Lead with a Question

Dan Ariely - Professor, Behavioral Economics

When you run a business, one of your jobs is to make wise choices about where you place your bets. This definitely applies in the marketplace with your customers and competitors, but it also applies internally–especially as it relates to how you treat your people. How do you slice the pie? Maybe you offer pet insurance. Or more vacation time. What’s going to create the conditions for you...

Scott Belsky - Chief Strategy Officer, Adobe

Every organization has a culture–whether it be a family, a company, or even a sports team. Most of the time, there’s an unspoken assumption that people on the team will share a set of attributes and values. Over time, this can lead to a homogenizing effect–also known as groupthink. Deviations become less frequent, because they disrupt the balance. But in our ever-changing world, is that ...

Gale Pooley - Economist and Author

With so much at stake in the decisions we make, especially at the global, societal, and environmental levels, it can be easy to feel like our options and our resources are ever-diminishing. We are emotional creatures, and the narratives we embrace matter. Our guest today has spent years tracking some of the most important metrics on earth–things like literacy rates, access to food, and availabilit...

Bonnie Lin - Impact Investor and Advisor

At BraveCore, we believe in turning pain into power. This can mean different things to different people, but at its heart, the principle teaches us that instead of avoiding a challenge or remaining stuck in our pain, we choose to let it fuel our future. Today’s guest is one of the best examples we’ve seen yet. Whether winning a fight with cancer, grappling with questions about her life’s pur...

John Ondrasik - Singer and Songwriter, Five For Fighting

In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien captures a solid bit of advice from Bilbo, directed toward his nephew Frodo. He says, 

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

In the pursuit of success, it’s tempting to chase shiny objects. That’s certainly true in t...

Clint Schaff - Former Producer and Founder, LA Times Studios

Mary Anne Radmacher wrote that “Your responsibility is to be an explorer, not a tourist in this adventure that is your life.” Our guest today took up that challenge from the time he was a kid: dreaming of robots, searching for community, and as he got older, discovering and amplifying stories that matter, at one of the biggest news agencies in the world. His professional ...

Steve Young - NFL MVP quarterback and author

Let’s assume for a minute that you’ve just landed your dream job–your new employer is a household name, your title is the envy of thousands, and of course, you’re well-paid. But what would you do if you found yourself miserable with your new situation? Our guest today faced that very situation. But through some soul-searching, and a life-changing conversation on a flight, he found his pa...

Guy Kawasaki - Podcaster and Chief Evangelist, Canva

An impressive, and sometimes controversial group of figures populates the pantheon of people who changed the world: Walt Disney; Estee Lauder; Jane Goodall; Henry Ford; Marie Curie; Gandhi; Steve Jobs; Martin Luther King Jr. It’s tempting to assume that for this lot, greatness was somehow bestowed, like a birthright. And yet, when we dig deeper, we find that our remarkable people...

Liz Ryan - CEO, Human Workplace

Chris, Ian, and I owe a lot to the thinkers who’ve inspired us to focus on this work. Sometimes, you just come across someone whose insights, vision, conviction, and courage are so powerful that they seem to have their own gravitational field. Isaac Newton once wrote, “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Well, we recently met one of our giants. Her unique blend of to...

Nolan Bushnell - Inventor & Entrepreneur

What do the Atari company and Chuck E Cheese have in common? Well, besides offering a lot of options for entertainment, it might surprise you to learn that they were both founded by the same man–a Silicon Valley entrepreneurial legend who holds the distinction as first and only person to ever hire Steve Jobs. But rather than resting on his achievements, he’s chosen to spend the autumn of his...

Whitney Johnson - Author and CEO, Disruption Advisors

Imagine for a moment that you’re suddenly forced to switch to your non-dominant hand for a week. Getting dressed, feeding yourself, brushing your teeth–the tasks you used to do on autopilot have now become deeply challenging and awkward. But by the end of the experiment, you’ve gotten the hang of it! What was once an inconvenience has gifted you a new set of skills. Our guest to...

James Jensen - Founder and CEO, JUMP

A well-lived existence is not for the faint of heart. Setting and pursuing goals invites challenge. It creates the potential for disappointment. When we’re younger, dreaming big dreams comes easily. But for some reason, we can lose that ability as we get older. Like barnacles that attach to the hull of a ship, fears can cling to us and slow our PRAW-gress through the waters of life. That’s why w...

Chad Reynolds - Founder and CEO, Vurvey

In times past, the process of bringing a product to market was a bit of a black box. And for many companies, it still is. Often, consumers don’t really have a chance to provide feedback on a company’s offering until it’s already been released. But in our new climate, people want to be seen and heard. They want to be active participants in the creation of the products they use. So today, we’ll...

Chris Jones - 2022 Arkansas Gubernatorial Candidate

What do you get when you combine a scientist, an ordained minister, a business leader, a husband, and a father? Well, you get today’s guest. His family roots in the state of Arkansas, dating all the way back to the 1700s, have given him a sense of groundedness, residency, and a love for his state, challenges and all. In fact, he loves his state so much that he’d like to be its nex...

Joel Peterson, Chairman of JetBlue Airways and Professor at Stanford

Have you ever been part of a low-trust organization, where people seem to devote more energy to protecting themselves than to collaborating, or building good products? Or one where leaders hoard power and seem reluctant to give the reins over to anyone else? You might ask yourself how things got to that point, but an even more pressing concern is, how do you fix t...

Lizzi Perkins, Senior Brand Strategist

When you read a really moving story or watch a powerful film, you can often experience a taste of what the characters are feeling. You grieve with them as they suffer loss. You cheer them on to victory and share in their celebrations. Our capacity to see ourselves vicariously in others’ lives is one of the most human things about us. So today, let’s spend a few minutes with a woman whose upbri...

Archie McEachern, Global Enterprise Leader & former VP at Nike

When I was a kid, I learned about fire safety. One of the visual frameworks adults presented to me was the “fire triangle”: the idea that for fire to exist, you had to have three ingredients: heat, oxygen, and fuel. Take one of these three things away, and you had NO fire. Well, just like fire needs certain conditions to thrive, business outcomes require specific ingred...

Jaydeep Ranade, Director of Wireless Engineering at Facebook

Let’s dig into the “misfit” principle for a minute. What is a misfit, really? Is a misfit defined by language, culture, appearance, or personality? We’ve tapped into that topic before, but today, our guest has a different take, one that has to do a lot with seeking out opportunities to learn and be stretched as a leader. And for him, it all starts with a set of core value...

Randy Nelson, founder of Pixar University

It's time to wrap up a conversation where we were learning so much from our guest that we couldn’t fit it all into one episode. So if you haven’t heard our last episode, “How can you create a culture of curiosity? - Part 1,” we really recommend going back to that one first. 

But just in case, here’s a review–we recently caught up with Randy Nelson, founder of Pixar University. He walked us ...