Episode 30: COVID-19
In an impromptu and open-hearted conversation about the leadership and business impacts of COVID-19, I’m joined by friend and fellow leadership development leader, Shani Magosky, CEO/Founder of the Leadershift Project and host of the Leadershift Podcast.
Our leadership, teamwork, and organizational cultures are all being tested right now. Never has it been more important to cultivate our best inner game of leadership.
Specifically, we need to communicate clearly, frequently and throughout every part of the org – especially about current priorities, upcoming changes, and revised accountabilities; lean into our own org’s true north when making tough decisions; be compassionate and take a “we” stance; and make it our biggest priority to co-create the best outcomes for everyone by staying focused on productive tasks rather than getting stuck in worry or inaction.
Episode 29: Navigating Office Politics
Politics are unavoidable. Every organization has them. How to work office politics with your integrity intact. How to keep moving forward if your environment feels “too political”. How to recognize the ways in which you are being political and/or shooting yourself in the foot. How to introspect on your motives and improve your Inner Game of Leadership to be able to navigate office politics effectively and authentically. How to decide if your current political environment at work is the right fit for you.
Episode 28: Daniel’s Story About Finding Your Calling in Life
Daniel shares his story about how he found his calling in life at age 21, but ignored it. Fortunately he found it again in his forties. He also discussed what it feels like when you find your calling and how easy it is to take it for granted and be blind to our biggest gifts. He also shares how he started singing in his forties, and thereby uncovered another calling of his. Finally, Daniel shares some tangible tips on how anyone can find their calling in life.
Episode 27: Practice Does Not Make You Perfect
Daniel shares a racing story of a near disastrous start to a race he ended up winning. And how important practicing was to that outcome. Practice does not make you perfect, but it does make you a lot better. It also means appreciating the journey and not just the outcomes. The more you practice, the less likely you are to make a mistake and the more quickly you are likely to recover when you do make a mistake. The only person it’s helpful to compare yourself against, is yourself.
Episode 26: Winning the Leadership Race With Your Heartset
Daniel reads a life changing motorcycle racing story from his book, and discusses how leadership is not just about results and winning. Leadership is about how you get even better results by having strong relationships with others, and a healthy perspective on what it means to win.
Episode 25: Recap and Learnings from OnCon Icon Awards
We discuss how there are no overnight success stories. We also touch on: how to uncover and cultivate the unique and powerful voice that is inside of everyone. How face to face interactions are even more important than ever in today’s world. How to show up as your best self more consistently. How introverts can leverage their strengths and be a strong leader. And how HR/LD executives can improve their influence in the boardroom.
Episode 24: Interview with Pavan Singh, VP of Product at Lynx Technologies
In this episode we explore Pavan’s role at Lynx Technologies and Pavan’s leadership journey. Along the way we discuss how to create a culture of trust, transparency, and collaboration. How to expect excellence from ourselves and others without overwhelming anyone by expecting too much. How to proactively create a strong framework for decision-making such that quality decisions are made. How to bring futurists together with pragmatists and have them align and agree as much as possible.
Episode 23: Interview with John Grover, Chief People Officer at Endsight
What it’s like to be a founding member of a scrappy start-up to a sizable company over 15 years. Learning to let go of control and delegate as a leader and company founder. How to focus on the impact you’re having on the world rather than just the financial payoff. How to give feedback in a constructive way that motivates people to improve themselves. Cognitive biases, how to do your best to overcome them. How to select people that will thrive in your organization.
Episode 22: Leadership in Times of Crisis – The Australian Bush Fires
How to proactively prepare yourself and your leadership team for crises that you don’t see coming. How important it is to proactively cultivate strong relationships with your constituents BEFORE crisis strikes. How to cultivate those strong relationships even in a very large organization. How to hear and acknowledge the feelings behind people’s emotional responses to the crisis. How to communicate in a way that instills confidence during a crisis.
Episode 21: Interview with Bill Scanlin, CTO of Warrior Trading
In this episode Bill Scanlin and Daniel discuss: Being a C-suite leader while still being approachable. Giving people stretch assignments and then coaching them and giving them room to run with it as they step out of their comfort zone. How to know when to trust others and when not to. Managing up, down, and sideways. Supporting your people with constant learning opportunities.
Episode 20: New Year Ritual for Achieving Your Goals in 2020
In this special New Year’s episode we discuss: The pagan origins of many Christmas traditions. And a deep dive into a New Year Ritual to help you cultivate the mindset you need to achieve your goals in 2020 and beyond.
Episode 19: Christmas, Life, and Leadership
In this episode Daniel and Joseph share personal stories about their Christmas traditions. And they discuss: How to not just get through it, but create the holiday season you most want. Presence is more important than presents. Cultivating gratitude during the holidays. Christmas tacos. How to find the most touching way to give someone a gift. Heart of generosity as a leader.
Episode 18: Interview with Tim Campos, CEO of Woven and former CIO of Facebook
The outcomes we experience in life all come down to how we spend our time. In this episode Woven CEO Tim Campos shares his passion for being strategic and proactive about how we spend our time, and how that led to the creation of Woven. We discuss the key elements required to cultivate our inner perseverance, and Tim shares some of his experiences working with a coach to help him determine his true north clarity of purpose and how that fuels him. Along the way Tim offers hands on tips for anyone aspiring to get to that next level of leadership, start that new company, or perhaps make that transition into the C-suite.
Episode 17: How to Navigate and Harness the Power of Other People’s Emotions. Part Two.
In this episode we discuss: Exactly how to decode the true meaning of other people’s emotions. The power of empathy. The 90 second rule of releasing emotions. The mindset that often drives “negative” emotions. The power of not judging emotions as either good or bad. Real world examples of how to apply these skills.
Episode 16: How to Navigate and Harness the Power of Other People’s Emotions. Part One.
Emotions drive behavior as much or more than rational thinking. Mastery in emotional and social intelligence are crucial to becoming Unshakeable in your Influence. Need to first navigate and manage our own emotions before we can navigate and manage other people’s emotions. The distinction between empathy and sympathy, and why it’s important. How to deepen your skills of empathy and sympathy. Emotional Aikido – soothing others by not reacting yourself.
Episode 15: Interview of Andrea Wenburg, Author to Unfrozen: Stop Holding Back and Release The Real You
In this interview we discuss Andrea’s book, her inspiration to write the book, and how it relates leadership, owning your voice, the #metoomovement, politics, and the relationship between singing and owning your power.
Episode 14: Conscious, Heart-Based Listening, part two
In this episode we walk through step by step practical instructions on how to listen deeply to another person, including, learning how to get genuinely curious about another human being and how to make sure that people really feel heard by you.
Episode 13: Conscious, Heart-Based Listening
Meeting people where they’re at. Aim to understanding before being understood. When people believe that you see, hear, and value them they become much more open to being influenced by you. The biggest driver of authenticity is how well we know ourselves. Deep dive into the non-verbal aspects of listening and communicating. How to choose to become genuinely curious about others. And the person who speaks the least in a meeting can be the most influential person.
Episode 12: WeWork’s Implosion and What it Means From a Leadership Perspective
WeWork’s implosion. How it went from a $47B unicorn valuation to near bankruptcy overnight. What went wrong from a leadership perspective and what we can learn from it. How to guard against hubris as a senior executive.
Episode 11: PG&E’s public safety power shutoffs in California – what does it mean from a leadership perspective?
PG&E’s public safety power shutoffs in California – what does it mean from a leadership perspective? With $30B in lawsuits from fires started by their equipment, what incentives does PG&E have and are those incentives best serving the public? What can we learn from this situation about the conflicting short term vs. long term pressures that public companies are often faced with?
Episode 10: Relational Heartset Skills. Part Two.
- Executive Presence, what it is and how to get more of it.
- How “I don’t know” can be the three most important words in a leaders vocabulary.
- How devastating it can be to put others on a pedestal, and why.
- How critical it is to surround yourself with people who are smarter and better than you.
- Apple’s near bankruptcy and miraculous turnaround in the late 1990’s.
Episode 9: Relational Heartset Skills. Part One.
- Self-care and how it’s crucial to leadership
- The importance of saying “no” and pushing back as a leader
- Cultivating self-awareness in order to uncover the ways in which we might be unconsciously manipulating others
- Practicing discernment instead of judgment, in how we communicate with others
- How we are the product of the people we are closest to, so we better choose wisely if we want to be our best leadership self
Episode 8: Executive Coaching Session on Emotional Intelligence. Part Two.
Ever wondered what an executive coaching session is like? Episodes seven & eight of the Unshakable Influence Podcast give you a very rare opportunity to listen in on an executive coaching session, with my co-host Joseph Baker as my client. Give it a listen if you’re curious to learn more about how executive coaching works, or if you want to get a better sense for my style of coaching. And of course, the session delves into some of the Heartset concepts and tools from my book Unshakeable Influence.
Episode 7: Executive Coaching Session on Emotional Intelligence. Part One.
Ever wondered what an executive coaching session is like? Episodes seven & eight of the Unshakable Influence Podcast give you a very rare opportunity to listen in on an executive coaching session, with my co-host Joseph Baker as my client. Give it a listen if you’re curious to learn more about how executive coaching works, or if you want to get a better sense for my style of coaching. And of course, the session delves into some of the Heartset concepts and tools from my book Unshakeable Influence.
Episode 6: Introduction to Heartset. Part Two.
- Why people don’t share openly, what it costs organizations, and what to do about it
- Importance of a psychologically safe business environment
- Best decisions come from open and transparent culture, and we need psychological safety
- Business costs of expressing anger inappropriately
- The importance of the emotional mind in our decision making
- We’re manipulating each other all the time
- How to lead in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) world
- The crisis of disconnection in our society and why business leaders need to care
Episode 5: Introduction to Heartset. Part One.
- Leadership, like racing, is not a solo sport
- Parallels between leadership and Formula 1 racing
- Romanticized version of leadership, versus the reality of leadership
- 60-80% of our influence on others is non-verbal, maximizing our Heartset is about maximizing that other 60-80%
- Emotions are contagious. Great leaders learn to get their own emotions in hand, and use them wisely.
- Emotional climate alone is highly predictive of profits, and the emotional climate of all organizations is set by its leadership
- Letting go of the need for control
Episode 4: Advanced Mindset Skills
- Chapter five (Advanced Mindset skills) of Unshakeable Influence, including:
- How to recover back to your best leadership self when things go awry
- The empowerment paradigm vs. the drama paradigm
Episode 3: Foundational Mindset Skills
- Reveals a never before told motorcycle racing story where Daniel selfishly put everyone on the racetrack in danger.
- Describes how important – and difficult – it is to let go of control as a leader
- Provides specific tips on how to recognize and counteract any overly controlling tendencies you may have
- Talks about how our brains are wired with a negativity bias, and what to do about it
- Discusses the tangible leadership benefits of both meditation and gratitude
Episode 2: Introduction to Mindset
- Mindset, why we need to think about how we think
- You Go Where You Look, why it’s important to focus on what you want rather than on what you don’t want
- Daniel shares a motorcycle racing story demonstrating how important it is to focus where you want to go
- By focusing on the right things we can multiply our performance and the performance of those around us
Episode 1: Introduction to Unshakeable Influence: Mastering the Inner Game of Leadership
In this initial episode, we:
- Discuss the first two chapters of my book Unshakeable Influence: Mastering the Inner Game of Leadership
- Discuss what it takes to become a champion – whether in the boardroom, on the basketball court, or on the motorcycle road-race track
- Examine leadership and culture in the context of the NBA finals (go Warriors!)
- Touch on how becoming a purpose-driven leader can both pre-empt burnout and drive better business results
