Podcast Blog

Hear how to build workplaces where everyone is valued 

This podcast interview is exceptional. Just listen to Maria Colacurcio tell you about her journey and think about your own. Her career has spanned many different industries, propelling her to leadership positions in innovative companies. Our conversation took us through those profound experiences and unexpected moments that can transform our lives in new ways. Others often accelerated her career, seeing her talent and advocating for her. She speaks about learning on the job and being excited when new career opportunities opened up for her. She also provides wisdom to other women and men trying to build more diverse, equitable and inclusive organizations, and how women are changing our society, a step and then a leap at a time. Enjoy.

Hear why it's so crucial for success to build effective teams

My guest today is a remarkable individual, Mark Samuel, who's now written seven business books. I interviewed Mark back in June of 2019 and thought he had such a powerful message about how to get people to change, even when they really don't want to, that I had him back. Today's podcast is about his most recent book, Reimagine Teams: The Missing Piece in Team Building to Achieve Breakthrough Results. Our discussion focuses on the vital role of accountability, which makes teams work or fail. With over 30 years' experience in the business world, Mark is a transformative leader, having helped hundreds of companies overcome stagnation, transform their businesses, and eliminate toxic work cultures to increase profits, morale and customer experience. Does your culture need an overhaul? Be sure to listen in!

Hear how you can be the change your organization needs 

Can you build better businesses by creating positive cultures in which people can work with joy instead of dread? Yes! That's the premise of Marcella Bremer's book, Developing a Positive Culture where People and Performance Thrive, which focuses on helping organizations achieve more effective, productive cultures. I interviewed Marcella for this podcast back in 2018 and what she said about how you can be a force for change in your organization even if you're not a CEO or boss or manager was so groundbreaking that I want to share our conversation with you again, in my salute to amazing women throughout the fall. Marcella also leads a Positive Culture Academy where you learn how to apply her principles. Every working person needs to hear this!

Hear how to take control of your own career and thrive   

As I celebrate throughout the fall some of the amazing women I've interviewed for our On The Brink podcast, I've chosen certain conversations to share with you again. Today I'd like to revisit my interview with Lisen Stromberg from September 2017. Lisen is the author of Work PAUSE Thrive: How to Pause for Parenthood Without Killing Your Career. Why I enjoyed this conversation so much is because Lisen makes a solid, myth-smashing case for taking a pause from your career to raise your children and then returning to the workforce without skipping a beat or sliding backward. Impossible? No, very possible. She did it and so can you. How? Take a listen.

Hear how to build and scale a wildly successful company

After conducting my 327th podcast for On The Brink, I paused and took a look back at all those interviews. What struck me was how many exceptional women I have had the privilege of speaking with, learning from, and championing. (Yes, I've interviewed amazing men too, but right now I want to focus on the women.) They boldly smashed myths and leapt over barriers meant to hold them back. It made me want to celebrate! I decided to revisit several of them for you to learn from as well, starting with Stephanie Breedlove, author of All In: How Women Entrepreneurs Can Think Bigger, Build Sustainable Businesses and Change the World. Anyone starting a new business, trying to grow the one they've got, or seeking work that's fulfilling will find this podcast full of purpose and meaning. I urge you to take a listen. Stephanie is fantastic!

Hear why a great customer experience means everything

I am always excited to share a great woman’s story with you, our audience. Melissa Copeland is a great woman to know. She had a wonderful career, as so many women have had, only to discover that flying all over the world was not great for her family, or even herself. She pivoted and launched Blue Orbit Consulting, which allowed her to refocus her attention on clients closer to home and on projects dear to her heart—like improving customer interactions for her customers. Our conversations roam all around the challenges she, and I, see among our clients as their customers are changing, service expectations have dramatically shifted (where fast means right now), and staffing has become an uphill climb, to say the least. What to do? Call Melissa, who brings her expertise in organizational transitions and interpersonal growth and development to the task at hand. Clients love her approach, and I think you will as well. Enjoy. 

Hear how to pause your career and still thrive

This was such a great interview with Lisen Stromberg that I'm reposting it for Women's History Month. Before our original conversation, I read her book for a second time, “Work PAUSE Thrive: How to Pause for Parenthood without Killing Your Career," and I know why it has become such a bestseller. It is great! She focuses on many of the same themes as in my new book, "Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business," which you can buy here. It never ceases to amaze me how so much more is expected of working women. How can we excel at our jobs, leave to have a family and then return to the workplace and not fall behind? Listen as Lisen tells us.

Hear how you, yes you, can have a successful company

Throughout Women's History Month I'm re-publishing podcasts which highlight exceptional women I've interviewed who have boldly smashed myths and hurdled over barriers meant to hold them back. Stephanie Breedlove is one of those women. For over 20 years, she has been a powerful voice for women entrepreneurs, co-founding Breedlove & Associates which she sold for $55 million. Her family told her, "Women don't start companies." Aren't we glad she didn't listen. Redefining what women can and can't do in business and everywhere else is why Stephanie is in my new book, "Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business," which you can buy here.

Learn how to see unmet needs and then fill them! 

To celebrate Women's History Month, I'm going back and choosing podcasts to republish which feature women who have smashed myths and refused to be held back from what they knew they could achieve. They pushed forward to be the best that they could be, and so can you. Kim Shepherd "saw" an unmet need and built her company into a highly innovative recruiting service that transformed how businesses recruit new hires. By looking for the "holes in the cheese," she rethought the entire way recruiting is done. Rethinking women's roles in business is the focus of my new book, "Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business," which you can buy here.

Learn how to arm your employees with a sense of purpose!

Stefan and I had one of those great podcast discussions that took us into the work he is doing to get people to pay attention to our sustainability challenges. Unless we stop what we are doing to our environment, we won’t have much left of the earth to live on, he firmly believes. But what I most enjoyed about our talk was learning how Stefan is mobilizing communities to change. As culture change experts, that's what we're all about at SAMC: helping organizations and the individuals within them change. Want or need to change? Stefan teaches us how to do it, now.

Learn how to overcome discriminatory gender bias!

As you may know, I am researching my next book about women and how they are smashing the myths of what they can or cannot do in this world. I was therefore thrilled to have the opportunity to interview Andrea (Andie) Kramer and her husband Al Harris about their new book, “It’s Not You, It’s the Workplace.” Our conversation digs into those lingering myths about women’s workplace relationships. Why, you might wonder, are these relationships so difficult, in which women think other women are just plain mean to each other, don’t help other women succeed, and are more challenging to work for than men. Well, that is all myth. Listen in and learn why.

Hear how to really bring about real change!

Carsten Tams and I have a lot in common. We both work with organizations that need or want to change. And, we both know the challenges of helping people transform their company, unit, department, or just themselves. Human brains hate to change, even when they're facing a crisis or anticipating one coming soon. What to do? Carsten's process, deeply embedded in humanism and the power of human agency, helps organizations change. In our talk, you'll hear about his own experiences, research and case studies. Ready to change? Listen in and let us lend a hand.

 Tristan White explains why culture is everything!

What if you started on your life's journey only to find out that it wasn’t really what you wanted to do? Perhaps you thought you'd become a teacher, until you realized you were never going to love it. Or you thought engineering was your calling, until you found out you weren't very good at math. Today's interviewee, Tristan White, thought he was going to be a physiotherapist working with sports stars helping them stay healthy and agile, until he actually started doing it. Not loving it, he pivoted, and the rest, as he will tell you, is history. We can all learn from Tristan's story!

Mark Samuel explains how he helps people change and succeed!

My podcast guest today is Mark Samuel, execution and transformation expert, best-selling author, Forbes Coaching Council member and the CEO of IMPAQ Corp. Throughout the interview, Mark and I talk about areas of mutual interest and concern, namely, how to help organizations change. Frustrated with the challenges faced by people who truly hate to change, Mark created an approach that helps individuals in all stages of their lives step back and rethink what they are doing and how they can change bad habits into ones that get them where they want to go. Enjoy!

 Listen now as Maureen Berkner Boyt explains how diversity and inclusion are very good for business!  

Many years ago, the founder of The Moxie Exchange, Maureen (Mo) Berkner Boyt, walked out of yet another leadership meeting where she was the only woman present and thought, “Something has got to change.” So she changed it. Since then, her company Moxie has grown into a thriving community of corporations committed to building inclusive workplaces, as well as women committed to leadership development and professional growth. Its mission? To disrupt unconscious bias and create inclusive and diverse workplaces where talent can thrive. Listen!

 Listen now as Tom Fox explains how compliance drives business success!

In today's podcast, I had the pleasure of chatting with and learning from Tom Fox, one of the nation's leading writers, thinkers and commentators on corporate compliance. Known as the Compliance Evangelist, Tom has recently published "The Complete Compliance Handbook" which provides the most up-to-date guidance available on what constitutes a best practices compliance program for companies. Is your organization in compliance? Listen in and find out.

 Listen now as Rob Marchalonis talks about how to incentivize your employees to achieve amazing things!

Do your employees come to work every day wanting to build a better business? Or are they disengaged, distracted and discouraged, costing your company time, money and opportunities? If it's the latter, don't miss this podcast with my guest Rob Marchalonis, founder of LSP123 and creator of IncentShare.com, as he shares with us how incentives and compensation plans can motivate and energize your employees to achieve remarkable results. Really great stuff!

 Listen now as TaRita Johnson shows us how to build better relationships!

Ever wonder why some relationships at work, home, among friends or family, just don’t work out the way you thought? Maybe you need a dose of Emotional Intelligence (EI). What’s that, you ask? Take a listen to TaRita Johnson and learn how EI helps you build stronger relationships with better results by pausing, reflecting and changing the way you interact with others. Don't miss it!

  Listen now to Marcella Bremer teach us about the power of a positive workplace!

Can you build better businesses by building more positive, powerful cultures in which people can work with joy instead of dread? Yes! Think about it. Why should work take away our energy instead of energizing us? Why should people feel diminished in their workplace instead of empowered and strengthened? That's the premise of Marcella Bremer's new book, "Developing a Positive Culture where People and Performance Thrive,"  which is about helping organizations become much more effective "positive cultures." Every working person needs to hear this!

   Listen now to Melissa Greenwell explain why having women in leadership positions is good business!         

You might know that gender imbalance is a problem at your company. You see the issues that arise from groupthink and a lack of diversity in viewpoints, communication styles and thought processes. Maybe you’re uncomfortable with the conversation. Or you have no idea where to start. That’s why you've got to hear my interview with Melissa Greenwell, author, EVP and COO of Finish Line, Inc., the athletic apparel company. Her ideas are spot-on for right now. Don't miss!