Christopher Lochhead Follow Your Different™

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, 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, he has been a regular commentator on public affairs for some 30 years. Twice he has been a member of election coverage teams that won Peabody awards, and he has contributed to two Emmy award-winning political analysis teams. In the late 1980s, he was chief editor of U.S. News & World Report, working with publisher Mort Zuckerman to achieve record gains in circulation and advertising. Over the years, he has been active on many non-profit boards, serving in the past on the boards of both Yale and Duke Universities. Among his current boards are Teach for America, The Mission Continues, The Trilateral Commissio

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, a $12 billion public company which owns HGTV, The Food Network, and The Travel Channel that merged with Discovery Communications in 2018. Links Connect with Gina Bianchini! Website | 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, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

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, unless everyone follows protocols and whatnot. To hear more from Bryan Roberts and his thoughts on different current events and developments in healthcare, download and listen to this episode. Bio Bryan Roberts joined Venrock in 1997. He is based in Palo Alto and seeks to partner with early-stage entrepreneurs innovating across the healthcare and life sciences industries. Bryan is currently involved with several companies across therapeutics, genomics, and HCIT, including 10X Genomics, Devoted Health, Element Biosciences, Encoded Therapeutics, Included Health (formerly portfolio companies Grand Rounds & Doctor on Demand), and Lyra Health. Past investments include Ariosa Diagnostics (acquired by Roche), athenahealth (NASDAQ: ATHN), Ikaria (acquired by Mallinckrodt), Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN), Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IRWD), Sirna Therapeutics (acquired by Merck), and Zeltiq (acquired by Allergan). Immediately prior to joining Venrock, Bryan received his Ph.D. in Chemistry & Chemical

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!

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, spurred by the flagging subscriber count and to clear their bad reputation & start from scratch. In the end, it’s interesting how companies will approach both Transparency and securing the Privacy of its users in this era of Web 3.0. Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and authors a business strategy and technology blog that has received millions of page views per month. Wang also serves as a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center. Since 2003, Ray has delivered thousands of live and virtual keynotes around the world that are inspiring and legendary. Wang has spoken at almost every major tech conference. His ground-breaking bestselling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ra

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 schools experience record wealth 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!

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 understand the implication of macro factors emerging at the intersection of geopolitics, markets and increasingly disruptive network technologies. Specialties include: international market development, executive coaching, cybersecurity, consumer Internet, and board governance. Recognitions include: Named one of Top 100 Global Thinkers by Foreign Policy Magazine S. Department of State Distinguished Honor Award Oxford University Internet & Society Award Huffington Post’s 10 Game Changers in Politics Tribeca Film Festival Disruptive Innovation Award honoree Links Connect with Alec Ross! Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Amazon Books 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!

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 reform. Dr. Alexander remains front and center on these issues that have inflamed our nation. He speaks out on the violence while providing concrete solutions about how to navigate these troubled waters to address the problems plaguing law enforcement and the communities of color they serve. Dr. Alexander brings to the conversation lengthy experience as the former Chief of Police in DeKalb County, GA, President of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, and member of President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing. Throughout his career, he has been pivotal in reforming troubled police departments and restoring trust between them and their communities. He is also the author of In Defense of Public Service: How 22 Million Government Workers Will Save Our Republic that features endorsements from the late U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings, Retired Major General James “Spider” Marks, and attorney Barry Scheck from the Innocence Project. His insight into the non-ele

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. She has presented her research all over the world. Dr. Fishbach’s research has been published in psychology, management and marketing journals, including Psychological Review, Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Journal of Marketing Research, Psychological Science, and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Her research is regularly featured in the media, including WSJ, CNN, Chicago Tribune, NPR and was selected to be featured in the New York Times ‘Annual Years in Ideas.’ Dr. Fishbach has served as an Associate Editor on several journals, including Psychological Science and the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and she has served on the editorial board of leading journals in psychology and management. She has further served as the president of the International Social Cognition Network (ISCON) and the Society for the Study of Motivation. Dr. Fishbach is the recipient of several international awards, including the Society of Experimental Soc

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, and new media. He’s the Founder and CEO of IRONBOUND Boxing, a nonprofit that provides free amateur boxing training, entrepreneur education, and employment opportunities for Newark youth & young adults. Mike and his partner Keith Colon, oversee the legendary IRONBOUND Boxing Academy, their free boxing gym for youth in Newark, NJ. He also runs IRONBOUND Media, a podcast production company that produces branded podcasts for veteran-owned businesses. Mike is a three-time National Collegiate Boxing Champion from the United States Naval Academy and Marine Corps Infantry Officer, with deployments to Afghanistan and Japan/Philippines. He’s currently a Hoover Veteran Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, a public policy think tank promoting the principles of individual, economic, and political freedom. His goal is to raise 1.5 million dollars to build the ever IRONBOUND Courage Academy, a 5,000 sqft boxing facility and small business incubator space

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, the idea of a virus ravaging the neighborhood just scares both the locals and volunteers alike. The Taliban are definitely not doing anything to alleviate it. For them, it’s just another way of keeping people in check and not banding together to take back the country. To hear more from Valerie Edmondson Bolaños and how she and the Warrior Angels Rescue help those in dire need, download and listen to this episode. If you wish to help them in their efforts, check out the links at the end of this article. Bio Valerie Edmondson Bolaños Valerie Edmondson Bolaños founded Warrior Angels Rescue in the wake of Hurricane Maria, a category 5 storm that devastated her home island of Puerto Rico in 2017. What started out as an effort to rescue her own family quickly grew into a large-scale effort to evacuate hundreds of medical patients, pregnant mamas, and elderly people who could not survive days (let alone months) without electricity. Since then, our 100% volunteer team h

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, download and listen to this episode. Bio Morgan Wright 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 defe

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, let alone have it viewed by people. Now, all that can be done with just your smartphone. “That’s an insane decrease in friction, and allows for the creation of these new categories. It allows for a niche player to find their audience everywhere in the world, and not just in some little location or some little pocket.” – Kevin Maney To hear more from Kevin Maney and how you can create different futures for your business, 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 post-Covid era. His previous book, Unscaled: H

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!

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, you’re taking half of your food stuff, and turning it into a chemical neurotoxin, something that’s going to harm your liver, increased cancer risk, lead to, potentially to social chaos, people drink too much of it. The costs that it imposes on humans means that it can’t be a mistake, there have to be countervailing benefits that that pay for the costs. So that’s what most of the book is trying to focus on what those what those benefits might be.” – Edward Slingerland To hear more from Professor Edward Slingerland and why people love to get drunk, download and listen to this episode. Bio Edward Slingerland is Distinguished University Scholar and Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, where he also holds appointments in the Departments of Psychology and Asian Studies. Educated at Princeton, Stanford and UC Berkeley, he has taught at the University of Colorado, Boulder, the University of Southern California and the University of Bri

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 asked her to close a deal on an investment property. After this unexpected introduction to the world of entrepreneurship. She found herself thrust into a climate of innovation, challenge, and opportunity and she enrolled in college at age 14 and graduated with a degree in international business at age 18. Now, as a 23-year old Gen Z, she has consulted businesses from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies and is on a mission to help leaders leverage Gen Z talent as a competitive advantage and build #RadicalEmpathy in the workplace. Links Web:  www.hannahgwilliams.com Email: ha****@*************ms.com LinkedIn: in/Hannah-Williams-Experience-Consultant Read Hannah’s New Book! A Leader’s Guide to Unlocking Gen Z 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!

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, down to as young as 6 years old. They make up approximately 140.1 million Americans. The difference? Native analogs grew up in a time where technology was an addition or a distraction from their real lives. Native digitals grew up in a time where their “real” lives were a distraction from their digital lives. This is a profound shift—and no one seems to be talking about it. Even more stunning, some of the largest native digital brands on the planet are run by Native Analogs. Who don’t get it either. To learn why it is important to know more about Native Digitals and how it can affect your category and businesses, download and listen to this episode. You can also check it out at Category Pirates. 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 mind

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 Creating an Extraordinary Workplace, has been described as “stunning,” “eye-opening,” and “a contemporary classic,” and praised by best-selling authors Daniel Pink, David Allen, Marshall Goldsmith, Susan Cain, and Adam Grant. Dr. Friedman has served on the faculty of the University of Rochester, Nazareth College, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and has consulted for Fortune 500 companies, political leaders, and the world’s leading non-profits. Popular accounts of his research have appeared on NPR and in major newspapers, including The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, the Globe and Mail, The Guardian, as well as magazines such as Men’s Health, Shape, and Allure. He is a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, CNN, Forbes, Fast Company, and Psychology Today. Links Connect with Dr. Ron Friedman today! Websites: Ignite80.com RonFriedmanPhD.com LinkedIn: in/RonFriedmanPhD Check out Dr. Ron Friedman’s bestselling works today! We hope you enjoyed this

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, and recipient of the Public Service Award from the Office of President Obama. Her new book, The Burnout Epidemic, published by Harvard Business Press, launched September 28, 2021. Links Connect with Jennifer Moss! Website: Jennifer-Moss.com Twitter: @JenniferMossInc TikTok: @JenLeighMoss Instagram: @JenniferMossInc Check out her new book: The Burnout Epidemic 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!

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 Generation Radio Project, training young reporters and editors in broadcasting. Celeste is co-host to the Scene on Radio podcast—MEN with the podcast’s producer, Duke University’s CDS audio director, John Biewen. John describes the season: “Co-host Celeste Headlee and I will take a similar approach to the Seeing White series, which explored the history and meaning of whiteness. With MEN, we’ll be asking questions like, What’s up with this male-dominated world? Is male supremacy inevitable? How did we get sexism/patriarchy/misogyny, and what can we do about it?” Celeste will co-host new episodes of The Retro Report with Masud Olufani. Retro Report is a non-profit news organization that produces mini documentaries looking at today’s news stories through the lens of history and context. Until February, 2017 Celeste was the Executive Producer and host of the daily talk

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), full of fiber and omega-3s, Malibu Mylk is creamy and thick and is good for our bodies and our planet. She is a seasoned Marketing Maven and published writer with leadership skills and a track record of driving growth and brand building. A social connector with experience in consumer apps, direct response, media and sales. Brittany attained her degree in marketing and management from Georgetown University, and then a diploma from Le Cordon Bleu. She began her career with Hillstone Restaurant Group in their manager training program. She spent time working on the line at three Michelin star Le Bernardin in NYC, as well as the Food Network in new business development. Brittany has also appeared on KTLA news, as a guide to the City of Angels. Links Website: MalibuMylk.com Instagram: @MalibuMylk We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on&#

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. She is also a regular contributor to the Health, Style, Business and Education sections of the New York Times. Her work has been published in The New York Times Magazine, New York, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Psychology Today, Time, Newsweek, the Village Voice, the Boston Phoenix, Salon, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Spy (RIP). She has been a resident at the Yaddo Corporation and Wildacres Retreat in North Carolina, and has two useless Masters Degrees: an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College and a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University. As of this writing, her greatest accomplishments are learning to play the cello at age 35, summiting Kilimanjaro (with a broken wrist in a cast!) and naming “Karamel Sutra” ice cream for Ben and Jerry’s. Links Follow Abby Ellin today! Website: AbbyEllin.com Twitter: @Ab

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, download and listen to this episode. Bio Robert Siegel is a lecturer in management and has led primary research and written cases on Google, Charles Schwab, Daimler, AB InBev, Box, Stripe, Target, AngelListopen, 23andMe, C3.ai, Majid Al Futtaim, Tableau, PayPal, SurveyMonkey, Medium, Autodesk, Minted, Zuora, Axel Springer, and Michelin, amongst others. Robert is a member of the supervisory board of TTTech Auto AGopen, and is chairman of the strategic advisory board for TTTech Computertechnik AGopen   in Vienna, Austria. He is a member of the industry advisory boards for HERE Technologiesopen   and Tulcoopen, and is the copresident emeritus of Stanford Angels & Entrepreneursopen, an alumni association that fosters relationships to strengthen the Stanford startup community. Robert was on the board of SmartDrive Systemsopen   for 14 years (acquired by Omnitracs), has coauthored several articles for the Harvard Business Reviewopen  &#160

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. And he thought it should be frightening to everyone. But what he was trying to do is it was both brave, and also clueless, right? So yes, he had to be both a little crazy and a little bit courageous. And probably more than anything focused on what he cared about.” – Dave Jilk To hear more from Dave Jilk about Nietzsche, Entrepreneurs, and their ties to Human Nature, download and listen to this episode. Bio Dave Jilk is a former serial entrepreneur and startup CEO in information technology. He now writes on entrepreneurship and artificial intelligence, and he enjoys writing poetry as well. Dave earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from MIT, and currently lives near Boulder, Colorado. When not writing he is likely to be on a mountain. Links Follow Dave Jilk and his works! Website: Jilk.com LinkedIn: in/DJilk Check out his work at Amazon Books We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Fa

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, download and listen to this episode. Bio Joe Sanok is the author of Thursday is the New Friday (HarperCollins) releasing Oct 2021. He is a keynote and TEDx speaker, business consultant, and podcaster. He has the #1 podcast for counselors, The Practice of the Practice Podcast. Joe is also writer for PsychCentral, has been featured on the Huffington Post, Forbes, GOOD Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Entrepreneur on Fire, Smart Passive Income Podcast, and Yahoo News. Joe has articles releasing in 2021 through Harvard Business Review, CNBC, ThriveGlobal, Inc., and Money. He is the author of five books and has been named the Therapist Resource top podcast, consultant, and blogger. Joe Sanok helps private practitioners to find innovative ways to start, grow, and scale a private practice. For resources go to: http://www.practiceofthepractice.com/resources Joe is also the founder of Podcast Launch Sch

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, she dwells more on what goes into one’s diet, and how you can make an amazing dish while still keeping healthy. To hear more from Joanne Molinaro and her thoughts on food and life, download and listen to this episode. Bio With over 2 million fans on TikTok, Joanne Molinaro, also known as The Korean Vegan, has appeared on The Food Network and Al Jazeera English, been featured in Salon, Healthy-ish by Bon Appetit, and the Kitchn, and will release her debut cookbook + memoir with Penguin Random House this fall (2021). Molinaro is a Korean American woman, born in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents were both born in what is now known as North Korea. Joanne Molinaro started her blog, The Korean Vegan, in 2016, after adopting a plant-based diet. In July 2020, she started her TikTok (@thekoreanvegan), mostly as a coping mechanism for the isolation caused by the global pandemic. She began posting content related to politi

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. Then she returned to graduate school at the psychology department, studying heuristics and biases. Creating and teaching a course on ‘The Psychological Aspects of Medical Decision Making’ to genetic counseling students was her first foray into medical decision making. This was in 2004. In 2005 she completed her PhD. And went with her family to Princeton University, for a post-doctorate position with Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, until 2009. Together, they studied happiness. From 2008 to 2011 she taught consumer behavior to undergraduates and MBA students at the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, and loved every minute. In 2009 she joined the business school at the Ono Academic College, where she is now a full professor. She also became a writer for Psychology Today, where her blog, Baffled by Numbers which was read by over 130,00 people. Since then she has written more than 60 academic papers: some on happiness, but mostly on

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, that intimate-based relationship between one human to another. No matter if it’s an assistant, web developer, CEO, whatever, there’s always going to be something to be said, for having that human based, intimate relationship.” – Jaime Jay To hear more for Jaime Jay and how you can Quit Repeating Yourself when running your own business, download and listen to this episode. Bio Jaime Jay is a connector, starter – geek, podcaster and founder of the award – winning Bottleneck Virtual Assistant Services company that offers professional growth opportunities for ambitious leaders by creating an efficient and systematic approach to identify, hire and cultivate team members who focus on specific roles and responsibilities through a single point of contact. He served in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division and worked in corporate America for over 12 years before becoming a full

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, nationality, religion, personal lifestyle or life condition, that peace within is possible and it is your birthright. He has reached hundreds of millions of people in over 100 countries through his powerful storytelling and profound message. As a best-selling author and public speaker, he has adapted age-old stories for a modern audience, adding his unique perspective on the “business of life.”  These stories continue to resonate and transform millions of people’s lives. His most recent book, Escúchate (Hear Yourself), quickly reached Amazon Spain’s top non-fiction best seller’s list, and precedes the soon-to-be released English version. Other publications by Prem include: Peace is Possible (published by Penguin) previously titled Splitting the Arrow: Understanding the Business of Life, as well as the illustrated books, The Pot With The Hole, and The Stonecutter. Prem has personally developed an innovative wellbeing serie

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 continue to be a learner, no matter what environment you’re in. That’s actually where reflection which we just talked about is so important. Because that’s actually how you can start to take control. That kind of self-awareness is part of that practice of learning how to learn.”  = Sarah Stein Greenberg   To hear more from Sarah Stein Greenberg and how reflection and metacognition can be helpful in creating new categories, download and listen to this episode. Bio Sarah Stein Greenberg helps lead the d.school, an interdisciplinary institute at Stanford that nurtures innovators and spreads design thinking. As Executive Director, Sarah supports a multidisciplinary learning program of about 25 courses that reach more than 500 Stanford graduate students annually, taught by more than 60 experts from the d.school, Stanford faculty and the Silicon Valley community; she also launches and supports new or newly iterated d.school initiatives, includi

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, Noor mentions that he has reached out to his connections to see if they could help, but so far they haven’t been successful. He thinks that either the State Department is currently overwhelmed, or that they are still in the midst of negotiations. While Noor and others are still exploring other options to get the family out of Kabul, all of their current plans are dependent on how the US can negotiate with the Taliban. This is the most worrying part for Noor. “All of our efforts are dependent on the negotiation between the US government and the Taliban, to see if they allow these planes to take off right now. From what I know, that’s a difficult thing to do. So they’re trying, but I don’t think the US has footprint there. So when you don’t have footprint and you don’t have leverage, you cannot rely on the Taliban’s mercy to tell you whether you can or can’t fly away.” – Noorullah Akbari Now imagine that situation playing out with 4 m

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. He has sold 20 million records worldwide. AllMusic considers him to be “among the most important dance music figures of the early 1990s, helping bring dance music to a mainstream audience both in the United States and the United Kingdom”. In addition to his music career, Moby is known for his veganism and support for animal rights and humanitarian aid. He was the owner of TeaNY, a vegan cafe in Manhattan, and Little Pine, a vegan restaurant in Los Angeles, and organized the vegan music and food festival Circle V. He is the author of four books, including a collection of his photography and two memoirs: Porcelain: A Memoir (2016) and Then It Fell Apart (2019). Links Follow Moby today! Website: Moby.com Instagram: @Moby Check out Moby’s books: Then It Fell Apart Little Pine Cookbook Listen to Moby’s Latest Album, Reprise More on Moby: VegNews: Moby Just Wrote A Vegan Cookbook, And All Proceeds Go To Animal Rescue PRH: The Little Pine Cookbook We hope you enjoyed this e

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 Avram Miller is an American – born businessperson, venture capitalist, scientist, technologist, and musician. He is best known for his work at Intel, where he served as vice president, co-founded Intel Capital, and led Intel’s successful initiative to create residential broadband. After leaving Intel, Miller founded the Avram Miller Company, providing strategic advice to technology companies worldwide. He currently splits his time between Israel and the United States. He is the author of The Flight of a Wild Duck, an improbable journey through life and technology Links Follow Avram today! Websites: WildDuckFlight.com TwoThirdsDone.com AvramMiller.com Twitter: @AvramMiller LinkedIn: in/Avram 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!

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, getting the homeless back into a financially stable condition means more taxpayers and workforce in the long run. Don’t think about it as spending money on the homeless, but rather investing in the future of the city and the community. If you want to hear more from Linda Gibbs & Muzzy Rosenblatt and their new book, How 10 Global Cities Take On Homelessness, download and listen to this episode. Bio Linda Gibbs Linda Gibbs served as Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services for New York City from 2005 to 2013. Supervising the city’s human service, public health and social justice agencies, she spearheaded major initiatives on poverty alleviation, juvenile justice reform and obesity reduction. Two of the collaborative efforts she shaped to address significant social challenges are “Age Friendly NYC,” a blueprint for enhancing the livability of older New Yorkers, and “Young Men’s Initiative,” an initiative addressing race-based disparities facing Black and Latino young men in the areas of health, education, emplo

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. “I think the FCC should be taking some action to either get the carriers to fill this gap in their service, or let other people come in and do it via the radio spectrum.” – Martin Cooper   Cutting the Cord Marty pointed out that nowadays, there are more cell phones out there than people. This is because most people have at least one phone, and there are some who have multiple mobile devices on them. This indicates that a lot of people are naturally mobile, though that might not be the case during this time. The point is, these phones and other mobile devices are being used daily to do pretty much everything in the society nowadays. Yet when you talk to politicians about giving access to everyone, their go-to response is still to provide cable service. The problem with this is that wired telephone is a thing of the past, and it is slowly being phased out even by the cable companies they tout. “In the United States, there are only less than 60,000 wired telephone left, yet

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 breakthroughs and to make longevity affordable and accessible to all. Sergey is on the Board of Directors of the American Federation of Aging Research (AFAR), and is a co-sponsor of the AGE REVERSAL Prize Design. Once ultimately launched, this XPRIZE aims to dramatically delay the biological aging process through widely available interventions that extend the human life and health span. Sergey Young has been featured as a top longevity expert and contributor on CNN, BBC, Fox News, and Forbes. As the author of books such as ‘The Science and Technology of Growing Young’ and the mastermind behind the online life extension platform SergeyYoung.com, Sergey is passionate about sharing news from the exciting world of longevity. Links Follow Sergey today! Website: SergeyYoung.com LinkedIn: in/SergeyYoung Get the book: The Science and Technology of Growing Young We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, conn

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. So every now and then we find some evidence that we were wrong in the way we think about reality.” – Dr. Avi Loeb   To hear more from Dr. Avi Loeb and his thoughts on Extraterrestrials, Quantum Mechanics, and the universe, 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 extraterre

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. Bio Melanie Gideon is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels, Did I Say You Could Go, Valley of the Moon and Wife 22, as well as the memoir The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After. Her books have been translated into 30 languages. She was born and raised in Rhode Island and now lives in the Bay Area. Links Connect with Melanie Gideon! Website: MelanieGideon.com Melanie’s Books: Amazon.com/Melanie-Gideon Twitter: @MelanieGideon See her works at NYTimes.com: Car-Pool Epiphanies: A Memoir About the Ordinary A Diesel Engine Woke Up Our Love 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!

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, Don’t Fake It”, download and listen to this episode. Bio Sabrina Horn is an award-winning CEO, communications expert, advisor, and author. Horn is currently CEO of HORN Strategy, LLC, a consultancy focused on helping entrepreneurs and CEOs navigate the early stages of their businesses. She serves as an advisor and board member for a number of organizations and is a frequent speaker at industry forums and leadership conferences. Horn’s new book, “Make It, Don’t Fake It: Leading with Authenticity for Real Business Success” (forward by Geoffrey Moore) is published by Berrett-Koehler and aims to help executives make the right decisions as they start and grow their businesses for long term success. She founded Horn Group, a public relations firm, with $500 and five years’ job experience, becoming one of few female CEOs in Silicon Valley in the early 1990s. Over a quarter century, her firm advised thousands of executives and thei

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. Garry explains that we shouldn’t be afraid of A.I.; rather, we should use it to its fullest potential and keep it away from the hands of bad humans. “The problem is not with the machines. The problem was bad humans that can use these machines to harm us. That’s the story of technology.” – Garry Kasperov Instead, we still blame the machine if someone used it and caused problems. So, we still limit their capabilities, afraid of things we have just fantasized about while ignoring the benefits it could bring. There’s also the argument of machines and A.I. stealing jobs from people. To which Garry comments that we should not despair if it happens. Rather, we should look forward to what we can do next, and adapt to it. Whether to learn the technology to handle the A.I., or develop something that can be used hand-in-hand with the new technology. Rather than fighting with machines, we should learn how it could work to our benefit. Because at the end of the day, machines can decide, but it’s a human’

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 growing slowly and building a product that lasts forever. (For fast growth,) You’re going to have to get a million users at day one. I think that’s not what we’re doing this for.” – Neeraj Arora If you want to hear more from Neeraj & Michael, and their thoughts on HalloApp and building digital relationships, download and listen to this episode. Bio Neeraj Arora Neeraj Arora started his career at the mobile messaging app company in November 2011, heading its business. From June 2015 to February 2018, he was also one of the Board of Directors at the Indian payments giant Paytm. Prior to that, from December 2010 to November 2011, he served Google’s Corporate Development team as the senior member, helming acquisitions and investments in an array of products across different countries. Under his leadership, Google acquired Picnik, Zagat, Talkbin, Slide, Dailydeal.de, and PittPatt among others. Before that, Arora was a Corporate Development Manager at Google from D

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 monetization model there is.” – Ray Wang Want to learn more from Ray and how to thrive in the world of Digital Giants? Download and listen to this episode. Bio R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Founder, Chairman, and Principal Analyst of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research Inc. He co-hosts DisrupTV, a weekly enterprise tech and leadership webcast that averages 50,000 views per episode and authors a business strategy and technology blog that has received millions of page views per month. Wang also serves as a non-resident Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center. Since 2003, Ray has delivered thousands of live and virtual keynotes around the world that are inspiring and legendary. Wang has spoken at almost every major tech conference. His ground-breaking bestselling book on digital transformation, Disrupting Digital Business, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2015. Ray’s new book about Digital

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, Sucher had a two-decade career as a senior level executive and business ‘fixer,’ specializing in uncovering complex organization problems and creating new ways to address them. She lives in Massachusetts. Links Learn more about Sandra: Harvard Business School Profile LinkedIn: in/Sandra-Sucher Twitter: @SandraSucher Check out her new book: The Power of Trust 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!

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, more than a hundred case studies and articles, and appears frequently in the mainstream media. One of his articles was among the top 20 cited articles in business, management and accounting worldwide for five years, according to Scopus (the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature). His Latest book, published in 2019, is Orchestrating Transformation: How to Deliver Winning Performance with a Connected Approach to Change. His previous book, 2016’s Digital Vortex: How Today’s Market Leaders Can Beat Disruptive Competitors at their Own Game won multiple awards and has been translated into five languages. Professor Wade has been named one of the top ten digital thought leaders in Switzerland three times by Bilanz, Le Temps, and Handelszeitung, most recently in 2020. CLIENTS & INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE At IMD, Professor Wade directs a number of executive programs related to digital transformation, including Digital Execution, Digital Transformation for Boards, and 

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 Baptist Church of Chicago, where he accepted his call to ministry as a teen in the Youth Church. In addition to his pastoral role and civic leadership, his servitude extends extensively in the field of education. Pastor Mumphery serves as a Vice President for a national education management organization, working with high-risk youth in many of the most challenged communities in the country. Pastor Mumphery is a graduate of Whitney M. Young Magnet H.S and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also received his Master’s degree from North Park Theological Seminary. A prolific preacher and teacher, Pastor Mumphery is committed to excellence in preaching through strong biblical exposition, powerful demonstration of the Holy Spirit’s power, as well as relevant ministry outside of the walls of the church to uphold the cause of the poor and oppressed. Links Website: New Hope Covenant Church Follow Pastor Quentin Mumphery: New Hope Covenant’s Pastor We hope y

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, as it’s all about us. Everything is here to serve us, we have dominion over everything, nothing is more important than we are. But the reality is, is that many species are far more important than we are because we can, we can exist without them, they can exist without us.” – Captain Paul Watson To hear more from Captain Paul Watson and how to be a mission-driven pirate, download and listen to this episode. Bio Paul Watson is the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society – an organization dedicated to research, investigation and enforcement of laws, treaties, resolutions and regulations established to protect marine wildlife worldwide. Over the years, Paul Watson has exhibited a remarkable diversity in his activism, including: Co-founder of Greenpeace in 1972 and Greenpeace International, 1979 Founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, 1977 Field Correspondent for Defenders of Wildlife, 1976 to 1980 Field representative

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. 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 Connect with John! Website: The-Amazon-Way.com LinkedIn: in/John-Rossman Twitter: @JohnERossman Get the Book: The Amazon Way:  Amazon’s 14 Leadership Principles We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Faceb

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 influence one way or another. So be a great role model for them, so that they in turn can be role models for their community. “The reality is the world has changed. Those of my peers who scoff at TikTok influencers, or YouTube stars, or Instagram famous people, I got to tell you: you guys are missing the boat. The reality is, they have as much or more impact and influence, then the athletes that were playing that they’re playing on our courts and skating on our ice. And the reality is, is it’s about scale and audience and messaging, and in our players having to do a phenomenal job.” – Scott O’Neil To hear more from Scott O’Neil and his insights on business and the Roaring 20s, download and listen to this episode.   Bio Scott O’Neil is the Chief Executive Officer of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, an organization with the mission of building passionate, high-performing teams that inspire people to enhance t

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, they force you to confront this idea. And then if you confronted it, and you’ve been confused by it, you’ll get into the book and you’ll sort it out. We wanted that to be the first thing you experience.” – Michael Hendrix   To hear more from Panos Panay & Michael Hendrix and their legendary insights, download and listen to this episode. Bio Panos Panay Panos A. Panay is the founder and current managing director of the Berklee Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship (BerkleeICE) as well as a passionate entrepreneur, educator, and startup mentor. As the founder of Sonicbids, he created the leading platform for bands to book gigs and market themselves online, building a subscriber network of 550,000 bands and 35,000 promoters from more than 100 countries. He led the company as CEO for 13 years, from its inception until after its successful acquisition in a deal backed by Guggenheim Partners.  Panay is also the c

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.” – Jim Campbell   To hear more from Jim Campbell about Bernie Madoff and the damage his actions has wrought, 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, Dean Witter Financial Services (now Morgan Stanley), and IBM. He is founder and president of JC Ventures, Inc., a management consulting business. Links