The Action Catalyst

Noted Computer Science professor and bestselling author Cal Newport explains the concept of "deep work", and the connection between Henry Ford's assembly line principle and the “cognitive assembly line” of the modern era. Hear Cal's full interview in Episode 237 of The Action Catalyst.

Noted Computer Science professor and bestselling author Cal Newport explains the concept of "deep work", the danger of multitasking, the outright stupidity of email, diversification of communication, the connection between Henry Ford and the “cognitive assembly line”, and rethinking how we're thinking about our thinking.

Laura Stack is an award-winning keynote speaker and bestselling author of eight books. She is a noted expert in employee and team productivity. She is best known by her moniker, “The Productivity Pro®.” Her engaging personality, combined with over 25 years of experience helping organizations achieve RESULTS, have made her one of the most sought-after experts and keynote speakers in her field. Funny, engaging, and full of real-life strategies that work, Laura will change mindsets and attitudes—so your team can maximize its productivity, increase market share, strengthen performance, increase sales, and get the job done right! What makes her unique? Laura is the President & CEO of The Productivity Pro, Inc., a boutique consulting firm helping leaders increase workplace performance in high-stress environments. Her latest book, FASTER TOGETHER: Accelerating Your Team’s Productivity (Berrett-Koehler), hit bookstores in January 2018. Stack is a past president of the National Speakers Association and is a member of its prestigious CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, which has fewer than 175 members worldwide. She is a high-content Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), who educates, entertains, and motivates professionals to deliver bottom-line results. Laura has been featured in the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, and Forbes magazine and has been a spokesperson for Microsoft, Dannon, belVita, 3M, Skillsoft, Office Depot, Day-Timer, Fellowes, and Xerox. Her client list includes top Fortune 500 companies, including Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Aramark, Bank of America, GM, Wells Fargo, and Time Warner, plus government agencies such the United States Air Force Academy, the Census Bureau, the U.S. Senate, and even the IRS. Her books have been published and translated in over 20 countries. And her audiences? Love her as much for her energy as they do the solutions she presents. On stage, Laura is a powerhouse of ideas, and more importantly, ACTION. She’s just what you need to accelerate your team’s productivity and propel your organization to all new levels! More from Laura at fastertogetherthebook.com Show Highlights: It is very hard to be productive when you are surrounded by people who are not concerned with their own productivity. @laurastackYou don’t know the capabilities of your team members until you dive into deep collective effort toward productivity. @laurastackA team is the most powerful productivity machine. @laurastackWhat would it look like if everyone did their share of the work? @laurastackAllow people to own the process and have a say. @laurastackTrust doesn’t take long to break but takes a long time build. @laurastackDaily responsibilities by design, not by default. @laurastackWhat are the obstacles that are inefficient parts of your processes. @laurastack The Action Catalyst is a weekly podcast hosted by Dan Moore, President of Southwestern Advantage, the oldest direct-sales company in America, and Partner with Southwestern Consulting. With more than 45 years in sales leadership and marketing management, Dan has a wealth of knowledge to share on how to make better use of time to achieve life, sales, and other business goals. Each week, he interviews some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Subscribe on iTunes and please leave a rating and review!

William Vanderbloemen has been able to combine over 15 years of ministry experience as a Senior Pastor with the best practices of Executive Search to provide churches with a unique offering: a deep understanding of local church work with the very best knowledge and practices of professional executive search. Prior to his founding The Vanderbloemen Search Group, William studied executive search under a mentor with over 25 years of executive search at the highest level. His learning taught him the very best corporate practices, including the search strategies used by the internationally known firm Russell Reynolds. William also has experience as a Manager in Human Resources in a Fortune 200 company, where he focused on integration of corporate culture and succession planning. All of these experiences have come together with his pastoral work to form a unique gift for helping churches and ministries connect with the right key people. Prior to executive search, William led growth and innovation in churches in North Carolina, Alabama, and Houston. During his time in Alabama, William had the chance to help rebuild and relocate an ailing congregation, and lead them to new levels of growth. At 31, he was elected Senior Pastor for the First Presbyterian Church of Houston, a church of about 5,000 adults and 1,500 children strong. It is Houston’s oldest congregation. William is regularly invited to speak across the country in both church services and as a resource to churches and conferences on leadership. His book Next: Pastoral Succession That Works on effective pastoral leadership and succession was released through Baker Books in September 2014, and his book Search: The Pastoral Search Committee Handbook was released through B&H Books in June 2016. His latest book is Culture Wins: The Roadmap To An Irresistible Workplace and is released through Savio Republic. William holds degrees from Wake Forest University and Princeton Theological Seminary. Besides helping connect churches with key staff and preaching, William spends a whole lot of time with family and connecting with people. William is an avid social networker. Whether connecting with friends, candidates for searches he is doing, or church members, he loves to network, and he would love to interact with you through Facebook and/or Twitter William, his wife Adrienne, their seven children, and their poodles Moses and Pearl live in Houston. In his free time, William enjoys running, working out, and caddying for his kids, who are now better golfers than he is. More from William at: vanderbloemen.com Get the book: culturewins.org Culture test: TheCultureTool.com Show Highlights: 2 out of 3 Americans hate their job. @wvanderbloemenPeople don’t leave jobs, they leave managers. @wvanderbloemenTurnover is usually a problem with management, not a problem with culture. @wvanderbloemenPeople leave their job because they don’t know what their job is. @wvanderbloemenPeople leave because they aren’t equip with the tool to get their job done. @wvanderbloemenThere must be a why behind what your employees are doing. @wvanderbloemenRetention is the ballgame for the future of the American workforce. @wvanderbloemenYour ROI will go up if you can lower the rate of turnover. @wvanderbloemenHire around your cultural values. @wvanderbloemenFind people to hire who are the same kind of crazy as you. @wvanderbloemenMost cultural problems are really a hiring problem. @wvanderbloemenCultural value is 'how do we get the work done?' @wvanderbloemenWhen we are functioning at our best, what do we do as a team that is common to us and unc...

Mark Deutschmann is a community builder who has worked with neighbors, city leaders and nonprofits for 30-plus years while helping shape development in Nashville and revitalizing the city’s most sought-after neighborhoods. Deutschmann started selling real estate in 1986 and founded Village Real Estate Services in 1996, which now employs more than 350 agents and staff. In 2003, he started Core Development Services, a company actively developing Nashville’s urban center with adaptive reuse and mixed-use infill development. The Village Fund, the nonprofit and charitable arm of Village Real Estate Services, has provided $2 million in grants to organizations helping to enrich and strengthen Nashville. Ever engaged in the community, Deutschmann is chair of the Urban Land Institute Nashville and recently stepped down after 6.5 years as president of Greenways for Nashville. He served on Nashville Mayor Megan Barry’s Transit and Affordability Task Force. He received the Community Service award from the Greater Nashville Association of Realtors in 2013 and the Sustainable Tennessee Award from the Tennessee Environmental Council in 2014. The Go Green program Deutschmann developed inspired Nashville’s Home Energy Savings program, which improves energy efficiency and reduces utility and home maintenance costs so seniors and low-income families can continue living in their neighborhoods. In his book One-Mile Radius – Building Community from the Core, Deutschmann shares what he has learned about activating Nashville’s neighborhoods, connecting them and helping them become sustainable, and using business as a tool for positive social change. He holds undergraduate degrees in zoology and Spanish and an MBA in international management. Show HighLights: I had two strategies to make sure I stood out in a crowd and they helped grow my business. @MarkDeutschmannWhen people thought of Hillsboro Village, they thought of me. @MarkDeutschmannThink about who you are as you define your strategy. @MarkDeutschmannWhen you get into business, you come from somewhere and have something in your core competency that can be applied to what you're doing. @MarkDeutschmannYou have to be able to know what to say when people ask "what do you do?" @MarkDeutschmannYou don't have to stick with the same strategy forever. @MarkDeutschmann The Action Catalyst is a weekly podcast hosted by Dan Moore, President of Southwestern Advantage, the oldest direct-sales company in America, and Partner with Southwestern Consulting. With more than 45 years in sales leadership and marketing management, Dan has a wealth of knowledge to share on how to make better use of time to achieve life, sales, and other business goals. Each week, he interviews some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Subscribe on iTunes and please leave a rating and review!

Celebrated psychologist, author, and Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Adam Grant, explains how original thinkers process risk, the Bill Gates myth vs reality, and how tech pioneers perform “mental time travel”. Hear Adam’s full interview in Episode 233 of The Action Catalyst.

Celebrated psychologist, author, and Professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, Adam Grant, explains how original thinkers balance risk like a stock portfolio, warns of becoming a prisoner of your own prototype, and talks about pouring over clown data, why your best idea is never your favorite idea, performing mental time travel, the advantages of 2nd place, and lessons from conversations with Elon Musk, Larry Page, Mark Cuban, and Jack Dorsey.

Gary Kennedy, general counsel of American Airlines between 2003 and 2013. Kennedy had his dream job in what he calls “the sexiest industry in the world.” His time there was anything but a smooth ride. Kennedy told Corporate Counsel in an interview that from the moment he took the job in 2003 until he retired in 2013, the company was buffeted by crisis after crisis, with the legal department doing much of the navigating. Recently Kennedy’s book, “Twelve Years of Turbulence,” arrived in bookstores telling the inside story of the airline’s fight for survival. Some research and editing for the book was done by former Dallas Morning News aviation reporter Terry Maxon, while former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach, a former AA board member, wrote the foreword. Show Highlights: Gary shares his 9/11 experience with American Airlines.One of our first confirmations was a phone call from a flight attendant on the plane. - Gary KennedyAn important and difficult decision was made to ground all planes right away. - Gary KennedyThe aviation system was shut down for 3 or 4 days entirely. - Gary KennedyPeople did not trust they could fly and fly safely. - Gary KennedyBy 2002, American airlines was loosing 30million dollars a day.- Gary KennedyWe were faced with one problem after the other. - Gary Kennedy The Action Catalyst is a weekly podcast hosted by Dan Moore, President of Southwestern Advantage, the oldest direct-sales company in America, and Partner with Southwestern Consulting. With more than 45 years in sales leadership and marketing management, Dan has a wealth of knowledge to share on how to make better use of time to achieve life, sales, and other business goals. Each week, he interviews some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Subscribe on iTunes and please leave a rating and review!

Skip Prichard is President & CEO of OCLC, a global nonprofit computer library service and research organization. Its goals include furthering access to the world’s information and reducing library costs. He is also the author of The Book of Mistakes: 9 Secrets to Creating a Successful Future. Most recently, Mr. Prichard served for five years as President & CEO of Ingram Content Group, a $1.5B+ global content provider. Mr. Prichard formed ICG by integrating multiple companies into a single company with unified strategy. During that time, he returned the company to a profitable position and oversaw significant growth in the past few years. Additionally, he expanded Ingram’s international locations to continental Europe and Australia, strengthened its digital offerings, and repositioned the company as a service provider. With a career in digital transformations, Mr. Prichard’s views on the future of publishing have been featured in various media including the BBC, New York Times, CNN, NPR, Daily Beast, Harvard Business Review, Information Today, The Bookseller, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and others. He is a frequent keynote speaker at conferences including Tools of Change, BookExpo America, PubWest, IBPA Publishing University, SIIA, Buying & Selling eContent & UKSG. Prior to his appointment at ICG, Mr. Prichard was President & CEO of ProQuest I&L where he led a successful transformation, achieving double-digit growth and returning the company to profitability. Earlier in his career, Mr. Prichard held a number of executive positions with LexisNexis, where as VP of corporate markets he provided information solutions to global corporations. More from Skip Prichard at skipprichard.com or check out his book at thebookofmistakes.com Show Highlights: The most successful people have a sense of urgency. @SkipPrichardYou must prioritize your time. @SkipPrichardThe Book of Mistakes is written as a fable. @SkipPrichardYou remember stories 22 times more than facts. @SkipPrichardHow do I take success principles and put them in a story? @SkipPrichardA huge mistake we makes is to Accept labels people put on us. @SkipPrichardDon’t accept false labels. @SkipPrichardDon’t allow your competition to label you. @SkipPrichard The Action Catalyst is a weekly podcast hosted by Dan Moore, President of Southwestern Advantage, the oldest direct-sales company in America, and Partner with Southwestern Consulting. With more than 45 years in sales leadership and marketing management, Dan has a wealth of knowledge to share on how to make better use of time to achieve life, sales, and other business goals. Each week, he interviews some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Subscribe on iTunes and please leave a rating and review!

Michael Hyatt is the author of the New York Times bestseller, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World and the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want. His newest book, Your Best Year Ever was published in January and has already reached the USA TODAY and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. In 2014, the American Management Association named him as one of “The Top 30 Leaders in Business.” This year, his leadership development firm, Michael Hyatt & Company, made the Inc. 5000, a list of America’s fastest growing, privately-held companies. Michael started his career in the world of traditional media. In fact, he spent most of it in the book publishing industry, most recently as the Chairman & CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, until it was acquired by HarperCollins in 2011. At that time, it was the seventh largest book publishing company in the U.S. Michael was an early adopter of social media. His blog, MichaelHyatt.com, is one of the most popular in the world, with almost a million page views a month. He also has over 700,000 social media followers. His podcast, Lead to Win, is consistently in the iTunes top 50 in Business. He’s the creator of several popular online courses, including 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever, Free to Focus, and Platform University. More than 60,000 people have gone through one or more of his programs. Offstage, Michael is devoted to his family and church. He’s been married to his wife, Gail, for 39 years. They have 5 grown daughters and 8 grandchildren. They live just outside of Nashville, Tennessee. Show Highlights: Limiting beliefs are like blinders or colored glasses that change how we see things. @MichaelHyattThe most damaging limiting beliefs are the ones we have about ourselves. @MichaelHyattResources are never the main challenge of achieving your dreams. @MichaelHyattGet clear on what you want, then the resources will show up. @MichaelHyattIf your goal is in your comfort zone it is not going to ignite your imagination, demand innovation, nor focus your execution. @MichaelHyattYour goal must be risky. @MichaelHyattEvery goal is a project, but not every project is a goal. @MichaelHyattThose who write their goals down have a 42% better chance of reaching that goal. @MichaelHyattPeople lose their way when they don’t first identify their why. @MichaelHyatt The Action Catalyst is a weekly podcast hosted by Dan Moore, President of Southwestern Advantage, the oldest direct-sales company in America, and Partner with Southwestern Consulting. With more than 45 years in sales leadership and marketing management, Dan has a wealth of knowledge to share on how to make better use of time to achieve life, sales, and other business goals. Each week, he interviews some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Subscribe on iTunes and please leave a rating and review!

Southwestern Consulting Senior Partner and Southwestern Speakers President Emmie Brown explains the internalized and societal guilt that comes with motherhood, and how breaking down her daily schedule into 15 minute chunks actually helps her stay more present at both work AND with family time. Hear Emmie's full interview in Episode 227 of The Action Catalyst.

Southwestern Consulting Senior Partner and Southwestern Speakers President Emmie Brown covers the delicate balance of juggling an elite-level professional portfolio with a growing family life, the different ways that men and women prioritize, and how breaking down her daily schedule into 15 minute chunks actually helps her stay more present.

Daniel H. Pink, bestselling author of Drive and To Sell Is Human, unlocks the scientific secrets to good timing to help you flourish at work, at school, and at home. Everyone knows that timing is everything. But we don’t know much about timing itself. Our lives are a never-ending stream of “when” decisions: when to start a business, schedule a class, get serious about a person. Yet we make those decisions based on intuition and guesswork. Timing, it’s often assumed, is an art. In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Pink shows that timing is really a science. Drawing on a rich trove of research from psychology, biology, and economics, Pink reveals how best to live, work, and succeed. How can we use the hidden patterns of the day to build the ideal schedule? Why do certain breaks dramatically improve student test scores? How can we turn a stumbling beginning into a fresh start? Why should we avoid going to the hospital in the afternoon? Why is singing in time with other people as good for you as exercise? And what is the ideal time to quit a job, switch careers, or get married? In When, Pink distills cutting-edge research and data on timing and synthesizes them into a fascinating, readable narrative packed with irresistible stories and practical takeaways that give readers compelling insights into how we can live richer, more engaged lives. More at danpink.com Show Highlights: People spend 40% of their time at work selling even though they don’t have sales in their job title. @DanielPinkIf someone doesn’t trust you, they are not going to buy from you. @DanielPinkWe’ve gone from a world of buyer beware to seller beware. @DanielPinkAttunement: Can you get out of your own head and see things from someone else’s point of view? @DanielPinkAttunement is important to success in sales. @DanielPinkThose who focus on the thoughts and interests do better than those who focus of feelings. @DanielPinkThere is no evidence that strong extroverts are better at sales. @DanielPinkIf we start taking questions of when as seriously as we take questions of who, where, and how, we will live better lives. @DanielPinkI would never allow my family members to willing go to the hospital in the afternoon versus the morning. @DanielPinkWe need to think of breaks as part of our performance. @DanielPink The Action Catalyst is a weekly podcast hosted by Dan Moore, President of Southwestern Advantage, the oldest direct-sales company in America, and Partner with Southwestern Consulting. With more than 45 years in sales leadership and marketing management, Dan has a wealth of knowledge to share on how to make better use of time to achieve life, sales, and other business goals. Each week, he interviews some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Subscribe on iTunes and please leave a rating and review!

Coach Porter won his 250th career game in 2015 and now ranks as the winningest active head coach in Middle Tennessee. He was third on the list in 2016, but Sam Harp of Lebanon (332 wins) and Craig Clayton of Hillsboro (284) both resigned in 2016 to return to their native state of Kentucky to coach. All of Coach Porter’s wins, however, have come in-state at one school. Porter joined former Trousdale County head coach Clint Satterfield as the Class of 2016 inductees into the Tennessee Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame on Dec. 3. He has the most wins in any sport in White House High School history and the school’s longest-tenured coach. On the current staff, he coaches linebackers as a primary position. He has two former players on full-time staff: offensive coordinator Ryan Hamilton and assistant coach Kevin Jackson. His former player and coach Chad Broadrick is now the head coach at East Robertson, and the Blue Devils will play the Indians in week one of the 2017 and 2018 season. It is the first time Coach Porter will be on the opposite sideline of a head coach who is a former player. In 1997, he led the Blue Devils to the Class 3-A state championship, the first athletic state championship in WHHS history, with a 15-0 season and 30-20 victory over Memphis Melrose. In 1997-98, he coached the team to a school record 21 straight wins. The 2012 and 2013 Blue Devils were the District 9-AA champions and made five consecutive appearances in the Class 4-A quarterfinals from 2010-2014, plus seven of the last nine years into the third round the postseason. He lives in White House with his wife of 29 years, Elizabeth. They have two daughters, Haley (Brad Edwards) and Lacey. Porter obtained a B.S. in Health Education from Middle Tennessee State University and a Masters from MTSU, with a plus-30 from MTSU and TSU in administration and supervision. He played high school football at Gallatin High School and college baseball at Volunteer State. His first year at White House was as an assistant in 1983 with head coach Robert Lassiter, and served for two seasons under Bill Locke before taking the head coach position in 1987. He also coached high school baseball at WHHS for four years. As an assistant coach in the mid-1980s, Coach Porter was a part of a close loss to Madison High School when player Joe Pryor used the phrase “Blue Devil Pride” for the first time. B.D.P. is now a staple of the program at White House in the local school and community. As a head football coach, he is a multi-year award winner as the district and region coach of the year, and in 2013 was a head coach for the TACA East vs. West All-Star Football Classic. Show Highlights: It is more important how we are going to respond than how we are perceived. – Coach PorterIt’s about the whole team, not just the leader. – Coach PorterWe take it one game at a time and one practice at a time. – Coach PorterDo what is right and trust. – Coach PorterHang on and stick to what it is you believe in. – Coach PorterThe number one thing you must have in a team is loyalty. – Coach PorterYou need people working side by side with the same values and vision. – Coach PorterI don’t have to have my way, I just want a chance to have my say. – Coach PorterIt is never the destination point, it is always about the journey. – Coach PorterWhen a challenge comes your way, that is an opportunity to show your character. – Coach Porter The Action Catalyst is a weekly podcast hosted by Dan Moore, President of Southwestern Advantage, the oldest direct-sales company in America, and Partner with Southwestern Consulting.

Ron Alford, Senior Partner of Southwestern Consulting, is a certified Top Producer Consultant Sales and Leadership Coach. He specializes in teaching ethical sales techniques and strategies that individuals and teams can use to immediately grow their sales. He is the former Regional Sales Director for The Southwestern Company, recruiting, training, mentoring and managing over 600 salespeople over 19 years. Ron is a company record holder, he personally achieved the highest level of sales 70 times with Southwestern and is Six-time “Sales Manager of the Year” with Southwestern. Ron is also the Leadership Record Holder. He has coached and trained more 10,000+ producers than any other manager in the 158-year-old Southwestern history and personally coached and trained 6 of the top 10 lifetime salespeople in the history of Southwestern. Ron is #3 Lifetime Producer out of over 150,000 salespeople from Southwestern Company history. Ron is also an endurance athlete, having completed many marathons, triathlons and “ultramarathon” events. He is an expert when it comes to recruiting, sales training and coaching individuals and teams to reach higher than they ever imagined. He lives with the strong belief that true success and enduring joy comes from principle-centered living… that’s the foundation, and everything else flows from there. Show Highlights: I’m creating allies in every sense of the word. - Ron Alford ‏Loyalty and consistency are signs of a quality relationship. - Ron Alford ‏We hurt relationships when we get shortsighted and in transactional mode. - Ron Alford ‏Look for those who speak the same language and you both can really help each other. - Ron Alford ‏Look for a way to make a difference in their life. - Ron Alford ‏Be willing to adapt, but be yourself. - Ron Alford ‏How can I kill my ego and be transparent? - Ron Alford ‏True confidence is just conviction. - Ron Alford ‏It’s not what I say, it’s how I make someone feel. - Ron Alford ‏ Learn more about or get in touch with Ron: https://www.southwesterncoaching.com/ron-alford The Action Catalyst is a weekly podcast hosted by Dan Moore, President of Southwestern Advantage, the oldest direct-sales company in America, and Partner with Southwestern Consulting. With more than 45 years in sales leadership and marketing management, Dan has a wealth of knowledge to share on how to make better use of time to achieve life, sales, and other business goals. Each week, he interviews some of the nation’s top thought leaders and experts, sharing meaningful tips and advice. Subscribe on iTunes and please leave a rating and review!