EPIC/FAIL

Leadership in Times of UncertaintyFor as long as she can remember, Emily Johnson has been honing her skills as a real estate industry publicist. After all, it was her mother, Deborah Johnson, who founded Taylor Johnson in 1977 when Emily was just 6 years old. As a result, Emily literally grew up in the business, attending model open houses on weekends, sending out press releases during summer breaks and helping out with the occasional client event.Today, more than four decades after its inception, Taylor Johnson remains the go-to PR firm for real estate companies looking to raise their profile not only in Chicago, but also markets nationally and internationally. Following Deborah’s retirement in January 2008, Emily took the reins as president, leading Taylor Johnson through the recession by strategically diversifying the business to not only survive, but thrive. Emily prides herself on the quality of the team she’s assembled at Taylor Johnson, drawing senior-level professionals with backgrounds in journalism, law, government, integrated marketing and communications. She’s also proud of TJ TALK, a daily digest of real estate news and events that’s delivered to over 3,000 industry professionals and editorial contacts across the country.

What starts as a conversation on plant based living leads to discussion of conscious capitalism, identity, and keys to living a purposeful life.

Randy Fifield is the chairwoman and principal of Fifield Companies. On this episode, we discussed topics including the importance of cultivating a strong culture, saying “no” so you can say “yes” to the right things, how being a “shapeshifter” can help you diversify and pivot with changing circumstances, and how wellbeing and micro habits have a massive impact on the course of your life and business.She partnered with her husband Steve in 1999, and together they completed multiple successful development projects including an $80 million renovation of the Chicago Civic Opera House, and the $800 million K Station development with 2,145 units in five apartment towers. She has been honored by the LA Lakers and Comerica Bank as Business Woman of the Year in Los Angeles. In Chicago, Randy was Connect Media’s 2017 Women in Real Estate Honoree, was the recipient of the 2017 Women in Construction Woman of the Year Award and has been honored by Chicago Business Journal and Crain’s as a notable female executive. Randy attended Northwestern University, and serves as a board member of Northwestern Prentice Hospital and Children’s Memorial Hospital.Learn more about Randy on her blog Randy Fifield Modern Living.

Sam Letscher is the founder of Bossy, a Chicago based startup that shifts buying power to women owned businesses. In this episode of Epic Fail, we discuss the experience of being a small business owner, escaping "hustle" culture that is so prevalent in the entrepreneurship space, implicit assumptions we all have, and the experience of choosing a career that you hope will be praise worthy versus pursuing purpose and fulfillment.https://www.bossychicago.com

In this episode, I got to chat with Karen Briscoe about the illusion of "time poverty", how everything happens for a reason but you get to choose the reason, and what it's like to do a triathlon in a backwards wet suit.Karen is the principal owner of the Huckaby Briscoe Conroy Group (HBC) with Keller Williams. The HBC Group has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the 250 Top Realtor® teams in the United States. Karen Briscoe is the creator of the transformative "5 Minute Success" concept. She hosts the “5 Minute Success” podcast which has ranked #1 on Overcast most recommended in the business category and her books Real Estate Success in 5 Minutes a Day: Secrets of a Top Agent Revealed and Commit to Get Leads: 66 Day Challenge ® which, offer a combination of information and inspiration delivered through memorable stories, have been featured in INMAN as “must read for your best year in real estate” in 2017. Amazon ranks the book in the top 1% in its category. Karen has been on a heroine’s journey of feeling busy and overwhelmed to loving the life she has and Her most recent book Flip Time/Love Life helps busy people realize that that form of self -ctualization comes first. Karen is also the founder of 80 x 80 Movement which she started at age 59. The movement is about encouraging one another to create healthy habits, make physical activity a fun part of daily lives and build momentum to achieve the shared goal of “80 x 80”.

In this episode Dr. Richard shared the science behind commonly known personal growth concepts: like how your reticular activating system explains why manifesting works and how mirror neurons are responsible for making you the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.I chatted with Dr. Richard about his research in the field of positive psychology, which is centered around the “what’s right with you”, how he's making assessment tools accessible to everyone, and his state-of-the-art POWERS assessment, which predicts lifelong success. He shares strategies for finding your superpowers and improvement areas, ways to create harmony to find success and fulfillment in life, the impact of social media on personality functioning and what happens when we create echo chambers in our social circles.In other news, I learned what “erroneous” means and what kind of donut I am. We also discussed cognitive reframing and Dr. Richard's near-death experience that helped him realize his central purpose:“I don’t want people to have to almost die to truly live”Check out:Drrichardshuster.comDaily Helping PodcastTake the POWERS Assessment at:http://marsassessment.com?aff=7

On this episode, I chatted with Ian Koniak about how to “Get real with yourself and take inventory of your life”, spiritual shifts, finding meaning in the moments where things don’t go your way, and the value in realizing your mortality.We explored questions like “How do you prepare yourself for realizations that have the potential to completely shatter your identity and everything you thought you wanted?” and “How can you prime yourself to find the opportunity in uncomfortable situations?”Ian is responsible for over $100M in career sales at Salesforce, a multi-billion dollar global software company, and is an online content creator who helps people find maximum fulfillment in all areas of their lives through alignment.Follow Ian on Instagram: @iankoniak

Bobby Audley is a nationally recognized team-building and group dynamics facilitator. He is a two-time TexX speaker who helps teams and organizations grow through discomfort and challenge. He has worked with teams in over 37 states including the University of North Carolina, Purdue University, Northwestern University, University of Maryland, Team USA Synchronized Figure Skating, and many more. He has brought his messages to groups including M&T Bank, Allina Healthcare, and US Lacrosse.