Author Hour with Charlie Hoehn

Nick DiNardo, author of The Game of Adversity, believes that we’re too comfortable. We’re all taught that the best situation is the one where everything goes according to plan and that adversity is something to be avoided or to protect our kids from. Nick is here to tell you the opposite. He believes that adversity is the ultimate opportunity to learn and grow. In fact, it’s the key to unlocking success. If only we learn to embrace it and apply its lessons constructively. Nick himself has gone through adversity as an entrepreneur and he also helps other entrepreneurs perform at their best by building their resilience. By the end of this episode, adversity is not going to be something that you fear or worry that will destroy you, but you’ll know how to use it and leverage it so that you can thrive.   Get Nick’s new book The Game of Adversity on Amazon. Find out more at NickDinardo.com.   Nick Dinardo: The basis of my interest in adversity is really personal, and it goes back when I was seven years old. I had kind of the typical American upbringing. I had a younger brother. My father built our house, it was a 3,000 square foot house, you know, living life really well and comfortably middle class. Within months, that all came crashing down. My mother had a bipolar episode that put her into a mental institution, my father pretty much spent all of the money from the business that he sold, and lost our house, went into foreclosure, my parents separated. When my mother got out of the mental hospital months later, it was an apartment building with fourteen other families. She had one room with a bed that my brother and I ended up sharing, either on the floor or in the bed with her, and we shared a kitchen with these fourteen other families. Within months, at seven, eight years old, I went from kind of this absolutely normal upbringing to, boom, everything flipped on its head. I remember thinking to myself, what does this all mean? This can’t be the way that things are kind of going to go down for us. That was my first kind of interest in understanding what adversity was, I didn’t know it at the time. Obviously, I didn’t know what struggle was—adversity, obstacles, all that—but I started to really search for people who were successful or people who had achieved great things from my perspective at that point. I gravitated towards sports, specifically baseball and football and basketball. I remember really gravitating toward this model who was Barry Sanders, he was the running back for the Detroit Lions at the time. This is in the early ‘90s. He was a successful running back, successful football player, probably the best at his position definitely at the time, maybe ever. He was the most humble, quiet player that was focused really on character and not being this egotistical, number one person to think about in football. He’d score a touchdown and give the ball right to the referee. It was really about showing that you’ve been there before. I gravitated towards that, and it ended up being something that really spurn me into hoping to be that type of person but also dedicating myself to understanding what adversity is, what the science behind it is and how people can build resilience and that’s kind of the basis for the book. What Is Adversity

We’ve all heard about passive incomes and side hustles and flexible careers that people have, that bring them wealth and success. Timothy Kim, the author of Words Into Cash, has one of those stories. Timothy actually epitomizes the American dream. He arrived in the US as a South Korean immigrant with only $500 in his pocket and he worked his way up the corporate ladder, but after that happened, he decided to leave it all behind and pursue his dreams as an online entrepreneur. Today, he is an elite blogger and he was able to become a millionaire using the power of his online presence. In this episode, he’s going to teach you how to create a beast of a passive income through blogging. If you’ve wanted to turn your digital life into a business and create a career that you’ve always dreamed of, this is the episode for you. Now, here’s our conversation with Timothy Kim.   Get Timothy’s new book Words into Cash on Amazon. Follow Timothy on Instagram.   Timothy Kim: I was born in Korea (South Korea), and my parents moved me and my brother to Hungary, Eastern Europe, because they were missionaries in 1991. This was like, the last year when the Soviet troops were coming out of Hungary. That’s not really what a lot of people might be able to relate with, but the reason I share that story is because it was a real hard life growing up as an immigrant. I immigrated here to the US in 2004 when I was 18 years old. I didn’t have a lot of money. Growing we weren’t poor, we never really went like super hungry or anything like that. I know there’s a lot of people out there in the world that are just really just getting by, some of them even have to look for water and stuff like that. Not to that extent, but I don’t think my parents ever made more than $1,500 a month on a good month. All the money that they made was through church support as Christian missionaries. They’re still actually in Hungary right now. They feed the homeless, they have a prison ministry, and they also go to the gypsy slums and preach and talk to the people, my mom gives them haircuts, stuff like that. Growing in that background, never having enough money, I think was always a point of contention for me. It was always a struggle for me and my brother. I remember just really not liking that and telling myself, “You know what? When I grow up, I’m not going to be like this. I want more for myself, and I want more for my family.” Nothing against my parents, I love them and I respect them, but it was too difficult. Charlie Hoehn: When you say it was too difficult, a particular instance come to mind that maybe you felt the most exasperated or frustrated or embarrassed? Timothy Kim: Yeah, even the smallest things where my friends would have birthday parties, they would get presents. It’s a pretty normal thing that people take for granted, but I used to never get presents. Christmas, holidays, birthdays, we were lucky to get a cake if that. I still remember, growing up just those were luxuries. In my childhood, it just never was. That was kind of hard. Time for Change Charlie Hoehn: What happened next? You decided that you weren’t going to live that way when you grew up. When did things start to move down that path? Timothy Kim: When I immigrated here to the US, actually, I was naturalized as a citizen just a couple of years back.

David Glass, author of Moving On, has worked both as a therapist and a divorce attorney in a career spanning more than two decades and what we talk about in this episode is the year after divorce—how do you move on with your life? So once the papers are signed and all the legal issues are settled, a lot of divorced individuals really struggle with this insecurity about what comes next in their life. David really believes and has seen that divorce can be your second chance at happiness. This episode is going to help you get on the path to a more fulfilling future. David shares his experiences both from his career as a family law attorney with a PhD in psychology but also his personal experiences with his own divorce. He’s going to walk you through exactly how to rebuild your life, including finding a new home, redesigning your family and your social life, reentering the dating scene and strengthening your social support. Even though a divorce is really challenging, it is also an opportunity and in this episode, you’ll take your first step to leaving your past behind in starting your new life. Get David’s new book Moving On on Amazon. Find out more at Glass Family Law. David Glass: I was finally deciding to get divorce to myself about a decade ago. I had been married for almost 15 years, but the last two or three years had not been the best years of the marriage. Me and my ex-wife didn’t argue in front of the kids and didn’t fight about things, but we weren’t very close. We had lost intimacy, and neither of us was completely happy. But I was still reticent about starting off on my divorce because I was mainly concerned about what’s going to happen next. Even with my background, I have a PhD in clinical psychology and practiced as a therapist, and by then I’d been practicing as a divorce attorney for over 15 years. I still had these issues that were holding me back from moving on to the rest of my life. I talked to a bunch of friends, divorced and married and single, and tried to figure out what would come next and how could I maximize it. I figured my way through the process, divorce was relatively easy for me. The year after divorce was much more difficult and just keeping those ideas in mind for the last 10 years. I turned around how I started counseling my own divorce clients, trying to get them to focus on what comes next. Rather than continuing to focus on the unsuccessful relationship in their backgrounds. Charlie Hoehn: You said the year after divorce was much more difficult. What made it so difficult? Was it just the nature that you’d been through a trauma or what was it? David Glass: There weren’t legal proceedings, my ex-wife and I were both smart and level headed and we worked out a deal right away. There wasn’t a lot of fighting about it, but still, getting divorced is a psychological injury. It’s an injury to your ego, you tried something, you picked someone, you tried in marriage and developed a family, but ultimately it didn’t work out. It’s admitting failure to everyone. Everyone’s going to know that you failed in this thing. It turns out that with 50% of the population getting divorced, it’s not an unusual failure but for each person going through it, it’s very personal. For me, up to that point, I had gotten into the college I wanted to get into, I got into the graduate school I wanted to get into. I got the jobs I wanted, I’d never been fired from a job. So, luckily for me,

Elizabeth Hale, the author of Protect Your Profit—Five Accounting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, is here to help you, because you could be failing to pay attention to the factors in your business that can spell the difference between profit and loss. In order to really understand where your money is going, you need to get a grip on your accounting. In this episode, Elizabeth really breaks down what will help you avoid worst-case scenarios, not just getting your finances in order, but avoiding things like embezzlement, or getting into debt that can put you out of business. We also talk about how you can avoid paying more than what you owe on taxes and what some simple accounting practices can do to help you grow a healthy business that really drives. A quick bio on Elizabeth, she is the founder of eeCPA, an accounting firm that serves over 300 clients. They’ve been in business since 2004. She’s worked with small to medium-sized businesses for more than 25 years and in this episode, she’s going to share all her wisdom that will help you protect your profit. Get Elizabeth’s new book Protect Your Profit on Amazon. Find out more at eeCPA. Elizabeth Hale: My dad went bankrupt, and my parents quickly divorced after that. He lost the securities license. He was a professional trader and took some fairly large risks, not only with his own portfolio but with some of his client portfolios. I grew up, basically my mom had to go on food stamps. There are three kids, I was the eldest. I was actually relieved when my parents got divorced when I was six. Typically, kids are distraught, but they so did not get along that it felt like a relief when they weren’t in combat. Not physically in combat, but emotional or verbal combat. That was the beginning of the trouble with money. My dad really struggled with ever being able to keep money. He’s been an amazing father, and I totally love him. I’ve been close with him my whole life, but he was borrowing money from me at age 13 to buy a new TV because we didn’t have one. I’ve been working since I was eight years old, and I clearly thought early on what it’s like. It’s terrifying when you don’t have money. I mean, I grew up very poor, but I was totally happy. Actually, working with some of the clients that I do today that have tons and tons of money. I almost think sometimes it’s better not to have any at all. I was always worried and I always was independent and wanted to make sure that I can survive anything. I was very interested in accounting because it was very logical, and I was able to help other people that has struggles with keeping track of their money. I’ve met these clients 10 years ago and they were two years behind on tax filing. Their business was just breaking even. In June of this year, we’ve been working with them for the last 10 years. We’ve helped them with all of their businesses. They have a variety of them. They’re amazing entrepreneurs and they just were able to sell their business for 425 million. Charlie Hoehn: I can only imagine how, even though it was really challenging, back then it shaped your greatest strength today. Elizabeth Hale: Yes. Yes. That’s why I love it. My mother actually who was the financially responsible one in the relationship, actually she and I had constant conflict when I was a child. She was like, “Oh, you love money.” It’s not that I loved money. I mean, on her deathbed, she acknowledged that she was sorry that she said that. It’s not that I loved money.

All of us deal with trauma—or as Jeff likes to call it, lightning bolts that disrupt our lives in devastating ways. But no matter what you’re facing, Jeff Kuhn, author of Blue Sky Lightning, believes you absolutely can recover. He knows this all too well. Jeff survived the unthinkable, with burns on over 80% of his body and then a rare neuromuscular disease. In spite of it all, he found the courage to keep moving on. In this episode, he shares his journey through trauma and what those experience has taught him. If you feel that you might be alone or you wonder if you might not be as strong as you think, this is the episode that can give you a beacon of hope and proof that you can overcome even the most dire circumstances. Get Jeff’s new book Blue Sky Lightning on Amazon. Find out more at Blue Sky Bolt. Jeff Kuhn: The book starts with the first lightning strike, that was a fire at my home. I had gone to bed the night before on a Friday night. I was married to my first wife at the time, she was out of town, and we had a dog, Sparky, a yellow lab. But she was outside. What I remember, because things get pretty hazy as you might guess—it’s all in the book, but the first lightning strike happened early in the morning on a Saturday in October. The first thing I remember was a brief period of time where a couple of men are looking at me, and it’s hazy, and I’m sure I’m not doing very well at that point and they said, “We’re here to help you.” They looked like firemen, that little clip, that’s all I remember. The next thing I remember is being loaded into an ambulance. If you’ve ever been loaded into an ambulance, which I hope you haven’t, but if you have, the wheels underneath the gurney come flying up and bang into the bottom as they load you into the back of the ambulance. I think that sort of woke me up a little bit for a second, and then I was back where I don’t remember anything. The third thing I remember was the ambulance going down the freeway to the hospital. What’s funny is I’m sure the siren was on but I don’t remember any noise, I just remember trees flying by. It appeared as though we’re obviously going at a very quick rate of speed. In my memory, it seemed like a hundred miles an hour, and the last thing I remember is looking up and there was a guy whose face was right above me. He was a paramedic, and he just said, “You’re going to be fine.” That’s the last thing I remember. Once I got to the hospital, they put me in a medically induced coma that I didn’t actually come out of for another month. So just those three little memories are all I remember for the next month. The first lightning strike, just to be honest, is probably good I don’t remember. It obviously was a very painful traumatic thing to happen to you to be badly burned, but fortunately, I don’t remember all that happening. When I came out of the coma like a month into the hospital stay, I had no memory of being burned or the fire and that’s probably a blessing. I was thinking, if I did remember all that really clearly, that could lead to post traumatic stress disorder, having to relive that. I think the brain actually as a defense mechanism shuts down a lot of your memory of what happened. Waking Up Charlie Hoehn: Wow, what did your family and friends say to you when you came out of the coma? Were you just bewildered? Jeff Kuhn: I was still in a fog. They still had me on a lot of pain medication,

Dr. Jack Cochran, the author of Healer, Leader, Partner has been repeatedly named on Modern Healthcare’s list of influential physician executives. He worked extensively with national health policy development, including working with the White House and United States Congress. In this episode, we talk about the rapidly changing world of healthcare and the demands that it puts on physicians. Jack believes that physicians need to be healers, confidants, and caregivers while developing skills as leaders and partners. By the end of this episode, Dr. Cochran will lay out a roadmap for physicians to become more effective, compassionate, and confident leaders and transform healthcare into what patients really want and deserve. Get Jack’s new book Healer, Leader, Partner on Amazon. Jack Cochran: I started out wanting to be a pediatrician and a surgeon, pediatric surgeon, and pediatric plastic surgery, taking care of kids with deformities and those kinds of things. Tremendously gratifying, tremendously challenging, and yet a great advance for kids’ self-esteem and their sense of wellbeing. A marvelous clinical career. As I was going along that pathway, I began to find this very kind of annoying reality, which is my colleagues from the insurance companies would often write me back, well that sounds like it’s purely cosmetic. I would write them back. I said, “I know that this is not going to make their heart beat better or their lungs work better, but there’s no more functional organ on a six year old than their face.” If you talk about the development of their life, the development of their expectations, their dreams, their self-esteem, deformity of the face is a very significant obstacle. If you don’t see it from what I’m saying because I’m not saying it clearly enough, spend an afternoon in my clinic and see the parents and the children that experience these things. Then say to them, maybe to their face, this is cosmetic. As if that was some sort of a pejorative judgment on their motivation and my recommendation. That sort of occurred over time that got me interested in not only the clinical side of medicine but the more total approach to the patient and their care and really perked up my ears to the dilemma of the patient. As I often tell my physician colleagues, I call these the big contrasts. One big contrast in medicine is the reality of the patient versus the reality of the physician. Now, I say that because many physicians are becoming less happy and are more grumpy and more disillusioned with healthcare and I don’t discredit the reasons that they feel that way, there are reasons that have made it harder to be a doctor and made it more difficult to practice. But, physicians who are still respected, delivering tremendous professional care and experiences in caring for people in need, becoming progressively more unhappy, I contrast that with the patient because the role of patient is involuntary. I know there are patients who are hypochondriac. But the rule of patient is involuntary. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, “It’s been a while since I had a real sickness or an injury. I’d like to take that, try that out again.” The role of patient is involuntary, and often instantaneous. You go from healthy to a car accident, you go from well to a cancer diagnosis. You go from feeling perfect to having a heart attack. The contrast between physicians becoming progressively more unsettled with their...

All too often, the relationships between chairpersons and CEOs are filled with tension that affects the entire organization. If you want to create a more productive atmosphere, senior leaders need to identify the source of their issues so they can build a new bond that’s based on trust and respect. That’s where Isabelle Nüssli, the author of Cockfighting, comes in. After she lived through her own toxic chairperson-CEO scenario, she decided to uncover the roots behind these complicated relationships. She interviewed more than 70 chairpersons and CEOs, and that is what she shares in her book Cockfighting. In this episode, we go over her findings on the conscious and unconscious drivers of conflict. The things that intensify those conflicts. If you’re ready to break through the classic Chairperson-CEO conflict, and build a new partnership that empowers your productivity, innovation and success. This is the episode for you. Get Isabelle’s new book Cockfighting on Amazon. Find out more at Leverage Your Self. Isabelle Nüssli: I spoke to other people in senior positions, and I learned that I was far from alone. Most of them have experienced similar turmoil but had never spoken about it. Interestingly, it seems that admitting issues of this nature are almost a taboo—admitting that is weak management or weak power structure or weak leadership structure. That’s when I realized that something could and actually should be done about it. That’s when I started with my process and ultimately led me to the writing of the book Cockfighting. Charlie Hoehn: Was this primarily written for the CEO and Chairperson relationship or is this a book that’s also for the CEO and the assistant relationship, you know? Any sort of dynamic like that? Isabelle Nüssli: It’s a very good question. I actually started off writing it in context with the chairperson-CEO relationship or conflict. The more deeply I dove into it, the more I realized that most high level relationships, especially on power and exposure, ultimately leadership are involved, it affects these relationships too. The CCCC—this Chairperson-CEO Collaboration Contract—can be applied by other business couples. Conflict Background Charlie Hoehn: Can you kind of lay out what kind of problems you’ve seen with the CEO-Chairperson relationship when they’re in so much conflict? What does this do to them on a personal level and on a professional level? Isabelle Nüssli: Yes, absolutely. First of all, if it stretches yourself so much, you learn a lot about yourself. I remember in my case, I was lucky that I was able to sleep well. It was like short nights too, but I did sleep well. However, amongst the 70 chairpersons and CEO I interviewed, there were quite many that don’t sleep well. Quality of sleep is a very strong indicator of your health or wellbeing. On a personal level, there’s psychological pain, so the doubts and the fears and loneliness. It’s cold and rough up there. That’s definitely something that’s usually kept under the covers. It’s not spoken about. You can’t show vulnerability, you cannot expose weakness to others. That’s actually something that gets to your health. That often spills over into family life. I see business family like a three-legged chair. The three legs are connected, and all need to be healthy in order for the chair to stand properly and to be stable. Suffering can lead to health issues as mentioned—sleeping disorders or physical pain, and of course worse case too.

No one likes talking about death. No one likes talking about taxes or financial planning. But so many smart, well educated women are blindsided when unexpected curve balls in life throw their personal and financial lives into chaos. Naz Barouti, the author of Love, Death, and Money, believes you need a comprehensive and easy to follow guide to help you get all your legal affairs in order so that you’re ready for anything that life throws your way. Naz is well-known in the legal world as an estate planning guru and really, an advocate for women. In 2011, she established Barouti Law Corporation, which now has five offices in Southern California, and she’s also the cohost of a weekly radio program called Protecting Your Family. In this episode, we talk about the most important things you need to know in order to plan for the unexpected. Whether you’re a young single woman who is just starting out or a mom who is concerned for her family’s wellbeing, this is the episode that will allow you to face the future fully prepared.   Get Naz’s new book Love, Death, and Money on Amazon. Find out more at NazBarouti.com.   Naz Barouti: A lot of people, when they first meet me, I look very white. I look very American, blue eyes, blond hair. But they don’t really know my background and my story unless I tell them my name. I wasn’t born here. I was born in the Middle East. I was born in Iran. My story’s a really interesting one, because I literally am an American dream. My parents came here when they were really young. I had to basically adapt to a new surrounding, new language, new lifestyle. And my parents did an excellent job of adapting. A lot of people, when they move to America, they try to find cities now where people that speak the same language or have the same background are. You get comfortable in that bubble. I’ve always been put into situations where I had to be uncomfortable. Either people spoke a different language, they had a different background, a different religion… I’m very blessed to have grown up like that, because I think it makes me a people person. I can adapt very easily. I can get along with anyone. You can put me in a room with a hundred people who are from different backgrounds, different religions, even if they speak different languages, and I will find a common ground with them. That’s because of how I was raised. I’m so grateful that I was exposed to different people and religions. I went to Catholic school my whole life, and my family wasn’t even Catholic. I always wanted to be a lawyer. That was never a question for me but once I started my practice and I started seeing clients that were coming into my office, mostly people that were married, trying to plan for the future, for the day that they weren’t around, making sure their kids or their families were protected. I was noticing a trend where the men were dominating the conversation or the men were the ones scheduling the appointments or they were giving off some vibes where they weren’t being transparent or forward with how much money they had. Because they didn’t want their spouses, their significant others to figure it out. I could read the body language, I could see that the women were very uncomfortable. Or then I had women making appointments, saying, “I’m getting a divorce, I don’t have anything, I don’t where anything is, I don’t know where to start.”

Alex Barseghian is the author of Localmotion and the group vice president of sales and marketing for United States retail at Black Hawk Networks. He actually—true story—had to reschedule this recording of our podcast because he was on the Ellen Show talking about Happy Cards. Alex has an amazing background as an entrepreneur. He founded Samba Connects, which became the fastest growing company in the United Kingdom and was a top 50 fastest growing company in Canada two years in a row. He is responsible for driving over 15 billion dollars in revenue for products and services through retail and digital channels. Before that, he headed up original content for Black Hawk, where he was in charge of new products and launched Happy Cards in over 50,000 retail locations. Today, we’re going to be talking about how technology is personalizing the global market place and the lessons that Alex has learned in his career. Alex believes that the global marketplace is booming and as it grows, brands that are aligned to the individual needs in community thinking will be the biggest winners in the future. Whether you’re in an industry from food or tech or healthcare, the bottom line is that customers just want high quality products in personalized experiences rather than one size fits all solutions. If you’re in a traditional company, and you know that you need to stay afloat in this rapidly changing landscape, this is the episode for you.   Get Alex’s new book Localmotion on Amazon. Alex Barseghian: About 10 years ago, when my wife and I were pregnant, we wanted to move from Montreal back to Toronto to have the baby with the family. This was in 2008, which was probably the worst time to launch a business because of the financial crisis. We moved from Montreal to Toronto to start Samba, which was my new business at the time. It was difficult because I had no clue what I was getting myself into. It was like a diver looking at a bottomless ocean that never ends—that’s how it felt in the beginning. I was worried, when I have a baby coming to life in a few months, I’m launching a business that probably wouldn’t be the right time to do it. That was the mindset. Looking into what it is today, I am so glad for many different reasons, I did it. Charlie Hoehn: Why were you glad you launched Samba during that time? Alex Barseghian: Well, for a bunch of different reasons, the biggest one is that, I love to test myself just to try something new, whether it’s jumping off planes or going to a new country that I’ve never been to, putting myself in awkward situations. I think that’s how you learn a lot about yourself. Doing a new business from scratch, not knowing the business at all, was for me the ultimate test of, “Can I actually do this?” It’s a great thing to do because you get to know yourself, you get to know who really supports you and who doesn’t. I’m not just talking about family, I’m talking about friends and, more importantly, to bring an idea to life. Kind of like this book. The New Underdogs Charlie Hoehn: What happened after you launched Samba? What happened in your career? Alex Barseghian: We grew this company to go from about zero to just under 50 million dollars in six years. We launched in the UK as well—we were the fastest growing company in the UK. A couple of things that really came out of this, I love rooting for the underdogs. I think a lot of people do,

Now, for most women, it may seem like being a home maker and climbing the corporate ladder are two mutually exclusive goals. According to Julie-Anne Lutfi, author of Diapers, Date Nights and Deadlines as well as wife, mother, and corporate attorney, you don’t have to choose. You can achieve a successful career and a happy personal life. That’s what this episode is all about. If you’re a woman who believes it’s possible to excel at work and at home, this episode will show you how it’s done. Just a quick note, there is some adult themed content in this episode so if you’re listening in the car with your kids, you might want to hold off until you get some headphones in.   Get Julie-Anne’s new book Diapers, Date Nights and Deadlines on Amazon. Julie-Anne Lutfi: I really just wanted to share my experience about being a working mom who is from a very traditional background. I’m expected to stay at home. My husband is a very traditional Lebanese guy, and when he married me, he knew I had a career but he didn’t know to which extent I would want to develop my career. He may have thought I would eventually lower my hours and have a couple of kids and cook in the evenings and clean on the weekends and maybe during the week. It just hasn’t turned out that way. We laugh all the time about people who look at us and ask us, how does this work? You guys are both super traditional but Julie’s out at work every day, she’s gone early in the morning and comes home in the evening and works all night, every night on the weekends, on vacation if I even take vacations, which frankly I don’t. People are always asking me, how the hell does it work? How are you still married after five years and how do you look like you still like each other? Just how does it work? That’s why I wanted to write the book. I wanted to share my experience, and it may not suit everyone. My ideas and the way I function may not please everyone either, but that’s okay. If somebody can just get a few ideas from the way we do it, then that’s great. Having It All Charlie Hoehn: How the hell does this work? Julie-Anne Lutfi: Well, it works with a lot of gratitude, and that’s the one thing that I can’t stress enough. The only way that we really are able to preserve our marriage and to make everything work is to be in a constant mode of, “I’m grateful for you.” And to always feel like you have the better end of the stick. Even though I want to do the dishes and I want to do the laundry and I want to cook, I just can’t. Right now, I’m the one who makes more money and my husband is the one who has more time, so while he would be expected usually to, as tradition would want it, be the breadwinner and to bring home the money, right now, I’m the one doing that. We’re both always grateful for the other one picking up the other’s slack, and that’s really how it works. Charlie Hoehn: What do your families think of your dynamic? Julie-Anne Lutfi: It was definitely an adjustment. My mom for example, she’ll come to our house to visit the kids on vacation or doing a holiday. She lives in France, so she’ll stay with us, and I’ll undoubtedly be on my computer late at night and she’ll take care of the kids and my husband will be playing with them. She’ll see my husband carrying a load of laundry downstairs, and my mom will legit apologize for the way in which she raised me. She’ll say, “I’m so sorry. I’m so embarrassed,

Dr. David Smith, the author of How Successful Teams Work, earned his PhD in organizational leadership and developed his own leadership program. In this episode, we talk about how in a lot of business settings, many managers and their employees sort of ignore the fact that one on one is where leadership magic really happens. David is going to break down the science of effective leadership and how to build these great relationships that produce incredible results for your team. Whether you’re a team leader looking for better results or you’re a team member who is hoping to improve your work life, this is the episode for you.   Get David’s new book How Successful Teams Work on Amazon. Find out more at LMXPro.com.   David Smith: I’m 61 years old, got my PhD three years ago, started my PhD studies about eight years ago, which leads to our financial crisis. A large insurance company I was working for had major problems and management shifts all over the place, and I started thinking about my managers over my career. I had like three managers within six months, and all three were very different. My position in the company is very low on the totem pole, highly compensated but in sales, you get highly compensated with no managerial authority whatsoever. With the financial crisis, it turns out I had a little more time on my hands, so I started taking my PhD classes for the heck of it. I started thinking about why are my bosses different? I looked back 32 years previously and they were all different. It had actually make me think about leaving my company, and so forth. That’s really the essence of it, is curiosity into the science behind that leadership. What was the difference? Why were people different? I didn’t have the academic background to understand it. I certainly am smart enough to figure out they were different and how they were different, but why? What was the difference in them that affected the difference in me and affected my job performance? Charlie Hoehn: What did you find? What was the secret to their successful team work creating abilities? David Smith: That is a great question. It actually took about probably four years into my studies, and this was graduate school where you don’t have – as a distance learning, North Central University out of San Diego, which is not distance to me but still, I didn’t meet in classes and didn’t have professors. We had mentors that were PhDs. I just basically did a lot of reading. You read all the curvy books, the academic books, the textbooks, papers, and you write papers. So you read and write, and it was about four years of this back and forth of reading information, learning information, distilling it that I finally came across this academic theory called leader-member exchange. It’s been around a long time, and it’s been studied by social scientists quite a lot. It just said, “here is what you’ve been looking for. Now, you need to study it in depth and understand it.” That’s where I got to after about four years of my studies. The Leader-Member Exchange Charlie Hoehn: Tell me about leader-member exchange. I feel like I might be able to guess the definition but then again, I’ve never heard this phrase. So break it down for me. David Smith: That’s the challenge. Actually, it’s an incredibly important point to understand that it is called leader-member exchange ...

This episode really struck a chord with me, and it will very likely strike a chord with you as well. This is about what happens after you’ve reached the top of the ladder and the pinnacle of achievements in your work, in your life. Because before you celebrate, Brandon Steiner, the author of Living on Purpose, believes you need to take a second look around. You might not be defining your triumph in the most stable or sustainable way. Because even though success is rewarding, you might be on the wrong ladder or the ladder that you’re climbing up might be on the wrong building. Brandon is the CEO of Steiner Sports, which is the country’s leading sports collectible and athlete marketing business. In this episode, we talk about the pillars of a satisfying and fulfilling existence. Brandon shares some really valuable lessons and some really great stories from his own life. I took a ton of notes while I was speaking with Brandon. If you’ve ever experienced success or being rich but you felt bankrupt emotionally or spiritually or you knew that you weren’t the partner or the parent or the friend that you wanted to be. Well, this episode is definitely for you. Get Brandon’s new book Living on Purpose on Amazon. Find out more at Brandon Steiner. Brandon Steiner: People always ask me, how did you start Steiner Sports? I hear the word purpose or finding your why. I find that everybody’s throwing those things around, but I think that sometimes people make that a lot more complicated than what it really is. For me, everything I’ve done that’s been good, great, and extraordinary has usually started with a purpose. Sometimes, that purpose is not always the biggest one. I’m on the train, and my mom had just passed away in 1994, June 17th. It was a very tough day for me. It was one of my first days going back to work and the Rangers had just won the Stanley Cup, and they hadn’t won a cup in 54 years. I’m a huge New York Ranger fan. I mean, I bleed Ranger blue, so it was very mixed emotions. I was trying to enjoy the fact that finally my team won, and on the other hand, I just lost one of the most pivotal people in my life, period. The main thing that was really bothering me on this particular morning was the fact that I was on this metro north train. One guy had his shoes off, another person talking on the phone, another person eating. Train was overcrowded. On the way to work, one of the people in the car that we shared took over the train, was having a fight with her spouse, she was crying because they were about to get divorced. It wasn’t working out for me. I just had to get off this train. I just can’t go to work every day on this train. It’s just not for me, from the scheduling standpoint, the crowdedness standpoint. I looked down at this person’s newspaper, on the back page of the Daily News, it was Mark Messier. It was the captain of the Rangers, just won the cup and had the big Stanley cup in his hand. He had this incredible grin on his face. I’m just thinking, man, God, look how happy he is and look how unhappy I am. Boy, would I be happy if I can just get off this train. And I said to myself, Well, in order to get off this train, I got to buy a car. I just got to figure out how I can make a lot of money. I go home and tell my wife, “I got this extra money I’ve made, and I’m going to buy a car and commute to work.” My brain just started going a million miles an hour trying to figure out all these schemes and dreams, how I can make some money.

Allan Misner, the author of The Wellness Roadmap, is a certified personal trainer, as well as a certified functional aging specialist. He’s the creator of the 40+ Fitness Community which provides one on one and group fitness coaching, nutritional guidance, and personal training for clients over the age of 40. He’s also the host of the 40+ Fitness Podcast, where he’s interviewed hundreds of health and wellness experts. This episode is for people who are finding it harder and harder to stay fit as they get older. It’s harder to lose weight because they’ve had decades of mediocre or even poor exercise and eating habits. After they’ve hit 40 years old, they notice it’s substantially different from how they felt when they were healthy in their 20s. This episode is really for anybody who is tired of wasting time with fad diets and training programs designed for millennials. Allan has a really awesome system. I study mental health, emotional health, physical health, and I’ve been sort of in this space myself for several years. It was almost uncanny how many topics Allan covered that I’ve seen not only work on a personal level but are also backed by science as some of the most effective ways to get healthy and get fit, both on a physical level and on an emotional and a spiritual level. This episode will help you along the path—it is your roadmap.   Get Allan’s new book The Wellness Roadmap on Amazon. Find out more at WellnessRoadmapBook.com.   Allan Misner: I was a C-suite executive at a Fortune 500 company. I had income, I had stuff, and I decided I really needed to take a break and go on vacation. So I went back to Puerto Vallarta and I went out, there was a volleyball game and I love sand volleyball, it’s one of my favorite sports, I’ve loved playing it my entire adult life, since I was first introduced to it. But what I found was, that I couldn’t stay in the game. I had to sub out and was the first time in my life that I just felt like I had lost something important. I was sitting on the beach the next morning meditating. Starting the Rollercoaster Charlie Hoehn: Were you running out of breath, were you physically exhausted? What was happening? Allan Misner: Yeah, I was exhausted. I thought I was basically on the verge of having a heart attack and dying. It wasn’t a call the hospital thing, it was just the exertion of trying to play in the sand, even when I knew I was moving really slow and missing points and costing my team. I’m uber competitive when it comes to those types of things. For me to lose a point, I was mad at myself, as I would be at a professional player when you’re yelling at the TV. I’m yelling at myself—the way I put it, a fat bastard. Even to myself. The next morning, I’m sitting down to meditate, and I’m like, okay, what are the things I need to do to fix this to get myself bac? I’m only 39 years old and suddenly I’m an old, fat bastard. It was just kind of one of those moments where I said okay, I have to change. I started down the path of this rollercoaster of having some good times and some bad times over the course of the next 10, 11 years. It was just this huge struggle for me to figure out what I needed to do. Finally it all clicked into place. It wasn’t any just one little time where I said okay, I got it, I figured it out, it was a series of lessons over the course of about...

Dr. Steve Albrecht, author of Some People are No Damn Good, has spent his life and career protecting our schools, workplaces and neighborhoods from crime and violence. In fact, in 1994, he co-wrote one of the first business books on workplace violence. In this conversation, we talk about the warning signs for active shooters on campus and at work. Keeping your kids safe from sexual predators, scary neighbors, and bullies. It’s all here in this conversation. We talk about drugs, sex, guns, cops, crooks and why a low crime rate doesn’t make us feel very safe. By the end of this episode, you’ll have a self-help guide for your home, your work and your family.   Get Steve’s new book Some People Are No Damn Good on Amazon. Find out more at DrSteveAlbrecht.com. Steve Albrecht: I always wanted to be a cop. When I was about 11 or 12 years old I thought I wanted to be a baseball player. I didn’t have the skills to be a really good baseball player, but I had a life changing moment when I was 15. I worked at a grocery store in San Diego, and I’d been there about five weeks and had worked with a friend of mine who I’ve known since elementary school. Late one night, two guys came in with guns and grabbed me, grabbed my partner, and threw us on the ground. Closed the doors to the store, the guy put a 357 revolver to the back of my head, and said, give me the keys to the safe. Not being bullet proof, I said to my partner, he’s got them and pointed to him. These guys took about 800 bucks form the safe, which is a lot of money in 1978. I was 15 years old, I weighed about 105 pounds, I’d kissed one girl, not very successfully. I’d never driven a car. I didn’t have much life experience to pass before me when I was laying on the ground with a gun to my head. I thought to myself, “If I survive this, I’m going to go be a cop.” I’m going to lift some weights, I’m going to eat some protein shakes, I’m going to go be a cop. And that’s what I did. They caught the guy later on and I testified against him, but all through high school, I prepared myself to do that job. I lifted weights in college and I got out of the University of San Diego in May of ’84 and I went to the police academy in San Diego in July of 1984. Being robbed at 15 years old changed my life and put me on a trajectory to think about cops and crooks and crime and protecting people and I became the protector at age 21 for the city of San Diego, me and 2,000 other cops. That’s how I started into this subject matter. Charlie Hoehn: Wow, not only have you had a long career as a police officer, you have also written, this is your 20th book. Steve Albrecht: Well, what happened was, I came out of University of San Diego with a degree in English, and what do you in English degree besides be a teacher or maybe go be a cop. I’d always been a writer. I’d started writing mystery stories for these magazines like Elory Queen’s mystery magazine or Alfred Hitchcock’s mystery magazine when I was a kid. Tried to get stuff published, was always tinkering with the typewriter, even in elementary school or junior high and high school especially in college. As an English major, I said, how am I going to use my degree as a cop? I started running police columns for our police newspaper in San Diego, I started running for police magazines, and then I sort of branched off from there and said well, I can write for other national publications, which I did. Back in those days, you would send off a query or an article,

John Reid is the author of Moving From Models to Mindsets and the founder and president of JMReid group, whose clients have included Ernest and Young, Pro Am Pack, Local Healthcare Change, Ryerson and Mitsubishi UFJ financial group. In 2015, JMReid groups work was featured in Training’s Top 10 Hall of Fame Outstanding Training initiatives. John was previously named a rising star in the Chemical Industry by Chemical Week, and he earned Forum’s 1999 Rookie of the Year and 2000 Sales person of the Year titles. John believes that focusing on changing the sales person’s mindset is the key to successful selling. I’ve got to say, after talking with him, I agree. I’ve heard so many cookie cutter methods of selling and I’ve gone through training programs, and John dismisses all of those. His approach is centered around context and mindset and listening and curiosity, and these mindsets that John talks about really work. It’s not so much tactics, it’s simply being a person with another person and having a conversation. All the pressure that you might feel as a sales person to pick the best model goes away. If you’re a sales manager or a sales person and you need to perform at the peak of your abilities. John wants you to know that a one size fits all approach doesn’t work. There is a better way. That’s what you’re about to learn. Now, here is our conversation with John Reid.   Get John’s new book Moving from Models to Mindsets on Amazon. Find out more at JMReidGroup.com.   John Reid: I went to University of Maryland as a marketing major, and I never had had a chemistry course in my life. Back in those days, companies would interview on campus, and one of the companies that I interviewed was Dell Chemical. At that time, Dell Chemical was looking for people that they thought were personable, that could build relationships, and they had decided that whatever chemistry that was needed, they would teach them. I started with Dell Chemical having never taken a chemistry course in my life. I still haven’t to this date. The eighth grade, tenth grade, I never took a chemistry course in my life. Now I’m selling chemicals and I’m wildly successful selling chemicals. I know I’m wildly successful because I was pretty rapidly at number one in the ranking system of sales people at Dell Chemical. I think I was very fortunate—because I didn’t know anything about chemistry, I was far more curious than my competition. Even my competition outside the company or my competition inside the company. Other people are people who are trapped or cursed if you will, by their own knowledge. They gotten educated, they knew a lot and so the last thing they wanted to do is show up at a client and ask a question that they believe they should know the answer to. Meanwhile, I’m like pointing at tanks and going, “What’s that,” you know? “What did that do?” People, when they hear this story sometimes, go, “Wow, that’s kind of embarrassing,” but people like to talk about what they do. It’s okay if you don’t know what the tank is, because it gives them a chance to talk about the tank. I recently met a guy at EY, Ernest and Young and he’s a partner there and he has started with ExxonMobile. I kind of shared with him the story and he goes, “My gosh, you’re right, these people love their tanks.”