Christopher Lochhead Follow Your Different™

In today’s episode of Follow Your Different, we are joined yet again by the breathtaking Dushka Zapata. Dushka is one of our regular guests in the podcast and one of the most important and prolific writers this world has to offer. The world truly needs more of Dushka. Additionally, in an act of radical generosity, Dushka has decided to make all e-versions of her published books available on Amazon, for free, starting March 17, 2021. Everything she has published will be available in ebook form for free within a 24-hour period. We highly recommend going and check out the link and read her astounding books. The Prioritization of Well-Being The pandemic has changed everyone’s relationship landscape, and the glue that has held those relationships has modified its fundamental composition. Dushka discusses that the difficulty in prioritizing one’s well-being is due to the fact that oftentimes it is impossible to tell what exactly is the best for one’s well-being. She shares that the only way to find the answer is to spend time alone, compassionately and gently, giving thought to what is genuinely best for oneself. “We are all like boats and we all carry other people who take care of the maintenance of the boat. If the boat sinks, you are useless to others. So what is it that you need to do for the boat, which is you? You need to be functional for others. The most responsible thing that we can do is to think about the best ways we can take care of ourselves.” – Dushka Zapata The Pursuit of Happiness Dushka discusses that her definition for the pursuit of happiness is less about being happy and more about the feeling of whether her actions have a sense of purpose. Most people are trapped in a constant state of sabotaging their own happiness because they feel like it’s too much. When in reality, there is no logical limit to how happy one can become.  She encourages people to never believe in mediocrity, low-grade despair, and to devise small steps to interests that bring one closer to happiness. “There isn’t a higher being monitoring your amount of happiness. I think that if there were a first step, it would be to remove your own tendency to sabotage your own happiness. If there were a second step, it would be about identifying the wants that are real. And, if there were a third step, it would be about truly understanding what the difference is between the superficial want and the deeper wants.” – Dushka Zapata The Architecture of One’s Fabrication Dushka and Christopher discuss how life is just the story that people tell themselves about the facts, people live in the architecture of their own fabrication. Dushka shares how it is worthwhile to perceive oneself as the person who thinks their thoughts rather than being one’s thoughts. This guarantees a life not filled with suffering over things that are uncontrollable and non-existent.  “To me, a really central part about learning how to love myself has to do with making a distinction between the things I believe that are not true.” – Dushka Zapata To know more about the legendary Dushka Zapata and how to prioritize your well-being, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: After working for more than 20 years in the communications industry, Dushka noticed a theme. People find it very difficult to articulate who they are and what they do. This holds true for both companies and for individuals. For companies, this is an impediment to the development of an identity, a reputation, a brand. It makes it hard for customers to see how companies are different from their competitors. For individuals, in a new world order of personal brands, it makes it hard to develop one that feels real. This is the focus of Dushka’s work: she helps companies and people put into simple terms who they are, what they do, and where to go next. Her work comes to life through message development, presentation training, media training and personal brand development. It comes to life through executive coaching, workshops and public speaking. It comes to life through what she writes. Dushka has written ten bestseller. Her work has been consumed on Q&A site Qoura 180M times. Links: Amazon Authors: Dushka Zapata Quora: Dushka Zapata Linkedin: Dushka Zapata Instagram: @dushkaamateur Twitter: @dushkamateur 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!

Teri Williams is the legendary President and Chief Operating Officer of OneUnited Bank. She is helping transform the country with the empire she is currently building. From purchasing a small struggling community bank in Boston to creating OneUnited Bank, the largest black-owned bank in the United States of America. Since they have started, Teri and her husband, Kevin, with their team have made over $1 billion in loans together. Along with being an entrepreneur, she is also an author with her book, I Got Bank!: What My Granddad Taught Me About Money. Today, we have a powerful conversation about OneUnited Bank’s mission and how the couple runs a successful powerful business while raising two wonderful children. Teri has some fascinating insights on what it really means to make money and the statistics of the black community in the financial system. We also talk about how Teri and Kevin are showing how banking and entrepreneurship can change lives, communities, and even a country. The OneUnitedBank OneUnited Bank is the largest black-owned bank in the country. It has not only started as a community but is also transforming to becoming a digital bank. The goal they have is to make financial literacy a core value in the black community. Teri gives a bit of her personal background and story, and how she learned business from her grandmother. She shares how one of the important things for the black community is to recognize those individuals who have been there, eliminate the carried shame, and value one’s experiences. “We’re finding ourselves not being able to speak in our authentic voice. We’re finding that our community is not listening to us because we’re not speaking in our authentic voice. So we have changed our communication. It was important for us, as a bank, to speak to the challenges that our community faces, not to run away from them. From that came this bank black movement. It is a bank black movement where black people can speak how they are going to move their money to black owned banks and are going to support black businesses.” – Teri Williams Black Communities in the Financial System Teri discusses the statistics and the poor treatment of the black community in the financial system. She shares how the homeownership rate in the black community is 30 percent lower compared to the white community. The number of loans and mortgages from national banks is 1 to 2 percent of all mortgages that are given to black families. Though, there is hope. OneUnited Banks is creating partnerships and transacting with big corporations that are currently making big differences to the community. “Netflix was the first to come out with this. Because of corporations like them, a lot of corporations have followed. I think the corporations realize that this is a way to contribute to what these banks are trying to do. It’s also important for people to know what we do. Over 70% of our lending actually goes into the community and our credit losses are almost zero. It’s not like we’re doing lending that is risky. We are just doing lending that isn’t being done by other institutions. That lending is giving our community an opportunity to build well.” – Teri Williams OneTransaction Campaign and Conference For Black History Month, Teri shares the OneTransaction Campaign and Conference that will be held on Juneteenth (June 19, 2021) from 1:00 – 6:00 PM ET (Eastern Time). The campaign will be a free virtual conference encouraging the black community to focus on one transaction in 2021. It will be filled with amazing speakers who are passionate to educate the community on how they can create generational wealth and close the racial wealth gap. We hope you can virtually join and register for the OneTransaction Campaign and Conference and be part of the conversation. “We give them a choice of six transactions. It could be a will, life insurance, home ownership, having a profitable business, improving their credit score or savings, and investments. We ask them to select one of those six transactions and then we provide them with action steps to accomplish that in 2021. We’re having this conference on Juneteenth which is an African-American holiday. We want to really educate the community on how they can build wealth.” – Teri Williams To know more about Teri Williams and the amazing work her and husband are doing at OneUnited Bank, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Teri Williams is President and Chief Operating Officer of OneUnited Bank. She is responsible for the implementation of the Bank’s strategic initiatives, as well as the day-to-day operations of the bank. These operational areas include all retail branches, marketing, compliance, lending, information technology, customer support, legal, and human resources. Under her leadership, OneUnited Bank has consolidated the local names and product offerings of four (4) banks to create a powerful national br

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

Harvard’s top astronomer professor Avi Loeb, just published a book called Extra-Terrestrial, The First Sign Of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth. He believes that in 2017, the highly unusual object that passed by earth called Oumuamua, was likely alien. So in this episode, we go deep into obvious hypotheses, the attributes and characteristics that prove that Oumuamua was not a comet or an asteroid or anything else we’ve seen before. We also dig into why the good professor thinks it was likely alien. We discuss why he thinks science is a “dialogue with nature” and why at massive personal risk, he decided to come forward with his theory. Science as a Dialogue with Nature Avi says that science is a way of appreciating and understanding the world. It is not in conflict with religion either. Science explains how things work and it increases your own understanding of nature. Additionally, he says that he’s frustrated because many scientists focus on concepts without evidence and have no connection to experiments: “There is no evidence that these ideas are valued and that they actually describe nature. To me, that’s a betrayal of traditional physics, where we were supposed to have a dialogue with nature, not a monologue. We’re not supposed to tell nature what it is but listen for experiments to what nature is.” – Avi Loeb The Discovery of Oumuamua Christopher and Avi talk all about the likely alien, Oumuamua. Avi says that before discovering Oumuamua, they haven’t seen an object in outer space that moves too fast and more powerful from the gravitational pull. This ability to escape the gravitational pull of the sun was a huge discovery and led to the idea that an alien passed by the Earth for a visit. “It’s just that it’s relative speed. If a bullet moves too fast relative to the earth or, if a spacecraft moves too fast, it will never fall. It would just escape. So the issue is how fast does an object move relative to the source of gravity? All the objects we have seen before were bound to the sun that was relics from the formation process of the solar system.” – Avi Loeb Claims About Oumuamua After discovering Oumuamua, astronomers claimed that it was just a comet or an asteroid that came near the Earth. Another object with an extra push similar to Oumuamua’s was also discovered. However, it turns out it was a rocket booster that left the Arabs in 1966. This event somehow proved that Oumuamua is indeed peculiar. “The actual discovery of Oumuamua is by itself a puzzle. It means that the abundance of such objects is much greater than would be expected from the rocks that occupied the solar system at any event. Putting that aside, this object was peculiar. It exhibited an extra push of the type that you expect from a comet.” – Avi Loeb To know more about  Harvard’s Top Astronomer and the Aliens Who Tried to Contact Us, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Abraham (Avi) Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard University.  He received a Ph.D. in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel at age 24 (1980-1986), led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense Initiative (1983-1988), and was subsequently a long-term member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1988-1993). Loeb has written 8 books. These includes most recently, Extraterrestrial (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2021), and about 800 papers (with an h-index of 113) on a wide range of topics. Topics include black holes, the first stars, the search for extraterrestrial life and the future of the Universe. He had been the longest-serving Chair of Harvard’s Department of Astronomy (2011-2020), Founding Director of Harvard’s Black Hole Initiative (2016-present), and Director of the Institute for Theory and Computation (2007-present) within the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He is the Chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies (2018-present). Additionally, he is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the International Academy of Astronautics. Loeb is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) at the White House and a member of the Advisory Board for “Einstein: Visualize the Impossible” of the Hebrew University. He also chairs the Advisory Committee for the Breakthrough Starshot Initiative (2016-present). Further, he serves as the Science Theory Director for all Initiatives of the Breakthrough Prize Foundation. In 2012, TIME magazine selected Loeb as one of the 25 most influential people in space. In 2020 Loeb was selected among the 14 most inspiring Israelis of the last decade. Click here for Loeb’s commentaries on innovation and diversity. Links: Harvard – Loeb Harvard.edu – Avi Loeb Wi

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

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

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

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

What really happened in 2020? Where’s the world of technology heading? What does the future of software look like and what do we all have to be prepared for? We discuss all these and a whole lot more with Ray Wang. He’s the number one tech analyst in the world and the founder of Constellation Research. Today, give us some powerful insights as we go forward into 2021. Salesforce Slack Christopher and Ray dive into the discussion with COVID hypocrisy and Ray’s thoughts on the Salesforce Slack $27 billion deal, and where he sees the future of technology headed. He emphasizes the idea of business graphs and how this can potentially tap tribal knowledge for business  and become a great acquisition. It is the kind of category acceleration deal that is fit for category designers, visionary entrepreneurs and CEOs who are trying to shape the future as opposed to monetizing the present or past. “Why would we want a business graph in our business? The goal of the business graph is so that we can start making better decisions. We call them precision decisions and the goal is to improve this concept called decision velocity. Which, I talk a lot about in my book, are basically machines making decisions a hundred times per second.” – Ray Wang Ad Revenue Ray discusses how top companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are competing head-on for digital advertising revenue. A massive winner takes all market and digital ads of category kings who are running some of the largest market shares in each of their categories. These category kings are battling for six areas of monetization: ad revenues, search revenues, goods, services, and membership subscriptions.  “There’s all your digital monetization models. Now I won’t say too much before my book comes out. That’s what we spent a lot of time talking about. These different monetization plays that are happening. We talk about how value chains are collapsing, but in Salesforce and in Microsoft’s case, they’re building this business operating system or this business nervous system. That’s actually coming in the transactions between  sales orders.” – Ray Wang Zoom in Light of Slack Salesforce Deal Through every single video revolution the problem with video was there was never enough bandwidth. Ray shares how Zoom needs to go beyond meetings and discover the ability to integrate with everyone else. Whether this means selling at their peak and letting other people build or integrate into a future broadcast platform.  “You have your own personal ad network with the zoom. You’re basically internal only. I mean, they have the ability to do all those kinds of things. You can actually do broadcasts. You are a video property. You are basically a media property. They haven’t taken it from tool to where now the broadcast property kind of like YouTube is the broadcast pot property. So someone who’s creative enough thinking about this market that wants to go after it pretty hard could attempt to kind of work with them in that regard. Though the valuation is so high, right? That’s the challenge.”  – Ray Wang Bio: R “Ray” Wang (pronounced WAHNG) is the Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Silicon Valley based Constellation Research, Inc. He’s also the author of the popular business strategy and technology  blog “A Software Insider’s Point of View”. With viewership in the 10’s of millions of page views a year, his blog provides insight into how disruptive technologies and new business models such as digital transformation impact brands, enterprises, and organizations. Wang has held executive roles in product, marketing, strategy, and consulting at companies such as Forrester Research, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and Johns Hopkins Hospital. His new best selling book Disrupting Digital Business, published by Harvard Business Review Press and now globally available provides insights on why 52% of the Fortune 500 have been merged, acquired, gone bankrupt, or fallen off the list since 2000. In fact, this impact of digital disruption is real.  However, it’s not the technologies that drive this change. It’s a shift in how new business models are created. Wang has held executive roles in product, marketing, strategy, and consulting at companies such as Forrester Research, Oracle, PeopleSoft, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, Personify, and Johns Hopkins Hospital.  He is a prominent and dynamic keynote speaker and research analyst working with clients on digital, innovation, business model design, engagement strategies, customer experience, matrix commerce, and big data. His Silicon Valley research firm, Constellation Research, Inc., advises Global 2000 companies on the future, business strategy, and disruptive technology adoption. Ray is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review and well quot

In today’s episode, we have legendary combat veteran Navy seal Brent Gleason. He’s got a red, hot, rocking, new book out called Embrace The Suck. Brent is a successful entrepreneur, author and speaker and his new book is catching everybody’s attention. Today, we get into why Brent thinks we need to lean into pain, how to deal with failure and rise up to any challenge, no matter what. Leading Through Change Brent gives us an inside look on what it was like as a legendary combat veteran Navy seal. Moreover, he shares his perspective on the pandemic and what he thinks leaders should be doing. He thinks organizations should reevaluate the needs of its people based on a lot of factors. “The global pandemic has caused an even heightened level of leadership, complexity, and challenge. As leaders, we’re supposed to show empathy and be innately in tune with what motivates each individual on our team, within our direct reports and our peers. Now with everybody working predominantly in a remote setting, everybody has a different environment that they’re now in. In addition, some people thrive in remote settings and others feel isolation and uncertainty. Greater levels of digital silos are now creating communication challenges. Obviously your organization is going to go through a lot of change.” – Brent Gleeson Leaning Into The Pain In his book, he shares psychological, emotional, and physical pain and suffering and how various people deal with pain. There is a purposeful suffering that everyone must engage in to achieve loftier goals and causes greater than ourselves. These will serve to develop individuals in expanding the boundaries of one’s comfort zone. In turn, lead to a more fulfilling, happier, and purpose-driven life.   “When have you ever achieved anything meaningful in your life that did not have something attached to it? Like some level of pain, suffering, or adversity. The answer is nothing. When have you ever done something that gave you true fulfillment that was trapped within the confines of your comfort zone? Nothing. It’s only when we peak beyond the boundaries of the comfort zone and see what’s out there. That is what expands your comfort zone and moves the goalposts. You make it a ritual part of your existence and part of your mindset.” – Brent Gleeson Taming The Tiger Brent discusses how in life there are choices down the road that lead you to temptation. He shares how one can tame the tiger and resist temptation. In life, humans are inevitably tempted and human centered, the goal is to mend the relationships or goals one is focusing on. He shares how it ultimately comes down to the philosophy of simply limiting choices and creating an environment that supports your objective. He discusses how one should set themselves up for success by being purposeful in the environment and what one creates. Lessening the opportunity to be distracted or tempted by things that do not align with the actions necessary to achieve the desired outcome.  “In order to tame my tiger, I had to transform my entire lifestyle and mindsets to limit the choices. I removed every possible element of temptation from my life that would stand in the way of the goals I had made. So my social life, my dietary habits, workout regimen, even going as far as removing people from my life that I knew would stand in the way of achieving that goal. If I wanted to achieve my goal, all that stuff had to go.” – Brent Gleeson To know more about the legendary Brent Gleeson, his new book and his incredible life journey. Download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Brent Gleeson was a member of SEAL Team 5, some of the first SEALs deployed to Iraq in early 2003. He completed combat deployments in Iraq, Africa, and other theaters of war. After returning to civilian life, Brent earned an MBA and has built award-winning, multi-million dollar organizations that have repeatedly landed on the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing private companies. He is the author of TakingPoint and has starred in several reality shows including Mark Burnett’s ‘Stars Earn Stripes.’ Links: Taking Point Leadership Taking Point Leadership – Books Twitter: @brentgleeson Linkedin: Brent Gleeson 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 guest today Michael Juergens, is a senior partner at Deloitte. He’s also a super wine geek of the highest order and on a trip to the Bhutan in 2016 , he discovered there was no vineyards there at all. What you’re about to listen to is the real story of how Michael, by accident, connected with government leaders in this magic little country to become the founder of a new industry and is pioneering the last great wine frontier. Bio: Michael Juergens doesn’t fit into a simple box.   As a senior partner in a large global consulting firm, he’s a seasoned business executive who spends his time advising Fortune 500 organizations.   His passion for wine has led him to be a candidate to become the 45th American to qualify as a Master of Wine and he started the wine industry in the Kingdom of Bhutan in the Himalayas.   He also owns the award winning SoCal Rum company. He’s an internationally known speaker and author, and also is a professor at the University of CA, Irvine.    He plays the drums in a punk rock band, and spends his free time diving with great whites, building motorcycles and hot rods, and running adventure races in remote locations around the world. Links: Linkedin: Michael Juergens The World’s Newest Wine Frontier Is the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan The wine industry said I’m crazy: US pioneer to create ‘next Napa Valley’ in Himalayan hills of Bhutan First Vineyard Planted In Bhutan Bhutan, Land of the Thunder Dragon Gross National Happiness The 4 Pillars of GNH Bhutan: Committed to Conservation We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

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

Today, we go deep into the life, lessons and learnings of a legendary musician, singer, producer, and songwriter Sharon Vaughn. Sharon has written hits for legends like Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Reba McEntire, The Oak Ridge Boys, George Jones, Kenny Rogers, Randy Travis, Patty Loveless, Agnes, and Kate Ryan. In 2019 Sharon was inducted into the Nashville Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. If you’re a creative person, if you love music and if you find inspiration in stories of amazing triumph, you’ll love this episode. Pay special attention to Sharon’s thoughts on the grand dame of country music, Dolly Parton. A Creative Writing Instrument Sharon discusses her professional and personal background and how she developed an interest in singing and songwriting. She goes into detail about how her writing process has been a schizophrenia lifestyle. “It’s a very difficult line to walk because if you’re writing for strictly commercial, it gets vapid. If you’re writing strictly for an emotional purging, then it gets selfish and self centered. But if you walk that straight and narrow line between commercial and genuine emotion. That’s where the tension lies.” – Sharon Vaughn Admiration of Musical Genius Sharon continues to discuss her professional journey. She lets us in on her joys and difficulties of what it was like to work as a harmony singer. Further, she shares what it was like working with Jimmy Buffet, Porter Wagoner, Bill Anderson, and Dolly Parton. Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Sharon describes her excitement and her thankfulness for being inducted to Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Further, she expresses her gratefulness to the people along the way who have been instrumental to her life. This all had contributed to her becoming a great listener and a legendary storyteller.  “Everybody on this planet has a story. Most of them are very eager for you to hear it, to tell it. All you have to do is have enough curiosity to listen and respect what they’re saying. You have to realize that everybody in this world is worthy of listening to. I, for one, have been the recipient of listening to people and that’s the main thing I’m most grateful for. ” – Sharon Vaughn To know more about the legendary Sharon Vaugh and her incredible life journey, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Vaughn moved to Nashville in her early 20s. In 1974, she charted two singles as a performer for Cinnamon Records: a duet with Narvel Felts titled “Until the End of Time”, and “Never a Night Goes By”. A year later, she signed with Dot Records and released a third single, “You and Me, Me and You”. She was also the lead singer in the Lea Jane Singers, and worked with the Jordanaires, the Nashville Edition and The Holladay Sisters. Vaughn’s first big songwriting success was Waylon Jennings (1976) “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.” Willie Nelson later popularized the song in 1980 for the soundtrack of the movie The Electric Horseman. Her next songwriting hit was The Oak Ridge Boys (1977)’s “Y’all Come Back Saloon.” Since then she has worked with country artists such as Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Tanya Tucker and Kenny Rogers. Vaughn was a nominee for the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame three times, and was inducted in 2019. Vaughn has during the last couple of years had over 100 cuts with European artists and four number ones in Japan. She has worked with several Swedish Idol artists including the winner Jay Smith (2010) and a number one hit for Ola. She has also worked with many Scandinavian songwriters and artists including Agnes, Mutt Lange, Tony Nilsson, Vendela, Anders Hanson and Emilia. In 2009, her co-written song Release Me by Swedish pop artist Agnes reached #1 on the U.S Billboard Dance Club Songs Chart.[8] In 2013, Vaughn received a JASRAC Award as #1 of the Top 10 Foreign Works for her 2011 co-written song “Rising Sun” by the Japanese pop band EXILE. During 2014, Vaughn competed as the songwriter of three songs in Melodifestivalen. Vaughn has also co-written songs with Ian Dench[11] and Carl Falk. Links: Nashville Songwriters Foundation Hall of Fame Waylon Jennings My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys – Waylon Jennings My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys – Willie Nelson Wikipedia – My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys  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 continue our run on legendary authors today with none other than NY #1 Best Selling Author, Ryan Holiday. You see, the only authors we ever have are the ones that we think have ideas, teachings, and stories that are worth digging into.  Today, we go deep into the teachings of some of the greatest thinkers in history. Ryan helps us see the events of today through the lens of powerful philosophers and history, providing today, in an incredible context. We deal with big topics like truth, character, pain, and suffering humor, and a lot more. Invest Time in Reading Chris lauded Ryan for writing a historical book in the age where almost everyone is addicted to selfies. Ryan was actually amazed himself how in this age and time, people still invest in time and money reading books. He shares what he thinks about good books and why people still opt for a book, instead of getting validation in social media.  “I opened the book, there’s a story about Xenos, the founder of Stoicism. You get this prophecy as a young man that the Oracle tells him ‘you will become wise when you begin to have conversations with the dead.’ Years later at a chance encounter in a bookstore, do you come to realize that this prophecy was about reading, that books are a way to speak to the dead.” – Ryan Holiday Condensed Life Experiences Ryan and Chris discuss life-changing books. Ryan shares an anecdote from Socrates saying: “the reason you read is that you gain quite easily what others learned quite painfully.” He further describes his new book Lives Of The Stoics, as something less about him and more about the wisdom of the past. “Reading is condensed information. It’s distilled down information. In reading one book, you could jump forward a year of your life, or 10 years of your life. It can save you painful trial and error.” – Ryan Holiday An Escape and Reassurance Ryan further shares what he thinks about good books being an escape and reassurance. Reading books, especially historical ones, will make you realize that you are not alone dealing with your feelings or that there are universal truths that span from generations. One of which is human struggling and the fight between good and evil. “I find whenever I’m stressed about what’s happening, I try to study the past. This gives me a clear view of what’s happening right now.” – Ryan Holiday  To know more about Ryan Holiday and his new NY best-selling book, Lives of the Stoics, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Ryan Holiday is one of the world’s foremost thinkers and writers on ancient philosophy and its place in everyday life. He is a sought-after speaker, strategist, and the author of many bestselling books including The Obstacle Is the Way; Ego Is the Enemy; and The Daily Stoic. He’s newest book Lives Of The Stoics is an instant New York Times Advice & Business Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller, and Wall Street Journal #1 Bestseller. His books have been translated into over 30 languages and read by over two million people worldwide. He lives outside Austin, Texas, with his family. Links: Website: Ryan Holiday  Twitter: @ryanholiday Instagram: @ryanholiday Amazon – Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman: Book Review, Key Lessons, Best Quotes, and More We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

In this episode, a truly legendary conversation with two extraordinary men, men who are on a mission to stop deadly wildfires. First, we have Charlie Croker, the founder and CEO of Zone Haven. Zone Haven is using data to everything technologies, to help government agencies and citizens both plan for and respond to serious disasters.  Our second guest is Chief Jonathan Cox, CalFire Executive who is responsible for fire operations in this region.  Together, Charlie and Jonathan share how firefighting heroes stop these fires and save countless lives and billions in property. A Night Californians Will Never Forget  The night of Saturday, August 15 2020, a massive lightning storm hit the region. Approximately 12,000 strikes of lightning hit Northern California which caused massive fires. The wildfire lasted for weeks and it destroyed almost 10,000 buildings along with the big basin redwoods State Park, and took the life of one person. “It was a horrifying fire and it started eating the mountainous area that has a lot of underbrush, some of the most beautiful ancient redwoods, and a lot of wonderful homes, towns and businesses.” – Christopher Lochhead The Worst Fire Season In History Chief Jonathan Cox recounted to Chris how they had expected the worst for the wildfire season. However, they did not expect this horrible incident to have grown into that magnitude. He further explained their process and prioritization and how technology from Zone Haven has contributed a lot to their firefighting efforts. “We’re very good when there’s one or two large fires burning, getting an incident management team assembled and getting resources drawn throughout the system. But this really was one of those moments where you had concurrent major emergencies happening in a small geographical area, really in the Bay Area, and a little bit north, and it really turned into a prioritization of resources based on the threat to humans and the threat to structures.” – Chief Jonathan Cox Saving Lives and Properties Charlie Crocker, from Zone Haven shares the technology as it relates to helping CalFire make sound decisions during that emergency. He further shares in this episode how their communication strategy, along with the CalFire executives, were in sync and were out of the box, that it made drastic results in terms of preventing more damages.  “The main focus of it and why we’re called Zone Haven is that we really focus on very small neighborhoods or zones. So these zones are smart. They know the number of people, they know how quick, how long it’s going to take for people to get out of there.” – Charlie Crocker To know more about How Heroes Fight Wildfires and for more information about CAL FIRE Chief Jonathan Cox & ZoneHaven CEO Charlie Crocker, download and listen to this episode. Bio: CAL FIRE Deputy Chief Jonathan Cox CalFire Deputy Fire Chief Jonathan Cox oversees fire operations at the San Mateo County Division of CAL FIRE, which includes San Mateo County Fire Department and Coastside Fire Protection District. His passion for the fire service started young, prior to his current role he worked both municipal and wildland fire field operations with CAL FIRE at Coastside Fire District, San Mateo County Fire Department and San Luis Obispo County Fire Department. In addition, he spent several years as the Northern California spokesperson for CAL FIRE. Jonathan was also a founding member for CAL FIRE’s land use planning program at the Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM), working with local jurisdictions to make informed land use decisions related to the threat of wildfire. Jonathan also responds to, and manages, some of California’s largest disasters. He spent five years as a member of CAL FIRE’s Incident Management Team 6 (FEMA Type 1), where he served on the command staff in the capacity of Public Information Officer (PIO1). He holds a Bachelors Degree from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a Masters Degree from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.  He has also completed an intensive training at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in Geneva, Switzerland.  Jonathan is a State of California (OSFM) certified Chief Officer and Registered Instructor. Additionally, Jonathan is an emergency response educator and trainer in the field of emergency management and crisis communications.  He has been a subject matter expert speaker at numerous conferences, including the National Fire Protection Association. His work has spanned five countries and involved working with hundreds of professionals. He has lived in the US, Denmark and the United Kingdom.  Charlie Crocker, Founder/CEO Zonehaven Charlie is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zonehaven Inc.  He is a data geek and entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience building teams to bring data out of the shadows and drive business value.  Prior to Zonehaven, he

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

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

Robert Rosenberg is a legendary entrepreneur CEO and author who has helped change the world today. He also has a brand new book, Around the Corner to Around the World: A Dozen Lessons. In his book, he talks about how he ran Dunkin Donuts and Baskin Robbins. Today, we have a real conversation with Robert about his story and the lessons that he has learned through the successes and setbacks in his life. He lets us in on the real story behind one of the most legendary marketing campaigns of all time. He even shares with us the story of how munchkins a.k.a doughnuts holes came to be, and so much more exciting topics! The Best and The Brightest Robert specifically talks about David Halberstam’s book: The Best and The Brightest. The book made him realize the importance of humility and listening, rather than talking. He discusses how this has led him to place processes and policies that have helped strengthen and grow the business even further.  “It was a learning moment, I was maybe 35. So it was 10 years, I’d love to say I came into the job at 25 and was all grown up, but I wasn’t, clearly. This was a grown-up moment, and it was essential for the next four or five years, each with different responses, different strategies. Basically, we never look back and we were well on our way not to make that mistake again. I’m forever thankful and that came out of a book, but a lot of things for me came out of books.” – Robert Rosenberg The Story of Munchkins An interesting part of the conversation is when Robert shared how munchkins came to be. He also shares his amazement on how this Halloween product turned into the phenomenon that it is today. “That was the beginning of a product that now when you look back 50 years later is still a mainstay on the menu. And a treat for people all the time. Not just for Halloween, but 24/7 and 12 months a year.” – Robert Rosenberg Aspiration and Superior Strategy The ability to build the value of the brand, through a real commitment to product quality, and through great organization and an incredible team has led Dunkin Donuts into the industry it is today. Robert even shares his 3 P’s: good planning, great people, and a real commitment to products. “You don’t necessarily pick the times it comes. Believe me, for 35 years, it’s gone, come and you have to be prepared for that because day to day activities, things come in over the transom constantly at you. It’s easy to get waylaid and in my view, if the strategy isn’t spot on, if the organization isn’t appropriate and spot-on, this little else you can do in terms of activity that can save the day and create success.” – Robert Rosenberg To know more about Robert Rosenberg and his story and Lessons Learned From Running Dunkin Donuts For 35 Years, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Robert M. Rosenberg (born 1938) is an American businessman, professor, and author. He was the chief executive officer of Dunkin’ Donuts for thirty-five years from 1963 to 1998 and also served on the board of directors of Sonic Corp and Domino’s Pizza. He was also an adjunct professor at Babson College’s F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business. In 1963, at the age of 25,[9] Rosenberg assumed leadership of his family business, Universal Food Systems, as CEO and president. At the time, the company consisted of several small businesses grossing $20 million per year, including 100 Dunkin’ Donuts locations in the U.S., generating $10 million in annual sales. Rosenberg transformed Universal Food Systems to focus on Dunkin’ Donuts. On February 6, 1968, Rosenberg took the company through its initial public offering. In September 1983, Rosenberg became chairman while continuing to serve as CEO of Dunkin’ Donuts. The company remained publicly traded until 1989, earning investors a 35% compound rate of return. During his tenure as Dunkin’ Donuts CEO, Rosenberg served on the board of the International Franchise Association. In 1970, he served as the association’s chairman. In late 1989, Dunkin’ Donuts announced its acquisition by Allied-Lyons PLC, a large UK food and beverage group which also owned Baskin-Robbins. Rosenberg continued to lead the company that became known as Allied Domecq Retailing (later Dunkin’ Brands) which also acquired Togo’s sandwich shops. By the time Rosenberg retired in 1998, the company had about 6,500 locations around the world. Following his retirement, Rosenberg went on to become an adjunct professor at Babson College’s F. W. Olin Graduate School of Business. He also served as a trustee of the college. In addition to teaching at Babson, Rosenberg was on the board of directors at Sonic Corp., from April 1993 to 2016, and Domino’s Pizza, from 1999 until April 2010, where he served both companies as chairman of their compensation committees. Links: Linkedin: Robert Rosenberg Book: Around

We continue our run on legendary authors with our guest today, Annie Duke. She’s got a new book out called How To Decide: Simple Tools For Making Better Choices. In this episode, she teaches us about how she thinks about decisions, and how building stronger decision skills can make a difference at a time of crisis, particularly like the kind of time we’re living in now.  She was one of the world’s top professional poker players. She tells us how to think about the possible and the probable, how to think about the different futures that could occur. Anne’s got a very provocative point of view about luck that I think you’ll find fascinating. In addition, I would suggest you pay close attention to her thoughts on the power of a hedge.  Every Decision Is A Bet Annie briefly tells us what has been going on in her life and family, especially during the pandemic. She shares her personal journey and professional background on how she got into poker. Take note where she shares how to decisions while facing massive amounts of uncertainty. “The point is to hold all those possibilities in your head at once. To be thinking when you should be making the decision. What does that look like under different futures that might occur? So how much money might you win or gain under those futures, or I might be setting up a play. If one of those futures were to occur, you might do something now that allows you to do something later. You have to be thinking about all those things at once. So you always have to have it in mind that the future is uncertain.” – Annie Duke Hedging Bets On this topic, Annie discusses the companions to bets, which are called a ‘hedge’. This, diving in deeper, can refer to the different ways the future can unfold and the negative impact it can have in life. Annie shares with us further its meaning as well as examples to help set the tone of the message. Further, she advises to mitigate and weigh in the cost that comes with the negative outcomes. She then connects hedging with what she calls ‘the paradox of experience’. “It fits into this broad category of something I call the paradox of experience, which is that you need experience in order to become a better decision maker. Any single experience could interfere with the lessons that you learn. There’s many, many possible futures, but only one past. Once we know the past that occur, we sort of think of it as inevitable. Then we regret having done anything that would plan for any other future.” – Annie Duke Good Decision Process Annie discusses how choosing different options can contribute to the likelihood of receiving luck. This luck can influence life in different ways, whether for the good or bad. In addition, she discusses beliefs as a foundation of the decision making process and how the information gathered from this can contribute to the decisions made.  “There’s different probabilities of each option occurring. It could be that you have the same set of possibilities, but they have different impacts. The magnitude of those things is different. So this kind of tells you now if you can think about those two options. You want to understand what that set looks like. And then when you choose an option, what you’ve done is you’ve decided on the set of possibilities, and how probable each of those things is to occur. Which thing actually happens.” – Annie Duke To know more about how to make better decisions and the challenges that come with it, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Annie Duke has leveraged her expertise in the science of smart decision making to excel at pursuits as varied as championship poker to public speaking. Annie’s latest book, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices, is available on September 15, 2020, from Portfolio, a Penguin Random House imprint. Her previous book, Thinking in Bets, is a national bestseller. In the book, Annie reveals to readers the lessons she regularly shares with her corporate audiences, which have been cultivated by combining her academic studies in cognitive psychology with real-life decision-making experiences at the poker table. For two decades, Annie was one of the top poker players in the world. In 2004, she bested a field of 234 players to win her first World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet. The same year, she triumphed in the $2 million winner-take-all, invitation-only WSOP Tournament of Champions. In 2010, she won the prestigious NBC National Heads- Up Poker Championship. She retired from the game in 2012. Prior to becoming a professional poker player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her master’s degree. Annie now spends her time writing, coaching, and speaking on a range of topics such as decision fitness, emotional control, productive decision groups, and embracing uncertainty. She is a regularly sought-

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

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

We have another super special episode for you today. Recently, Christopher was lucky enough to get an opportunity to start a new podcast with Navin Chaddha, who leads Mayfield, one of the top venture capital firms in Silicon Valley. What you’re about to listen to is a recent episode of the brand new podcast called Conscious VC. It’s with an extraordinary man named Sal Khan. In this episode of Conscious VC, Naveen and Christopher have a riveting conversation with Sal, he takes you into why his mission is free education for everyone in the world. He unveils some of his biggest learnings in building an incredible education nonprofit, the Khan Academy, and his key learnings for entrepreneurs. Free World Class Education Navin, Sal, and Christopher discuss Sal’s professional and personal achievements, as well as, Khan Academy, its mission and what it stands for. Sal goes into detail about Khan Academy’s mission not being about profit, but rather establishing free world class education for anyone anywhere. He hopes that this platform can lead to various opportunities for the children. Whether that be through college admissions, apprenticeships, and job opportunities. “You know, I think these days, it’s very easy to beat up on public education. There’s a lot of things that are imperfect, a lot of things that need to be fixed. We’re trying to work in partnership with school districts and teachers to help address some of that. I think it is worth it. Giving credit for how much the world has transformed because of this very aspirational public education.” – Sal Khan Be Authentic and Honest Sal and Navin dive deeper into the factors that have contributed to Khan Academy and Mayfield’s success. Sal shares his key learnings and advice for entrepreneurs who plan to follow in his footsteps. It all starts with the vision, mission, and key insight. These all bring back to the question of how one can make the world a better place. He continues to discuss how content should be based on what you’re excited about and what you truly believe in. Sal hopes Khan Academy can fulfill this potential and create a legacy that can help shape the world. “My role is to make sure that Khan Academy can really stay true to the vision. Now, while hopefully I’m alive for many decades. I want to retain it, that focus on a mission, which historically, nonprofits can be reasonably good at. At the same time, I want to stay nimble. There’s one fear that Khan Academy disappears, and it’s not able to fulfill its potential. There’s another fear that it fulfills its potential, but then it becomes the legacy, it becomes the entrenched interest.” – Sal Khan Creating Pathways to Learning Navin and Sal share more about Mayfield and Khan Academy as well as the programs they offer to help expand the students opportunities for learning and growth. He discusses his fascination on these innovative models and how they have paved a way to the hybrid online world. Sal then goes on to talk about how these programs are truly a fast track opportunity for the students. In addition, he shares the struggles that they have been facing combining both the platforms of education in the midst of the pandemic. “I think from my perspective, we need more people like what Sal has done with his life. People who are helping build businesses, for better and are making a positive impact in the world. I hope many people and entrepreneurs who don’t need to do this, including VCs like me, use our time, money, ideas and access. We can even start with 1%. And that’s what Mayfield has started with the pledge 1%. And my belief is, each smaller drop in the bucket fills buckets that can fill in a pond, and then sky’s the limit. So we have to just get started and have role models like Sal and others who are showing us the way. I think we have endless possibilities.” – Navin Chaddha To know more about the mission and vision of Khan Academy and Mayfield, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Navin Chaddha Navin Chaddha leads Mayfield. He has ranked on the Forbes Midas List of Global Tech Investors 12 times, including being named a Top Five investor in 2020. During his career as a venture capitalist, he has invested in over 50 companies, 17 of which have gone public and 20 have been acquired. Some of his investments include Lyft, Poshmark, SolarCity, Hashicorp, Elastica, CloudGenix, and CloudSimple. As an entrepreneur, he has co-founded or led three startups including VXtreme, a streaming media platform, acquired by Microsoft to become Windows Media. Navin is a committed philanthropist who directs Mayfield’s 50-year tradition of philanthropy to support many causes including diversity, health, hunger, and education. Interests: Cricket, Bollywood. Salman Khan Salman Amin (Sal) Khan (age 42) is a New Orleans educator, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and former hedge fund analyst. He is the founder of the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today, we have a very big conversation about social change, entrepreneurship, Black Lives Matter, and a whole lot more with author, entrepreneur, and speaker, D’Narius Lewis. We believe he represents a voice that is not being heard enough right now — the voice of young African American entrepreneurs. D’narius has gone from homeless to successful. He is the founder of Optimum Outreach, a telecom brokerage firm. Frankly, we need to be asking ourselves “how do we foster an environment where there are a lot more D’narius Lewis’ you see denarius amongst many entrepreneurs?” Living in Ground Zero Christopher probes D’narius what it is like to be a young black male American entrepreneur, living in the “hood” in Minneapolis, which, as you know, is where George Floyd was killed.  D’narius described how on the same day as his birthday, literally just 30 minutes away, George Floyd suffered from police brutality.  “Everyone wants to have this conversation but until you actually put yourself on the ground level and take action and see why people are protesting, see why people are frustrated. There has to be a reform behind everything that’s been created. It’s a never ending conversation.” – D’Narius Lewis What It Would Take For A Breakthrough D’Narius believes having the right conversations are essentially what needs to be done to get something out of the Black Lives Matter movement.  “Right now, we’re still having a debate to why this isn’t even a conversation. Racism is not real and so having that first conversation is really  like ‘let’s actually sit down and break this down. Let’s not be defensive. Let’s actually break down the facts.’ Once we get down that road, then let’s break down defunding the police department. A lot of people want to defund the police department. The police department defunded funds is not completely defunding a police department. It is taking funds that can be allocated to the community, to allocate for individuals and mental health spaces. ” – D’Narius Lewis Crime is Crime By Humans D’narius shares more about humans committing crimes and how people want to be treated as humans. He also shares about what is happening at the local level, especially why the activists are not the person responsible for the riots. “We’re still having the same conversation that Martin Luther King had Malcolm X had. Now we’re in the 2020s many years away from that conversation and we’re still saying, ‘hey, are we’re still being killed on the streets by police brutality,’ ‘hey, we’re still living in poverty from from years of being set free, but not actually given a system to be a part of.’ The list goes on and on of all these different roadblocks and loopholes that I might know I’ve had to go through because the system wasn’t built for us.” –  – D’Narius Lewis To hear more about D’Narius and social change, entrepreneurship, Black Lives Matter, and a whole lot more, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: D’Narius Lewis was born May 25, 1993, in Shelby County, Tennessee. His family then moved to Minnesota in 1998 where he currently resides. D’Narius was raised by his single mother; being the youngest and only boy in his family shaped his outlook on life and the concept of survival and determination. He has stepped up to the plate as being the man of his household to keep his family as a unit. A born entrepreneur, D’Narius Lewis started his sales career at the age of 15 when he began selling iPhones and Androids off Craigslist; this led to his passion for business and entrepreneurship. While in college D’Narius balanced a full time job along with being a student. His balance became overwhelming and he often found himself having to decide to go to work or school. He later got fired from his job and eventually dropped out of college in rebellion to the demanding college lifestyle. During that time, until he was 21, D’Narius had worked over 6 jobs and found his instability to be the result of his lack of passion, lack of freedom, and unfulfilling financial standing. Eventually, in 2012 D’Narius was a homeless-couch surfing kid with nothing but a suitcase and a name. He didn’t have a permit, a license, or a car, so his ability to get around was also limited. Fortunately, things took a positive turn and he found himself blessed to have a friend from high school whose family took him in. By the summer of 2013, the money D’Narius made was used to support rent, bills, and groceries–which was limited to $10. He often found himself left with $7.40 after all his bills were paid. He soon decided that was not the life he wanted to live, so he did something about it. Fast-forward to 2016, D’Narius is now an author, speaker, and social media expert with multiple books on self-help and inspiration. His love for networking, desire for likability, and rebellious attitude towards societies’ monot

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

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

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

Imagine being able to sit down and have a meaningful conversation about the state of the United States. We speak with a woman who is a Yale-educated lawyer, a graduate of the FBI famed Academy in Quantico Virginia, and a former FBI counterintelligence investigator. This woman is a senior lecturer at Yale and a legal and national security analyst for CNN. That woman is none other than Asha Rangappa. We have a powerful conversation about the state of affairs in the United States and the decline of social capital. We talk about the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement, and more. This is a big insight into what’s going on in our world today. Shakespeare and Current Events Asha narrated how she became a Shakespeare aficionado. She even found herself playing roles in several Shakespeare theatre adaptations. She shares how she finds Shakespeare’s stories as universal, which also explains why these get a lot of modern adaptation. “You can actually look at characters and understand motivations of people today through his words. So I’m a big fan. I don’t know if that answers the question of why Shakespeare but I find him especially relevant to current events.” – Asha Rangappa 30% of Americans Don’t Trust Each Other Asha recounted to Christopher how the United States is at a moment of the lowest level of general social trust since World War Two. Social capital is referred to as “the value that we get from our relationships with other people.” She further explained that strong social capital is essential for a healthy democracy.  A high social capital means there is a generalized social trust. In short, people care about the well being of their fellow man.  “Most Americans don’t trust each other. This is actually a question on the General Social Survey they’ve asked, but asking it since 1972, and we’re at the lowest response, which is about 30% of people say that most Americans can be trusted.” – Asha Rangappa Worst Possible Choices Being Made Asha believes we are currently in a crisis point. She agrees with Christopher that circumstances are forcing people to decide on the future that they want to live in.  “On the roster of choices have been made, whether it’s with the pandemic or the economy or in response to the protest, and I’m talking about, the Trump administration. So, I think that it has brought to the fore what I was talking about before that, we are at a precarious moment. I have felt that this has been a precarious moment, even before this. I think the urgency of it might be brought home to a greater degree, because of this kind of critical state that we’re in at this moment.” – Asha Rangappa To know more about Asha and her thoughts on the destructive power of disinformation and disengagement and the general state of the United States, download and listen to this episode.  Bio: Asha Rangappa is a Senior Lecturer at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs and a former Associate Dean at Yale Law School. Prior to her current position, Asha served as a Special Agent in the New York Division of the FBI, specializing in counterintelligence investigations.  Her work involved assessing threats to national security, conducting classified investigations on suspected foreign agents, and performing undercover work.  While in the FBI, Asha gained experience in electronic surveillance, interview and interrogation techniques, firearms, and the use of deadly force. She has taught National Security Law and related courses at Yale University, Wesleyan University, and the University of New Haven. Asha graduated cum laude from the Woodrow Wilson School of International and Public Affairs at Princeton University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study constitutional reform in Bogotá, Colombia.  She received her law degree from Yale Law School and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Juan R. Torruella on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is admitted to the State Bar of New York (2003) and Connecticut (2003). Asha has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post among others and has appeared on NPR, BBC, and several major television networks. She is an editor for Just Security and is currently a legal and national security analyst for CNN. Asha lives in Hamden, Connecticut with her two children. Links: Asha Rangappa Twitter: @AshaRangappa_ Wikipedia: Asha Rangappa 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!

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

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

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

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

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

Today, we continue our run of legendary authors and podcasters with Dr. Christopher Ryan, author of New York Times bestsellers, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships and Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress. He has a chart-topping dialog podcast is called, Tangentially Speaking, We have a fun, some times provocative discussion about everything from Muhammad Ali, what’s wrong with modernity, how the world is fundamentally changing, why living in a van is awesome, to what it’s like making a living as roving, smart person. The Legendary Muhammad Ali Christopher Ryan and Christopher Lochhead went into an insightful exchange of stories about Muhammad Ali. Chris shares during this lockdown, he discovered a YouTube channel that featured several classic fights and he enjoyed binge-watching on these.  Chris mentions Pete McCormick, the guy behind a documentary called “Facing Ali” and he interviewed guys who fought Ali. The interesting backstory was, during these tune-up fights, Ali would handpick his opponent.  “He would tell his agent, he heard one guy, his wife had been killed in an accident, so he will get a quarter-million dollars. He’s beating people up in a charitable, generous way.” – Christopher Ryan Podcasting Has Been Instrumental Lochhead describes Ryan as “an insanely smart Ph.D. dude who seems to make a living being a smart guy, writing smart shit, podcasting smart shit, generally being the smart guy in the world.” He says podcasting has been instrumental in getting his message across. “It used to be, if you want to sit down and share your opinions to a hundred young smart people who are interested in hearing an old guy like me, you had a gig in the university. Universities are designed to filter out people like me or Joe Rogan or you, people who are liable to say something outlandish, to challenge this status quo.” – Christopher Ryan He further shares that he is generally pessimistic about the modern world, but one of the wonderful things that happened recently is that podcasting exploded.  “It is almost like a printing press, it just exploded, the opportunity to have direct contact between someone in the audience and the audience chooses whether or not it’s worth listening to. It is not the administrators of the university or publishing house, you know the gatekeepers.” – Christopher Ryan What It Is Like Living In A Van Christopher says he owned an apartment for a while until last fall when he spent 5 months in the van. He ditched his apartment, rented a storage space, and continued living life on the road since then. He traveled across the United States during the summer and flew to tropical countries during the wintertime.  “When this stuff got weird, end of January, I flew back. I didn’t want to get stranded in Asia. I rented a house in a tiny little town in Colorado. I’ve been here, it is fantastic, there’s no problem with social distancing. I like solitude. I like a good solid chunk of quiet and distance.” – Christopher Ryan To hear more about Christopher and what’s wrong with modernity and how the world is fundamentally changing, download and listen to this episode. Bio: Christopher and his work have been featured just about everywhere, including Netflix, HBO, MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Times of London, Playboy, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, and The Atlantic. Chris has been a featured speaker at TED, SXSW, The Festival of Dangerous Ideas at the Sydney Opera House, the Einstein Forum in Pottsdam, Germany, and is a frequent guest on The Joe Rogan Experience and many other podcasts.  He’s also provided expert testimony in a Canadian constitutional hearing and appeared in dozens of documentary films and television shows. Even before co-authoring the New York Times best-seller, Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What it Means for Modern Relationships (translated into 18 languages), with Cacilda Jethá, MD,  Chris was on a wild ride.  After receiving a BA in English and American literature in 1984 he spent the next two decades traveling around the world, pausing in unexpected places to work at decidedly odd jobs (e.g., gutting salmon in Alaska, teaching English to prostitutes in Bangkok and self-defense to land-reform activists in Mexico, managing commercial real-estate in New York’s Diamond District, helping Spanish physicians translate and publish their research).  In his mid-30s, Chris decided to pursue doctoral studies in Psychology at Saybrook Graduate School, in San Francisco, CA, using his dissertation to critique mainstream views of human sexual evolution — providing the core arguments later advanced in Sex at Dawn. Chris’s latest book, Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress (Simon & Schuster/Avid Reader Press, 2019), questions whether civilization has actually been a net benefit to our species. He hosts a weekly

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

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

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