, MSNBC, BBC and Bloomberg. Cain writes about the ways that technology is upending our lives, communities, governments and businesses. His work takes him to the world’s most authoritarian and far-off places, from inside North Korea to the trans-Siberian railway across Russia, from investigations into genocide in Cambodia to experiments in technological surveillance in China. Cain is sought out as a consultant on government, business and technology, having advised the World Health Organization, Open Government Partnership, the United Nations humanitarian affairs office, and major multinational corporations and investment firms. A Fulbright scholar, he holds a master’s with distinction from London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s at The George Washington University,

155 4Star General Stan McChrystal: Crisis Leadership, Digital Business & Government, COVID19 & Advice for the US President Apr 20, 2020

Today, we have a legendary conversation with a legendary American Hero, retired 4-Star General, bestselling author, entrepreneur and educator Stan McChrystal. He is the partner of Chris Fussel who was recently on Follow Your Different Episode #149. We get into these topics: leadership, digital leadership, crisis management, his view on how we got here with COVID19 and how we get out of it. We also discuss the digital divide between the public and private sectors and what we should do about, Pay special attention to The General’s advice for business leaders, State Governors and The President of The United States. An Experience No One Predicted Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates calls Stan "perhaps the finest warrior and leader of men in combat I ever met.” This was definitely one of the greatest descriptions one could say about him. He is the kind of leader any company would want in their team, especially during these unusual times. Stan described this coronavirus pandemic as disorienting. It is highly different from most of the crises in our lives. We face an amorphous viral threat and we get affected economically as well/. “So the average person is going through an experience he probably has never predicted. He got to get his mind around it and not just their own mind, but also their family, their organization and all the people they care about.” - Stan McChrystal Leadership During Unusual Times Aside from possessing leadership fundamentals, Stan calls for a different kind of leadership during these unusual times. “Your organization can have had a strategy you're very comfortable with that was executing in a set of places. Suddenly that strategy, for any number of reasons, appear to be absolutely invalid now. So the leaders got a role to first, give people a sense of direction and then provide direction. And finally, the leaders got to inspire.” - Stan McChrystal On Digital Leadership Christopher asked Stan about the daily video briefings he spearheaded when he was in the military and Stan gave a nice story back in memory lane. He was citing this as one of the best examples of digital leadership especially in times of crisis. “Out of necessity, we spread our force. That was 2003 and then we realize, how do you synchronize that? We were at the beginning of the technological boom and we latched on the video conferences, laptops and we connected the entire force, every day, for 90 minutes. When I took command, it was 50 people for 30 minutes. Then we opened it to 7500 people for 90 minutes. To some people, it may sound like madness but it was the most efficient thing I’d ever been a part of,” - Stan McChrystal To know more about the digital divide between the public and private sectors and what we should do about it and The General’s advice for business leaders, State Governors and The President of The United States, download and listen to this episode, Bio: Stan McChrystal is a retired 4-Star US General. He is best known for his command of Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) in the mid-2000s. His last assignment was as Commander, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and Commander, United States Forces – Afghanistan (USFOR-A).[5] He previously served as Director, Joint Staff from August 2008 to June 2009 and as Commander of JSOC from 2003 to 2008, where he was credited with the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. General McChrystal was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey and the Defense Distinguished Service Medal by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. General McChrystal founded McChrystal Group in January 2011 to deliver innovative leadership solutions to businesses globally in order to help them transform and succeed in challenging, dynamic environments. Links: McChrystal Group Linkedin - Stan McCrystal Leaders: Myth and Reality My Share of the Task: A Memoir Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World

154 Responsible Hyper-growth w/ Arisa Amano & Bob Remeika Co-founders Internal.IO Apr 15, 2020

In this episode, two mission-driven, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Arisa Amano and Bob Remeika, co-founders of hot startup Internal.IO and they are on a mission to change Internal systems and productivity. We have a real conversation about how technology can positively change the way work gets done, why is it important to protect customer data and how the two of them have built both their relationship and their company. Internal.IO Prior to co-founding the blockchain company Harbour, Anisa and Bob met at Yammer. They went ahead and launched Internal.IO when they realized that they have been building internal tools for different companies in the past. “When Anisa and I were at Harbor, we realized we built this console internally and we look back and every other company that we've ever been at, we built internal tools for every single one. We started thinking about, what would be a good console and why do they get so bad?” - Bob Remeika Access Abuse and More Bob further shares their observation on why consoles are inefficient. Companies always try to determine where to allocate engineering resources and ideally, they should be working for the core product since it is vital to the business. He further shares that consoles often times becomes a “Frankenstein Project” or a hodgepodge of information. “These internal tools are necessary but what happens is you always go with what is the common denominator. Building them? You usually zap them together and so, you wind up with something that is inherently insecure. You're giving away way too much customer information to too many employees throughout your organization, so you're subject to access abuse.” - Bob Remeika Consoles or Internal Tools Anisa shares that Internal. IO aims to replace the internal tools that companies built. She cites Uber as an example, where the main product is the ride-booking service. However, in the background, there are multiple departments that need to share information to be able to fulfill their jobs, such as Customer Service or Operations. The concern, however, the console is either hard to use or the app does not have proper permissions in place to control the access or the app is partially broken and a lot of different issues because its not the core focus of the company. That is where Internal.IO comes in. To know more about why it’s cool to disagree, how Anisa and Bob have built trust and to know their thoughts on responsible hyper-growth, download and listen to this episode, Bio: Arisa Amano began her career at VMware, a software company that provides cloud computing and platform virtualization software and services. As their marketing manager, she analyzed customer usage of products and created marketing campaigns; one of the campaigns was a YouTube video contest called “Run It with VMware.” In 2010, she worked at MTV Networks as a Product Marketing Lead for Social Games. She worked across Nickelodeon, MTV, and Comedy Central groups. In March 2011, Amano became the Director of Product Marketing & Design for Yammer. In December 2013, her role changed to Head of Lifecycle Marketing. She was part of the company until they were acquired by Microsoft. In December 2014, Amano began playing the role of Vice President of Products for Zenefits. owned the complete relaunch of the Zenefits' product suite, launching Z2 and HROne. In 2017, Arisa Amano co-founded Harbor (blockchain) with Bob Remeika. Their team is in the process of creating a decentralized compliance protocol that standardizes the way securities are issued and traded on blockchains. Bob Remeika is Co-Founder and CTO at Harbor, Inc. Links: Internal.io Twitter: @arisa_amano Linkedin: Arisa Amano Linkedin: Bob Remeika Twitter: @bob_remeika A newly funded startup, Internal, says it wants to help companies better manage their internal consoles We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him,

153 How to be a Conscious Creator w/ Sachit Gupta Apr 13, 2020

Today, we have a riveting conversation with Sachit Gupta. He’s been in the background helping some of the top podcasters and content creators build their businesses. He’s an expert at building and monetizing digital content. Recently, he stepped out and built his own podcast Conscious Creators and he wants to help people “Make A Life Through Your Art Without Selling Your Soul.” This conversation is a great opportunity to learn from a sensei in digital content and regardless of what you do, Second Guessing His Talents A lot more people are looking at podcasting, webinars, youtube shows, and other digital content of course writing books, as either key parts of their business or an extension to their business. In fact, Christopher personally thinks every brand needs to become a media brand. There is no other time than today to start digital leadership in your respective industry. For 10 years now, Sachit Gupta had been in the background of content creators or digital leaders. He worked with industry giants like Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, among others. But who would have thought he has always been second-guessing himself in terms of creativity? “My art wasn't good enough, so I started doing all these things. I graduated and worked with creators and now what I realized is, because I didn't think my art was good enough, or my creation, I subconsciously entered a career supporting other creators.” - Sachit Gupta The Story of the Starving Artist Christopher asks Sanchit what fascinates him the most. He shares that he has always been fascinated with artists who can remain independent with their craft while still monetizing their talents. “For me, I think there is a whole story of the starving artist and how creators are always like beholden to big corporations. How can you create and be an independent artist and own your art, own your worth and charge your worth like you can have a career yourself?” - Sachit Gupta Advice To Content Creators What are the things most people get stuck with? Sanchit shares that the people whom he works with—creative people, artists, content creators—are still challenged with defining what their message is and to whom is this message for. “Who’s your market? What are their hopes, fears, and dreams? What are their problems and how do you help them solve the problem?” - Sachit Gupta To know more about Sanchit Gupta, an expert at building and monetizing digital content, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Sachit Gupta helps amplify Creators (podcasters, authors, etc.) & Brands. Creators and Brands want the same things — the right audiences, bigger impact; sometimes, even each other. He provides the tools and strategies to create the right connections at the right time that make these needs, reality — easily, instantly. That’s what he means when he say — Connections, Amplified. Sanchit and his team have worked on campaigns with top podcasters like Andrew Warner (Mixergy) Hiten Shah & Steli Efti (The Startup Chat), #1 NYT best-selling authors (Tim Ferriss, Seth Godin, Oren Klaff), social media influencers (Tessa Arias, Handle The Heat) and international sports stars (Rohit Sharma, Indian Cricket Team). He also worked with 30+ brands including Pilot.com, Toptal, Pipedrive, HostGator, ActiveCampaign, ahrefs, The 5 Minute Journal, ClickFunnels, Outerknown, Brain.fm and more to create win-win partnerships with Creators. Links: Linkedin: Sachit Gupta Instagram: @sachitgupta Twitter: @sachitgupta Platforms Media Medium.com: @sachitgupta We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

152 Meet Magic Johnson, Hulk Hogan, Dennis Rodman’s Super Agent, Darren Prince. Apr 08, 2020

Today the legendary super agent Darren Prince. We dig into it all, how he went from sports memorabilia to a super agent. Pay special attention to why Darren wants to inspire people to overcome addiction. This is an extraordinary guy and conversation, I know you’ll love. The Man Behind The Man and The Woman Darren is 100% well-known among sports A-listers and celebrities. His client list includes Magic Johnson, Charlie Sheen, Vince Neil, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Dennis Rodman, Denise Richards, Carmen Electra, Chevy Chase, the late Muhammad Ali, Smokin’ Joe Frazier, and Evel Knievel. “You got to love them like your family. I love people, It’s amazing. You're getting inside some of these people’s lives and if you do the right thing, the relationships that would come from it, from people that really don't trust because they’ve been screwed ever so often. They are very very guarded” - Darren Prince Opiate Addiction Aside from a well-renowned agent, he is also a self-confessed recovered addict with nearly 12 years sober. He describes his experience and how certain religious figures helped him through this challenge. He usually shares this experience when he speaks in colleges, groups or companies. “My opiate addiction took me to a place where I wanted to kill myself every day. I had a dream job, the dream life, the clients, the notoriety, but I was living in a double life.” - Darren Prince Undesirable Childhood Life Darren shares a lot of his challenges that started in my childhood. He was classified with a severe learning disability. This led him to feel different, less, and uncomfortable with his own skin. He was verbally bullied and he never spoke out. To hear more about Darren and his ideas on overcoming addiction, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Darren Prince is a sports and celebrity agent who, at the age of 14, founded a mail order company selling baseball cards and traveling around the country participating in trade shows. At the age of 20 he sold his company and became an industry leader in private autograph signings for sports and celebrity memorabilia with athletes and celebrities. A-List celebrities included the late Muhammad Ali, Hulk Hogan, Pele, Joe Montana, Carmen Electra and Jenny McCarthy. In 1995 Prince started a new venture with Prince Marketing Group (PMG), representing athletes and celebrities for marketing deals consisting of endorsements, licensing, TV, movie and book deals, autograph signings and appearances. His first client to sign with the firm was none other than Magic Johnson. Soon after Smokin’ Joe Frazier, Dennis Rodman, Pamela Anderson and Chevy Chase followed. With PMG growing at an enormous pace, Prince added Scottie Pippen, Clyde Drexler, Mickey Rourke, Roy Jones Jr, Micky Ward and the late Evel Knievel as clients over the years. The sports/entertainment industry is a small world and very competitive,” says Darren Prince, CEO of Prince Marketing Group. “Prince Marketing Group has prospered over the years by delivering out of the box thinking for clients and building relationships through the practice of good business and effective networking.” Prince Marketing Group is currently a multi-million dollar business that has negotiated over $200 Million in deals and currently secures marketing deals, arranges signing/memorabilia appearances, commercial licensing, product endorsement, and voice-overs. Darren is a true entrepreneur as he has been able to continuously reinvent himself and significantly grow his business over the years. He has been featured in outlets such as Your World With Neil Cavuto, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Hannity & Colmes, ESPN, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, USA Today, Forbes’ Sports Money, On the record with Greta Van Susteren, Howard Stern radio, CNBC The Closing Bell and a variety of others for his marketing expertise. Links: Prince Marketing Group Darren's Website Instagram

151 The Man Who Saved Metallica Wants To Save You Too w/ Phil Towle Apr 06, 2020

Today the legendary performance coach to rock stars, Phil Towle, joins us today to talk about how we can deal with the coronavirus crisis and how we can make a difference. Phil is a sensei among sensei on life coaching and life design. Kirk Hammett, of Metallica, even said, "If Lennon and McCartney had Phil, the Beatles would never have broken up." Covid19 Is A Gift Everyone worldwide is grappling with different issues during this crisis. For Phil, he shares that this challenging situation has forced him to believe that Covid19 is a gift we gave ourselves. This gift forces us to transform a lost, sick and divided society. “I think that Covid19 is bringing the best out of most of us. I think that we are going to heal ourselves and the only way that we could do it, is to have something that is drastic that makes it more difficult for us to see ourselves as sinners.” - Phil Towle We Are One Civilization Phil shares that we ought to at ourselves as one civilization. He encourages everyone to set aside personal differences and review oneself instead. He also mentions that social distancing is appropriate at the moment, but a heartfelt connection is a cure. “It is really hard for me to be angry at somebody else now because they have a different viewpoint. I saved my anger because I have some for my own contributions to the way society screwed itself up.” - Phil Towle Making a Difference Phil shares how Christopher stood as a role model at this crisis. Chris placed prime importance on his thought about how companies react to this crisis will greatly define their brand. He himself has been collecting gloves and distributing it to local hospitals in Santa Cruz, California. “It’s kind of you to say, Phil. When it became clear if I was a legendary leader, what would I do now and I have tasked myself to answer that question every day and it changes every day. so, I just tried to do and be everything I can.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about Phil and his ideas on making a difference during this crisis, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Phil Towle is a “performance coach”. He defines “performance coaching” as a proactive psychological strategy that facilitates making your best better. In addition, Phil works with, “Difference makers” committed to using their God-given talents to fulfill their highest possibilities and those around them…Determined to transform each hardship, setback and self-imposed limitation, into superior achievement... Sample clients include: Metallica; Dick Vermeil (Superbowl Winning Coach with St. Louis Rams); Bill Romanowski (Professional Athlete); Rascal Flatts; Tom Morello (musician with Rage Against Machine/ Audioslave/ Nightwatchman, and Human Rights Activist) Links: Phil Towle Metallica documentary featuring Phil Towle working with the band: “Some Kind of Monster” We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

150 Hacks for Joy At Work w/ Best selling author & #1 Apple Podcaster Bruce Daisley Apr 03, 2020

We continue our run of legendary authors with Twitter’s former head of Europe Operations, Bruce Daisley. He’s got a new book out called Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat, He’s also got a great podcast of the same name! This conversation is fun as we talk about some of his “30 hacks” for more joy at work. Expect a lot of laughter, conversations about digital relationships, walking meetings, Chinese Sci-Fi and a lot more. Also, pay close attention to our discussion about why you should turn off notifications on your phone! London To California The conversation with a lot of laughter from the two. They touched on topics such as living in London, how Europeans adjust when they visit the US and the culinary fusion of European dishes. You might also relate to the two who kept on adding movies in their “to watch list” but have never even started watching any on the list. Bruce also shared how he loved buying books, but never actually find time reading them. This is also the inspiration why he wrote the book Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat. Twitter EU Bruce shares when he joined Twitter, he never expected he would face a great challenge. Initially, Twitter was rated as one of the best places to work for. However, somewhere along the way, employees started to leave one by one. In a year, 40 of his top people left Twitter. “Might be something I did, something went wrong. The culture went from being the “biggest party that you never wanted to end” to being this “party that you wished you never had left the house to go to.” - Bruce Daisley He then started commissioning researchers with the hopes of improving workplace and culture. Unfortunately, the people have either not read these papers, or have not implemented it. It was such wasted information so Bruce decided he should write about it. Eat. Sleep. Work. Repeat. Bruce shares he wrote this book, which is intentionally a very short episodic series of interventions that anyone can stage in their office or workplace. One piece of information he shares is that open offices increase employees’ hate to co-workers by 75%. “Even if you just read one 10-page chapter and you Xerox it, threw it at your boss, I am hoping that even with that just one intervention might marginally improve people’s work.” - Bruce Daisley To hear more about Bruce’s ideas on hacks for joy at work and more information about Bruce, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Bruce Daisley was previously Twitter's most senior employee outside of the United States, in his role of Vice President across Europe, Middle East and Africa. He joined the company in 2012 having previously run YouTube UK at Google. He has also worked in the magazine publishing and radio industries having got his first break by mailing a cartoon resume of his life to prospective employers. Bruce's passion for improving work led to him creating the podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat on making work better. It became a number 1 smash in the UK (also hitting the business top 10 in the US). Links: Book - Eat. Sleep. Work. Repeat. Website - Eat. Sleep. Work. Twitter - @brucedaisley We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

149 What 9/11 Taught Us About Leadership w/ Chris Fussell Navy Seal & President McChrystal Group Apr 01, 2020

Today, we have a very timely conversation about leadership and crisis management with a highly decorated Navy Seal Chris Fussell. He partnered with 4-star General Stanley McCrystal to retool the US military after 9/11. Chris is a legendary American hero, a servant leader in the military, entrepreneur, and now the President of McCrystal Group. Chris and Stan consult and advise organizations around the world on leadership and frankly, they helped a lot of organizations deal with this crisis. We also talk about a recent opinion piece that Chris and Stan wrote for the NY Times. Connected Through Structure Chris describes that tribes are connected through structure and leadership. It also holds true within industries. He further shares that when the ability of those systems starts to be dismantled through the separation physically or something similar to what is happening to us at the moment, we will end up with a disconnected state. He further shares how this scenario in relation to them at Washington DC/ Since there is a “disconnected state” the food shortages among families on the other side of DC do not affect Capitol Hill emotionally. He says this is how inequity stats. Social Cohesion Chris shares that the “fabric” that holds society together is immediate family, community and socioeconomic circles. “This is critical that we reach across those boundaries that’s why, institutions—like a workplace that pulls from many different networks, from the executive, down to the frontline folks, or like a public school or a church, that reaches across the boundaries—those create this fabric that pulls us together anytime you see that disrupted at scale for an extended period. If the fabric is unwoven, its really hard to weave them together.” - Chris Fussell Call For National Level Campaign Chris took the opportunity to call everyone to action to help out in any way they can. Christopher Lochhead shared that he and his family purchased plastic gloves from a local restaurant supplier and dropped it to local hospitals in Santa Cruz. “The people at the bottom are those who are gonna suffer more economically. They’re gonna suffer the worst medically as a result of this pandemic. The economically deprived neighborhoods.” - Chris Fussell To hear more about Chris and how leaders are holding up with this crisis, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Chris Fussell is the President of McChrystal Group. He is an author of the 2015 New York Times bestseller, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World as well as 2017 Wall Street Journal bestseller, One Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams. He joined McChrystal Group as a Partner in 2012. Chris was commissioned as an Officer in the United States Navy in 1997, and spent the next 15 years on US Navy SEAL Teams, leading SEAL elements in combat zones around the globe. From war-torn Kosovo, to counter-terrorism operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to highly specialized efforts in the troubled areas of the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, he experienced and led through the modern evolution of the US military’s Special Operations community, first on SEAL Teams Two and Eight, then in the Naval Special Warfare Development Group. Chris was selected to serve as Aide-de-Camp to then-Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal during General McChrystal’s final year commanding the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), where they served for a year together in Iraq. He witnessed first-hand the Special Operations community’s transformation into a successful, agile network. Chris is also a Senior Fellow for National Security at New America, a Washington, DC-based non-partisan think tank dedicated to understanding the next generation of challenges facing the United States. Chris is actively involved in several non-profits dedicated to helping veterans and their families, and holds a seat on the Board of Directors for the Navy SEAL Foundation.

148 Are You Undervaluing Your Customers? w/ Rob Markey of Bain & Co. Mar 30, 2020

We speak with Rob Markey of Bain & Co today about his breakthrough piece for Harvard Business Review “Are You Undervaluing Your Customers?”Rob also leads the Net Promoter Score Loyalty Forum and his Firm, Bain, invented the Net Promoter Score (NPS). We have a riveting conversation about why companies with high levels of customer loyalty grow 2.5 times as fast as their peers, how companies should re-orient around customers and why Customer Loyalty is a shareholder priority and more. If you care about customers and growth, I think you’re going to love this dialogue. Pressure To Deliver Earnings Rob shares how his write up started as a source of frustration and curiosity. He shares that the clients he has worked with over the years still abandoned customer-centric companies. He further shares that companies ultimately face pressure to deliver earnings. “The investors put pressure on management teams, who then are forced to squeeze out every last dollar in order to make a goal. That is just a short term goal.” - Rob Markey Rob also says the importance for companies to have a visionary CEO, those who are willing to sacrifice short term earnings for long term gains. Investors should support these kinds of CEOs. Standardized Metrics Christopher asked if there should be a standardized metric to look at this matter in the context of a quarterly earnings call. Rob shares that it is one way to do this, however, he also says the world is a much more complicated place and it is hard to put a finger on just one metric that will lead you in the right way. Net Promoter Score Christopher asked Rob if NPS is the answer for companies. He shares it was just one of the objective function that they used when they were searching around for the right question to ask “NPS is the best single question metric we have that enables you to see how an individual customer or a set of customers feel about the business in ways that then align with lifetime value.” - Rob Markey There are lots of ways to collect a net promoter score. It can be after an interaction with a customer or as part of a relationship. It can even be a mode of market research, where the researcher can conduct double-blind research to acquire very reliable apples-to-apples comparison among different companies. To hear more about Rob and why customer loyalty is a shareholder priority and more, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Founder and former leader of Bain & Company's Customer Strategy & Marketing practice. Customer experience podcast host. Architected customer experience transformations, employee engagement improvement, marketing and sales capabilities development for dozens of the world's largest companies. Co-authored The Ultimate Question 2.0 (Harvard Business Review Press, 2011), and numerous other publications. Keynote speaker, leader of the NPS Loyalty Forum, and podcaster on customer and employee experience. Creator of the Net Promoter System. Specialties: Customer experience; customer strategy and marketing; customer loyalty; employee loyalty; customer segmentation; new product development; direct marketing; brand management; service operations; digital transformation Links: Are You Undervaluing Your Customers? Rob Markey - Bain and Co. Linkedin - RG Markey Twitter - @rgmarkey Net Promoter System Podcast We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

147 How Coronavirus Really Started? w/ #1 Tech Analyst R “Ray” Wang, Chairman, Constellation Research Mar 27, 2020

Today, #1 technology analyst, author of the smash hit, “Disrupting Digital Business” and founder of Constellation Research, Ray Wang is back. To add to our list of controversial episodes, Ray shares his thoughts on how Coronavirus really started, It’s impact on society and why we better be ready for a new normal. This is a fantastic, thought-provoking dialogue! The New Normal As we are currently facing a pandemic, Ray shares the new normal that we should all be prepared for. He shares there will be mass testing, so the health officials can compare the figures versus the mortality rates. Governments will also impose the suspension of business operations and will strictly enforce home quarantines and lockdowns. “If you look at the 2019-2020 flu season, we had 15 million cases, 140,000 hospitalizations, and 8200 deaths. We can handle 140,000 hospitalizations over 8 to 10 weeks, that’s not an issue. This is the surge in the hospitalization, that occurs all at once. We can’t handle 140,000 a week, that would just blow up the entire hospital bed capacity.” - Ray Wang Initial Containment Ray refreshes our memory during January, where several reports circulated about a new strain of flu that is affecting China. He spoke with several colleagues from the Chinese scientific community who said they were prohibited to use messaging apps to discuss this. The Chinese Communist Party members decided to play the issue down. “Even if those numbers are not accurate, a lot of people were saying, contain, shut down, all travel in and out of China. If they had done that, we weren’t here today. It’s not “blame game time,” but that’s how we contain a crisis.” - Ray Wang Viral Research Gone Wrong Ray shares some provocative information that he received from several scientists in China. Apparently, in a viral laboratory near Wuhan, some scientists are modifying bat genomes. For some reason, there must have been a breach in safety protocols, which ended in spreading the virus through patient zero in Wuhan Wet Market. “Nobody wanted to talk about it because there was a dual-use lab. If you’re a government, you don’t want to hurt your own people either. Today, what’s actually happening is they are trying to cover up for that.” - Ray Wang To hear more about Ray and about coronavirus and its impact on the society, download and listen to this episode. Bio: R "Ray" Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research, Inc. He's also the author of the popular business strategy and technology blog "A Software Insider’s Point of View". With viewership in the 10's of millions of page views a year, his blog provides insight into how disruptive technologies and new business models such as digital transformation impact brands, enterprises, and organizations. Wang has held executive roles in product, marketing, strategy, and consulting at companies such as Forrester Research, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. His new best selling book Disrupting Digital Business, published by Harvard Business Review Press and now globally available provides insights on why 52% of the Fortune 500 have been merged, acquired, gone bankrupt, or fallen off the list since 2000. In fact, this impact of digital disruption is real. However, it’s not the technologies that drive this change. It’s a shift in how new business models are created. Wang has held executive roles in product, marketing, strategy, and consulting at companies such as Forrester Research, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Personify, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is a prominent and dynamic keynote speaker and research analyst working with clients on digital, innovation, business model design, engagement strategies, customer experience, matrix commerce, and big data. Hiring a professional photographer to capture the proposal has become popular in recent years, but is it right for you?

146 Keep Calm & Carry on w/ Security Expert Morgan Wright Mar 25, 2020

Today, we have Security Guru Morgan Wright, a distinguished professional in law enforcement and an internationally recognized expert on cybersecurity, cyberterrorism, and privacy. We talk all things security: how to deal with fear, scams, self-defense and most importantly why Morgan is optimistic about our future. This is a fantastic dialogue! Morgan Wright We have conversed with Morgan several times in the past. He talked about Security in episode 84. He was known for his landmark testimony before Congress on Healthcare.gov that changed how the government collected personally identifiable information. On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs Morgan shares about Dave Grossman, an author who has written excellent books and theory on warfare and mindset. Dave, in his writing, says that in every society there are 3 kinds of people: there are sheep, there are wolves and there are sheepdogs. “If you’re a sheep, that’s okay, but recognize you’re a sheep.If you are a sheepdog, that’s the only thing that stands between the sheep and the wolves. Less than 1% of the population in the US, whether its the military or firefighters, says I will stand up and be that sheepdog.” Morgan Wright on Dave Grossman’s Writing However, Morgan believes that when the time is ripe, many “sheeps” are willing to step up and become “sheepdogs.” He narrates how several life-changing events that happened in the US changed the mindset of Americans. Those are the 9/11 attack, Hurricanes, and others. “Just when we think we have been tested, nature has its own way of testing you again.” - Morgan Wright Keep Calm & Carry On Morgan further shares some insights on how to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. He stresses the importance of keeping calm. He says that there is no amount of panic that can change the situation. In fact, it worsens the current situation. He also shares about expecting nothing and accepting everything. He also quotes Teddy Roosevelt saying “do what you can, with who you are, with what you have.” To hear more about Morgan Wright, how to deal with fear, scams, self-defense and most importantly why Morgan is optimistic about our future, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Morgan is an internationally recognized expert on cybersecurity strategy, cyberterrorism, identity theft and privacy. He is President and Chief Development Officer for RadiusAI. He currently serves as a Senior Fellow at The Center for Digital Government, and is a national security opinion contributor to TheHill.com. Morgan's landmark testimony before Congress on Healthcare.gov changed how the government collected personally identifiable information. He’s made hundreds of appearances on national news, radio, print and web including CNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, ABC, NPR, NBC and more. Previously Morgan was a Senior Advisor in the US State Department Antiterrorism Assistance Program and Senior Law Enforcement Advisor for the 2012 Republican National Convention. In addition to 18 years in state and local law enforcement as a highly decorated state trooper and detective, Morgan has developed solutions in defense, justice and intelligence for the largest technology companies in the world including SAIC, Unisys, Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco. He’s a contributing author for the 4th Edition Computer Security Handbook, and has been quoted in 2 New York Times best sellers (Sharyl Attkisson: Stonewalled and Carmine Gallow: Talk Like TED). Links: Morgan Wright Blog - Morgan Wright Linkedin - Morgan Wright Twitter: @morganwright_us We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

145 Tucker Max, The Coronavirus & The Dawn of a New Golden Age Mar 23, 2020

Our guest today has written four New York Times Best Sellers, three of which, hit #1. He was America’s favorite bad boy, turned entrepreneur and philosopher-king, Tucker Max. We have a fantastic conversation about the coronavirus, what he and his family are doing to hunker down and try to stay healthy. We touch on the idea of radical generosity in business and what he and his company scribe are doing to lead during this crisis. Most, you’ll find out why Tucker thinks the virus is going to lead to a new golden age! Humor, Next to Grief Tucker Max had such a huge impact on our culture. He’ s only the fourth writer (along with Malcolm Gladwell Brene Brown and Michael Lewis) to have three books on the New York Times Nonfiction Best Seller List at once. Time Magazine has called him one of the 100 most influential people. He shares in this episode the importance of humor to go through our current pandemic. He thinks that society created certain people, those who are “progressive, social justice warrior and driven by a certain extreme toxic brand of “feminism” who are humorless and are too stern with their beliefs. “Laughter is next to grief in terms of how emotions are processed. The sadness and suffering are the core part of life and the way you deal with it, one of the ways is to laugh about it. People who are humorless don’t get that.” - Tucker Max Radical Generosity Christopher shares about companies who are winning in the age of the coronavirus are those who are practicing radical generosity. Companies must have a certain “do-good mission” to be able to claim their title as category kings and queen. Tucker shares how he agrees to this move of several companies. He also urges companies to give away information for free. He gives out comments to individuals who sell their downloadable PDFs and monetizes it. Outlook For The Future Christopher believes we will see a huge cultural, societal and business shift. The three that immediately come to mind is office work in general, retail and telemedicine and digital medicine. Tucker chimed in with his outlook for the near future: “I am really happy I’m not in commercial real estate, because I think what’s gonna happen over the next 2 weeks is: everyone is gonna realize how bullshit offices are, how much more work they get done at home or how much they like working from home more. I think long term, we’ve just seen the top long term secular decline in commercial real estate and I think its a big one.” - Tucker Max To hear more about Tucker Max, the coronavirus and how he is coping with it and the golden age that will rise after this pandemic, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Tucker Max is the co-founder of Scribe Media, a company that helps you write, publish, and market your book. He's written four New York Times Best Sellers (three that hit #1), which have sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide. He's credited with being the originator of the literary genre, “fratire,” and is only the fourth writer (along with Malcolm Gladwell, Brene Brown and Michael Lewis) to have three books on the New York Times Nonfiction Best Seller List at one time. He was nominated to the Time Magazine 100 Most Influential List in 2009. He received his BA from the University of Chicago in 1998, and his JD from Duke Law School in 2001. He currently lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife Veronica and three children. Links: Tucker Max Scribe Books School We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

144 Dushka Zapata, Coronavirus Acts of Kindness Mar 20, 2020

We continue our run of legendary authors. Today, one of the most prolific and important writers in the world, Dushka Zapata. Her work has been viewed over 157 million times on question & answer site Quora. In this episode, we get right into how she’s dealing with the coronavirus. Dushka has a powerful point of view on Social Distancing and why we should be conducting our selves as if we already had it. She also touches on why we need to learn to become “elastic” and how we’re all connected. Living in Uncertainty Dushka is exactly what we all need right now! She shares how to deal with uncertainty, especially in the present time. People have been looking outwardly too much and she says this is not helping them. “We are looking for answers in other people and the fact is, no one has the answers. I think that’s really interesting because you forget that you can look within for certain things. Like managing your anxiety and managing the fear of scarcity, which is one of the things that, we are wired to be fearful of.” - Dushka Zapata Acts of Kindness Dushka reads to us something that she wrote on Quora about acts of kindness in times of coronavirus. “In my first supermarket visit, the shelves that carried cans, crackers, toilet paper, were completely empty People around me were clearly on edge. Stressed, anxious, haphazardly grabbing things from shelves and throwing them into their carts. I wanted to buy dishwasher detergent and there was one left but I couldn’t reach it. I suddenly felt a sense of powerlessness rise inside of me. That’s when I saw that the box I had been reaching for was right in front of my eyes. I took it, then realized a very tall person was handing it to me. “It looks like you wanted this, yes?” he says this to me very gently. I turn and we just stand there looking at each other, a pause in the middle of a frenzy spinning around us. He smiles at me. His smile feels like someone just dropped a sturdy anchor in the middle of a turbulent ocean. The times we are living in are surreal. Please, stop and be nice to someone.” - Dushka Zapata Kindness and Elasticity Dushka thinks the current pandemic has enabled people to show their best and worst. She cites how people have frenzied over grocery stocks while some other people have also been extra careful and friendly to others. “One of the things that fascinate me about these kinds of times: one is kindness, that I want to talk about and just like thinking of other people and the other is, the ability to be elastic, flexible. How are you adapting what you’re doing to survive.” - Dushka Zapata To hear more about kindness and elasticity and Dushka’s point of view on social distancing, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Dushka Zapata is one of the most prolific and popular writers working today. On question and answer site Quora her work has been viewed over 157 million times. She’s the author of eight best-selling books. Dushka has over 20 years experience as a senior communications executive in Silicon Valley. When she’s not writing, she works as a serves as communications executive in San Fransciso. Links: Quora: Duskha Zapata Amazon: Dushka Zapata Love Yourself: and Other Insurgent Acts That Recast Everything You Belong Everywhere: and Other Things You'll Have to See for Yourself Twitter: @dushkaamateur Linkedin: Dushka We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

143 Why Less Is So Much More w/ Courtney Carver Project 333 Author Mar 16, 2020

We continue our run of legendary authors with Courtney Carver, author of Soulful Simplicity and the brand new Project 333. We talk about The Project 333 Challenge, wearing only 33 items of clothing for three months. People who do this report less anxiety and more clarity and focus. We also talk about how to live a more simple life, why having tons of stuff doesn’t make us happy and how easy it is to slide into the mentality of buying stuff that doesn’t make us happy. You Are What You Wear Courtney starts off sharing how both men and women give a lot of attention to their wardrobes. She taps on people who have either overshopped or have thought about other people judging them based on what they wear. “Whatever it is, we all have this connection to our clothes.” - Courtney Carver Christopher shares that although he doesn’t pay much attention to his wardrobe, he does have a 20 year old Prada suit sitting around in the closet. He is unsure of the reason why he is still keeping it but reading Courtney’s book made him think about it. Fueling Anxieties Courtney shares in one way or another, most of us have purchased clothing to make us look successful or to fit into a specific circle. In fact, in one social activity, Courtney asks for a show of hands asking about their clothes with tags. Half of the room says they do own some unworn and brand new, with tags. “I think it comes from an obsession with getting a great deal. So we might buy something just because its a good deal when the only good part of the deal is the money part. We never really wanted it in the first place. We might also buy it because we think we need it or should have it, to measure up to the people around us, and our work, and in our day to day lives.” - Courtney Carver Project 333 Courtney described Project 333 as a “fascinating, emotional ride, digging into closets and wardrobes.” It initially started as a personal challenge to mix and match 33 articles of clothing for 3 months. A few fashion bloggers participated in the challenge and it went viral. Soon enough, Associated Press picked up the story. “I had no idea until I got rid of most of my stuff. I had no idea how emotional it was for me because I was just really used to it all the time. I was used to seeing tags, I was used to understanding at some level that I spent way too much money on things that I don’t wear or enjoy and they were making me feel bad every single day.” - Courtney Carver To hear more about Project 333 and how a life-changing disease became a catalyst for radical, positive change in Courtney’s life, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Courtney Carver was an Ad Sales Director for a group of luxury magazines. She was in debt, she worked all the time and she was stressed out. Then, in 2006, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and was forced to look at her life habits. She started by changing her diet and ended by quitting her job and getting rid of the vast majority of her belongings. The results: She is happier, calmer and hasn't had any MS symptoms in the last four years. Courtney Carver is the writer and founder of Be More with Less. The 43-year-old wife and mother launched her blog in May 2010 to share a message of hope in simplicity. She left a 15-year career in sales and marketing in September 2011 to focus on writing, develop new ways to teach others to live more simply, and live a simpler life herself. In addition to bemorewithless.com, she created bemorewithless.com/business to encourage business owners and entrepreneurs to focus on the essential instead of getting lost in busy work. Courtney was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2006 and attributes her healthy lifestyle to simplifying every part of her life, from diet to debt. She moved from New England in 2004 to Salt Lake City where she lives with her husband and 17-year-old daughter. Links: Website: Bemorewithless.com Instagram: @bemorewithless Twitter: @bemorewithless

142 Extreme Life, Extraordinary Meaning w/ Marine Combat Vet Akshay Nanavati Mar 09, 2020

Welcome to an amazing episode with Combat Veteran and US Marine Akshay Nanavati. He’s a speaker, entrepreneur, ultra runner, non-profit founder and best selling author. We have a stunning conversation about why overcoming extraordinary challenges is the key to a successful life, why we should all pick worthy struggles and the power of “earning your life.” Further, we also touch on why the most important skill is having a positive relationship to suffering and so much more. Body Not Built For Combat Standing at 5”7’and weighing just 138 pounds, Akshay enlisted himself to join the Marines. He was a druggie and an alcoholic at the time when he watched the movie Black Hawk Down. It triggered something within him and in a snap, he found himself reading military books and life in combat genres. It was also shortly after the 9/11 tragedy that moved him and made him ask question himself. “What kind of human beings would knowingly put themselves in a situation like that and sacrifice their lives for somebody else?” - Akshay Nanavati True Calling To Serve Akshay sharest to Christopher that he felt at that time that he was called to serve. Nothing can stop him, even his pre-existing conditions such as depression, self-destructive tendencies, blood disorder, scoliosis, flat footedness and much more. “It took me about a year and a half to take in all these medical waivers, but that was the turning point. That is why I wanted to join, to serve an institution where the good of the group matters more than you, the well being of the group. You serve for the people next to you and everything is your men and the mission and that's beautiful.” - Akshay Nanavati Experiencing Humanity at Extremes Akshay shares his inner desire to go back in his previous assignment because there was something intriguing, unusual and beautiful when you experience humanity in its most extreme form. “I mean, part of it is an addictive thing, part of it, you cannot experience and understand and taste the human experience at its fullest, unless you experience it at the most extremes.” - Akshay Nanavati His experiences led him to write his book, Fearvana. The Dalai Lama endorsed his book, saying "Fearvana inspires us to look beyond our own agonizing experiences and find the positive side of our lives." To hear more on Akshay’s thoughts on self-development like: “follow your passion” and more about his book, Fearvana, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Akshay Nanavati (born October 15, 1984) is a United States Marine veteran, speaker, entrepreneur, ultra runner and author. He served in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom and was later diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder. His book Fearvana was endorsed by the Dalai Lama and Jack Canfield. Links: Fearvana Twitter: @fearvanalife Instagram: @fearvana Wikipedia: Akshay Navati We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

141 The Real DEA Narcos Javier Peña & Steve Murphy Part 2 Mar 05, 2020

Welcome to part two of our dialogue with the real DEA Narcos Javier Peña and Steve Murphy. These are the two real American heroes who partnered with Colombian Law Enforcement to take down the world’s 1st Narco Terrorist, Pablo Escobar, and their story is the basis for the Netflix smash hit Narcos. In this second episode, you hear the conclusion of how Murph and Javier bring Escobar to justice. We also dig into their thoughts on leadership, management, and life. The End of Pablo Escobar In this riveting conversation, we hear about how Murph and Javier bring Pablo Escobar to his end. They were honest enough to say it was a story of revenge, especially thinking about how many innocent people were killed, some are personal friends of the two . Javier further recounted what transpired the moment Pablo got out of prison in 1991. They had a bounty of 5 million USD to take him down. Eventually, through the initiatives of the Columbian National Police, Pablo Escobar faced his death. “If you watch the show Narcos, the part that I was on the roof when Pablo was killed, that’s not true, that’s Hollywood. That night, we were expecting retaliation attacks because of the death of Pablo. It was the quietest night I have even spent. I mean, there was nothing. It was quiet. The next day, Javier was back in the country.” - Steve Murphy Narcos Netflix Series Javier and Murph, in all of their appearances, wants to get the record straight that the Columbian National Police was the one who took down Pablo Escobar. The two also share how some of the scenes in Narcos were made dramatic. There were a lot of fictional events that were added to the stories to appeal to the audiences. It was surely effective because the show was embraced not only in the US but in Europe, Australia, Asia and even in Latin America. “The writers, directors are phenomenal. They are extremely intelligent. When I get to the writer’s room at Hollywood to work with them, they had a library of books there. I thought I knew everything about Escobar and the cartel, they had books that I never even heard of.” Javier Pena On Leadership and More Javier and Murph had some interesting thoughts on life, leadership and more. For instance, Javier shared the importance of going on the field and listening to the field men who report their surveillance first hand. “When I retired, one of my men says, ‘Boss, I respected you because you went on the field with us’ even though I’m in the background.” Javier Pena To hear more about the real DEA narcos Javier Pena and Steve Murphy, download and listen to this episode. Bio: You may have seen TV shows and documentaries, or read books about the world’s wealthiest, and most violent drug trafficker, but now you have the opportunity to hear the real story of what happened in the investigation of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel. DEA special agents Javier Peña and Steve Murphy were assigned as the lead investigators targeting Escobar and his organization. These true American heroes provide a first-hand lesson in history as they discuss their efforts bringing down the world’s first narco-terrorist, the challenges they faced in oftentimes hostile and life-threatening environments, and the innovative strategies they employed to successfully end the reign of terror of the world’s most wanted criminal. Their presentation is followed by a Q&A opportunity during which Javier and Steve will entertain questions related to their investigation, the making of Narcos, what history changing investigation is next for them, and more. Links: DEA Narcos We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

141 The Real DEA Narcos Javier Peña & Steve Murphy Part 1 Mar 02, 2020

Welcome to our super, special two-part dialogue with the real DEA Narcos Javier Peña and Steve Murphy. In this first episode, they take us behind the scenes of how they came together, from the US to Columbia, and worked for six years, to get Pablo Escobar. We learn, what it feels like to have a $300,000 bounty on your head and how they dealt with the emotional ups and downs of this long-term, often very lonely and of course extraordinarily dangerous mission. Street Deals to Cartels Javier and Steve are two real American heroes who partnered with Colombian Law Enforcement to take down the world’s 1st Narco Terrorist, Pablo Escobar. Their story is actually the basis for the Netflix smash hit Narcos. Javier recounts how he used to work in Austin Texas, where he runs after street dealers. From street buys to surveillance, he never expected he will be sent to Columbia. It has been months before their superiors transferred them to handle the cartels and Pablo Escobar. “Pablo Escobar is one of the richest traffickers in the world. He built his empire on terrorism, on violence and its something we had never seen before. This is why we weren’t really ready when we started going after Escobar, cause we had never seen this type of tactics before.” - Javier Peña Narcoterrorism Javier and Steve recounted this different kind of terrorism that promulgated in Columbia. Pablo Escobar had orchestrated car bombs, which ranged from 10-15 a day which slowly escalated to 50 per day. “He wanted to kill as many innocent people as he could because this was his fight against Columbia. We try to explain that he challenged his country and we like to say that he actually won.” Steve Murphy He also had a bounty on the head of police officers. In fact, the DEA agents caught a 15-year old hitman who shot 10 police officers. The kid took home 100 USD per police officer he kills and he was able to feed and provide shelter to his impoverished family. More on this episode Listen to how Murph and Javier had to bend and break the rules and why they think the courage of the Colombian people and why they think their partners in Colombian Law Enforcement ate the “real heroes.” You’re also going to hear in their voices, the powerful bond, and friendship that has developed between them. In part two, you’ll hear the dramatic conclusion of how they ultimately brought Escobar to justice. We also dig into their life and leadership lessons. We touch on their book, Manhunters and their lives today as public speakers and teachers. To hear more about the real DEA narcos Javier Pena and Steve Murphy, download and listen to this episode. Bio: You may have seen TV shows and documentaries, or read books about the world’s wealthiest, and most violent drug trafficker, but now you have the opportunity to hear the real story of what happened in the investigation of Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel. DEA special agents Javier Peña and Steve Murphy were assigned as the lead investigators targeting Escobar and his organization. These true American heroes provide a first-hand lesson in history as they discuss their efforts bringing down the world’s first narco-terrorist, the challenges they faced in oftentimes hostile and life-threatening environments, and the innovative strategies they employed to successfully end the reign of terror of the world’s most wanted criminal. Their presentation is followed by a Q&A opportunity during which Javier and Steve will entertain questions related to their investigation, the making of Narcos, what history changing investigation is next for them, and more. Links: DEA Narcos We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

140 Built, Not Born w/ Self-Made Billionaire Tom Golisano, Founder Paychex Feb 25, 2020

Today, we speak with self-made Billionaire, Founder of $30B market cap, Paychex. You’re gonna love this guy! He has a new book: Built, Not Born: A Self-Made Billionaire's No-Nonsense Guide for Entrepreneurs. We dig into the book and his insights on why and when you start a company. He also talks about how to build a long-term, successful business and what important steps to take before marriage. Encourager of Entrepreneurs Tom found himself as an encourager of entrepreneurs. He understood why people evaluate whether they want to become an entrepreneur or not. He knew that there are a lot of things to take into account, such as risk and hardships exclusive to entrepreneurship. As risks would be evident in any career, Tom shares that sometimes it is even riskier to work for somebody than it is to be your own entrepreneur. Besides, a business can serve as an heirloom or an asset that one can resell. “If your business concept is well thought off, and you are very well qualified to run your little company, your medium-sized company, whatever. then I think that’s the best of both worlds.” - Tom Golisano Wise Words For Entrepreneurs Aside from a winning concept for an enterprise, Tom shares entrepreneurs must have industry knowledge. Before launching Paychex, he used to sell accounting machines while working for a payroll processing company that caters to large corporations. He believes this industry knowledge affected his success. “Anybody who is considering being an entrepreneur, the first thing that I would ask is ‘what's your industry knowledge?’ You know about this industry, you’re getting into that you could absolutely make a difference or are you gonna end up getting a very serious or costly education because you got into something you really did understand?” - Tom Golisano Sales Management is a Must For Tom, Sales management is one of the biggest issues with entrepreneurs. Most entrepreneurs mask the issue, saying its a “cashflow problem” but in reality, the company is not making enough sales. Tom advises entrepreneurs to start making calls and to immerse themselves as much to learn about the sales process. “You’re not gonna be able to develop a good sales team unless you have that knowledge yourself. You might as well dig right into it. start making sales presentations and sales calls, and if you still don’t think you’re the right person to be doing that, at least you’ll be in the position to train somebody you hire to perform that function.” - Tom Golisano To hear more about Tom’s stories about what it’s like being married to Tennis Legend, Monica Seles, philanthropy, investment strategy and many more, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Thomas Golisano — entrepreneur, philanthropist, and civic leader — is the founder and chairman of the Board of Paychex, Inc., headquartered in Rochester, New York. With more than 12,000 employees and 100 office locations nationwide, Paychex is a leading national provider of payroll, human resource, and benefit outsourcing solutions for more than a half-million small and medium-sized businesses. Tom Golisano served as Paychex’s president and chief executive officer from 1971, when he founded the company, until October 2004. Mr. Golisano and Paychex have consistently been recognized by the business, financial and national media. Mr. Golisano was listed among the FORBES top 10 bosses in the U.S. for three consecutive years, beginning in 2002; the annual ranking is based on chief executives who provide the best balance between their compensation and shareholder return. In February 2020, his first book, Built, Not Born was launched, providing Tom Golisano's trademark direct and often humorous style, and no-nonsense advice across all phases of business ownership. Mr. Golisano has demonstrated an ongoing dedication and commitment to a variety of civic issues and organizations. In 1985 he launched his first philanthropic endeavor by establishing the Golisano Foundation,

139 World Without Waste w/ Steve Pratt CEO of AI Startup Noodle Feb 19, 2020

This is our second in our two-part series on Digital Business, with Steve Pratt, CEO of Noodle.AI, the remarkable startup on a mission to changing global manufacturing and supply chain business. We have a real conversation about how the combination of Machine Learning / AI, The Cloud, IoT and deep data analytics can come together to reduce both economic and environmental waste. In case you missed the first part of this two-part series with Business Guru Big Ben Rewis, check it out: Episode 138. Missionary CEO Christopher has known Steve for over 30 years. He has a vast and impressive experience in digital marketing, starting with the creation of CRM business for Deloitte. He was also the founder and CEO of the InfoSys Consulting Practice and he also led IBM Watson’s initiatives. Steve has deep experience in building and managing massively successful, deep technology businesses. He has some powerful insights, through his company Noodle.Ai, into how modern technology can reduce economic and environmental waste. This is what Christopher calls a great example of a missionary CEO, where the E stands for Evangelist. “The intention of the company is to apply data science to create a world without waste. We reject this notion, historically, that you had to choose between profits and the planet.” - Steve Pratt World Without Waste Steve shares how companies have scaled things right now. They have created amazing hyper-growth for their companies, but have also accumulated huge amounts of waste. “We have over 500 billion dollars of excess inventories sitting in warehouses. We got 50% of trucks driving around, empty. We have about 400B dollar of stuff, that is thrown out in the manufacturing process because of quality defects. These are all preventable.” - Steve Pratt A lot of people analyzed where the waste is in the world and over 90% of the waste in the world is due to manufacturing and logistics. Steve points out that due to bad computations, companies are manufacturing trillion dollars of goods and let it sit in their storage, because they couldnt get it out to the market. Environmental Sustainability Steve shares about steel manufacturing company Big River Steel, which they granted a lead certification for environment sustainability. “With our applications, that consumption to reduce inventory levels, reduce quality defects and they are the most profitable, per employee, the highest profit per mil hour, the lowest environmental impact of any steel known in the world.” - Steve Pratt Christopher and Steve then discussed that companies should analyze data that is readily available to them. This is can easily be achieved through the help of various technologies available. To hear more about how digital businesses can achieve a world without waste and other insights of Steve, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Stephen is an instigator, agitator, and pioneer in creating world-class technology services organizations. He has spent his career building innovative ways to create value for the world's most important organizations. Prior to Noodle, he was responsible for all Watson implementations worldwide for IBM Global Business Services. He also was the founder and CEO of Infosys Consulting, a Senior Partner at Deloitte Consulting, and a technology and strategy consultant at Booz, Allen & Hamilton. He twice has been selected as one of the top 25 consultants in the world by Consulting Magazine. He has Bachelors and Masters degrees in Electrical Engineering from Northwestern University and The George Washington University focused on Satellite Communications. For fun, Steve plays competitive tennis, races sailboats, and formerly was a crazed rugby player. He enjoys playing acoustic guitar for his children (not ready for prime time). Links: Linkedin - Stephen Pratt Noodle.AI We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him,

138 Digital Business Guru Big Ben Rewis Feb 17, 2020

This is our first in a special two-part series on Digital Business. The legendary Big Ben Rewis joins us today to have a real, powerful conversation about digital businesses today and how big data can contribute to sustainability. In our next episode, watch out for Steve Pratt CEO of Noodle.AI, the remarkable startup changing global supply chains. Surfer, Snowboard, Advisor Big Ben is one of the most extraordinary adventure athlete’s of this time. He is a skier, snowboarder, sailor, and surfer. In fact, one of his first few sponsors were Jake Burton, the founder of Burton Snowboards. Today, when he’s not surfing or on some kind of adventure, Ben Rewis would most likely be dishing digital business advice to Fortune 100 companies and startups in Silicon Valley. He has deep experience in building and managing massively scalable digital business and payments infrastructure. Digital Business Guru Just to name a few of Ben’s contributions, he created the Internet e-Commerce team for Visa. He was also Head of Security & Fraud Technology for First Data and he’s an advisor to a startup Verdant Robotics, a startup doing amazing things with AI & Machine Learning in the smart agriculture category. “I think there’s a lot of themes, there’s a lot of organizational and technical similarity across all of them. The whole notion of data in the digital business is just fascinating, what's happening in the industry today. Cause you know, like the industry quote ‘software is eating the world.’” - Ben Rewis Digital Business is the Future Digital businesses are not brand new, as they have been around a long time.Ben now shares that people are realizing the by-product of their digital business can infect more businesses. “Digital businesses don’t necessarily have new value-added services that are data-based. They may have a legacy product or service, that is digital and they realizing that the data that is produced by that service can help them generate new revenues, or cut costs.” - Ben Rewis To hear more about how digital businesses can greatly influence sustainability efforts for the future and other insights of Ben, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Ben Rewis was raised in New England north of Boston, the eldest son of two high school teachers. After graduation from The Stowe School in VT., he moved to San Francisco, CA at age 17 and have been in technology ever since. Today, he’s an advisory consultant to startup CEOs, and a deep payments expert with solid leadership and innovation skills. Facilitator, speaker, communicator, thinker and doer, able to bring different constituencies together around a common digital business vision and set of deliverables. Able to drive from big picture down to concrete initiatives. Passionate about helping teams solve challenges for strategic alignment. In addition to his business involvement with major companies, he has decades of wilderness and group leadership experience, becoming an Outward Bound instructor at age 21, and taking part in numerous adventure expeditions around the world. He’s crossed deserts and canyons, sailed the Tasman Sea, and climbed mountains like McKinley. He enjoys just about all board sports, competed in the first world championships for snowboarding, and learned to surf at age 40. Ben co-founded the Drop In Coalition, and is an Advisory Board Member of the Save The Waves Coalition, and was honored in 2019 as a Royal Geographic Society Fellow. Links: Ben Rewis Linkedin: Ben Rewis Instagram: @benrewis Twitter: @benrewis Verdant Robotics Save The Waves Organization We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

137 Sex & Intimacy w/ Alice Little #1 Companion At Moonlite Bunny Ranch Feb 12, 2020

This is a very special episode and a very different episode. Part 1 was with Intimacy Coach Allana Pratt. Today, for Part 2 in our series on Intimacy and Sex, we welcome Alice Little, legal sex worker and #1 Luxury Companion at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch in Carson City, Nevada USA. We get into it! Why Alice loves her job, why she says it’s all about connection, communication, and intimacy, what it’s like to use her service and why nothing is too kinky! Job Unlike Any Other Alice describes herself as a legal sex worker, sex educator, and intimacy expert. She used to travel in the Midwest, educating about sex until she was introduced to brothels. She found out that brothels are a unique place to work. All other sex workers have different work experiences from each other “My job very much so isn’t just sex. It's so much more than that. It’s communication, connection, intimacy and teaching people how to love themselves.” - Alice Little Radical Self-Acceptance From a different perspective, she shares that one of the things she does is to teach people how to connect to their bodies, through radical self-acceptance. Through the acts of connection with clients, Alice shares it gives them the ability to connect deeper with themselves and appreciate who they are. When asked what it is liked to have sex with her, Alice nonchalantly shared it’s life-changing. “Oftentimes it changes the entire way people have sex moving forward. Like when is the last time you asked your partner and say ‘show me what feels nice’ and people say ‘oh shit, I have literally never uttered those words in the bedroom. I barely had sex with the lights on, let alone had a conversation while getting into that’ and I enable people to do that. It is really eye-opening.” - Alice Little Stigma With Sex Alice continued to share her views about sex, and she says it is something highly stigmatized in this country. A brothel is a safe place for Alice, where people can ask questions and expect not to be judged. Nothing is taboo and there is no judgment in brothels. “I’m very, very comfortable helping people and enabling them to explore things that they probably couldn't in their day to day lives.” - Alice Little Alice shared a lot about the process of booking appointments, touring the ranch and the types of experiences she offers. Pay special attention to her advice on how we can improve our sex lives. She even talks about how she markets herself and her marketing advice for you. To listen more about Alice’s advice on intimacy and sex, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Alice Little is the highest-earning sex worker in the United States. Little wrote in a Huffington Post op-ed that she makes $1 million per year from working in Nevada. Little is a native of Ireland and moved to the U.S. at the age of 5 and grew up in Lond Island, New York. Thanks to her 2017 article, “A Week as a Legal Sex Worker In Mound House, NV, On A $267,000 Salary, and appearances on Tim Ferris’s podcast, Little has become a well-known advocate for sex workers across the world. Little began her career as a sex worker at the Sagebrush Ranch in 2015. In 2017, Little moved to the Moonlite Bunny Ranch where she was the most booked sex worker in the United States for two years in a row. Links: The Alice Little Youtube: Moonlite Bunny Ranch Tour with Alice Little Twitter: @thealicelittle Alice Little We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

136 Intimacy & Sex w/ Allana Pratt Feb 10, 2020

Yup, we’re doing it! For this week, we have a two-part special on Intimacy and Sex. In this episode, everyone’s favorite intimacy guru and coach, Allana Pratt. This conversation is a wonderful, magical mystery tour about intimacy, pain, pleasure, how we actually feel through our hearts, and a lot more! Pay special attention toward the end, when Allana gives her ideas for some fun things to do with your partner on Valentine’s day! Next episode, watch out for Alice Little, the two-time, #1 Companion of the Year at Nevada’s Moonlite Bunny Ranch. It is everything you ever wanted to know about her profession and what she thinks you can do to spice up your sex life. Valentine’s Day is Stupid The conversation started off with Allana sharing her thoughts about the upcoming Valentine’s Day. As much as it feels like an obligation for couples to spend, she also shares its a good holiday to make an extra effort for partners. “I think Valentine’s day is a manufactured, stupid-marketing-hiccup-the-prices-of-roses-and-restaurants and it generally pisses most people off as it feels like an obligation, right?” - Allana Pratt Every day is Valentine’s Day Valentine’s day is a great opportunity to remind ourselves that we might have been taking our partners for granted. Allana further shares that if you don’t take time and energy to plan romantic things with your partner, it’s gonna wither. Because of this, she looks at the blessing of Valentine’s day as a reminder. Christopher also shared his love story in this episode, about how she met her wife Kari and how a similar experience in their lives brought them together. Christopher admits its Valentine’s every day when he is with Kari. Pain, Heart Over Brain and Others Allana shares a lot more interesting insights in this episode. Why it is better to feel pain and be humbled earlier in your lives. What intimacy means and how self-love can define how intimate you can become. She also touches a part about the importance of feelings to be able to tap unto different kinds of powers such as strong intuition. “You can’t think your way to coherence, harmony, kindness, love. You have to feel your way there. That is also been scientifically proven.” - Allana Pratt To listen more about Allan’s advice on intimacy and sex, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Intimacy Expert, Allana Pratt inspires open-hearted, unapologetic living with delicious sass. Her inspiring vulnerability and courage has landed her a featured weekly column on the GoodMenProject, featured as an Icon of Influence, and as Guest Expert on The Jenny McCarthy Show, Huffington Post, People Magazine, Forbes, CBS, TLC and FOX. This cum laude graduate of Columbia University is the Author of 4 books, has interviewed Whoopi Goldberg, Alanis Morissette and Dr. Bernie Seigel and Hosts the edgy Podcast “Intimate Conversations” where listeners learn to thrive after heartbreak and find the relationship they deserve. A certified coach, Allana was asked by Leeza Gibbons to coach her during Dancing with the Stars. With over 4 million viewers on YouTube, Allana is the go-to authority when struggling to trust again after a harsh breakup so followers can create healthy, thriving intimate relationships with themselves first, which naturally attracts their ideal match. Links: Allana Pratt Instagram: @allanapratt Twitter: @allanapratt Youtube: Allana Pratt We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

135 Restoring the Soul of Business w/ Rishad Tobaccowala Feb 05, 2020

Today, we feature another great author in this series. Rishad Tobaccowala is the Chief Growth Officer at Publicis Groupe, an advertising and communications firm with 80,000 people! He has a brand new book, Restoring the Soul of Business. We talk about how business leaders are overly focused on spreadsheets, why the best companies are like religions, the importance of being human beings at work! Spreadsheet, Story, and Soul Over the last few years where things are moving extremely fast because of technology, data, financial and twitchiness of time, Rishad shares that companies have started tilting towards the spreadsheet side of the business, which is measurable, data-driven and financial. However, for Rishad, a successful company is one who can marry both the spreadsheet side of the business and the story of the business, which is about the culture, the purpose, values, emotion, and talent of the company. “The soul of the business is when you combine the story and the spreadsheet in a way that you have a viable growing business with viable growing people, in a community that is also viable.” - Rishad Tobaccowala Business Is For Citizens Rishad believes that its time to optimize the business for the citizen, and not for the consumer. He discussed about this during his talk last January 2019, addressing professionals from Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook. “What we’ve created is something incredible in both the empowerment, the connections, and the wealth creation opportunities. At the same stage, there is a downside, which is, increased inequality, increased polarization and to a great extent, a break down of trust. Could it be, that in chasing just the data side of the spreadsheet side, we lost the souls of our businesses?” - Rishad Tobaccowala The Purpose of A Company The first one is to ensure that its four constituencies are looked after. The four are (1) people who they serve - customers, members, users, consumers (2) the talent that works in the company (3) community in which the company or the companies offices and factories are based and (4) the country in which that particular segment of the company is based. Rishad shares that the 2nd part of the company's reason to be. ”To generate financial profit which basically allows the company to both reinvest in all those first four criteria, as well as continue to grow because to me, growth is an important thing, but growth measured across those four indicators.” - Rishad Tobaccowala The third one is how companies create purpose, value, meaning, and connections for life. To listen more about Rishad’s advice to restore the soul in the business, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Rishad is Chief Growth Officer and member of the Management Committee of Publicis Groupe, the world’s third largest communication firm with 80,000 employees. BusinessWeek named Rishad as one of the top business leaders for his pioneering innovation and TIME magazine dubbed him one of five “Marketing Innovators. Rishad’s first book “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data” will be published globally on January 28, 2020. Re-Inventing blog features some of his writings. Prior to his current role, Rishad was the Chief Strategist and Member of the Directoire/+ of Publicis Groupe. Before his corporate role, Rishad was the Chairman of DigitasLBi and Razorfish. Publicis Groupe owns these two global firms, with over 10,000 employees around the world focused on marketing and business transformation. Rishad has 36 years of experience around the world and helped grow, founded/co-founded or incubated a variety of companies including VivaKi, Leo Burnett, Starcom, SMG Next, Starcom IP, Giant Step, Play, and Denuo. Rishad has a BS in Mathematics from the University of Bombay and an MBA in Marketing and Finance from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. Links: rishadtobaccowala.com Book: Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in...

134 Wisdom At Work w/ Chip Conley Feb 03, 2020

This is a powerful conversation about mid-life design with Chip Conley. He used to be the CEO of the second-largest based boutique hotel in the US. He then ended up joining Air BNB, to help the young founders of Airbnb navigate their growth in the hospitality category. Today, we talk about why Chip thinks people at their mid-life need to do a reset. Listen for what Chip calls his “emotional equation” and more ideas, based on Chip's new book Wisdom at Work. Boy Wonder to Modern Elder As we continue our run of legendary authors and entrepreneurs, we converse today with Chip Conley. He’s the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second-largest operator of boutique hotels in the United States. He started in 1987 at age 26 and held the position of CEO for nearly 24 years. In 2010, after having created and managed 50 boutique hotels mostly in California, Conley sold his company. He later joined the young business leaders of Airbnb. Today Air BNB is the company that created and now dominates a new travel category “I was brought in as the old guy, to help them, because of my hospitality and leadership experience. But they taught me, as much as I taught them.” - Chip Conley Hard Truths for Midlife Professionals Chip candidly shares that unfortunately, for a lot of people in midlife and later is, they are not open to being curious. “They don’t want to look like an idiot at age 45 or 50 and so they're not actually that open to learning from someone younger than them. Yet, 40% of Americans today have a boss that is younger than them and by the year 2025, the majority of Americans will have a boss younger than them.” - Chip Conley He further added that we live in an era of digital intelligence. There is an impression that younger people are digital natives. They have more fluency and ability to learn in the digital world, hence tech companies usually hire them for senior roles. The Modern Elder Academy People in their midlife often ask, “how do I press the reset button?” Chip shares that one of the reasons why he created the Modern Elder Academy is to have a place for middle age professionals to have a pitstop in their lives. He stresses the importance of asking the following questions: “What mastery have I mined? What wisdom have I cultivated and how can I harvest it? How can I repurpose it and frankly, what is it that I really want to do in my life, because I have been living the life that my parents wanted for me to live.” - Chip Conley To listen more about Chip’s advice to midlife professionals in getting wisdom at work, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Chip Conley The iconic boutique hotelier who helped Airbnb's founders turn their fast-growing tech start-up into a global hospitality brand, Chip Conley is a New York Times bestselling author whose manifesto on ageism, Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder, is inspired by his experience of being both a mentor and an intern in his 50s. After selling the company he started as a rebel entrepreneur at age 26, Joie de Vivre Hospitality, Chip wasn't sure what was next. He could have retired at age 52. But the young founders of Airbnb came calling. He served as Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality & Strategy for four years — while also being CEO Brian Chesky’s mentor — and continues today as a Strategic Advisor to the company’s leadership. While writing Wisdom@Work, Chip was inspired to build the world's first "midlife wisdom school," the Modern Elder Academy, with a 3-acre oceanfront campus in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Chip is an active mentor to six young CEO founders in the hospitality/tech world, and serves on the board of Encore. org and the advisory board for the Stanford Center for Longevity. He believes curiosity is the elixir of life and started learning Spanish and surfing at age 58. Links: Chip Conley Modern Elder Academy Modern Elder Academy Interview We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™!

133 New York Times #1 Best Seller Ryan Holiday On Stillness, Wisdom, Faith, Peter Thiel & More Jan 24, 2020

We continue our run of legendary Authors and today, our guest is NYT #1 Best Selling author Ryan Holiday. Ryan is one of the most important writers of our time and hanging out in his brain, makes you a different person! We talk about stillness, wisdom, faith, Peter Thiel and more! Interesting Topics Ryan is the author of Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue. The book is interesting enough as it is about how Paypal founder Peter Thiel took down Gawker Media, through a grand scheme that was founded on the issue with Hulk Hogan. Apparently, Gawker Media publicized an illicitly recorded home sex tape of Hogan. He also authored the books The Obstacle is the Way, Trust Me, I'm Lying and Growth Hacker Marketing” Ego Is the Enemy. Today, he shares about his recent book Stillness is the Key. “In stillness, I’m illustrating stoic ideas with stories from Zen philosophy and vice versa. I always want to be seeking out deeper ideas and diverse ideas. I think that’s ultimately how you learn and how you triangulate real truths.” - Ryan Holiday Old Soul Christopher remarked how Ryan reminds him so much about Adele, as he is an old soul stuck in a 30-something body. Christopher was astounded with his choice of topics ranging from Rome, Greece, Ancient History and the like. He is none like his contemporaries who are busy with social media and mindless online content. “I got an advise a long time ago that you should write what you’re afraid about, or write what you are unsure about.” - Ryan Holiday Probably one controversial part of the book is the discussion about faith. “Part of this idea of surrender is saying ‘you know what, I’m going to accept this uncertainty a little bit. I will accept that this isn’t all about me, that I don’t know everything. I’m going to accept that there is “something” operating behind the scenes that have an agenda or perspective, or indifference to a regular human problem or issue.” - Ryan Holiday Stillness Ryan shares how his conversation went with the publishers for his new book. He says he does not claim it as The Ryan Holiday philosophy as he merely translated and popularized the tried and tested ideas of smart people To listen more about what Ryan learned while doing marketing for fallen fashion brand “American Apparel” and more on faith, wisdom and stillness, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Ryan Holiday is one of the world’s foremost thinkers and writers on ancient philosophy and its place in everyday life. He is a sought-after speaker, strategist, and the author of many bestselling books including The Obstacle Is the Way; Ego Is the Enemy; and The Daily Stoic. His books have been translated into over 30 languages and read by over two million people worldwide. He lives outside Austin, Texas, with his family. Links: Ryan Holiday Twitter: @ryanholiday Instagram: @RyanHoliday Good Reads - Stillness is the Key We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

132 Sizing People Up w/ FBI Agent Robin Dreeke Jan 22, 2020

In this episode, we continue our run on legendary authors. We hang out with former Marine, FBI agent and Chief of the FBI Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, Robin Dreeke. This guy used to hang out with foreign spies in an effort to get them to turn on their countries and help the US. He’s got some insanely valuable experience in how to communicate, and relate to people. Detecting Lies Christopher asked one of the most pressing questions any FBI agent has been asked, ‘how do you detect lying?’ Robin candidly shares “you don’t.” He further shares that even the best people in the world have 50% accuracy when it comes to detecting deception. Instead, what Robin looks for when speaking to a “subject” are verbal and non-verbal signs of stress. “I never like to tell someone or think that someone is deceiving or lying, I just think in terms of ‘they don’t have transparency with me.’” - Robin Dreeke Famous Cop Questions One of the most famous cop question, as seen in movies, is the suspect's whereabouts. Robin shared what these cops are looking for is a direct answer. Robin personally shared his personal guidelines when he is questioning a subject: (1) Seeking thoughts and opinions, (2) Speaking in terms of their priorities, (3) Validating them and (4) Empowering them with choices; Similarities With Sales Robin shares that he must have had the hardest sales job in the world. His product is selling American patriotism to foreign diplomats, wherein affiliation is also considered to be illegal. “From rapport, you build trust. From trust, you get a healthy relationship.” - Robin Dreeke Other than that, he confirms that his learnings, which he wrote in the book Sizing People Up is highly beneficial to sales or business people in general. For the part where Robin talks about the real FBI secret for solving crimes, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Robin is a best-selling author, professional speaker, trainer, facilitator, and retired FBI Special Agent and Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. Robin has taken his life's work of recruiting spies and broken down the art of leadership, communication, and relationship building into Five Steps to TRUST and Six Signs of who you can TRUST. Since 2010, Robin has been working with large corporations as well as small companies in every aspect of their business. Whether it is newly promoted leaders, executives, sales teams, or customer relations, Robin has crafted his People Formula for quick results and maximum success. The Military Leader Although Robin always aspired to become a great leader, he realized from his time at the United States Naval Academy and in the United States Marine Corps that leadership was much more than just telling people what to do: a great leader uses interpersonal skills to inspire action, rather than demand the compliance of others. The Spy Catcher Upon entering service as an FBI Special Agent in 1997, Robin began his journey as a counterintelligence specialist and behaviorist in the agency's efforts to thwart the efforts of our country's greatest adversaries. Serving in New York City, Norfolk VA, FBI Headquarters, Quantico VA, and Fredericksburg VA, Robin received advanced training and experience in the area of social psychology and the practical application of the science behind relationship development and trust, ultimately leading the FBI's elite Behavioral Analysis Program. The Behavioral Analysis Expert Robin has built his highly effective tools for all aspects and stages of interpersonal communication and relationship development. Robin has combined all these tools and techniques and created a one-of-a-kind formula for success with people. Today, Robin is a recognized expert, author, and gifted lecturer in the art of interpersonal communication, relationship building and Trust. These skills are used every day in leadership, sales, human resources, and all aspects of life, both business and personal.

131 How to Build Billion Dollar Startups w/ David Sacks Jan 17, 2020

In this episode, we have a real conversation about legendary entrepreneurs and investor David Sacks about how to build billion-dollar startups. We talk about how startups go off the rails and what is ok and not ok to lose money on. We also touch on why B2C strategies have become powerful for B2B companies and many more! If you’re an executive or an entrepreneur, even if you’re outside of tech, get your pen ready. there's a ton on this episode! Legendary VC We continue our run of legendary VCsc with David Sacks. He was a co-founder of PayPal, Founder, and CEO of Yammer and Founder of Craft Ventures. Some of his investments include Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, Airbnb and Bird This is another great example of the power of a real dialogue podcast. "You know the old line of 'nobody ever got fired for buying IBM'? I think that the modern version of that saying would be 'no one ever got fired for buying the category leader' and if you become the category leader, you just get all these sales by default." - David Sacks Going Off The Rails David shares how he witnessed high profile companies going off the rails for several reasons. He noted that aside from product-market fit, there are other mundane reasons why these companies fail. Here’s the big list that could go wrong in high growth companies: “One is commoditization, the rest of the world catches up the startups innovation. Two, cost of customer acquisition, a bunch of reasons it could happen. Third, margin problem, negative gross margins. Fourth, external dependency. Fifth, leaky bucket, there’s a problem with retaining customers. Sixth, regulatory compliance, then, sales compliance problem, that’s seven. Eight, doing things that don’t scale. Nine would be the founder psychology problem which is pushing things too far and tenth, company culture problem. One the 10.1 mark, macro shock where the company goes out for financing and isn’t able to raise around because of one of the problems I mentioned in them. Everything comes to head and you had a car crash.” - David Sacks The Challenge for Startups One of the greatest fears of startups Is commoditization. David says there is always a risk of the competition catching up in terms of software design. He encourages startups that it is a trade-off to make, to move fast enough to maintain market leadership. “Everyone is running around with their hair on fire but they’re afraid that their innovation gets copied. If you’re not moving fast enough, you’re on a bit of hamster wheel. If you’re not moving fast enough, you’re running in place.” - David Sacks To hear about David’s thoughts on how to define and dominate a market category, what areas of technology David thinks have the most promise and more, download and listen to this episode. Bio: David Sacks is a highly accomplished entrepreneur and investor in internet technology firms. He is general partner of Craft Ventures, a venture capital fund he co-founded in late 2017. Previously as an entrepreneur, Sacks was the founding COO and product leader of PayPal (acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion) and Founder/CEO of Yammer (acquired by Microsoft in 2012 for $1.2 billion). In 2016, he led the turnaround of Zenefits as interim CEO. In 2017, Sacks co-founded blockchain startup Harbor as an incubation of Craft Ventures. His angel investments include Facebook, Uber, SpaceX, Palantir Technologies, Airbnb and Houzz. Links: Twitter - @davidsacks Craft Ventures Crunch Base - David Sacks We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

130 Grumpy Old Geek Jason DeFillippo Jan 15, 2020

He’s back! Podcast legend and co-host of Grumpy Old Geeks podcast, Jason DeFillippo joins us for another dynamic conversation about deep fakes, streaming services, and tech that will or will not change your life in 2020. Deep Fakes and Video Editing Undeniably Christopher’s favorite topic with Jason, they talk about deep fakes and astounding editing to produce fake news. Christopher cites a Forbes article about CNN Reporter Jim Acosta allegedly pushing a White House intern. “It was edited to remove 2-3 frames of the film, to speed up, when he pushed the person and they removed the ‘pardon me, ma’am’ out of the audio. That was just creative editing.” - Jason DeFellippo Moreover, there was also another video circulating the interwebs that make it look like Sarah Sanders was intoxicated in public. It doesn’t end there because they also talk about Gal Gadot, the most recent actor to play WonderWoman, who apparently appeared in a porn video. Clearly another deep fake. Have You Heard About “Hearables?” Apparently, hearables are the new category king and queen for 2020 as different brands introduced a “smart” earbuds. Although Christopher is a fan of the attempt to create a new category, Jason says the products really mean nothing. “That’s the thing, they’re not smart. They are just conduit to your phone. If you go out without your phone, they don’t work. they get real dumb, real fast.” - Jason DeFellippo Aside from this, Jason rants about adding more gadgets to charge. He says he has 7 gadgets at the moment and he would prefer using wired earphones/plugs due to the sound quality. The Field of Streams Jason shares that around 7 years ago, on his podcast Grumpy Old Geeks, they have predicted this will happen. Everybody saw the popularity of Netflix and all the content creators decided they should make their own platforms. “I think we’re going to see consolidation coming. People are going to start doing deals with each other to get bundling packages.” - Jason DeFellippo Jason also predicted that households would just pay for around 3 streaming service, max. To hear more information about Jason DeFellippo and to listen to more of his comments on deep fakes, tech for 2020 and streaming services, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Jason is a full-time podcast producer and editor for The Jordan Harbinger Show as well as the Creator and Co-host of the Grumpy Old Geeks Podcast. Jason has been building websites since the early days in 1994 for clients that range from small businesses to million dollar websites for blockbuster films to his own start-ups. In 1994 he created the groundbreaking website Spewww which was nominated for a Webby in the first year the awards were held in 1998. In 1995 a new media company in Santa Monica moved him out to Los Angeles to build the first website for Epson America. Since then Jason has launched over 250 websites for major corporations like Paramount Pictures, Sony, Warner Brothers, and Disney. He also created the two time SXSW Weblog Award-winning Blogrolling service as well as co-founded the global blog network Metroblogging. He has worked at several startups in San Francisco including Technorati and 8020 Media, the publishers of JPGMagazine.com, and statistical aggregator Metricly. Links: Website – Jason DeFillippo Twitter Instagram LinkedIn Website: Grumpy Old Geeks Jordan Harbinger Show Some of the topics covered: It's All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Hurt: The Implications Of Deepfakes Tech That Will Change Your Life in 2020 The future is ear: Why “hearables” are finally tech’s next big thing The Great Streaming Battle Is Here. No One Is Safe We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

129 How to go from Sales Rep to Chairman of The Board in Silicon Valley w/ Elisa Steele Jan 13, 2020

In this episode, we are taken for a ride on how to go from sales rep to Chairman of the board with the amazing Elisa Steele. We have a powerful conversation about how she went from sales rep to regional sales to CMO, then CEO. We also talk about what she’s learned from working in massive tech companies like Microsoft and Yahoo and many more, Wait for the part where she gives advice on how women can design legendary careers and have children too. From Sales Rep to CEO Elisa Steels is the Chairman of the board of two publicly traded tech companies, Cornerstone on Demand and Namley. She’s also on the Board of $25B Splunk. More of her career background includes former CEO of Namley and Jive and former CMO of Skype, and Yahoo. She candidly shares what she learned from her career in these huge tech companies and from smaller entrepreneurial companies. From the time she graduated, she had a clear vision of what success looks like and she believes she will achieve it through sales. “If I went into sales, then its really clear. If I’m successful, I made or overachieve my number. Nobody can be subjective about that. If I go into some of these other fields, that was like, a complete mystery to me, how do I know if I am actually gonna make it? - Elisa Steele Legendary Career Woman Initially, Elisa shares the only one thing she wished for her career: to not work with other people. The second thing she wished was to have financial independence. She believes that if women do not build resources for themselves, the critical decisions will be left to other people other than themselves. “I was motivated by the fact or maybe even terrified by the fact that I wouldn’t have choices in life if I didn’t have resources. If you don’t have resources, then decisions in your life are up to somebody else. Resources equals choice.” - Elisa Steele For Elisa, resources generally are assets. It is representative of the things that help women make a decision on what they want to do. Creating some wealth will make those choices, especially those that are critical in life. How to Disagree and Commit Elisa is a powerful executive and she shares the thought of disagreeing, but still committing. She describes herself as a consensus builder. “Being the smartest in the room doesn’t actually help anybody. You have to actually make decisions and together, execute, because strategy is nothing without strong execution. Executiion is everything. Even if the strategy is off, you can still win, if you execute. Disagree but commit and be one team.” - Elisa Steele To hear more information about Elisa Steele and to listen to his tips on how to go from sales rep to chairman of the board, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Elisa Steele is the Chairman of the Board at Cornerstone (CSOD) and Namely; Board Director at Splunk (SPLK) and an advisor to Advisor to Tile and people.ai. She’s the former CEO of Namely and Jive Software, Inc., Ms. Steele served as Chief Marketing Officer and Corporate Vice President, Consumer Apps & Services at Microsoft Corporation, a worldwide provider of software, services and solutions, and Chief Marketing Officer of Skype, an Internet communications company, from 2012-2014. Ms. Steele also has held executive leadership positions Yahoo! Inc. and NetApp, Inc. Ms. Steele has served as a member of the board of directors of Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc., a learning and human capital management software company, since 2018. Ms. Steele holds a B.S. from the University of New Hampshire and an M.B.A. from San Francisco State University. Links: Linkedin - Elisa Steele Twitter: - @elisasteele We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

128 Human Behavior & Loving People with Different Abilities w/ Dr. Sean Peterson Jan 06, 2020

This dialogue is a glimpse into a legend— whose name might not be world-renown but surely is worth getting to know—Dr. Sean Peterson. We connected over our love of people and children who are, “differently-abled. We talk about autism, uniqueness, human behavior and more. Love For Kids We’re at a point where every guest we have on could be someone famous. But just because someone’s well known, doesn’t mean you can have a real-life affirming conversation with them. Today, Christopher converses with Dr. Sean Peterson. Dr. Sean has a Phd. in Applied Behavior Analysis and has spent 10 years running an autism clinic. He’s a wonderful guy, a husband and father. He also runs a physical therapy clinic with his wife called FYZICAL. “I think people are wonderful in general but working with kids in particular, is amazing. the delight that they have in their eyes, the ability to just make me laugh about ridiculous things.” - Dr. Sean Peterson What is Autism? Dr. Sean defines autism as “a neurodevelopmental disorder. He acknowledges that everyone, doctors and parents alike, needs a lot more to understand autism, but on the most basic level, it is categorized by repetitive behavior and social deficit. “A lot of that social deficit comes in the form of communication deficit. In particular, being able to communicate basic wants and needs and also being able to interpret the feedback that is given back.” - Dr. Sean Peterson Functional Behaviors As a behavioral analyst, Dr. Sean shares his point of view on why humans behave such way. It is basically categorized into four: access to attention, access to tangible items, escape from unpleasant situations and access to sensory input or automatic reinforcement He further cites examples of how to identify each one. “Everybody is unique. Follow your different right? So, its really finding that specific piece for each kid and so from a behavior analyst standpoint, from an applied behavior analysis perspective, our goal is really to teach functional replacement behaviors and skill acquisition.” - Dr. Sean Peterson He further shares that behavior is functional. Everything we do has a functional outcome and the same behavior could actually bring us different things. To hear more information about Dr. Sean Peterson and to learn more about human behavior and loving differently abled kids, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Originally, from outside of Los Angeles, CA, Sean spent his college years at TCU down in Ft. Worth, TX. During his time in Ft. Worth, Sean spent 4 years as TCU's Mascot, SuperFrog! He also had the privilege of cycling across the United States to raise money for individuals with disabilities. After finishing at TCU, Sean went on to complete his PHD in Applied Behavior Analysis at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. He moved his young family to Sioux City, IA, where he was the first clinical director of the Pier Center for Autism. When Sean and Lauren began to consider a move to be closer to family, Oklahoma City was the perfect choice. Sean and his wife Lauren have a passion for evidence based medical care and opened FYZICAL Therapy & Balance Centers of Oklahoma City to provide physical therapy focused on Pelvic Health, and Balance and Falls Prevention. It is with Lauren's physical therapy knowledge and passion that FYZICAL has grown, and is helping the people of OKC Love Their Lives! Links: Fyzical Linkedin - Sean Peterson We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

127 How To Get & Stay Fit w/ Joey Wolfe Jan 03, 2020

For our first episode this year 2020, we hang out with professional athlete fitness trainer and founder of Paradigm Sport in Santa Cruz, CA, Joey Wolfe. Today we go beyond all of 7-minute abs BS, get fit quick, scams and shams and have a real, different conversation about making fitness and wellness stick in your life. Trainer of Champions and Weekend Warriors The last time Joey Wolfe had a conversation with Christopher was a year ago. Joey’s episode remains one of our most popular ever. We’re definitely sure, listeners will get practical ideas for well-being improvement, He has trained superstar athletes like Mitch Haniger of the Seattle Mariners. Additionally, he has worked with former UFC champion Luke Rockhold. World Surf League rookie of the year Nat Young and a lot of regular weekend warrior type like us have trained with him. “We all know what to do. We all know that going and exercising in the gym for a min of 30 min is a good thing. But for a lot of people, there’s something preventing them from doing that. So just try to get clear on what their motivating factor is” - Joey Wolfe New Year’s Resolutions and Diet Crazes One of the reasons why people hit the gym is its part of their New Year’s resolution. Joey says that although it is a good reason, it doesn’t qualify as a great one as it cannot s sustain through the rest of the years. “Just getting clear what their goals are and then, really trying to start off easy with their habit change. Trying to get them to do something that I know they’re gonna be successful with.” - Joey Wolfe He also shares how he tried intermittent fasting, keto, paleo diet, vegan, blood typing diet and what works faster, what works slower and what doesn’t work at all. “Try to educate yourself on this stuff and then try it. Everybody is different. There are polarizing ideas in terms of what’s right and even someone like me in the health and fitness profession, its hard to know what’s right.” - Joey Wolfe Recommendations and What Nots Christopher loves Joey’s POV that everyone is an athlete. We all have an athlete inside us. Designing a legendary life entails being active, fit and healthy. With this said, he shares how athletes and weekend warriors alike can follow the same set of principles for fitness and health. Joey shares adding more habits is better than removing some. He says there is science behind developing habits. For example, it is better to drink more water, take more protein, add more supplements, among others, rather than cutting down sugar and carbs. To hear more information about Joey Wolfe and to listen to his tips on how to get and stay fit,, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Joey is a lifelong athlete. He is the founder and CEO of Paradigm Sport, located in Santa Cruz, CA Early in his career he played professional baseball and was on track to be a major league catcher when injures took him out. Never a quitter, Joey dedicated his life to empowering others to be fit, healthy and make their athletic dreams come true. He’s trained countless pro-baseball players, UFC fighters, pro-surfers and regular folks who want to take their game up in life. A native of the Central Coast of California, his talent and passion for baseball took him to the professional level where he worked with some of the country’s best trainers. As an ACSM-certified trainer he now shares his experience and enthusiasm with world-class athletes and fitness clients alike. Joey has built a business with the goal of bringing the most advanced techniques and the highest levels of individualized athlete training to the Central Coast community. The local environment has shaped his interests and defined sport-specific training in two disciplines: competitive surfing, for which Santa Cruz is world-renowned; and baseball, which launched his career. Links: Paradigm Sport Instagram: @Paradigm_Sport Facebook: Paradigm Sport We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™!

126 Grief & Happiness For The Holidays w/ Dushka Zapata Dec 23, 2019

Today, one of the most prolific and important writers in the world, Dushka Zapata, joins us for a very unusual but moving discussion. They talk about grief, happiness and why its okay to opt-out for the holidays. Her work has been viewed over 150 million times on Q & A site Quora. This might be the most different conversation you’ve ever heard about the holidays! Remembering Those We Have Lost The holidays are wonderful celebratory times for us to focus on our friends, family and for many of us, our faith. For many of us, the holiday season can be a happy season. However, there are quite a number who have moments of some sorrow. The holidays, intentionally or unintentionally, reminds us of the people we have lost. “As you know, I write a lot at Quora. A lot of questions I answer are about people who are asking permission.’Is it normal for me to be sad? How long should grief last? i lost my dog four years ago and I’m still mourning, is that normal?’ To me, my answer is always, ‘who cares?’ Who cares if it’s normal? You should feel whatever it is that you’re feeling. Who is it that is an authority on regulating what other people should or shouldn’t be feeling?” - Dushka Zapata The 7 Steps To Overcome Grief Christopher shares that there are no 7 steps to overcome grief. Some people advise those who are grieving with tips on how to cope but the reality is, there are no stages to grief and Dushka says its totally acceptable. “I think so many people want to help but I’m going to tell you, asking someone to cheer up when they’re grieving is like sitting on someone's chest when they’re trying to breathe.” - Dushka Zapata A Happy Person Who Grieves Dushka shares some personal stories on how she considers herself as a happy person who grieves. The primary reason she grieves during December was her father passed away that month. Ever since, she has not celebrated the holiday. “I just feel like we should all be making that space for others. It’s okay to grieve, it’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to hate the holidays, its okay to not want other people to have a happy holiday because you just can’t do that to another person, to be happy, forceful happiness, its okay.” - Dushka Zapata To hear more information about Dushka Zapata and to listen to why its okay to feel grief over the holidays, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Dushka Zapata is one of the most prolific and popular writers working today. On question and answer site Quora her work has been viewed over 150 million times. She’s the author of eight best-selling books. Dushka has over 20 years experience as a senior communications executive in Silicon Valley. When she’s not writing, she serves as a communications executive at tech juggernaut Zendesk. Links: Quora - Dushka Zapata Amazon - Dushka Zapata Love Yourself: and Other Insurgent Acts That Recast Everything You Belong Everywhere: and Other Things You'll Have to See for Yourself Twitter - @dushkaamateur Linkedin - Dushka We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

125 Bas Rutten: How to over-come anything w/ UFC Hall of Famer & O2 Trainer Inventor Dec 20, 2019

One of Christopher Lochhead’s hero, UFC Hall of Famer and MMA legend Bas Rutten joins us today for another powerful and insightful conversation. We talk about how as a Dutch Kid, Bas, over-came horrible asthma and eczema, and bullying to become, the “Baddest Man in the World.” He shares about his outlook in life, his techniques when learning a new skill and a lot more. Fun, Playful and Affable Bas Rutten shares how some people see his life as almost like a cartoon character. He shares how he did a commercial for Cartoon Network focusing on anti-bullying and getting fit. These campaigns were personally moving for him as he was bullied when he was young due to severe asthma and eczema. “I know people who have asthma 365 days a year. I know people who are covered with eczema. Compared to them, this is not really that bad. That was my outlook always in life. There's always somebody, out there who has it worse than you.” - Bas Rutten Greatest and Most Terrifying Bas is a Sensei, commentator, and inventor. He is also the former UFC Heavy Weight Champion of the World. He scored 13 knockdowns without getting dropped, become the most accurate striker in UFC history with 70% accuracy and ended his career on a mind-blowing 22-fight winning streak. “I found out about that [statistics] when I was inducted in the Hall of Fame. That was so cool. That was my fighting style. I don’t want to waste things. I like to look for openings. The opponent, most of the time gives the knock out for me. He'll make a mistake, if he punches, the body is open.” - Bas Rutten Overcoming Everything Non-fans will definitely love this episode and will surely learn a ton from Bas. His mindset around losing, overcoming adversity and the drive to learn new skills, Is something we can all learn from. Bas is also an entrepreneur and inventor. His new O2 Trainer is fast becoming a must-have for professional athletes, weekend warriors and among people with asthma and breathing challenges. The O2 trainer strengthens the lungs and breathing muscles. To hear more information about Bas Rutten and to listen to his ideas how to over-come anything, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Sebastiaan “Bas” Rutten (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈbɑs ˈrʏtə(n)];) is a Dutch retired mixed martial artist (MMA), Karate and Taekwondo blackbelt, and Muay Thai kickboxer. He was a UFC Heavyweight Champion, a three-time King of Pancrase world champion, and finished his career on a 22 fight unbeaten streak (21 wins, 1 draw ). Bas has been inducted to the UFC Hall of Fame in 2015. He suffered severe asthma in his childhood years and inspired by his struggle breathing developed the O2 Trainer. When Bas is not teaching at his gym in Westlake Village, he might be working on some acting or commentating at Karate Combat with Kenny Rice. Links: Bas Rutten Wikipedia Twitter - @BasRuttenMMA O2 Trainer Instagram - @basruttenmma Also, special thanks to Luis Congdon for the kind introduction. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

124 John McAfee For President Dec 13, 2019

After breaking the internet with our Mia Khalifa Episode 111, we are bringing you another episode with John McAfee, Legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur, and 2020 U.S Presidential candidate. He joins us to share his experiences in Silicon Valley and talks about why he thinks “it doesn’t matter who the President is. This will no doubt be one of our most controversial episodes. Then and Now John has been called “The most interesting man in the world.” He was an outlaw, from parts unknown, He has lived part of his adult life, on the run, somewhere in Latin America. Today, John is a candidate for US President in 2020 If his name rings a bell, that is because he is the founder of McAfee The Security Company. John also got into a well-publicized Twitter war with Kim.com, the founder of now-defunct file hosting service Megaupload. Garden of Eden of Technology John passionately describes Silicon Valley then as the Garden of Eden of Technology. It was known as a tech hub for the world. He also shared interesting thoughts on Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, and Nolan Bushnell. “Most of the personalities in Silicon Valley were pleasant, creative, very different. Steve Jobs, as an example, never find time to take a bath. I can smell him across the room. That was just his thing, he did not have the f*cking time to take a bath. He is a serious businessman who took a bath at least once a month, I know I did. But I also work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for 2 years. Not because I had to, but because I f*ckin’ want it. I love what I was doing.” - John McAfee In the past, John describes Silicon Valley as heaven. He is also candid that he does not know anything about it now, as he left it 25 years ago. “Everyone you met in your circle, did something or showed you something which opened your mind to the potential of digital technology. Trust me that’s not there anymore.” - John McAfee The President Doesn’t Matter John shares why he thinks it doesn’t matter who sits in the Oval Office. He claims that the CIA is running the show. He says there are instances that the CIA manipulates information, information that the President refers to when making decisions that affect not only the country but the whole world. John shares more of his insights on CIA, one of the biggest clients of McAfee Security Company in the past. “Selective information is the ultimate power.” - John McAfee To hear more information about John McAfee and to listen to his ideas on his bid to U.S. Presidency for 2020, download and listen to the episode. Bio: John David McAfee (/ˈmækəfiː/ MAK-ə-fee;[1][2] born September 18, 1945) is a British-American computer programmer and businessman. He founded the software company McAfee Associates in 1987 and ran it until 1994, when he resigned from the company. McAfee Associates achieved early success as the creators of McAfee, the first commercial antivirus software, and the business now produces a range of enterprise security software. The company was purchased by Intel in 2011 and spun back out in 2017 with TPG Capital owning a majority stake, though the software has always borne the McAfee brand name. McAfee's wealth peaked in 2007 at $100 million, before his investments plummeted in the financial crisis of 2007–2008. Since leaving McAfee Associates, he has founded the companies Tribal Voice (makers of the PowWow chat program), QuorumEx and Future Tense Central, among others, and has been involved in leadership positions in the companies Everykey, MGT Capital Investments and Luxcore, among others. His personal and business interests include smartphone apps, cryptocurrency, yoga, and all-natural antibiotics. He resided for a number of years in Belize, but later returned to the United States in 2013. McAfee is also a political activist, who sought the 2016 Libertarian Party nomination for President of the United States in the 2016 election, losing to former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson. Links: McAfee 2020

123 This Could Be Our Future w/ Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter Co-Founder Dec 11, 2019

Join us in another fascinating and timely discussion with Yancey Strickler, Co-Founder & former CEO of Kickstarter, one of the most important new companies in the Startup ecosystem. He is the author of the new book This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World. Yancey is an experienced entrepreneur who shares very powerful insights that apply to your business and your life. Listen to our discussion about Bentoism. It’s an intriguing way to think about life. A Chapter From The Book In a chapter of Yancey’s new book This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, he shares about Adele and how he found a startup company that measures loyalty and engagement. Adele faced issues with scalpers purchasing and jacking up prices of her concert tickets. “Currently, we imagine that economics is how everything should be distributed and here, Adele, found some other value through which to make herself available.” - Yancey Strickler Through the algorithm, Adele chose Top 30 per area of her most loyal fans. These people got access to tickets at their original prices. According to reports, fans were able to save 6 to 10 million pounds. A New Lens in Doing Business Yancey considers the Adele example as a powerful and pervasive lens in doing business. Adele found a could-have-been a post-economic way to distribute goods, placed a halt to that and ultimately, provided more value to her loyal fans. “To me, that is a new kind of choice, a very new kind of decision. It is suggestive of what, of how capitalism evolves, of how we evolve as a society. Basically, where we all recognize the importance of financial value. We can also recognize the limitations of financial value being so dominant, as it is right now.” - Yancey Strickler Social Entrepreneurship and Bentoism Christopher and Yancey exchanged stories about social entrepreneurship and how it has become an emerging conversation right now. Yancey believes that social entrepreneurship will succeed when it becomes a dominant point of view of everyone. “Right now, marrying a financial purpose for a nonfinancial purpose is like the cute indie thing to do. But we should root for this to be like mainstream arena rock. I want this, headlining stadiums.” - Yancey Strickler Yancey also shares his idea on Bentoism or Beyond Near Term Orientation. He came up with this idea when he was doodling and creating graphs while evaluating what he wants at the moment and what he would want to achieve in the future. To hear more about This Could Be Our Future and more information about Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter Co-Founder, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Yancey Strickler is a writer and entrepreneur. He is the cofounder and former CEO of Kickstarter, author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, and the creator of Bentoism. Yancey has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People. He’s spoken at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, Web Summit, and events around the globe. He cofounded the artist resource The Creative Independent and the record label eMusic Selects. Yancey grew up in Clover Hollow, Virginia, and began his career as a music critic in New York City. Links: Yancey Strickler Bentoism Book: This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

122 Legendary Lighting & Nightclub Designer Steve Lieberman Dec 09, 2019

Today, entrepreneur and the incredibly creative guy Steve Lieberman, Founder & CEO of SJ Lighting, joins us today for another riveting conversation. Steve and his team have had a hand in almost every nightclub and electronic music festival in the US for the last ten years. He shares how he creates a lasting impact on attendees and how the whole production process goes, from planning to execution. Monumental Impact Even at a young age, he shares how he finds big, monumental art pieces as impactful. He carried on this astonishment for impactful art as he pursued a career in events production, specifically focusing on lights. “Whether it’s a big show or a little show, its 100,000 or 300-people-intimate-club-show, we like impact. An audience is coming to some show, they want to be moved. They want to be stimulated.” - Steve Lieberman Steve Lieberman has worked with more than 50 clubs and major festival brands like Electric Daisy Carnival, Coachella, Ultra, Lollapalooza, Rolling Loud and many more. Similar Philosophies Steve shares how he and his colleagues share the same philosophies when it comes to event production. He further describes the whole lighting experience as “fluid with the music” as it is a visual representation of what the music is. “When an audience comes in there, we have their attention and we want to give them something that they're gonna live with. I want them to leave that show and have something specific. It doesn’t need to be ten things. Whether it’s visual, oral—something that they heard—just part of their experience that they're going to take with them and they’re going to keep that forever.” - Steve Lieberman Puzzle Pieces Steve describes how every show is a little bit different. He says that there is no linear path from a to b. As a designer, it’s not just taking out a worksheet and figuring out math problems. He sees production as fitting different pieces of a puzzle. The design, procedures, modify based on what’s required and is highly dependent on the scale of the show. He shares he has to absorb all the information of what the show is, what the performers might prefer and who are the headlining artists. “I’d like to think, the promoters and basically, the guys who write the checks for the show, we’re on the same team. At the end of the day, my contracts are 99.9% with them. My priority is to protect their best interest.” - Steve Lieberman To hear more about Legendary Lighting & Nightclub Designer Steve Lieberman, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Steve Lieberman has been working in the festival and nightclub community since 1987. As a teen exploring NYC nightlife, he saw the potential of enhancing the events visually and got involved as a lighting designer for warehouse parties. This led naturally to stage design as his career picked up steam. By the time he moved to California in 2001, Steve’s reputation for next-level work made him a no-brainer for Insomniac, who came knocking at his door. Some of Steve’s favorite projects of the past 25+ years are not necessarily the largest; he recalls fondly several side stages at EDC LA in the late nineties, such as one bassPOD stage consisting of a complete grid of LED fixtures laid into a matrix creating a truly dynamic perspective, and another stage with sets of stairs leading in all directions à la MC Escher. Steve approaches each show, each stage, each environment with special attention based on the needs of the producer, the artist riders and the creative concepts. The primary principle to which Steve has held true all these years is not to fight your environment but to embrace it. Links: SJ Lighting How I Made It: Steve Lieberman got his start lighting illegal warehouse parties. Now, it’s Coachella. An Interview With Steve Lieberman: Founder of SJ Lighting We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,

121 Secrets of Sand Hill Road Venture Capital, w/ Scott Kupor Managing Partner, Andreessen Horowitz Dec 04, 2019

In another riveting episode, Scott Kupor, the managing partner of one of the highest-profile VC on the planet over the last decade, Andreessen Horowitz, joins us today to discuss startups, how to get funded and a lot more! He is also the author of the book called Secrets of Sand Hill Road: Venture Capital and How to Get It. “Inside Baseball” Scott addressed the common issue of "inside baseball" between entrepreneurs and VCs. He shares that there is no reason why questions shouldn’t be answered and that VCs should reach out to entrepreneurs. “People don’t understand why decisions are made. I think that just leads to mistrust quite frankly between VCs and entrepreneurs.” - Scott Kupor Moreover, Scott shares the reason why he wrote the book. He wanted to bridge the gap between VCs and entrepreneurs. Through this book, he answers several entrepreneur questions that previously were assumed to be understood, since they have done a lot of deals in the past. Information Asymmetry Scott discusses the idea about information asymmetry and how it results to one party benefitting at the expense of the other in those types of scenarios. “Capital is scarce and VCs have it. There was definitely a very different balance of power between entrepreneurs and VCs. There’s probably less incentive quite frankly for the VC. The biggest change, I think, in the last 10 yrs is, its as competitive as its ever been.” - Scott Kupor Money clearly a commodity in this business. For Scott, if VCs and entrepreneurs can level the playing field, he would enter into a relationship on a basis of actually understanding one another, knowing what motivates one another as it would definitely be a good place better place to start. More From Scott Aside from talking about Silicon Valley, Startups and how entrepreneurs could get funding, he shares his thoughts on the overall VC backed industry. “My personal view is—I’ve talked about this with people in DC publicly—the idea that more and more growth is happening in the private markets, while beneficial, selfishly for people like me, who get to, kind of monetize that growth. I don’t think its good for the country. I don’t think its good to not have companies going public at a reasonable stage where a broader cross-section of public market investors can actually enjoy the appreciation there.” - Scott Kupor To hear more about Secrets of Sand Hill Road Venture Capital and more information about Scott Kupor, Managing Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Scott Kupor is the managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz where he is responsible for all operational aspects of running the firm. He has been with the firm since its inception in 2009 and has overseen its rapid growth, from three employees to 150+ and from $300 million in assets under management to more than $10 billion. Prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz, Scott worked as vice president and general manager of Software-as-a-Service at Hewlett Packard. Scott joined HP in 2007 as part of the Opsware acquisition, where he was senior vice president of Customer Solutions. In this role, he had global responsibility for customer interaction, including professional services, technical pre-sales, and customer support. Scott joined Opsware shortly after the company’s founding and held numerous executive management positions including vice president, financial planning and vice president, corporate development. In these roles, he led the company’s private financing activities as well as its initial public offering in 2001. Scott also started the company’s Asia Pacific operations and led the execution of the company’s multiple acquisitions. Prior to Opsware, Scott represented software companies in both financing and mergers and acquisitions transactions at Credit Suisse First Boston and Lehman Brothers. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a bachelor’s degree in public policy with honors and distinction.

120 Security, Deep Fakes & Apple Glasses Oh My! w/ Dave Bittner Nov 27, 2019

Today, Dave Bittner, Producer and Host of The CyberWire Podcast and Hacking Humans podcast, joins us for a timely discussion about security, the future, deep fakes Apple glasses and more. He is a regular guest of podcast Grumpy Old Geeks with previous guests, Jason DiFillipo & Brian Schulmister. Trade-Off Between Operations and Risks Security has played a huge role in every technology company nowadays. The episode starts off with a very timely topic on security. Christopher poses the question “why security is hard?” Dave honestly answers that there is a trade-off and risk-reward decision-making process that needs to happen. Dave continues that breaches started getting bigger as well as ramifications and costs resulting in bad publicity, too. Board Members now have started giving their attention to security threats, as they, themselves can be liable for these breaches. “I think these days good board members have to have a certain level of knowledge and education in cybersecurity because it touches everything.” - Dave Bittner More on Data Breaches and Hacking Would there be more data breaches and hacking in the near future since the cost of technological equipment is getting cheaper? Dave answered, yes. Hackers are professionalizing themselves. They also have access to knowledge and tools that enables them to target victims, as opposed to the usual shotgun approach. “I think there are a few things going on right now, I think we are seeing the sophistication of the actors increased in the sense that, there’s an increase in the professionalism of them.” - Dave Bittner Other Future Related Topics Dave shares more about privacy and security. Also there's the fact that 60% of people in the US genetic connections can be implied from data available from 23andme or Ancestry.com. “The security implication is that biometric data—your DNA, your fingerprints, your face ID, facial recognition—those are the things that it’s very difficult to change, if not, impossible to change. If someone gets a hold of that and that something, that you’re using as a factor for your security, you cant just go reset that. That’s one of the long term concerns.” - Dave Bittner To hear more about Security, Deep Fakes and Apple Glasses and more information about Dave, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Dave Bittner is the Producer and Host of The CyberWire Podcast, Hacking Humans podcast. Links: Twitter: @bittner The Cyberwire Survey: Most Data Center Managers Rely on Outdated Security Practices Internet Companies Prepare to Fight the ‘Deepfake’ Future We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

119 From Experiences To Transformations w/ Joe Pine Nov 25, 2019

We continue our run of legendary authors and today, we hang out with one of the smartest people in business, Joe Pine, one of the godfathers of “The Experience Economy.” It’s the 20th anniversary of his seminal work and he is reissuing an updated version of the book In this episode, we dig deep into the future of experiences and how companies use it to differentiate and create massive competitive advantage. Pay special attention to Joe’s radical insights around building a data flywheel and the big strategic difference between Facebook and Amazon. From UI to UX Joe Pine shares with us about the re-release of The Experience Economy, bearing a new preview, that he and his partner wrote. They focused on the subtitle: Competing for Customer Time, Attention and Money. Companies embraced the importance of user interface in the past and now, user experience, or UX. “When the first book came out, we talked about it as a nascent, an emerging, a forthcoming experience economy and now, we say it’s here. It’s all around us. I used to have to argue with people that this was happening. Now, I just say it: people want experiences. People now say, ‘yeah I get it.’” - Joe Pine Further, Joe shared how the internet was at infancy back then. The www was just created in 1994 and in 1999, they didn’t have much to say about it. However, later over time, Joe shares they looked at it thoroughly and found the reason why people were on the internet was to surf the web—to have the experience of things that they couldn’t have otherwise. Data Flywheel Christopher shares his insights on how companies achieve category domination today. He shares that a big part of their strategy is getting their data flywheel spinning. “The data flywheel is a learning relationship. If you cultivate a learning relationship, it grows and deepens over time. You can almost lock your competitors out because you know more about these customers than they do. Even if they switch, they have to teach them all over again what you already know.” - Joe Pine Data Privacy Further, in the discussion, Christopher remarks about how other companies cannot replicate the “data on customer-intimacy” that Amazon has with its customers. Joe agrees with Christopher as Amazon has yet to sell data to anybody, as they want to use it themselves at the moment. “From an authenticity standpoint, that corrodes them [Facebook and Apple] from the inside out, because they are selling your data. They're in it for the data, to sell to somebody else, rather than in it, for your best interest.” - Joe Pine To hear more about the co-author of “The Experience Economy” Joe Pine, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Co-author of The Experience Economy, Joseph Pine II is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups alike. In 1999, Joe and his partner James H. Gilmore wrote the best-selling book The Experience Economy: Work is a Theatre & Every Business a Stage, which demonstrates how goods and services are no longer enough; what companies must offer today are experiences – memorable events that engage each customer in an inherently personal way. In 2011, The Experience Economy came out for the first time in paperback as an Updated Edition with new ideas, new frameworks, and many, many new exemplars. Each of Mr. Pine's publications add a wealth of knowledge and experience to the business world, but The Experience Economy has become a quintessential read. Mr. Pine also co-wrote Infinite Possibility: Creating Customer Value on the Digital Frontier with Kim Korn, Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want with Mr. Gilmore, and in 1993 published his first book, the award-winning Mass Customization: The New Frontier in Business Competition. Each book details Mr. Pine's breakthrough thinking as he has accurately charted many structural shifts -- from individualizing goods to today’s focus on customer experiences and many other changes in ...

118 Why Are We Yelling w/ Buster Benson Nov 22, 2019

In this episode, we continue our run of legendary authors as we feature Buster Benson and his new book, “Why are we yelling?: A fascinating look at why and who we argue.” Buster shares with us the inspiration of his book, the constant-learning that he is having and how it can be applied to work and life, in general. Agree to Disagree Buster candidly shared with Christopher that of all the hard topics he decided to take on, it was the topic about disagreements that he deemed to be one of the hardest. He still pursued this topic as he was challenged to tackle this topic. He also admits that the inspiration for the book was his curiosity on cognitive bias. “That is the initial problem. in order to have a conversation about disagreement, we have to be open to the idea that we don’t have the right answer.” - Buster Benson Birds and Biases Buster shares that cognitive bias is an evolutionary term. It is a threat that could potentially lower our survival. It has the connotation that if we’re wrong, we would want to avoid it. In modern society, being wrong leads to being ousted from a certain group. To illustrate this, Buster shared the habits of birds looking for a nesting ground. These birds fight off other birds and other animals to have authority over a tree. In real life, human beings as a bird, are not going to engage other “birds” in civil disagreement. “You’re going to just try to be the bigger bird and force the other one out. When we’re no longer in a situation and there’s only one tree and we have to have a nest here, or else we’re gonna die, we ask, is this tree big enough for multiple birds?” - Buster Benson Growth is the Consequence The consequence of being wrong is actually growth. Further, Buster shares that if we are good at several skills, it makes us more skilled at everything else. For example: talking, being literate, being able to self reflect magnifies the value of other skills. He introduces the importance of productive disagreement as well in this episode. “‘How do I treat somebody that is normally a threat to my survival, as an opportunity for growth’ is the core cognitive dissonance in disagreement.” - Buster Benson To hear more about the author of “Why are we yelling?” Buster Benson, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Buster Benson wrote the book titled "Why Are We Yelling? The Art of Productive Disagreement". He also run 750words.com with my wife. His interests include creative businesses, collaborative disagreements, cognitive biases, enterprise software, messaging platforms, behavior change, social games, silly drawings, making life a little bit better through technology. Read more about his through this link. Links: Book: Why are we yelling? Cognitive bias cheat sheet Linkedin: Buster Benson We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

117 What School Could Be w/ Ted Dintersmith Nov 18, 2019

We continue our run of legendary VCs and legendary authors like our guest for today, Ted Dintersmith. He’s a former top tech VC and he’s the author of the book What School Could Be: Insights and Inspiration from Teachers Across America. This is a powerful look at what’s possible in education from a smart, committed, super thoughtful guy. What School Could Be Ted Dintersmith went to all fifty states, visiting some 200 schools and spoke to different school personnel and students. He says he was stunned by the innovative classrooms and schools he found across the USA. However, he also talked about schools who he described as good in paper, but not as good in reality. “There were so many schools like that, where on paper, it looks likes the kids are doing really well. Good grades, good test scores, reasonable to good College placements. The point I make is that I think these kids, are not really being helped in terms of being prepared for a world defined and shaped by innovation. They're actually being impaired.” - Ted Dintersmith Shifting Mindsets Ted shares his conversations with school teachers, administrators and students shifted his thinking. He further says that the measure of success in so many schools is aligned with a few narrow capabilities. He questioned the schools, asking if he puts a kid in their school who excelled at memorizing material, replicating low-level procedures and following instructions, he bets that kid would be on the honor roll. “SAT tutors say, ‘don’t be creative when you take this test. Don’t think of unusual ways to answer it. Think clearly, simply and formulaically. The 2nd thing is, if it’s hard and it’s going to take a while to figure it out, skip it.’ Is that a great message for the kids?” - Ted Dintersmith Education is a Pie Eating Contest Ted continues to share with Christopher his insights that many kids are being told that they're not gifted because they don’t match up to those narrow skills. Christopher also remarked in an overly simplistic form, that education nowadays is like a “Pie Eating Content” where you jam everything, regardless of what kind of pie it is, and know that the more you take, the better. “It’s crazy. We organize most of education around what’s easy to test and not what’s important to learn.” - Ted Dintersmith To hear more about how to encourage kids, unleash their passion and support dedicated teachers and more about Ted Dintersmith, download and listen to the episode. Bio: About Ted Links: Ted Dintersmith Twitter: @dintersmith We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

116 Dreamforce Special w/ Salesforce’s Vala Afshar Nov 15, 2019

This special episode is with Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce.com Vala Afshar. Coinciding with Dreamforce —Salesforce.com’s annual mega-conference in San Francisco, Vala shares with us what it’s like to be a leader in the digital media age. He also shares some of the key practices that have made Salesforce #1 on Forbes most innovative companies list. Social Business Excellence Vala is the author of The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence. He is also the co-host of DisrupTV and one of the most visible and impactful thought leaders in enterprise tech. On the side, he is a contributing writer at HuffPost, which he claims were one of his ticket for his CMO career. “I was a CMO for 4 years. Complete impostor syndrome from beginning to end because I never had Marketing experience, I never went to school to study the art and science of Marketing. My CEO called me on a weekend saying ‘on Monday I'm gonna announce that you’re going to be the CMO.” - Vala Afshar He narrates to Christopher how the energy and confidence that he used to have as an athlete, did not translate to who he has become as a business person. However, he got through this challenge as he had the passion to share information. From An Introvert to a Keynote Speaker For an introvert, Vala narrates how he spent 10 years writing codes. He was perfectly happy locked up in a cube, just writing software. He is still amazed with how he opened himself up to people and to be able to share the stage with Christopher in various events. “Movement is the ultimate status symbol. Movement of information. Again, in my first 40 years, if I read a book or listened to your podcast, I would just consume it and then that's it, it stayed with me. In the last 5 or 6 years, when I learned something, I try to capture that and share.” - Vala Afshar Salesforce Innovation Vala quotes other professionals on why they think Salesforce is successful: it’s because of technology disruption. This disruption is in terms of ‘how do you build an ecosystem, how do you give away your time, money and profit, how do you build a company based on emerging technology and how do you create new business models. “The 111 Philanthropic model was pretty unique and now about 10,000 companies have adopted that. The subscription model, pay as you go, that's like the envy of most business..” - Vala Afshar He also shares about the Salesforce module called V2mom, a mobile compatible app where employees align with the company vision, values, methods, obstacles, and measurements. To hear more about the best practices of Salesforce.com and leadership advice from Vala Afshar, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Vala Afshar is the Chief Digital Evangelist for Salesforce. Afshar is the author of The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence. Afshar is also the co-host of DisrupTV, a weekly show covering the latest digital business and innovation market trends. Links: Twitter: @ValaAfshar Linkedin: Vala Afshar Salesforce Blog: Vala Afshar HuffPost Contributor: Vala Afshar We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

115 Heidi Roizen Silicon Valley Legend Nov 13, 2019

Today’s guest is none other than Silicon Valley Legend, Heidi Roizen. She is an accomplished, Entrepreneur, former head of developer relations at Apple and now, a legendary VC. She shares with us why today is the Golden Era for entrepreneurship, how any company is literally a tech company and more about VC-backed company, Memphis Meats. Silicon Valley's Greatest Connector The Financial Women of San Francisco honored Heidi as Financial Woman of the Year in 2018. She is also dubbed as “Silicon Valley's Greatest Connector.” She is currently sits on the board of companies such as Zoox, Planet, Memphis Meats, HelixRE and DMGT. “I talk about the fact that there should be more women entrepreneurs and there should be more women venture capitalists and diversity. Not just gender diversity but other diversity and I try to support that through my actions. I think it’s appropriate given my role in Silicon Valley. If I have an opinion about that, I should be vocal about that.” - Heidi Roizen Other than these achievements, Heidi is a self-proclaimed animal lover. She adopted several dogs from the shelter, which she fondly shares in her social media. Golden Era of Entrepreneurship Heidi describes the market as a seller's market when it comes to early-stage equity. There are a lot of sources of capital in the market, its very competitive. She enumerates all the positive assets entrepreneurs have in today’s world. “There's just so many different avenues for funding. There are so many tech breakthroughs that can be built upon, whether that is networking or processing power, sensors, devices, GPS, next-gen VR technologies, ubiquitous platforms. When you think about the kinds of businesses you can start today for pennies, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past.” - Heidi Roizen The only negative she can mention is about competition, as she believes everyone else can also solve many big, interesting problems. Additionally, she mentions why companies nowadays are considered tech companies. “I do think it’s interesting today is, every company is a technology company, right? For the most part, how they interact with the customers, how they distribute their products, how they garner feedback, how they handle customer service, tech support, logistics, supply chain, internally, HR systems—every company is deep in technology now.” - Heidi Roizen Memphis Meats. Cell-based Meat Heidi shares more about Memphis Meats and why she believes there is a huge growth potential for cell-based meat. First, she discusses how meat is inefficient to produce: from breeding to feeding to slaughtering and distribution to markets. Not only does it requires more resources, such as land and water use, it is also highly prone to contamination. “The great thing about being a venture capitalist is, we don’t have to actually invent this stuff. There are really awesome entrepreneurs that are way smarter than we are who come up with these ideas. We just have to make sure they want to come to talk to us, and that we can validate sufficiently what they are doing through our own research learning.” - Heidi Roizen To hear more about legendary Silicon Valley stories of Heidi Roizen, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Heidi represents the voice of the entrepreneur, having been one herself. But she also represents the voice of the user, as those are the roots that led her to start a company in the first place. She is on the boards of directors of Zoox, Planet, Memphis Meats, HelixRE and DMGT (LSE:DMGT.) After Heidi earned her undergraduate and MBA degrees from Stanford, she co-founded T/Maker, where she served as CEO for over a decade through its acquisition by Deluxe Corporate in 1994. Next, she joined Apple as VP of Worldwide Developer Relations, and from there, Mobius Venture Capital. She's been named to the Corporate Board Member's "Top 50 Women in Tech" list and Hot Topics' Top 100 Women in Tech. In 2018, Heidi was named the Financial Woman of the Year ...

114 Think Like Amazon w/ John Rossman Nov 06, 2019

For the second part of our two-part series on legendary category king companies, we are featuring John Rossman, author of “Think Like Amazon.” We have a fun, insightful conversation about how Amazon became arguably the most innovative category king in the world and most importantly, how you can learn to think like Amazon in your career. Digital vs. Traditional Christopher probes John on his thoughts about the distinction between traditional businesses versus data-driven, digital ones. John shares that other than the technological aspect, he could relate digital businesses to athletic attributes such as speed and agility. In detail, John said speed is about doing a repetitive motion, extremely well and efficiently. In business terms, that is considered as operational excellence. The second attribute, agility, is the ability to sense and make change happen. “Part of being digital is about the eternal pursuit of becoming perfect. How do we reduce cycle times? Improve quality, reduce costs? Cut out little pieces of friction from both our customers and employees?” - John Rossman Embracing New Niches John cites Amazon’s business strategy in terms of embracing new niches. The other aspect of finding problems, then working on a solution, is the notion of working into the future. He defines the future as a “time and a place for unconstrained thinking.” “Amazon’s answer to that, their philosophy or their technique is: start with the customer and work backward. ” - John Rossman When teams are brainstorming, all of these constraints come to the table and they deliberately understand which parts of the solution they are. Afterward, they identify the right mindset, then the right tools and ultimately, the right approach in order to solve the problem. Architecture is the Business Strategy Citing some parts of the book, Think Like Amazon, Christopher asks John the idea behind the concept architecture is the business strategy. “You have to plan forward on how you build things, because the constraints, the flexibility the adaptability on how you build your operations and your technology architecture—will either be a key enabler or key constraint in your ability in going forward.” - John Rossman In the end, John shares that his whole goal is to give a business person, who is not technology architect, a set of tools and questions that they utilize to be a better partner with their technology expert To hear more about how digital businesses like Amazon innovate across entire the entire value-chain and John Rossman’s thoughts on how to make wise bets on new business ideas, download and listen to the episode. Bio: John Rossman, Digital and Innovation Advisor Mr. Rossman is an expert at digital business models, operations and organizing programs. He has led engagements on developing innovation processes, Internet of Things strategies, marketplace and API driven platform business models. He is a sought after speaker on creating a culture of operational excellence and innovation. Mr. Rossman has worked with clients across various industries, including retail, insurance, education, healthcare, consumer products, industrial products and transportation. Mr. Rossman’s notable assignments include The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft, Nordstrom and several of the world’s leading retail and insurance organizations. Prior to Rossman Partners, John was a Managing Director at Alvarez and Marsal, a performance improvement consulting firm. Prior to A&M, John was an executive at Amazon.com where he launched the Marketplace business and third party selling platform, and ran the merchant services business. Links: Linkedin: John Rossman Book: The Amazon Way Twitter: @johnerossman We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life.

113 Netflix’s Founding CEO Marc Randolph Nov 04, 2019

Category King Marc Randolph, the founding CEO of Netflix, joins us today for a stunning conversation about business and life. He’s got a legendary bestseller out called That Will NEVER Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea, which he also talks about in this episode. This is the first in a special two-part series about two of the most legendary category king companies in the world now Netflix and Amazon. Next episode is with John Rossman, author of “Think Like Amazon.” Book: That Will Never Work After nearly 16 years after he left Netflix, Marc Randolph talks about his book That Will Never Work. He candidly shares that all those years waiting for the right time to write a book helped him to gain perspective. First, he says he is wiser business-wise as he worked with a lot of startup companies in the past 16 years. He says he can now identify patterns as they emerge and can safely say he can tell between what works and will not. “The other cool thing that came out of waiting was, being able to look back and be honest about myself. To really say, ‘I don’t care how it’s perceived. I want this to be a real true portrayal of what it’s like in a startup.’” - Marc Randolph Remembering Moments, Not Details Marc also shares that he tried to get it right, but since he is writing about events that took place around 20 years ago, he shares how ridiculous it would be to remember every line and dialogue that he featured in the book. He also shares he focused on remembering the moments, especially the mood of the conversations that he had. Christopher even remarked a portion of the book where Marc wrote: “This is a memoir, not a documentary. This is kind of how I remember things. I'm not trying to get it 100% right.” Everything is Intermingled Christopher chides with Marc on the part where he mentions that personal life intermingles with business life. Marc stressed the importance of devoting time for spouses and kids, as this is a realistic portrayal of a startup. "I think part of being successful is having balance in your life. I preach about culture is not about what you say, it's what you do. So I wanted to show how we did it, how do you really have balance in your life." - Marc Randolph To hear more about life and business lessons from Netflix Founding CEO Marc Randolph, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Marc Randolph is a veteran Silicon Valley entrepreneur, advisor, and investor. As co-founder and founding CEO of Netflix, he laid much of the groundwork for a service that’s grown to 150 million subscribers and fundamentally altered how the world experiences media. He also served on the Netflix board of directors until retiring from the company in 2003. Marc’s career as an entrepreneur spans four decades. He’s founded or co-founded six other successful startups, mentored hundreds of early-stage entrepreneurs, and as an investor has helped seed dozens of successful tech ventures (and just as many unsuccessful ones). Most recently, he co-founded analytics software company Looker Data Sciences, which was recently purchased by Google for $2.6 billion. Outside of the tech and startup world, Marc sits on the boards of Chubbies Shorts, Augment Technologies, the environmental advocacy group 1% For The Planet, and the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), which he’s been involved with for most of his life. A resident of Santa Cruz, California, Marc travels and speaks all over the world, and still probably manages to go surfing more than you do. Links: Website: Marc Randolph Twitter: @mbrandolph Linkedin: marcrandolph We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

112 California Wildfires & The Heroes Who Fight Them w/ TJ Welch Oct 30, 2019

As California is suffering another horrible season of wildfires, we thought it would be powerful to give you some inspiring insight into how heroes fight these massive fires. On this special reissue episode, Retired Battalion Chief TJ Welch gives us an insider’s view of how thousands of Firefighters and first responders spring into action in a matter of hours to save lives and property. TJ Welch – Starting Out in the City TJ spent the first years of his career dealing with brush fires and structural fires. He also had his fair share of wildland fires as a chief officer. But he and other city firefighters pretty much only stood guard in front of the houses. It wasn’t until the late ‘90s when they made full use of city firefighters. They went to timber and brush areas to stop fires and perform other operations. “This was my moment where it kind of changed my perspective of my role as a chief officer.” – TJ Welch Wildland Fire in Numbers Back in the day, the biggest of wildland fires reached up to 160 thousand acres, which is equal to the same number of football fields. This number has been expanding in recent years, reaching up to 200 thousand acres of wildland catching fire. The terrifying numbers make sense when taken in the context of the number of residences, the timber that is involved, how exposed the wood is, and how quickly it burns. These wildland fires burn a couple of football fields per second. They are impossible to outrun and risk many lives. There’s a lot of reasons as to why wildland fires catch so quickly. On the other hand, timber could take a while to dry and get moisture back. With the drought that has gone on for so many years along with other forest products left out in the open, the wildland fires have become more gigantic. A Turning Point There was one fire that forever changed TJ. This gave way to a collective effort to train firefighters in the art of effective mobilization when tempering these massive fires. “When I left that fire, I said I’m not gonna be so ignorant when I come to another wildland fire.” – TJ Welch To hear more about how California firefighters move as a unit and how TJ Welch dealt with the massive responsibility of being a leader, download and listen to the episode. Bio: TJ Welch is a 32 year veteran of the fire service. Throughout the course of his career, he served in volunteer, industrial and municipal fire departments. TJ was a member of CAL Fire ICT 3 from 1997-2005 and a founding member of CICCS. He was a qualified Type OSC2, OPBD, DIVS, and STEN. TJ retired in 2014 as Battalion Chief with Alameda County Fire Department. He currently teaches and writes Officer courses for OSFM, and is a Firefighter Safety Specialist for California Department of Public Health and NIOSH where he investigates firefighter line of duty deaths. Links: How to donate to victims of Fires in California: How To Help Victims Of California Wildfires As Tens Of Thousands Are Forced To Flee Homes RedCross Supplying Aid To Victims Of Emergency (Save) California Community Foundation: Wildfire Relief Fund We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

111 Mia Khalifa Digital Media Super Star Oct 21, 2019

Former adult actor and now digital media star, Mia Khalifa, joins us today for another riveting conversation. She walked away at the peak of her popularity to design a new life and career. She shares with us today about her past and how low self-esteem affected her decisions and how she’s moving forward with her life. Sports, Punk Rock, and Pets Mia Khalifa is a sports commentator, with a special love for The Washington Capitals Hockey team. Other than hockey, she used to watch basketball a lot when she was a young immigrant from Lebanon. “It's kind of just been a common ground that I could have with people and a way for me to connect, a way for me to feel like I am part of something or feel like I'm a part of this group even if I don't know anyone. Sports is the unifying factor in this world.” - Mia Khalifa Other than being a huge sports fan, she is a self-proclaimed foodie and she loves punk rock. She also shares in this episode how she loves her pet dogs so much and how she is trying her best to be the person her dogs think she is: a better human being. Battling Low Self-Esteem Mia is also a digital celebrity, raking a total of 17.7 million followers on Instagram alone. In fact, she met her fiance on Instagram. Her fiance is a Swedish Chef, whom she candidly shares, as someone who doesn’t know who she is. She has never gotten used to fame as she shares how she battled low self-esteem when she was younger. She admits that due to low self-confidence, she made decisions that she regret at the present time. “I think it was being overweight for such a large part of my life and on top of that, I didn’t really have many friends in highschool. I never fit in in any certain group or the popular crowd or anything. I think it also had a lot to do with never feeling like I belong.” - Mia Khalifa The Ugly Side of Adult Entertainment Most of her followers had known her from her previous career as an adult entertainment actor. In fact, she used to be #1 in the biggest Adult sites in the world. She started her adult film career when she was just 21 years old. What most people do not know is her career only lasted 3 months. She shot about twelve scenes, where produces paid her only $12,000. Adult actors do not receive any kind of royalty, while producers amass millions. “I was fooled into thinking they had my best interest at heart, when in reality, they were just looking out for themselves. They looked at me and saw a huge paycheck.” - Mia Khalifa on Adult Entertainment Producers To hear more about #1 Adult Actor to Digital Media Star Mia Khalifa, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Mia Khalifa is a social media personality, sports commentator and former adult film actor. She’s a passionate Washington, D.C. sports fan with a love for the Washington Capitals hockey team. Links: Instagram: @miakhalifa Twitter: @miakhalifa TwitchTV: MiaKhalifa Patreon: MiaK Youtube: RobertandMia Mia Khalifa is among the world’s most-watched women. Yet the porn industry is keeping the profits. Mia Khalifa: Why I’m speaking out about the porn industry - BBC News We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

110 Startup Marketing: Viviana Faga Emergence Capital Oct 16, 2019

We have another riveting and insightful episode today with Viviana Faga, Operating Partner at Emergence Capital. She is in-charge of marketing and helped create over 150B in new market cap. Today she shares some of her amazing experiences working both with startups and VCs. The Importance of Marketing Viviana Faga worked in Senior Marketing roles with companies like Salesforce.com and Zoom Communications. She was the Head of Marketing at Yammer and pioneered the enterprise social space. At the moment, she coaches CEOs and Founders and leads them in finding the importance of marketing in scaling their businesses. “You just got $5-15M and you're thinking, ‘where do I want to spend my money? I want to spend money on building my product and I don't know who to hire? Why should I hire a marketer? It just seems like one big massive waste.’ That’s what I deal with and those are the kind of questions that I get everyday.” - Viviana Faga The Best Doesn’t Always Win Viv narrates her current client who has a great product, but is currently in a category that his competition built. Viv find it fascinating to explain that the best products doesn’t always win. If a CEO doesn’t believe in this, the CEO then finds himself in a never ending cycle of “catch-up.” “There are plenty of cases where it does. The company just sort of takes off, without great marketing. We've seen that. But for the most part, in the competitive market, if you don't define the category, if you don't create it, you're going to really struggle because now you're gonna look like you're playing catch up.” - Viviana Faga Viv advises her clients that the company will never be able to catch up if they continue copying the competition’s message. “You have to change the game. Come up with completely new messaging. You have to go so hard at writing that message ⁠— from your press releases, website and sales collateral. Every single piece of content that is external facing has to speak this new language.” - Viviana Faga CEOs Who Listen Viviana was proud to say that she embedded herself into her client’s company. Other than this, she believes that she can only help those who are willing to listen. She narrated how she turned down the CEO of Yammer, twice. “It was hard to turn him down, but obviously he convinced me. I wanted to work for a CEO who understood the value of marketing and after that conversation, I wasn't so sure but a lot of folks from Salesforce have gone there. It's our job to convince him Sales & Marketing matter.” - Viviana Faga To hear more about Startup Marketing: Viviana Faga Emergence Capital and more relevant information about Viviana Faga, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Viviana brings over fifteen years of experience designing and building brand categories for successful cloud/SaaS and enterprise social companies, helping them create scalable growth engines that drive successful exits. Her particular passions are scaling and structuring go-to-market SaaS teams, messaging and positioning, category creation, freemium product strategy, and sales enablement. Before joining Emergence, Viviana served as VP of marketing for Yammer, where she defined the enterprise social category. After Yammer’s $1.2B acquisition by Microsoft, she became its head of marketing for enterprise social, which included Office 365, Skype, and Lync. She also spent over six years at Salesforce, where she launched several key product initiatives. Additionally, she was the VP of marketing for Platfora (now Workday) and the CMO of Zenefits. Links: Emergence Capital - Viviana Faga Linkedin - Viviana Faga Twitter - Viv Faga 103 The Power of an IPO with Eric Yuen 011 The Perception of your product is your product We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life.

109 Build A Tribe of Millionaires w/ David Osborn & Pat Hiban Oct 02, 2019

Best selling authors of Tribe of Millionaires, David Osborn and Pat Hiban, joins us to share the story behind their new book. We also have a no BS conversation on making money and why its an important fuel to your life. Beyond money, we also talk about the power of building a tribe of like-minded people — who will support you in your dreams, goals and a lot more. Tribe of Millionaires Entrepreneurs, real estate investors, and authors David Osborn and Pat Hiban talk about their new book and the story behind it. Pat candidly shares that Dan Clements helped them put together this book. “Dan Clements flew to Japan with 27 billbros, members of our mastermind. He listened to each of these members talk. During that time, we masterminded on how to make money and he heard personal stories that we shared.” - Pat Hiban Dan created Ethan Martinez, the protagonist in the book, from listening to the stories of GoBundance members. GoBundance is a mastermind group for businessmen, who are millionaires. These men get together and share ideas to improve their net worth, health and/or their marriages. Ethan Martinez The book Tribe of Millionaires is a fable about Ethan Martinez. He receives a mysterious invitation after the death of his father. He then embarks on an adventure not only to save his struggling business but to discover his past. “Basically, what happens was, his father dies and he goes to his Dad's funeral to settle the estate. He hasn't talked to his father in over 20 years. When he gets there, his father's pallbearers are all millionaires and multi-billionaires.” - Pat Hiban Ethan needed to spend a week with these pallbearers on an island before he could inherit the Estate. He then discovers what makes these men successful. Ultimately, he figures out how he can apply these learnings to his life. Money Fuels Life David shares how people are more receptive to stories, rather than hard facts. He also adds the importance of spending time with like-minded people who share the same dreams and aspirations. “You can choose it yourself and put yourself around a lot of people who are on the same journey. That will remind you on a perpetual basis of the greatness you’re choosing. It’s way easier to be great when everyone around you is great.” - David Osborn Furthermore, he laments how the whole system does not teach kids and adults about making and keeping money. He stresses that money is not everything. However, it allows an individual to create a life that he or she desires. “Some people think you are a jerk because you talk about money. If you're doing it with your financial planner, they've got an agenda. Me and Pat just have that ability to talk about that wide range of topics including money and being genuinely interested in each other's well-being. That's what we've created in the tribe too.” - David Osborn To hear more about how to Build A Tribe of Millionaires and more relevant information about David Osborn and Pat Hiban, download and listen to the episode. Bio: David Osbourne After sticking out his thumb and traveling the world, David returned home to Austin, Texas broke and unemployed, at the age of 26. Though his travels may not have yielded wealth, they instilled the key motivation that he brings to every part of his life to create it -- freedom. Because to have everything you ever wanted takes the opportunity to design your life and believe it can happen. Through this intention, David began to test his entrepreneurial merits alongside his business-partner mom in the world of real estate. The results were nothing short of remarkable. In less than 10 years, David built one of the top real estate brokerages in the world and he founded over 50 companies. Yet, more than anything else, the inherent freedom derived from his success awards him the time to focus on the importance on what matters most: being a proud father of two beloved daughters, a son, and husband to the wonderful and talented Traci Osborn. Today,

108 Top 1% of Enterprise Technology Investors Bruce Cleveland Sep 30, 2019

As we continue our run on legendary VCs, we feature today Bruce Cleveland, an entrepreneur, executive, venture capital investor and best selling author of Traversing the Traction Gap. We have a fun and insightful conversation today about the state of enterprise tech and why its the best place to create enduring value. We also touch important points on digital transformation and a lot more! Legendary VCs Joining our list of legendary VCs that we have featured on Follow Your Different is Bruce Cleveland. He joins Randy Komisar (Episode 106) and Heidi Roizen (upcoming episode). He is the founding partner of Wildcat Ventures which has been rated in the top 1% of enterprise technology investors on the planet. At the moment, he is taking up his Masters Degree at John Hopkins University, America’s first research university. He took up Digital Communication, which he feels would be beneficial for writing content for his succeeding books. Enterprise Tech Scene Bruce shares a number of important insights into the enterprise tech scene. Furthermore, he shares that the valuations of companies of public SAS companies or tech companies selling into enterprise using a subscription model are reflective of the enduring value. Additionally, he cites examples of consumer companies that require a tremendous amount of capital, as opposed to enterprise companies, which require much less. “Consumers require so much capital, not a fund to build a product but to build the market share.” - Bruce Cleveland Enterprise vs. Consumer Company Bruce shares what investors are looking for enterprise and consumer companies. The MOIC or The Multiple On Investment Capital is nominally better in an enterprise. However, he mentions that the issue is these enterprise companies take longer to build up. “You don't get those big mark up in the first 2 years, as the company began to scale and show minimum viable traction. The important part here is a lot of limited partners, people who invest in venture firms. They want to see early mark up in your funds.” - Bruce Cleveland These investors want to see great markups to show the committee that the firm is of great financial health. However, they don't inform the committee how much money they need to get the company “out of the door.” “They are extraordinarily capital intensive, and the multiple uninvested capitals are high. A lot of these things are faddish. They may work initially, I don't know, they can move in other areas. Then they'll be okay, but a lot of times, these things can come and go.” - Bruce Cleveland To hear more about the Top 1% of Enterprise Technology Investor Bruce Cleveland, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Bruce Cleveland is a Founding Partner at Wildcat. He focuses on investments in AI marketing, EdTech, enterprise software as a service (SaaS) and the Internet of Things (IoT). He’s also the author of Traversing the Traction Gap. His specific areas of interest include enterprise automation, education and training, and general business applications. Bruce likes working with early-stage companies that use technology and data to increase revenue and decrease costs. An avid adventurer and sailor, Bruce enjoy the challenge of creating new companies and navigating new markets. He is interested in growing entrepreneurial hubs outside of Silicon Valley, with a particular focus on the Pacific Northwest. Bruce also is committed to sharing his knowledge and experience through the Traction Gap Framework™. This aims to help entrepreneurs navigate the critical go-to-market period between initial product release (IPR) and reaching minimal viable traction (MVT). As a son of school teachers, Bruce supports continued education. He founded GreenFig to offer applied business science training to higher-ed students and individuals in job transition. Bruce held senior executive roles in engineering, product management and product marketing. He worked with companies, such as Apple, AT&T, Oracle,

107 How FanDuel Became a Category King & The Future of Podcasting w/ Nigel Eccles Sep 25, 2019

Our guest is the legendary entrepreneur Nigel Eccles. He’s the founder of Fan Duel, the category king in Daily fantasy sports. We go deep on how Fan Duel created and ultimately dominated this mega category. We also talk about how they created a super-engaged community and how they explored podcast advertising to promote the brand. Nigel explains why he thinks podcasting is a massive new opportunity. In fact, it is one of his motivations why he started his new company, Flick. FanDuel Fantasy Sports Forbes reports that daily Fantasy Games is growing at 41% annually, and will be $14.4 billion category in 2020. This brought together five lads from Edinburg Scotland to join this trend. They created FanDuel back in 2009 as they wanted to create a simple platform for fantasy sports enthusiasts. “We wanted to build something that is so simple and even we can play and I think actually is a big part of the success of the company.” - Nigel Eccles Building Communities Nigel narrated how they started FanDuel 10 years ago. When they started FanDuel, Fantasy Sports was played by 25 million people in North America. Their main motivation was creating a sort of community with the same interests — a platform that would connect individuals, not only with friends but with tens of thousands of people. “It started to connect people who were players. It started to build a community. People want to do it more and more because they want to show they were the best in the community.” - Nigel Eccles Nigel shares his tips for entrepreneurs when building a community. He advises to first, think about the direct connection you can have with customers and what mechanism can you use to establish that connection. Secondly, entrepreneurs must think about how these customers can connect with each other. Podcast Advertising As FanDuel was starting, Nigel and the other founders realized the user base is not growing. Their CMO planned to execute several advertising campaigns, mostly focusing on radio and podcasting. With a great product and innovative advertising, the business grew largely. “The great thing about FanDuel is, anybody who listens to sports radio was a sports fan.” - Nigel Eccles Nigel and his team tried a lot of different formats on radio and podcast advertising. They had endorsements and games, where listeners get to compete with the hosts. Christopher shared a lot of information about podcasting and how huge the opportunity is for advertising. “Podcasting is an enormous opportunity. It is hugely unmonetized. It is one of the best advertising mediums today because there's a connection with the host. It's such a strong endorsement. The best hosts only sell what they believe in.” - Nigel Eccles To hear more about how FanDuel became a Category King and the future of podcasting, and more relevant information about Nigel, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Nigel has vast startup experience and was previously the co-founder and CEO of FanDuel, one of Scotland’s first unicorn companies. Links: The Flick App Linkedin - Nigel Eccles We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! Get amazing, different stories on business, marketing, and life. Subscribe to our newsletter The Difference.

106 Silicon Valley Legend Randy Komisar Sep 23, 2019

Silicon Valley legend, Randy Komisar joins us today in a longer than usual episode, but definitely an information-packed conversation. He shares a piece of his mind to us especially on how to have a legendary career, what it's like to be dubbed as the Digital CEO and many more. Rare Opportunity Randy Komisar was a partner at VC pioneer Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He worked closely with other legends like Steve Jobs and George Lucas. In fact, he has some very interesting stories he shared, being a former senior counsel at Apple and former CEO at LucasArts. “I don't like being disliked and I don't particularly try to be liked. I try to be valued, to create something constructive or positive in a relationship. But being liked is not, it doesn't cross my mind. I want to be respected, if I'm really lucky, I'd like to be admired.” - Randy Komisar The Virtual CEO Silicon Valley CEOs dubbed him as a Virtual CEO. Randy served in that role for companies like WebTV and Global Giving. He had some compelling stories and opinions to share in what Christopher dubbed as “the business equivalent of the lunar landing.” He also served as the founding director of TiVo, which is a direct lineage of Netflix entering that category today. Tivo won one of the biggest patent damage claims of all time, way over billion dollars, and Randy recounts to Christopher what happened during that time. “I actually think, we should have sued earlier. we have the patent rights to all of these, the real question was, could we have coop these guys as partners.” - Randy Komisar Utopians Vs. Libertarians Two significant and different technology demographics comprise Silicon Valley. He describes the 70's and 80's guys as the technology Utopians. Infrastructures were allegedly oppressive at that time which led the Utopians to utilize tools and come to technology to end this. Ultimately, they wanted to empower individuals. Furthermore, the Utopians had a sense of ‘a social contract.’ They felt they need to make the world better. These tools and the advantages that they had with these tools gave them the opportunity to challenge the status quo. In the advent of Facebook and Paypal, we move from technology utopians to technology libertarians. “The tools and platform that you build raise the creative endeavor. It's not to take-the-money- and-run situation. That money gets invested in more ideas, more vision. Yes you need to make a profit, but that profit can fuel creativity or consumption, you get to choose.” - Randy Komisar To hear more about the Silicon Valley Legend Randy Komisar, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Randy Komisar joined Kleiner Perkins in 2005 and focuses on early-stage investing. He served as CFO of GO Corp. and as senior counsel for Apple Computer, following a private practice in technology law. Randy is a founding director of TiVo and serves on the Roadtrip Nation Advisory Board and Orrick’s Women’s Leadership Board. Additionally, he is the author of the best-selling book The Monk and the Riddle, as well as several articles on leadership and entrepreneurship. Furthermore, he is the co-author of Straight Talk for Startups, the insider best practices for entrepreneurial success, Getting to Plan B, on managing innovation, and I F**king Love that Company, on building consumer brands. Randy frequently speaks in the United States and abroad on such topics. Randy holds a B.A. degree in economics from Brown University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Links: Amazon: Randy Komisar Kleiner Perkins Book: Straight Talk for Startups The Monk and the Riddle: The Art of Creating a Life While Making a Living Executives Launch Podcast To Pass On Lessons From Bill Campbell, Coach To Silicon Valley Stars No Bull Podcast Harper Collins Speakers Bureau: Randy Komisar We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,

105 The Freak Factor w/ David Rendall Sep 18, 2019

Today’s guest is David Rendall—a standup comedian, with a doctorate in organizational leadership and author of The Freak Factor—gives us a run-down on self-acceptance which benefits our personal and business life. He talks about how our weaknesses can become strengths and why finding people who are weird like you is a good thing. The Good and the Bad Twiggy. Stickman. Ladder. These are some of the nicknames of David Rendall during his younger years. He was unusually skinny when he was young and was working odd jobs, something that most people of his age would not even bother to try. However, David turned his life around and embraced his inner freak. The word freak usually has dual meanings. If people dub someone as a control freak or a neat freak, it usually means they are overdoing it and they need to tone it down. On the other hand, being called a freak in a sporting context means you have outside of ordinary skills. “Freak is often a term we use for criticism but its also a term we use positively. I want both of those associations. I want it to remind people of something negative and positive at the same time.” - David Rendall Embracing The Freak in You David encourages people to be different in a very specific way. People should be willing to be themselves and to disregard the idea that they need to hide their weaknesses. Most of the time, people suppress who they are because of the pressures from their parents, teachers, employers, friends, and society. “I'm trying to get people to see themselves differently and finding their strength in spite of that weakness and be willing to amplify and embrace those parts of themselves.” - David Rendall Oftentimes, David says that people sacrifice uniqueness for acceptance. In his book, he discusses the importance of affiliation. He defines it as finding other people who are a freak in their own ways. “Partner with people who are strong where you are weak. Look for the people who are different from you, but the other side of that is, finding the right spot and finding the right people.” - David Rendall Be Weird and Different. As he encourages people to find others who are also weird, he reminds people to not expect acceptance, love, and connection from everyone. He advises people not to force themselves everywhere, instead, to find people who will accept them as they are. “You’re not gonna win everybody over. Ultimately it’s about finding people like youfor the weird person that you are, instead of ‘they’ll like you once you’ve changed.’” - David Rendall He also shares the reason why people get stuck hiding who they are: because they thought people around them know better than them. These people—parents, teachers, employers—are often bound by rules of success and they thought imposing these will also ensure success. To hear more about The Freak Factor, and more information about David, download and listen to the episode. Bio: David Rendall. Randall. Randell. Rendell. Reynolds. Whatever. No one knows how to pronounce his last name. David’s mission in life is to be hilarious and helpful. He’s a standup comedian with a doctorate in management. A class clown turned leadership professor, he went from disrupting classes to teaching classes to disrupting companies and conferences from Portland to Paris to Pakistan. After being criticized and punished his whole life for being hyperactive, he now channels his frantic energy to compete in Ironman triathlons and ultramarathons. He wears more pink than the average middle-aged man. Well, actually, he wears more pink than an eight-year-old princess. As a nonprofit executive, he built businesses to employ people with disabilities. During the last fifteen years, David Rendall has spoken to audiences on every inhabited continent. His clients include the US Air Force, Australian Government, and Fortune 50 companies such as Microsoft, AT&T, United Health Group, Fannie Mae, and State Farm. In addition to his doctorate in organizational lea...

104 Enterprise Tech Category Queen Jennifer Tejada Sep 16, 2019

Our guest for today is the CEO of the newly public, enterprise technology company PagerDuty, none other than Jennifer Tejada. This episode is the second part of the two-part series on IPO. Jennifer shares with us today how it is like to go public. This is a celebration of entrepreneurship and you’ll have fun listening to this long-free-form conversation. Legendary IPO Jennifer had a legendary career in Silicon Valley. Various media outlets featured Jennifer due to the recent IPO of PagerDuty, a leading platform for real-time operations. In a moment of victory, what Christopher calls as “a celebration of entrepreneurship,” Jennifer recounts to Christopher the joys and pains on transitioning from being private to becoming public. “I enjoyed the process of being forced to refine our story and our value proposition for retail investors and laypeople. I think its really helpful for the business to go through that exercise.” - Jennifer Tejada NYSE Feels Jennifer shares that there was not much significant change in terms of their monthly operations. In fact, she perceives the preparation to go public as running two-jobs and she and her CFO vowed to make the most out of it. “It's very hard to describe the intrinsic rewards of looking down from the podium of NYSE at a group of people and just seeing this, sort of wonderment in their faces. They just can't believe, little old us got here, and that is one of the most rewarding moments of my career.” Jennifer Tejada Jennifer also professed her admiration with her employees who went through this significant milestone with her. “I don't think there's enough of said or honor pay to the folks that bet their careers early on and take pay cuts and take on option risks, to see a company through multiple investment cycle and growth cycles and ups and downs.” - Jennifer Tejada Extending Reach Jennifer describes IPO as a big-day-coming-out-party-to-the-world. Further, she mentions that one of the reasons PagerDuty went public is to extend its reach, to tap an enormous market opportunity. She believes being under the radar does not serve that big mission. “We serve the enterprise market and these enterprises are members of NYSE. They are traded in the NASDAQ. They expect the level of transparency around our performance and how our capitals are being spent and the long term viability of our businesses.” - Jennifer Tejada Likewise, going public can help create brand awareness and credibility because the company has to go through a lot of processes that will serve public market investors. “In my view, that rigor, and extra scrutiny is good for business. Hiding away in the private market just for the sake of staying away from that scrutiny is not a good thing because you can't survive with poor habits for a long period of time.” - Jennifer Tejada To hear more about the Enterprise Tech Category Queen Jennifer Tejada, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Jennifer Tejada is the CEO and Chairperson of PagerDuty (NYSE: PD), a leading platform for real-time operations. She is a veteran software industry executive and business leader with over 25 years of experience, spanning mass consumer products to disruptive cloud and software solutions. Jennifer has a successful track record in product innovation, optimizing operations and scaling public and private enterprise technology companies. PagerDuty went through a strong IPO in April 2019 through her leadership. Prior to her role at PagerDuty, Jennifer was the CEO of Keynote Systems where she led the company to strong profitable growth before its acquisition by Dynatrace in 2015. Before Keynote, Jennifer was Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at the enterprise software company Mincom leading its global strategy up to its acquisition in late 2011 by ABB. She has also held senior positions at Procter & Gamble and i2 Technologies (acquired by JDA Software). Jennifer currently serves as a board member of The Estée Lauder Companies I...

103 The Power of an IPO w/ Eric Yuan, Founder of Zoom Communications Sep 11, 2019

This is the first in a special two-part series featuring two CEO’s of two recent multi-billion IPOs—Jennifer Tejada, CEO of Pager Duty and billionaire, founder and CEO of Zoom Communications, the amazing Eric Yuan. Today’s episode features an insightful conversation about how Eric feels like to have a super successful IPO. Eric further shares Zoom’s culture centered on happiness and his motivation, mission and vision for Zoom and much more. Culture of Happiness Eric Yuan guested at Christopher’s previous podcast, Legends and Losers Episode 032. As of recording time, Zoom Communications raised $357M in IPO and is a $20+ billion market cap company. “When I wake up, the first person I ask is myself. Do I feel happy or not? I encourage our employees to ask the same questions. Ultimately, if our employee is not happy, I’m pretty sure they cannot give happiness to our customers. That's why we keep the happiness culture here.” - Eric Yuan Christopher cited some amazing data from GlassDoor. Employees rated Zoom 4.8, 5 being the highest. On the question “would you recommend Zoom to a friend, as a great place to work,” 95% said yes. Lastly, on CEO approval, 97% of the respondents said they approve of the way Eric runs the business. “I think based on that, I should focus on the 3% and plus the 5% why they do not recommend us too. Again, we always like all those feedback to help us become a better company.” - Eric Yuan Zoom: The Game Changer Christopher admires how Eric runs his company and how he epitomizes everything great about entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation. He has changed the game in the B2B space in North American and now, internationally. As Christopher says, Zoom has made impossible, possible, such as the ability to work from home and collaborate with the team in different countries. “I truly feel we just started. We look at our user base and our customer base, compared to the number of knowledge workers worldwide, I think we just started. A huge opportunity ahead of us. How to connect workers worldwide, if you look at the total market, it's also huge. Look at our revenue, we just started.” - Eric Yuan Vision and Mission for Zoom In the next 5 years, Eric candidly shares that he visualizes Zoom to give people a whole new experience in meeting and communicating, even aiming to replace the whole face to face meeting. “We truly believe data communication is the future, video is the new voice. In the future, no matter where you are, no matter which device you are using, just one click, you can talk with anyone in the world. You can speak on your language and understand with real-time translation.” - Eric Yuan Christopher also discusses with Eric the amazing marketing strategies that they employ, especially the huge advertisements in major airports in the US. “They should leverage our technology. Since it’s good for the family and good for society as well. Our goal is to make sure our existing customer is happy. Whenever they travel, [we remind them] you already have Zoom, why do you travel often?” - Eric Yuan To hear more about The Power of an IPO, and to learn more information about Eric Yuan, Founder of Zoom Communications, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Prior to founding Zoom, Eric was corporate vice president of engineering at Cisco, where he was responsible for Cisco's collaboration software development. Eric was one of the founding engineers and vice president of engineering at Webex. Between 1997 and 2011, he grew his team from 10 engineers to more than 800 worldwide and contributed to revenue growth from $0 to more than $800M. In 2017, Eric was added to the Business Insider list of the 52 Most Powerful People in Enterprise Tech. In 2018, he was named the #1 CEO of a large US company by Glassdoor and EY Entrepreneur of the Year in Northern California (software category). Eric is a named inventor on 11 issued and 20 pending patents in real-time collaboration.

102 How to make your place in the world w/ “The Three Foot Giant” Dr. Sean Stephenson Sep 09, 2019

Today’s episode is a special re-issue with Dr. Sean Stephenson, “The Three-Foot Giant.” He’s a great example of turning obstacles into opportunities, transforming his life into a legendary one. This conversation with Christopher Lochhead is made even more powerful upon the recent passing of Dr. Sean Stephenson. Join us as we relive the inspiring story of “The Three Foot Giant” in this episode. A (Legendary) Life Well Lived Dr. Sean passed away on the 28th of August 2019, following an accident. He was predicted not to survive at birth because of his rare bone disorder, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, which stunted his growth and caused his bones to be extremely fragile. When he was 18 years old, he has already fractured his bones for over 200 times. Despite his obstacles in life, he lived an inspiring life. He served as an instructive example of how to make your place in the world when you can’t find a place in the world. He worked for President Clinton and shared the stage with his Holiness the Dalai Lama and Oprah. He’s also the author of the bestseller: Get Off Your "But": How to End Self-Sabotage and Stand Up for Yourself. “I have decades and decades of education where I help people through their pains and their problems. But in some ways, I'm still learning to walk myself, learning to navigate this world, and I'm loving the experience of making mistakes.” - Dr. Sean Stephenson Staying True To Oneself Even after achieving his stature as a public speaker, Sean admits that he’s still growing. He was in business with his father for 22 years. His experiences at home were wonderful as he lived with his family until he was 31 years old. However, all good things must come to a challenging end, when he decided to step out into the world, leaving his father behind. “As of recent, I decided to “out” my true self, words and all. I kind of hid that over the years. If people knew that about me, they wouldn't respect me. I'm finding out the opposite is true, the more honest I am, the closer people are becoming to me.” - Dr. Sean Stephenson Breaking the Mold To continue his self-discovery, he would reorganize his life every five years or so. He wants to look back on the past five years to reevaluate and learn from his mistakes. “Maybe there's a wrongful belief out there that the version of you will always be the same as you get older but I don't agree with that. I'm constantly breaking the mold and starting over and trying new things and figuring out what do I believe in.” - Dr. Sean Stephenson To hear more about how to make your place in the world and more relevant information about “The Three-Foot Giant” Dr. Sean Stephenson, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Dr. Sean Stephenson was predicted not to survive at birth because of a rare bone disorder that stunted his growth and caused his bones to be extremely fragile (fracturing over 200 times by the age of 18). Despite his challenges, he took a stand for a quality of life that has inspired millions of people around the world. Since 1994, his powerful message has been heard at live events in nearly all 50 states and in 16 countries. Sean has presented at hospitals, universities, prisons, and to companies such as Nike, Whole Foods, Zappos, Walmart, and Sharp Healthcare. He’s shared the stage with U.S. Presidents, billionaire business moguls, celebrities, and his Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. Sean has appeared on everything from The Oprah Show to Jimmy Kimmel, in addition to online videos with tens of millions of views. The Biography Channel produced an hour-long feature on his life called, Three Foot Giant. Mindie Kniss & Sean Stephenson his international best-selling book, Get Off Your “But”, has been translated into over a dozen different languages. As a board-certified therapist, and doctor of Clinical Hypnosis, Dr. Stephenson used to see clients in a unique 12-hour session that gets to the root of their fears, excuses, and insecurities. In the past,

101 What Motivates Entrepreneurs? w/ Jaime Masters Sep 06, 2019

Our guest today, Jaime Masters is an entrepreneurial coach and podcasting pioneer. She hosts “Eventual Millionaire” and she shares with us today some fun, practical and insightful learnings on what it takes to become a legendary entrepreneur. She is an engaging business thinker who has her own quirks (love for costumes) and an amazing mother of two kids who are budding entrepreneurs. From Tardy to Masters Jaime Masters hosts the podcast Eventual Millionaire, where Christopher was once invited to promote his first book Play Bigger. She has interviewed close to 500 millionaires and she shares them through her book of the same title, Eventual Millionaire. Jaime shares with us some funny and serious experiences she had when she started using her maiden name again. The name “Jaime Masters” is now a brand and she admits that she has no further intention of changing her name again, even when she remarries. “It was something like, looking out when I'm 60, which person do I want to be? Which brand do I want to be building on my life?” - Jaime Masters Her Kids Attend Entrepreneur School It was a fun and admirable part of this episode when Jamie shared that her kids, a 12 and 10-year old, go to Entrepreneur School. The school has no homework and grades. They also do not have teachers, instead, they have guides. The school maximizes gamification for their modules. “They're learning 2x faster also, which is another thing the school wants. They learn life skills. My son video edited for my clients and is better than the editor that has been with me for 8 years.” - Jaime Masters Part of teaching life skills, they are set to become entrepreneurs early as they are encouraged to sell products and services during their summer vacation. Jamie’s son went door-to-door with his pressure washer business and her daughter went to sell rosemary to neighbors. “To me, the best thing about the school is, it’s about grit and pushing you out of your comfort zone. Teaching that at such a young age, not teaching memorization.” - Jaime Masters Concerns and Motivations of Solopreneurs Having interviewed around 500 millionaires, Jaime shares the inability to decide whether or not to hire a team is a common concern for them. Jaime further shares her process of assessing and diagnosing her clients’ concerns because sometimes, it is not a “team-problem” but an “owner-problem.” Furthermore, she acknowledges the fact that most entrepreneurs want progress in their business. She reminded, however, her personal experiences of failing due to the wrong reasons. “Knowing yourself really, really well is the best thing in entrepreneurship, even though it's shitty. There are millions of holes that open up but thankfully, the holes to fill it are not achievement and materialism, which you'll find out if you're long enough in the game.” - Jaime Masters To hear more about what motivates entrepreneurs and more relevant information about Jamie, download and listen to the episode. Why not try Wildz Casino free? It’s simple to do: follow the link to the website and you can register instantly using the bonus code that they provide. This online casino is a breath of fresh air in the world of online gambling. It is refreshing to see such a clean-cut and innovative design on an online casino website. Wildz offers players the chance to win big, with top prizes of $50k waiting to be won over and over again. Bio: Jaime Masters is a podcasting pioneer, host of the popular "Eventual Millionaire”, a Business Coach, Keynote Speaker, and Best Selling Author. She’s been featured on: CNNMoney, Yahoo's homepage (6x), Business Insider, Inc, CNN Newsroom, Entrepreneur, Fox Business News, Success Magazine and Christopher Lochhead Follow Your Different. Links: Eventual Millionaire Twitter: @eventualmillion Linkedin: jaimekmasters We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter,

100 Grumpy Old Geeks Co-Host Brian Schulmeister Sep 04, 2019

Today, we have a super fun conversation with Brian Schulmeister, the co-host of Grumpy Old Geeks podcast. We shared stories about music and what it was like doing websites for top bands and names in the industry. Of course, we got our grump on! We talk about what’s in the news: undersea data cables, A.I, data breach and many more! Websites For Music Artists Brian Schulmeister is the co-founder of Slender Fungus, a design company working primarily within the music industry. His vast experience in building websites landed him projects with big names such as Goo Goo Dolls, Alanis Morisette, Green Day, Coldplay and Rihanna, among others. He started his career way back in 1996 and he shared some interesting points on how he went on to pursue clients on his own. He also commented on the music industry at the present time and how consumers are consuming it so poorly. “The generation now and the way people experience music now is so shallow and disconnected from the artist and its singles. Spotify playlist through horrible headphones, it's just bad.” - Brian Schulmeister Grumpy, Angry and Too Depressed Brian Schulmeister is the co-host of the podcast Grumpy Old Geeks, with Jason DeFelippo. The podcast, which is included in Christopher’s Top 5 list, has originally started as a joke but the hosts later realized they were admittedly angry about a lot of topics. Brian admits he is angry and still is but they try to pepper the episodes with humor. “The funny thing is at one point I literally wanted to quit the podcast. I felt I was getting too grumpy, too angry, too depressed. I really did. It was shortly after the birth of my child and I started to realize that I really need to have a better outlook in life right now.” - Brian Schulmeister Let’s Get Our Grump On! In relation to technology topics, Christopher says that it is easy to be cynical and be fun and grumpy on technology but the reality is, technology has made the world a better place. It has created more opportunities and breakthroughs in the lives of human beings. “We are at a tipping point right now, at least for technology. We can very easily lose control of sh*t right now. There are some important movements going on right now, the whole data and human rights.” - Brian Schulmeister Christopher discusses some topics that are on the news such as the 8000 undersea data cables from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, or the data breach at Capital One that allegedly also compromised another 30 companies. They also shared a good laugh about different kinds of farts and shared their reactions about a man collapsing his lungs after a 2-hour karaoke session. To hear more about the Grumpy Old Geeks Co-Host Brian Schulmeister, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Brian lives in Venice, CA, frequents Toronto and London and has spent a lot of the last 10 years happily living out of a suitcase – and a large backpack filled with laptops, cords, wires and various bits and bobs that bloop and bleep. He’s the co-founder of Slender Fungus, a design company working primarily within the music industry. He is also the co-writer with Rob Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls in Amungus, an electronica based music project that’s released an EP and played a few festivals. Brian started with technology at the dawn of time, even running his own BBS at the age of 13, and has stuck with it since then. And as the co-host of the wildly popular Grumpy Old Geeks Podcast, needless to say, he’s quite grumpy. Links: Grumpy Old Geeks LinkedIn: Slender Fungus Topics discussed in this Oddcast: National Security Concerns Threaten Undersea Data Link Backed by Google, Facebook Everything We Know About the Capital One Hacking Case So Far: A new indictment against alleged Capital One hacker Paige Thompson includes a few fresh details about the case. Too Much Karaoke Sent a Man to the Hospital with a Collapsed Lung AI can predict when someone will die with unsettling accuracy The world’s funniest fart sounds messy,

099 Persuasion w/ Lee Hartley Carter Sep 02, 2019

Languaging Master Lee Hartley Carter joins us today for a riveting conversation about the power of language and the art of persuasion. She discusses today how language shapes everything in our lives and how to use language to convince people when facts don’t seem to matter. Marketers and non-marketers will surely learn a ton from this conversation about communications, language strategy, and persuasion. The Power of Language Lee candidly shares with Christopher that she never thought about a job opportunity which involves words and messaging. When she was younger, she considers herself as obsessed with words. For her, language is the means in which people can connect with other human beings and convey thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. Language is a powerful tool with every word, having its own meaning. “That change in language changes thinking, which ultimately change social beliefs and norms and potentially laws and governance approaches. It can change a lot of things.” - - Lee Hartley Carter Language Strategy in Marketing Lee further cites examples of how the smallest change in language can have a huge impact. She cited differences in words such as estate tax/death tax, or global warming/climate change, or used vehicles/pre-owned vehicles. A simple change of words can reshape how people think about the message. Lee also shared the common mistake marketers make in conveying a message. Oftentimes, marketers tend to “speak louder” — to share more facts to try and get the point across. This doesn’t end well, as people get turned off with the over-communication. “Instead, what you need to do is to not speak louder but speak smarter. The way that speaks smarter is by slowing down and really saying ‘you know what, this isn't about what I want to say. This is about what they need to hear.’” - Lee Hartley Carter Crisis Communications In an interesting turn of the conversation, Lee and Christopher discussed crisis response. Lee laid out her step by step advice on companies facing a crisis. First, she says that freaking out is a natural response to a crisis. However, she noted that it's important to understand what your target audience is thinking or is feeling at that moment. “Who are you trying to convince right now that you're okay, is it your shareholders? is it your customers? What are they afraid of right now? What value have you just betrayed in them?” - Lee Hartley Carter They had a great dialogue on crafting emergency messages as Christopher had his own fair share of stories to tell, with regards to crisis communications and response. To hear more about Persuasion and more relevant information about Lee Hartley Carter, download and listen to the episode. Bio: After a crushing loss in a student council race in the 6th grade, Lee learned the importance of getting the story right from the beginning. In the 7th grade, when she ran again, she ran on a story that was driven by some middle school polling techniques she employed among her classmates. And, she won. Ever since she has had a passion for language. For the message. For the story. And she brings this passion to her role as partner at m+p, a research-driven language strategy firm that specializes in finding the right language and messages based on one simple idea: it’s not what you say that matters, it’s what they hear. A member of the executive leadership team, Lee oversees a diverse range of language strategy work for Fortune 500 companies and non-profits in the U.S. and abroad. To do this, Lee has conducted, overseen, and analyzed countless instant response sessions, traditional focus groups, brainstorming and strategy sessions. and surveys in more than 15 countries. She has worked with clients in a wide range of industries including financial services, energy, automotive, sustainability, hospitality services, food and beverage, technology, and consumer products. And, she has worked extensively in public affairs, public policy, and issue advocacy.

098 Build a legendary Board of Directors w/ Coco Brown Aug 30, 2019

In this episode, the CEO of Athena Alliance Coco Brown talks about how to build a legendary board of directors. Coco is an entrepreneur and an advocate for women. She tells us why boards need to have fresh talents and why they need diversity on skills and people. Also, she shares why the old model of creating a board is worn out. The Athena Alliance Coco Brown is the CEO of Athena Alliance. It is a global community of women business leaders, committed to driving diversity on company boards and developing new women leaders. “We're essentially bringing the top-tier women together in a digital ecosystem that provides us a lot of opportunities for them across disciplines.” - Coco Brown Coco describes the community as in-part-Linkedin — with a portion of coaching and networking — and in-part-Bumble, because of matchmaking activities. Male CEOs and The Outdated Board of Directors Athena Alliance serves as an agency. The group is in contact with male CEOs who wish to expand their network with women. Coco further shares with Christopher how outdated most companies are, in terms of the composition of their Board of Directors. In the past, the board is ultimately responsible for long term shareholder. Oftentimes, it is the reason why CEOs tend to stay long in their position, up until retirement. “The board room needs a lot more empathy, connection, communication and understanding of the marketplace. If you look at the old board — seated with former CEOs and financial experts — the average age is 63, the average tenure is 8 1/2 years.” - Coco Brown Building A Legendary Board In the past, the committees are largely about CEO compensation, equities, and succession. Historically, committee topics are financials or risks. In the new world, these financial experts try to squeeze in other pressing corporate issues into those committees. “So you’re starting to see this need for a much wider range of skills set in the board room. People who understand consumers. So good market strategists and leaders.” - Coco Brown Moreover, she suggested to bring in more sets of people in their 30s or 40s. Ideally, she suggests contemporary professionals who are experienced with the operations. To hear more about building a legendary Board of Directors, and more relevant information about Coco Brown, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Coco Brown leads “change and transformation.” She is responsible for accelerating multimillion-dollar growth through vision, strategy, technology, and people leadership. She held leadership roles including CEO, COO, President, board member, and advisor—partnering with F1000 companies, start-ups, and nonprofits. Through her leadership, she has delivered successful outcomes for Apple, Cisco, eBay, Facebook, Silicon Valley Bank, and many others. Currently, she is the founder, CEO, and board member of The Athena Alliance. The company is a game-changing executive firm helping to position the top 10% of executive women for advancement and board opportunities. Since founding Athena in the Spring of 2016, she has led the organization to a network of over 1000 C-Level women, VCs, and CEOs from over 150 companies. These companies include Accenture, Cisco, Microsoft, Intuit, Autodesk, and Alphabet / Google. Within two years, we have overseen 20 board placements and have secured $2 million in income through corporate and investor service offerings. Links: Athena Alliance LinkedIn: Coco Brown Twitter: @cocobrown1020 We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

097 Legendary Writer Dushka Zapata Aug 28, 2019

One of the most prolific and important writers in the world and our most regular guest Dushka Zapata, joins us today. We had a heartfelt conversation about mending broken-hearts, why grief is worst when you’re young, why discipline is better than inspiration and many more! Writing Beautiful Answers at Quora You may find Dushka lounging in Question and Answer site Quora, where her writings receive 140 million views. Her life-affirming, fun and powerful answers have garnered her quite a following, including Christopher himself. During this conversation, she shared a wonderful passage where we can learn a thing or to about mending a broken heart. She shares a story about a big, crowded yoga class she attended. The intention was to heal the physical and non-physical aspects of the person ⁠— whether a sprain, a wound or even sorrow, anxiety and loneliness. “At this point, I sneaked a peek. I opened my eyes and slowly panned the room. I would say that 97% of the people on the room had placed both their hands over the left side of their chest." - Dushka Zapata She left a powerful message to readers, reminding everyone to tread very carefully in this world because, in reality, almost everyone is desperately trying to mend a broken heart. Grief is Worse When You’re Young Dushka shares another question lifted from Quora about a young 16-year old who wanted to marry her girlfriend. She crafted a very creative and wholehearted response: she affirmed what the young lad was feeling and then informed him that this feeling is temporary. "Feelings ⁠— real and deep ⁠— change. Feelings change and the fact that they do is what breaks me. The fact that it changes, saves me and it will save you too." - Dushka Zapata She concludes that the younger you are, the more confusing things are because you don't know you can survive them. Discipline Matters More Than Being Inspired Dushka shares to Christopher about some days in her career, where she counts on being disciplined, rather than inspired., which she believes is the secret to anything. “I don’t think there is such a thing as motivation. I think that you just do it because, you said you are gonna do it every day.” - Dushka Zapata More on this Oddcast, Christopher, and Dushka discuss the importance of being an amateur. She also conversed about her new book, You Belong Everywhere and Other Things You'll Have to See for Yourself. To hear more about Legendary Writer Dushka Zapata, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Dushka Zapata is one of the most prolific and popular writers working today. On question and answer site Quora her work has been viewed over 140 million times. She’s the author of eight best-selling books. Dushka has over 20 years experience as a senior communications executive in Silicon Valley. When she’s not writing, she serves as a communications executive at tech juggernaut Zendesk. Links: Quora: Dushka Zapata New Book: You Belong Everywhere and Other Things You'll Have to See for Yourself Twitter: @dushkaamateur LinkedIn: Dushka We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

096 Performance Marketing & Podcasting Media w/ Dan Granger, CEO of Oxford Road Aug 26, 2019

Podcasting has never been hotter! Dan Granger joins us today to have a unique, thoughtful and inspiring conversation about performance marketing & podcasting media. He is the CEO of Oxford Road, the pioneer in digital performance advertising, which he also talks about today. The Incubation Period Dan has done an incredible job of being early in new digital areas that produce meaningful results both for a performance and branding perspective for marketers. He started paying attention to podcasting way back in 2006 but not only until the year 2012 did he start monetizing it, through advertisement placement on podcasts. Officially in 2013, they started working with unheard-of brands like Zip Recruiter, Blue Apron and Hulu. “I had a 10-year background in radio. What was interesting is we get to ride two simultaneous waves that were really, really influential in the marketplace—both in media and general business.” - Dan Granger Startups Building Businesses in Podcasting Dan notes that it was all early adapters—geeks and gamers—who tried out podcasting and they resonated with people. Listeners appreciate the fact that something different happens technologically. In addition to that, the audiences were willing to try something that was entirely different and “disruptive.” “I'm listening to audio in a way that has never been consumed before.” - Dan Granger on early listeners of podcasts Podcasting is a big deal. Dan shares how a lot of brands got their growth spurt at the back of the podcast industry. They were efficient in buying these podcasts before it started to become popular with the mainstream. “It really changes when you go 'I'm really scared to spend this first 10 Grand’ to 'I just got sold for a Billion dollars’ is a very different culture and priorities.” - Dan Granger Is Podcasting Merging With Radio? Christopher agrees with Dan about companies differentiating themselves quickly via podcasting. However, he noted the indirect proportion of the amount of growth and the actual dollar brought about by advertising. “Yes this is a technological advancement, that means you can have more commercials. So my prediction, in not too distant future, we’re going to see advertising loads change tremendously. You may have to stick around till after the break.” - Dan Granger Christopher posed an important question about whether podcasting is merging with radio formats. Dan candidly answered that it has many threats more than opportunities and it will be hard to fight this movement. “There will be individuals who will stay independent — Joe Rogan, Tim Ferris, probably a lot of people like yourself who are really just purist and committed to the craft and love the fact that it's not radio. It's got this pirate radio about vibe to it.” - Dan Granger To hear more about Performance Marketing & Podcasting Media and more relevant information about Dan, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Dan Granger is the CEO and founder of Oxford Road, a leading ad agency and ad-tech developer. Since starting Oxford Road in 2013, Dan has teamed with countless “unicorn” companies on TV, radio and podcast advertisements on some of the country’s biggest shows, including Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan. Links: Linkedin - Dan Granger Company Website - Oxford Road Adweek Contributor Dan Granger The Future of Performance Marketing With Oxford Road CEO Dan Granger Time Magazine: “Big Money Is Pouring Into Podcasting. Some Podcasters Love It — But Others Are Freaked Out” Mickey D’s is the latest company to hop on the branded podcast bandwagon We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

095 #1 Tech Startup In Africa w/ Matt Brown Aug 23, 2019

Entrepreneur, CEO, and top podcaster Matt Brown joins us today for another no-BS conversation about being a Techpreneur in South Africa. He gives us a glimpse of the South African Tech scene, as well as his successes, as he was voted as #1 Tech startup in Africa in London Tech Week. Matt gives practical insights on business and life design as well. #1 Tech Startup Matt Brown, a very down to earth guy, recounts to Christopher his experience at London Tech Week, as organizers named him the #1 Tech Startup in Africa. Although he admits he now has unnecessary pressure due to the title, he claims it was a great opportunity for international development in the technology space. “It was pretty insane when a government like the UK gets behind an idea. So what they have done is, they mobilized literally billions of pounds just for Africa Tech, 1.2 Billion pounds available for distribution.” - Matt Brown The Storytelling Technology Matt runs a firm called Digital Kung Fu and he candidly shares with Christopher his elevator pitch — "we’re the world's fastest tech story production business.” He further shares that Christopher’s books Play Bigger and Niche Down inspired him in this business. “The truth is were evangelizing this idea — which I totally started from your thinking by the way — category design thinking and creating a point of view that is unique and different.” - Matt Brown He further shares that through his firm, they are connecting that point-of-view at scale to a market a way that it creates value. In his case, it is the storytelling technology. “It’s about taking proven powers of storytelling and marrying that with technology — data, automation, AI — and delivering stories essentially at a scale that makes very complicated things in ways that are memorable and relatable and understandable.” - Matt Brown The South African Tech Scene Matt also talks about the South African tech scene, as other countries do not exactly know what is happening locally. He shares about the different challenges and opportunities they have there and the similarities in terms of trends. “I think Africa has some unique challenges. We have infrastructure challenges, connectivity challenges, bandwidth challenges, and these things don't typically exist in developed markets.” - Matt Brown Amidst these challenges, Matt shares how these forces techpreneurs to innovate, especially in the mobile phones market. “African tech has got a bad name in many respects. Basically at a type of expansion into emerging markets, it's less competitive in many respects. But, the economic opportunities are huge because there is no competition.” - Matt Brown Bio: Matt is the CEO of Digital Kungfu. It was named as "Best Tech Startup 2019 - Africa Tech Week Awards." The company is a lead generation and storytelling production company purpose-built for technology businesses. Links: Podcast - The Matt Brown Show Digital Kung Fu Book - Your Inner Game The Matt Brown Show in partnership with London Tech Week creates State of X Season One on Prime We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

094 How We Make Stuff Now w/ Jules Pieri Aug 21, 2019

Today’s episode features a highly informative discussion between our host, Christopher Lochhead and Jules Pieri. She’s the first designer to graduate from Harvard Business School. She shares some amazing lessons on how to create legendary new products and how to make sure those products succeed in the world. Industrial Designer Turned Legendary Marketer Fortune named Jules as one of the Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs." She is the Co-Founder and CEO of the product launch platform The Grommet. Jules shares that before she formed the company, she observed the huge shifts in technology ⁠— specifically the internet, like the development of 3D printing. 3D printing enabled a huge new class of entrepreneurs with physical products. “Creative people have access to inexpensive tools, they will use that. Physical products are less abstract than software, so they're gonna inspire more people to participate.” - Jules Pieri What We Can Learn From Squatty Potty Jules shares with Christopher the story behind the product Squatty Potty ⁠— a stool that raises the leg of the user during elimination. Christopher labeled the product as legendary because it created a new need for consumers. Jules admitted that it is often quite a challenge whenever they start a new category. She pointed out the importance for companies to be as bold as possible when launching a new product. “They hired a great agency to get the ads done and they had more vision and courage than most companies tend to have at the early stages. That's a super insecure stage of a company and they paid large money. Your reputation is aligned with these ads.” - Jules Pieri Category Creation Is a Must Jules remarked about the importance of category creation. She believes that it is very hard to cut through in a crowded world. She added that through The Grommet, they can create categories that enable them to study product searches of users. “Category search, ‘cause names are not usually as memorable as descriptions.” - Jules Pieri Christopher and Jules discussed more about Legendary Marketing, the differences between creating demand and capturing a demand. They also touch base on to have an invention and bring it to the world in a way that it would be connected, unique and distinct. Jules also shares some important parts of her great, new book out called How We Make Stuff Now. Bio: Jules Pieri is Co-Founder and CEO of the product launch platform The Grommet. The company’s Citizen Commerce™ movement is reshaping how consumer products get discovered, shared, and bought. Jules started her career as an industrial designer for technology companies and was subsequently a senior executive for large brands, such as Keds, Stride Rite, and Playskool. The Grommet is her third startup, following roles as VP at Design Continuum and President of Ziggs.com. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and people tell her she is the first designer to graduate from Harvard Business School, where she is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence. Fortune named Jules as one fo the "Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs" in 2013. In June 2014, White House Maker Faire invited Jules to launch The Grommet Wholesale Platform, connecting Makers with Main Street Retailers. Links: Blog: The Grommet Twitter: @julespieri Instagram: @julespieri CEO Unplugged Column - Inc. We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

093 Microsoft’s Transformation and Why Every Company is a Software Company w/ Bob Evans Aug 19, 2019

Today’s guest is one of Christopher’s favorite people, host of Cloud Wars podcast, Bob Evans. Together, they dig deep into how Microsoft transformed into a “Trillion Dollar Cloud Category King.” They discuss what we can all learn from their remarkable turn-around. Moreover, the compare why they think every company is a software company and a lot more! Microsoft: A Trillion Cloud Category King Bob Evans shares his opinion on Microsoft and its trillion-dollar cloud business. This massive growth in sales led both Bob and Christopher awestruck. Bob shares that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has largely driven the company into its current status. He pointed out that Nadella realized Microsoft was spending too much time achieving internally driven goals. He believed it’s about time to ask what are the goals and dreams of their paying customers, what do they need to happen and how can Microsoft help them. “I think it should be an inspiration to all sorts of businesses. You are limited not by competitive set and not by how much money you have. You are limited by what your dreams and ambitions are.” - Bob Evans Massive Restructure of the Sales Team Microsoft had a massive restructuring of its sales team. They replaced as much as 30-40% of their sales team, infusing with people who formerly Programmers but they have the outlook and personality of salespeople. This led to high engagement with customers and ultimately, high profits for Microsoft. “I just think its a phenomenon that lots of people can learn from here. You can come back, you can change, you can become something that other people say you'll never be. Defy history.” - Bob Evans Importance of Channel Partners Bob discussed another point to remember from Microsoft — their special attention to the ecosystem or channel partners. The company supported its clients, especially for software development and programming. In the end, these clients later sold their programs to other clients, under the supervision of Microsoft. “The most valuable company on Earth is willing to say ‘the way you have always done it isn’t the way to the future. I will turn my organization to make your sales team.’ They are doing stuff that defies anybody prediction or scope or the way they look at things. Imagine where they could be, that is the magic Nadella has brought about.” - Bob Evans To hear more about Microsoft’s transformation and why every company is a software company and more information about Bob Evans, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Bob grew up outside of Pittsburg, with hard-working parents and his 6 siblings. Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978 and entered the business world, flowing his passion for information technology and writing. He rose to become the editor of Information Week, one of the top two publications in technology at the time. He became the SVP and Content Director for Information Week’s parent company TechWeb/CMP After thirty years in the media business, he left to join the world of software vendors, after a quick stop at ERP vendor SAP, Bob was recruited by the world 5th richest person, a legendary category designer and entrepreneur --- Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle. At Oracle Bob served as SVP and Chief Communications Officer for Larry. Today Bob runs his own strategic communications firm, is a prolific writer, a tech industry commentator, public speaker, and a legendary guy. He hosts the widely popular Cloud Wars Live Podcast. Links: Cloudwars Podcast Twitter: @bobevansIT Linkedin: BobEvansIT We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

7 Recession Marketing Ideas Aug 19, 2019

Christopher Lochhead discusses, in his newly launched podcast, Lochhead on Marketing talks about some of his ideas timely for a potential recession. With this threat coming, Christopher points out the importance of developing and acting on ideas that would make your companies survive this disastrous event. He hopes that through these suggestions, your company will come out even come out stronger from a potential recession. Without further adieu, here are Christopher's 7 Recession Marketing Ideas Never Let A Good Recession Go To Waste!Assume you can’t raise any more moneyMeasure twice, cut onceBrainstorm short-term ways to increase revenueMarket & Sell Into The WhitespaceConsider a competitor trade-inDouble Down on Your Category You can check out Lochhead Marketing Podcast on Lochead.com or any podcast player that you and listen to episode 008 7 Recession Marketing Ideas. Links: Lochhead on Marketing We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

092 1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently w/ Marc & Angel Chernoff Aug 16, 2019

Our guests for today, NY Times best-selling author/power couple Marc and Angel Chernoff talks about their new book and other self-help topics. We had an insightful conversation about happiness and unhappiness, as well as overcoming serious set-backs and other tons of practical insights for living. The Journey is Worth It Marc and Angel Chernoff got into this line of work when they lost someone — a best friend and a sibling. Just in their late 20s, they found themselves investing a lot in personal development and self-reflection. “It was those moments where ultimately — we saw therapists, I mean depression sets in. We had no tools for coping and coming out of it. We realize what we want to do on a daily basis was to reflect.” - Marc Chernoff Fast forward to the present day, Forbes dubbed this duo as “the authors of the most popular personal development blogs on the planet.” They are promulgators of the idea of acknowledging that “our present lives are more important than all of the lofty goals we have set for ourselves.” “Because obviously it’s a cliche, but the journey is worth it. The journey is more important. Are we spending our days the way we want to spend our lives? Our days are our lives.” - March Chernoff Live a Life Worth Living Marc and Angel further share some wise words about living a life worth living. Marc pointed out how lucky most people are, as there are a lot of people living in dire situations and facing immense challenges. He further discussed the importance of a positive mindset and the ability to focus on the present. Christopher also shares his own views on living life, especially about dealing with failures. He quoted Marc when he discussed “the belief that failure is the opposite of success.” He shares candidly that he has failed himself into a life that he loves and shares a quote that says “failure feels fun.” “I don’t necessarily think that time wasted is wasted time. It’s time for self care, it’s time to relax. We don’t always have to be go-go-go.” - Angel Chernoff Other practical insights Both Marc and Angel share tips on how to cope with heartbreaks ⁠— from love interests to a divorce or a broken friendship to a loss of life. Marc shares how we can use these experiences to empower us in moving forward with our lives. Marc, Ange-and Christopher discuss a lot more about things that happy and unhappy people do, as well as dealing with expectations of others. To hear more about the 1000+ little things happy successful people do differently, and more information about Marc and Angel Chernoff, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Marc and Angel Chernoff are New York Times bestselling authors, professional coaches, full-time students of life and admirers of the human spirit. Forbes recognized the couple as having “one of the most popular personal development blogs.” Through their blog, books, course and coaching, they’ve spent the past decade writing and teaching proven strategies for finding lasting happiness, success, love, and peace. Marc and Angel’s New York Times bestselling book, Getting Back to Happy: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Reality, and Turn Your Trials into Triumphs, is a guide to spark sustainable action—and to return to whenever needed. Links: Website: MarcandAngel.com Twitter: @marcandangel Instagram: @marcandangel We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

BIG NEWS! SPECIAL OFFER! Aug 12, 2019

We have just launched a new marketing podcast! It talks about the mindsets and strategies for winning ⁠— with a special focus on how you design, create and dominate market categories. It’s called LOCHHEAD ON MARKETING. Radical Generosity As Christopher is not a fan of self-promotion (which may sound crazy, coming from a three-time marketing guy), we have thought about how we’re going to market and promote the podcast. On one hand, we wanted to do some marketing that would feel comfortable without the overly self-promotional crap. This brings us to Christopher’s buddy and co-conspirator on category creation and design, and legendary marketing, Eddie Yoon. He has this powerful idea that legendary category designers practice “radical generosity.” “If you think about the word ‘creation’, in a lot of ways, you could argue creation is about bringing something to the world and Eddie says, if you wanted to create a design category -- having a radical generosity mindset matters.” - Christopher Lochhead We’re Gonna Spend A Bunch Of Money Legendary category designers and creators come from a place of generosity. So, to promote this podcast, we are going to spend a bunch of money. Rather than buying a ton of ads, we thought we might include you. We’re doing it in a way that is radically generous. Here's the offer: we would love if you will rate and review Lochhead on Marketing, take a screenshot of that review, email it to blackhole@lochhead.com. For the next 7 days, we are going to make a $20 donation to four of my chosen charities. “Were gonna divide up all the inbound and then divide it into quarters. Then, we will give it to the ASPCA, Frontrow Foundation, 1LifeFullyLived and Donorschoose.org. We will publish on our website—with full transparency —how much money we raise and how much money we gave away. This is the result of you participating in helping us market the new marketing podcast.” - Christopher Lochhead The Beneficiaries What we were asking you to do is rate and review the podcast, share it on social media and email us at blackhole@lochhead.com. Once you do that, we will drop $20 in one of the following charities: 1. As we all know, Christopher loves animals. American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is one of his chosen beneficiaries. 2. Frontrow Foundation is a charity that works with people, often kids, who are facing life-threatening conditions to give them one legendary experience. 3. If you’re a regular listener, we’re sure you know how much Christopher loves 1LifefullyLived.org. Founded by his buddy, Tim Rhode, this nonprofit has tried to put together programs and content around life planning and design, financial planning and design, and entrepreneurship. They try to do this as close to free as possible. 4. The fourth one is a non-profit called DonorsChoose. This is an extraordinary organization that allows school teachers around the country, to tell people what they need and people can go ahead and fund those things for their students and their classrooms. Checkout Lochhead on Marketing on Lochhead.com or any of your favorite podcast players. Thank you so much for being a listener of Follow Your Different. Thank you so much for helping us become radically generous. We hope you think its a cool idea.

091 Crowd Funding For Good w/ DonorsChoose.org’s Charles Best & Oliver Hurst-Hiller Aug 12, 2019

Today's inspiring guests are from DonorsChoose.org, CEO and Founder Charles Best and entrepreneur Oliver Hurst-Hiller. These two, together with a small group of people, came together and made our world a different place, through crowdfunding. DonorsChoose.org Donorschoose.org is a non-profit which enables teachers who need help to go straight to the public and seek financial assistance. Charles Best, a former high school teacher turned activist founded the organization. Together with Oliver Hurst-Hiller, the Chief Technology Officer of the org, they have pioneered the category of crowdfunding. “I was like teachers all over the country. I was spending my own money on school supplies for my students. My colleagues are doing the same. We would talk about all the stuff we want our students to have, but we couldn’t go into our own pockets to buy.” - Charles Best Merging Technology with Advocacy Charles Best and Oliver Hurst-Hiller share the current education situation in the US — it is underfunded — and teachers and students need help. In the past, millionaires have been the common benefactors of organizations. Charles, however, thought about regular citizen donors and how their collective power can benefit this cause. Regular donors will have the ability to pick, choose, donate and hear directly from the beneficiaries. All the donors — whether they donated 50 dollars or 5 million dollarngets the same appreciation, feedback, and transparency direct from their beneficiaries. “If the internet/technology can enable a regular person giving 50 bucks to have that experience of directness, transparency, reporting and feedback, something magical might happen and 840 million dollars later, I think it has.” - Oliver Hurst-Hiller The “Philanthropic eBay” Stanford Business School and Amazon dubbed DonorsChoose.org as “the most innovative non-profit.” The organization is for school front-liners who have an idea or project and is seeking microloans to fund it. The organization connects them to patrons and philanthropists. “The first news story about our site compared us to a philanthropic eBay. That’s the only parallel that they could draw at that time — with its two-sided marketplace and people connecting.” - Charles Best Charles Best and Oliver Hurst-Hiller talk more about the organization, crowdfunding. Further, they discussed more on the power-houses backing them up as board of directors. They are Stephen Colbert and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner, to name a few. To hear more about the DonorsChoose.org crowdfunding for good and more information about Charles Best and Oliver Hurst-Hiller, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Charles Best, Founder / CEO Charles Best leads DonorsChoose.org, a nonprofit website that enables anyone to help a classroom in need. He launched the organization in 2000 at a Bronx public high school where he taught history for five years. To date, teachers at more than 80% of all the public schools in America have created classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org, and more than 3 million people have given to those projects. DonorsChoose.org is one of Oprah Winfrey's "ultimate favorite things." It made the cover of Fast Company as one of the "50 Most Innovative Companies in the World." It is the first time any charity has received such recognition. Oliver Hurst-Hiller, Chief Technology Officer and Head of Product Oliver is responsible for the technology and user experience that power DonorsChoose.org's unique philanthropic marketplace. Prior to joining the team in 2006, Oliver managed product engineering projects for Microsoft's new search engine, now called Bing. He helped start Microsoft Live Labs, an applied research laboratory for Internet technologies. Further, he is also the co-inventor of 22 issued U.S. patents related to Internet search technologies. In 2011, the Microsoft Alumni Foundation honored Oliver with the Integral Fellows Award. He is the Chair of CTOs For Good and on the Advisory Council...

090 The Green “Circular Economy” w/ #1 Amazon Bestselling Author Heather Clancy Aug 09, 2019

Today, Amazon-best-selling author Heather Clancy gives us insights about a very timely topic — the green economy. We talk about what she’s learning about the green economy, the controversy around carbon taxes and how companies are creating new offerings centered on sustainability. The Sustainability Journalist Heather is the editorial director of GreenBiz.com. She is an award-winning journalist who covers transformative technology for business readers. Media outfits such as Entrepreneur, Fortune, The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times have featured her articles. She discusses with Christopher the concept of circular economy and how major corporations have played a major role in its growth and acceptance among consumers. “For many individuals, there’s a lot of different reasons for this, the idea of the circular economy is ‘something can be reused in someways.’ Not necessarily recycled, but potentially remanufactured.” - Heather Clancy The Circular Economy Heather shares some of the efforts of major corporations to address sustainability issues in the market. A recent company called The Real Real raised 300M in their last week’s IPO. It is one indication that the circular economy is on the rise. Moreover, she shared about the company Loop, formed by Terracycle, which offers common household products in reusable packaging. “The idea behind Loop is: big consumer brands like Procter & Gamble and Unilever, should be thinking about reusable containers. They are now designing packaging using aluminum or glass, which you think about as old packaging, but they’re kinda beautiful.” - Heather Clancy This effort of Terracyle challenges packaging designers to offer consumers a different kind of product, one that still creates brand affinity. Additionally, Heather thinks that this switch from single-use plastic to reusable packaging would be a good talking point for PR. Are all the efforts worth it? Loop partnered with grocery store Walgreens and drugstore Kroger as drop-off points for the empty reusable packaging. UPS then collects the empty bottles for the refill and redelivers them to the customers. With this supply-chain set-up, Christopher posed a very important question: are all efforts worth it? We are very much aware of the carbon emissions for transporting these goods. Likewise, Christopher also mentioned an article about Tesla and how “unsustainable” it is. The cost of manufacturing one car is alarming, in terms of carbon emissions. “I don't have an impact statement for you there, but the companies who are making them, are basically giving a 2nd life to them.” - Heather Clancy To hear more about the green “circular economy” w/ #1 amazon bestselling author, Heather Clancy, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Heather Clancy is a veteran journalist working at the intersection of information technology, entrepreneurship, and green technology. Heather is the Co-author of #1 Amazon bestseller, Niche Down: How To Become Legendary By Being Different. Heather’s articles have appeared in Entrepreneur, Fortune, The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times. She is the editorial director for GreenBiz.com, and the launch editor of FORTUNE Data Sheet, a daily dose of enterprise technology news. Links: Website - Heather Clancy Twitter The Real Real: Luxury Consignment Sales Terracycle - Closed Loop Solutions REI Wired.com - Teslas Electric Cars Might Not Be As Green As You Think Carbon Engineering Clime Works We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

089 Entrepreneurs: Know the Difference Between “Craft Venture Capitalists” & Wall St VCs Aug 07, 2019

In this episode, Christopher Lochhead explores the distinction between Craft Venture Capitalists and Wall Street Venture Capitalists (VCs) and why is it very important for entrepreneurs to know the difference. This is a special episode for entrepreneurs who are contemplating on raising funds from VCs. The Power of Venture-backed startups In a study published by Brookings, they claimed that “in recent decades Venture Capital (VC) has generated more economic and employment growth in the U.S. than any other investment sector. Further, venture-backed startups make up 0.2% of GDP, in terms of investment and they deliver an astonishing 21% of U.S. GDP “Venture-backed startup entrepreneurs who seek VC, produce an extraordinary outcome, not just for themselves, their people, customers, investors but for the US economy overall.” - Christopher Lochhead So, What’s The Issue? Lochhead frankly discussed a disturbing trend in Silicon Valley over the last 15 years or so. The emergence of Wall Street type VCs ⁠— who are principally focused on value extraction. This is in opposition to “Craft VCs” who helped build Silicon Valley. “Here’s the problem: the wall street types come in and they whisper sweetly into the ears of entrepreneurs and they convince them to delay going public. They convince them to make money with them.” - Christopher Lochhead Lochhead clarified that these folks are focused on value extraction from the entrepreneurs. These Wall Street VCs impose terms and conditions which are often fairly punitive to entrepreneurs and to employees. Entrepreneurs: Pay Close Attention! Lochhead forewarns entrepreneurs who are considering Wall Street VCs versus Craft VCs. First and foremost, Craft VCs prioritizes relationship with the founder and the employees. They focus on providing experience, as they are former entrepreneurs themselves. “Craft VCs partner to create value with entrepreneurs and the terms and conditions reflect this over time. The wall street folks? They just wanna come in, make money and frankly, they don’t care who else is successful. They don't care who else they hurt, they’re in for themselves.” - Christopher Lochhead To hear more about the difference between craft VCs and Wall Street VCs, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Christopher Lochhead is a Top 25 podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger. He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur. Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist. In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006 for $4.5 billion. He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive. Links: Brookings - As the venture capital game gets bigger, the Midwest keeps missing out We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

088 The Impact Entrepreneur: Mike Flynn Aug 05, 2019

Fellow entrepreneur and podcaster Mike Flynn joins us today for another great episode. He is a best-selling author and host of the podcast, The Impact Entrepreneur. Today, he talks about his heart-felt book “Master The Key,” the inspiration behind it and his opinions on personal development, commitment and service and many more. Facts About Employee Disengagement Mike shares some important figures for employee disengagement at work. He says that "85% of the employees globally are disengaged at work." Further, 40% of these American employees said they have a side gig that is related to their passion. “If someone is following their passion and they really dont know what they are passionate about, and they don't know what they are willing to suffer for, and they still haven't left their job that they are disengaged at, when that business fails and they fall back from that place where they were disengaged, what's gonna happen, Christopher?” - Mike Flynn Personal Development in the Workplace Christopher cited some of his observations about employee disengagement at work. He cites the visible impacts of this, such as the escalating depression rates and obesity problems. Further, Christopher shared some important points from Episode 071: How to design a company that people are lining up to work for. He discussed the importance of the personal development of every employee. For him, happy individuals in the workplace result in positive company culture. “Every company needs to be personal development company because every organization is made up of a bunch of individuals who are grappling with 4 fundamental questions: who am I, how do I show up in the world, what would I do when I get there, who do I do it with?” - Mike Flynn The Podcast and the Book Mike also talks about his podcast, “The Impact Entrepreneur.” He shares that he has not earned any money from the podcast for three years. He started monetizing his talents through his book and through public appearances as a speaker. He shares that all his efforts are done out of love. “I was at a point in life when I needed to reach out to people and learn how they managed the various impact moments: the victories, the failures, the brokenness of their life — and how they turned that into something that served the good.” - Mike Flynn Additionally, he shares the inspiration behind his fictional book, “Master The Key: A Story to Free Your Potential, Find Meaning and Live Life on Purpose.” To hear more about the impact entrepreneur himself, Mike Flynn, download and listen to the episode. Bio: About Mike Flynn Links: The Impact Entrepreneur Instagram Twitter We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

087 9 Lies About Work w/ Ashley Goodall Aug 02, 2019

The author of a ground-breaking new book called Nine Lies About Work, Ashley Goodall, joins us today for a fun, smart and unpredictable conversation about work and life. Lochhead and Goodall discuss what’s wrong with work and what to do about it, work-life balance and nurturing the human spirit at work. Nine Lies About Work Ashley Goodall is SVP of Leadership and Team Intelligence (LTI) at Cisco. He built this new organization to focus entirely on serving teams and team leaders. Through this, they are able to research and study the most challenging questions about work. His work at Cisco focuses on defining what is special about the best teams and how does one create the best team for the company. Other than this, he is also the co-author of Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World. “There are very few things in life that you can’t or shouldn’t smile at. At some point, the more serious the topic, the more important it is to find little moments of levity and humor.” - Ashley Goodall Work-Life Balance Ashley points out his opinions about achieving work-life balance and why it is such an unapplicable paradigm in today’s world. Christopher shared how this mindset creates two persons: one that is working and another one, who is living his life. “The implication of that is, all that stuff in work is bad and all the stuff in life is good. Your job ⁠— in order to lead a fulfilled life ⁠— is to have enough sugar to sprinkle into all that bitterness of work.” - Ashley Goodall In this mindset, we are taught that life is the antidote to work ⁠— but that is a huge misrepresentation of life. Further, Ashley says that work-life balance is such a disservice to the wonderfulness of work. It mutes employee curiosity of finding out what work will be like if one is high-performing or say, growing and making a huge impact. “If the prescription is to take over the toxicity and balance it with life, you'll never get to ask those questions, that is such a shame.” -Ashley Goodall Language, Love, and Life Ashley shares a wide array of stories and opinions in this podcast. He poses his standpoint on giving weight to context, as opposed to just taking words as it is. He further gives advice on how to grow the human spirit in the workplace. The discussion turns into an interesting discussion about love. To hear more about the nine lies about work and more relevant information from Ashley, download and listen to the episode. Bio: Ashley Goodall is an executive, leadership expert, and author, and has spent his career exploring large organizations from the inside. He looks for lessons from the real world that help people and teams thrive. Further, he focuses on what makes work a more human place for all of the humans in it. His first experience of teams and leadership were as a student musician and conductor. He was fascinated by the unspoken understanding between people playing together and carried this fascination into the corporate world. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Leadership and Team Intelligence (LTI) at Cisco. It is a new organization built to focus entirely on serving teams and team leaders, and which aims to reveal the answers to some of the most challenging questions about work. What is special about the best teams? Why do we follow one leader and not another? How can we make more teams like our best teams and more leaders like our best leaders? The new approaches he has pioneered address everything from performance management to feedback, to team activation technology, to real-time team intelligence, to social network mapping, to strengths-based leadership—and together this challenge much of the conventional wisdom of work today. Ashley is the co-author, with Marcus Buckingham, of Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World (Harvard Business Review Press, April 2019), and of two cover stories in the Harvard Business Review: The Feedback Fallacy,

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