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Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 4047: James Clear explores Kurt Lewin's powerful equation, behavior is a function of the person and their environment, and reveals how small changes in mindset and surroundings can dramatically improve your habits. Drawing on research from psychology and behavioral design, he shows how shaping your environment can make healthier, happier, and more productive choices feel almost automatic. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.nirandfar.com/2014/09/this-simple-equation-reveals-how-habits-shape-your-health-happiness-and-wealth.html Quotes to ponder: Behavior is a function of the Person in their Environment.” “In many cases, your environment will drive your behavior even more than your personality.” “Improve yourself and adjust your environment to make good habits easier and bad habits harder.” Episode references: Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein: https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X Freedom: https://freedom.to/ Mindset by Carol Dweck: https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 4047: James Clear explores Kurt Lewin's powerful equation, behavior is a function of the person and their environment, and reveals how small changes in mindset and surroundings can dramatically improve your habits. Drawing on research from psychology and behavioral design, he shows how shaping your environment can make healthier, happier, and more productive choices feel almost automatic. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.nirandfar.com/2014/09/this-simple-equation-reveals-how-habits-shape-your-health-happiness-and-wealth.html Quotes to ponder: Behavior is a function of the Person in their Environment.” “In many cases, your environment will drive your behavior even more than your personality.” “Improve yourself and adjust your environment to make good habits easier and bad habits harder.” Episode references: Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein: https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X Freedom: https://freedom.to/ Mindset by Carol Dweck: https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 4047: James Clear explores Kurt Lewin's powerful equation, behavior is a function of the person and their environment, and reveals how small changes in mindset and surroundings can dramatically improve your habits. Drawing on research from psychology and behavioral design, he shows how shaping your environment can make healthier, happier, and more productive choices feel almost automatic. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.nirandfar.com/2014/09/this-simple-equation-reveals-how-habits-shape-your-health-happiness-and-wealth.html Quotes to ponder: Behavior is a function of the Person in their Environment.” “In many cases, your environment will drive your behavior even more than your personality.” “Improve yourself and adjust your environment to make good habits easier and bad habits harder.” Episode references: Nudge by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein: https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X Freedom: https://freedom.to/ Mindset by Carol Dweck: https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Vivemos na era das oportunidades infinitas. Nunca tivemos tanto acesso à informação, educação, carreira e tecnologia. E, paradoxalmente, nunca houve tanta gente frustrada. O problema talvez não esteja na realidade, mas na distância entre aquilo que esperamos dela e aquilo que ela realmente entrega. Neste episódio, Luciano Pires explora as ideias de Victor Vroom, Daniel Kahneman, Samuel Stouffer, Herbert Simon e Carol Dweck para mostrar como expectativas mal calibradas alimentam ansiedade, ressentimento e decepção. Uma reflexão sobre mérito, comparação, redes sociais e a difícil arte de enxergar o mundo como ele é.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Download: Growth Mindset WorksheetEver felt like feedback in your recovery journey hits you like a punch to the gut? You're not alone. In this eye-opening episode of The Addicted Mind Plus, hosts Duane and Eric Osterlind dive into why criticism can feel so painful during recovery and share game-changing strategies to transform those tough moments into opportunities for growth. Drawing from cutting-edge research in neuroscience and psychology, they explain how our early life experiences shape our sensitivity to criticism and why some people struggle more than others with feedback. But here's the good news: by adopting what scientists call a "growth mindset," you can learn to receive feedback differently and use it to strengthen your recovery journey. The brothers share practical, easy-to-implement strategies that can help you shift from feeling defensive and ashamed to seeing criticism as valuable feedback for your growth. Whether you're in recovery or supporting someone who is, this episode offers essential tools for turning difficult feedback into stepping stones toward lasting change.KEY TOPICSUnderstanding why criticism hits harder for some peopleThe connection between early childhood experiences and sensitivity to criticismHow the brain's stress response system affects our reaction to feedbackDr. Carol Dweck's research on growth mindsetThree practical strategies for developing a growth mindsetThe role of criticism in sustainable recoveryPractical tools and worksheets for implementing these strategiesTIMESTAMPS[00:01:07] Introduction to criticism's impact on recovery[00:02:45] Understanding sensitivity to criticism through attachment theory[00:06:00] Introduction to growth mindset concept[00:08:00] Real-world examples of criticism in recovery[00:11:11] Three practical strategies for developing growth mindset[00:13:21] Practicing affirming statements[00:14:57] Resources and community support informationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
When your homeschool child won't do work, it's rarely just about laziness—it often signals a deeper need for curiosity, connection, and meaningful engagement. If you're a homeschool mom, you've probably said or thought something like: “My kids don't really care about their lessons. They just want to get through it so they can get on their screens.”“I think my daughter only enjoys going to coop because of her friends, not any actual learning.”“He races through his work without engaging—he's just checking boxes.”“There's outright resistance now. I don't know if it's the work or if it's me or if he’s just rebellious.” These situations are very common, not unusual. And the question behind them is universal: how do you help your child become an independent learner who is genuinely curious and engaged—not someone who treats learning like a chore to avoid? If this resonates with you, a great first step is my free Deschool Your Homeschool Checklist, which helps you step back from school-y thinking, reconnect with how your child naturally learns, and create space for curiosity, calm, and connection. Grab your free Deschool Checklist and Help Your Kids Love Learning 5 Reasons Why Your Homeschool Child Won't Do Work Reason 1: When Your Homeschool Child Won’t Do Work — Learning Feels Like a Chore Many children resist because they've learned to associate “learning” with compliance or tedium. They may rush through assignments just to get them done or outright refuse work that doesn't interest them. To be fair, we adults do that too. When someone says, “Hey, you know what would make tax season easier and more satisfying? Take a course on filing your taxes.” Interesting, you think, and clever, that’s exactly what I should do! (No, you don’t think that. You think, naw, thanks, I’ll do what I have to do until next tax season.) Can I hear an amen? ps don’t respond if you actually enjoy doing taxes, ha–it won’t serve my point;) Well, ditto for your kids. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck explains that a fixed mindset develops when children feel their worth is tied to “doing it right.” In these cases, resistance is not a character flaw—it's a protective response. What you can do: Follow your child's curiosity whenever possible. Show them that learning happens everywhere: in the kitchen, in nature, in everyday problem-solving. Reason 2: When Your Homeschool Child Won't Do Work—Check Your Own Motivation First Kids are highly sensitive to the adults around them. If you're scattered, anxious, or uninspired, they pick up on it. Angela Duckworth, author of Grit, notes that parents who raise resilient, motivated children model passion and perseverance in their own lives. And isn’t that what we all want? This homeschool lifestyle isn’t just equipping our kids to do live a purposeful life, it’s offering us that opportunity too! (And I encourage you to take it!) What you can do: Reconnect with your own curiosity and goals. Are you motivated? What gets you up in the morning? Model learning and persistence in ways your child can observe. Show them you're engaged by joining a book club, starting your own business, or simply signing up for a class at the local community college. Show them that you're learning math concept right alongside them (or whatever other topic you find challenging, I chose math because I had to learn it before I taught it
Knowing what to do is not the same as being able to do it consistently. Episode #259 — Turbo Talk
En este episodio hablamos de la mentalidad de crecimiento, un concepto desarrollado por la psicóloga Carol Dweck, y de cómo nuestras creencias sobre la inteligencia, el talento y las capacidades influyen en la forma en que aprendemos y afrontamos la dificultad. Profundizaremos en la diferencia entre una mentalidad fija y una mentalidad de crecimiento: qué cambia cuando entendemos la inteligencia como algo determinado o como algo que puede desarrollarse con tiempo, práctica y estrategias. También veremos cómo empezar a desarrollar una mentalidad más orientada al aprendizaje y a la posibilidad de mejorar. 🎖️Apoya el podcast y accede a contenido exclusivo: https://www.ivoox.com/support/315218 Escucha el episodio completo en la app de iVoox, o descubre todo el catálogo de iVoox Originals
Welcome to a pivotal solo episode of Build a Better Agency! This week, host Speaker B takes listeners on an honest and insightful journey through the real work of agency leadership, exploring the mental and emotional shifts required to move from talented employee or manager to confident agency owner. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience and candid stories from agency owners nationwide, Speaker B unpacks the identity shift every leader must make—from seeking permission and sticking to their craft, to taking full, radical responsibility for the outcome of their business. You'll hear powerful confessions from new owners as they share those "aha" moments when the weight of ownership finally hit home, from financial scares to difficult personnel decisions. This episode tackles three essential lenses that shape the growth of agency leaders: developing a growth mindset (inspired by Carol Dweck), evolving from technician to true entrepreneur (with a nod to Michael Gerber's E-Myth), and embracing an ownership mentality as described by Carrie Siggins' "Ownership Mindset." Speaker B provides actionable advice on shifting beliefs that hold leaders back, such as hesitancy around finances, reluctance to delegate, and resistance to uncomfortable decisions. Whether you're a new or soon-to-be owner, an emerging leader, or a veteran still wrestling with self-doubt, this episode is packed with practical steps, introspective challenges, and resources to help you own your power and build an agency you're truly proud of. Don't miss this empowering discussion. A big thank you to our podcast's presenting sponsor, White Label IQ. They're an amazing resource for agencies who want to outsource their design, dev, or PPC work at wholesale prices. Check out their special offer (10 free hours!) for podcast listeners here. What You Will Learn in This Episode: Understand why the identity shift from employee to owner is the hardest part of the transition Learn the three critical lenses for developing an ownership mindset: growth mindset, role clarity, and responsibility ownership Discover the common triggers that make ownership feel real for most agency leaders Recognize why true leaders act like owners long before they own equity in the business Understand the difference between collaboration and abdication in leadership decisions Learn how to move from execution-focused to strategy-focused thinking as an owner Gain insights from real owner confessions about pivotal moments of realization Understand why financial literacy becomes critical when you truly own the outcomes Discover how accepting responsibility also grants you permission to change what's broken
If you've been saying "I'm trying to recover" for months or years, this episode will completely change how you approach your healing journey. Today we're diving into the science behind why the phrase "I'm trying" is literally programming your brain for partial commitment—and why that guarantees you'l stay stuck. This isn't about willpower or motivation; it's about understanding how your language creates neural pathways that either support or sabotage your recovery. In this game-changing episode, you'll discover: The neuroscience behind why "trying" keeps you in limbo How decision defaulting protects you from commitment (and healing) Why your undernourished brain struggles with decisive action The trauma response component that makes decisions feel dangerous Two powerful exercises to shift from trying to deciding Real client stories of transformation through decisive language Warning: This episode will make you uncomfortable with your own excuses—and that's exactly the point. THE DECISION DEFAULTING TRAP Decision defaulting: When you avoid making definitive choices because not deciding feels safer than deciding "wrong." Sound familiar? "I'm trying to eat more" "I'm trying to stop restricting" "I'm trying to get better" "I'm thinking about getting help" Every time you say "I'm trying," you're leaving yourself an escape route. You're keeping one foot in and one foot out, protecting yourself from the vulnerability of full commitment. The raw truth: Trying is just a socially acceptable way of avoiding responsibility for your choices. THE NEUROSCIENCE OF "TRYING" Dr. Carol Dweck's research shows: The words we use create neural pathways that either support or sabotage our goals. When we use tentative language like "trying," we're literally programming our brains for partial commitment. What your brain hears: "I'm trying to eat breakfast" = "I'm not really committed to eating breakfast" "I'm trying to stop restricting" = "I'm keeping my options open to restrict if things get uncomfortable" From a neurological standpoint: Definitive decisions require activation of the prefrontal cortex (executive functioning). But when you're undernourished or in chronic stress from disordered eating, this brain region is compromised. Decision defaulting feels easier because it requires less energy. THE TRAUMA RESPONSE COMPONENT Many people with eating disorders have histories of choices being criticized, controlled, or dismissed. Decision defaulting becomes a protective mechanism: If you never fully commit to a choice, no one can tell you your choice was wrong. Dr. Kristin Neff's research on self-compassion shows: People who struggle with decision-making often have internalized critical voices that make them afraid of imperfection. The eating disorder amplifies this by convincing you every decision must be perfect—so it's safer to not decide at all. CLIENT STORY: BRITTANY'S BREAKTHROUGH Brittany came to coaching after 3 years of "trying to recover." She'd been in therapy multiple times, bought every book, started and stopped countless times. When asked what she wanted from coaching: "I want to try to finally get better." The intervention: "Brittany, you've been trying for three years. How's that working for you?" The realization: All her trying had actually kept her trying. The shift: From "I'm trying to recover" to "I'm deciding to use my resources and trust the path." The results: Within 6 months—weight restoration, rebuilt relationships, career changes she'd put on hold. THE POWER OF IMPLEMENTATION INTENTION Research by Dr. Peter Gollwitzer shows: People who use implementation intentions (decisive language) are 2-3 times more likely to follow through than those who rely on general intentions. Instead of leaving actions up to willpower, you're pre-committing to specific choices. THE LANGUAGE SHIFTS: OLD: "I'm trying to eat regular meals" NEW: "I'm deciding to eat breakfast tomorrow, lunch at noon, dinner in the evening—regardless of how I feel" OLD: "I'm trying to exercise less" NEW: "I'm deciding to take two complete rest days this week and limit exercise by 30 minutes" OLD: "I'm thinking about getting help" NEW: "I'm deciding to talk to three support professionals this week" WHY YOUR EATING DISORDER LOVES "TRYING" Your eating disorder wants you to keep trying. It wants you in the wishy-washy space where you're sort of committed but not really. As long as you're trying, you're not a real threat to its control. When you start deciding—making firm commitments and following through regardless of feelings—that's when your eating disorder panics. That's when recovery becomes inevitable. THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL Decision defaulting gives you an illusion of control: You think you're keeping options open You think you're staying flexible You think you're being logical What you're actually doing: Giving your power away to circumstances, other people, or the eating disorder voice. Real control comes from making conscious choices and taking responsibility for outcomes. CLIENT STORY: MARIA'S THERAPIST SEARCH Maria spent years researching therapists but never booked appointments. She was terrified that choosing the "wrong" person would confirm she was beyond help. The reframe: From "I need to find the perfect therapist" to "I'm deciding to take action toward support and will adjust as I learn." Within a week: Started coaching. Within a month: Real progress. None of this would have happened in decision default mode. KEY QUOTES
What happens when 1.3 billion people adopt AI in just 39 months… and most nonprofits are still trying to figure out where to even start?While nearly 90% of nonprofits are already using AI, only 6-7% are seeing meaningful returns, which is why I HAD to sit down with Justin Spelhaug, President of Microsoft Elevate, to talk about why that gap exists, and how nonprofits have a once-in-a-generation chance to shape a more inclusive AI economy.We also talk about generating personalized donor thank you messages at scale, and how to use predictive modeling to better understand giving behavior. This moment requires all of us to lean in and will challenge how you think about AI.Resources & LinksConnect with Justin on LinkedIn and learn more about Microsoft Elevate on their website. Justin also recommends Carol Dweck and her work on growth mindsets. Bloomerang is the proud presenter of Missions to Movements. Bloomerang is the trusted, all-in-one giving platform that connects your data, streamlines your systems, and helps your mission go further. Learn more at bloomerang.com.The Monthly Giving Builder: Generate your comprehensive monthly giving plan and build your program step by step - with a guided companion working alongside you from start to finish. Let's Connect!Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!
In episode 357 of The Real Jason Duncan Podcast, most people spend their whole lives waiting for the "it factor" to show up — the natural talent, the X factor, the thing that separates the successful from the rest. Dr. Justin Moseley sat on the bench, panicked through a college speech class, and believed for decades that success was for other people. Then he figured out the lie — and built one of the largest natural health clinics in Tennessee, became a 2-time TEDx speaker, and launched a top-rated global podcast. Dr. Justin Moseley — chiropractor, entrepreneur, 2-time TEDx speaker, and host of The Mindset Doctor Podcast — is back for his second appearance on the show (originally Episode 9 under the former name The Root of All Success). Justin and his wife Courtney co-founded Music City Health Center, one of the largest natural health clinics in Tennessee, and Justin has since built a global platform helping high achievers strip away limiting beliefs and expand what they think is possible. Today, we're not covering his origin story — we're going deep on the golden cages, the lies he believed, and the mindset frameworks he used to break out of them. This episode dives into: 1.Why every kid on his team had more natural talent — and why he still outplayed them all 2.The earliest experience that anchored in the belief "speaking is not for you" — and how it followed him into adulthood 3.Why affirmations and meditation don't work for most people (and what's actually missing) 4.The difference between positive thinking and real mindset work — and why one is like pulling weeds and the other is just pretending they're not there 5.Dr. Joe Dispenza's research: 60,000 thoughts a day, 90% negative, and almost none of them conscious 6.Carol Dweck's mindset study and what happens when teachers believe kids are gifted — even when they're not 7.The thermostat analogy: how your internal set point keeps capping your income, success, and identity 8.Why changing your actions without changing your beliefs is the most common and most expensive mistake entrepreneurs make 9.The water bottle analogy: you can only hold what your mindset has room for 10.What Colonel Sanders starting KFC at 65 reveals about the self-imposed ceilings we never question 11.How Justin went from near-failing a speech class to speaking on TEDx stages — and the exact affirmation that started the shift 12.Why the most dangerous lies aren't hiding — they're dressed up as self-awareness and realism If you've ever told yourself "that's not for me" — this episode is the one that finally calls it what it is.
What if the reason you keep falling off track has nothing to do with willpower, discipline, or the right diet plan, and everything to do with how you see yourself?In this episode, Lisa Oldson, MD draws on James Clear's Atomic Habits, Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck's research on the growth mindset, and Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer's Progress Principle to make the case for identity-based change. The goal isn't to lose weight. The goal is to become someone who prioritizes her health, because it turns out that shift changes everything.You'll learn why outcome-based goals eventually run out of fuel, how every small healthy choice is quietly building (or undermining) your self-image, and why becoming a healthy person absolutely does not require being a perfect one.Plus: a simple NBA (Next Best Action) to try today that takes about 30 seconds and might stick with you for years. Thanks for listening! If you'd like more support during your SMART weight loss & health focused journey, sign up for our FREE newsletter, or check out our program at: www.SmartWeightLossCoaching.com. We would love to help you reach your happy weight, and transform the way you talk to yourself about your body and the number on the scale. Negative thoughts about yourself don't have to take up so much brain space, and we'd be honored to help you reframe those thoughts. Also, we'd be grateful if you'd follow us and share our podcast with your friends & family. We're here to help you live longer, healthier, and lose weight the SMART way! This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.The Smart Weight Loss Coaching Podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult your physician or a qualified healthcare provider before starting, stopping, or changing any medication.
What does the research actually say about how to achieve your goals — and why does willpower alone so reliably fail?Let's break it down with seven evidence-based frameworks from psychology and behavioral science, each paired with a concrete action step you can use this week. We cover Edwin Locke and Gary Latham's goal-setting research, Gabriele Oettingen's WOOP framework and the surprising science of mental contrasting, Deci and Ryan's Self-Determination Theory, identity-based habit formation from James Clear and Wendy Wood, Charles Duhigg's cue-routine-reward loop, Carol Dweck's mindset research, and the accountability science that shows just how much the relational dimension of goal pursuit actually matters.This isn't a motivational pep talk. It's a practical, research-grounded episode that will change how you think about what goal achievement actually requires — and give you specific tools to do it differently starting now.
“İçinde iki kurt var.” Biri korku, kaygı ve şüpheyle konuşuyor. Diğeri ise sakin, odaklı ve kendine güveniyor. Peki hayatının en önemli anında… hangisi ortaya çıkıyor?Bu bölümde “merak. listesi”nde:Zirve performansın arkasındaki psikolojiyiNeden en kritik anlarda hata yaptığımızıİnançlarımızın performansımızı nasıl sınırladığınıVe “içsel mükemmellik” (inner excellence) kavramını konuşuyoruzAlbert Bandura'nın öz-yeterlilik teorisinden, Carol Dweck'in growth mindset çalışmalarına, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi'nin “flow” kavramına kadar… Ve belki de en önemli soruya geliyoruz:Sen her gün hangi kurdu besliyorsun?Bölüm akışı:(00:10) İçindeki 2 Kurt(01:20) Olimpik sporcular(03:10) Öz Yeterlilik teorisi(04:58) Olimpiyat sporcularının içsel mükemmellik formülü(06:40) Pürüzlü mükemmellik bölümü https://open.spotify.com/episode/0tpGL3rUTBeFOZiiDJkGm8(07:55) İnançlarının ötesinde performans gösteremeyiz(11:20) İlk gerçekliğin çarpması(13:45) İkinci duvar: benmerkeziyetçilik (16:00) İçsel mükemmellik : kendin olabilmek
️ Grab the 5-day INFP tutorial and join 5,000+ people getting rare weekly insights → http://geekpsychology.com/infp-5day▶️ Ready to go deeper? Check out the Evolve Community at http://evolve.geekpsychology.comIf you're an INFP, you know the feeling of being trapped by your own mind. You've probably said, "I'm not the type of person who can do that." That sentence is a lie, and it's holding you back from growth.Your inner self often takes those old, painful experiences and uses them as "proof" that you can't change, locking you into a Fixed Mindset. It's the ultimate form of self-sabotage.What if a single, simple word could immediately unlock your potential and rewire your brain's relationship with failure? This video also talks about Carol Dweck's breakthrough Growth Mindset and applies it directly to the INFP mind.This isn't just self-help; it's a cognitive strategy to replace self-criticism with infinite potential.Chapter Markers:0:00 - The Lie Your Past Tells You0:34 - Why Your Brain Replays Your Worst Failures2:00 - The Single Word That Changes Your Fate2:42 - Fixed vs. Growth: Which One is Capping You?3:31 - Skills: Why You're Capped at Level Two4:19 - Stop Letting Your Past Prove Why You'll Fail5:44 - How to Use Your 'Explorer' to Level Up NowStop letting your past prove your future.
🧭 REBEL Rundown 🔑Key Points 🌱 Growth mindset transforms learning – Residents and students who believe skills can be developed are more open to feedback, more resilient after failure, and more engaged in practice.🧠 Language matters in feedback – Simple reframes such as “You’re developing procedural skills” instead of “You’re not strong at procedures” encourage persistence and normalize the learning curve.🤝 Mindset shapes team culture – Growth mindset leaders foster psychological safety, invite input, and create collaborative teams. Fixed mindset hierarchies, on the other hand, silence voices and can compromise patient care.🔥 Growth mindset protects against burnout – By reframing mistakes as part of the process, clinicians reduce perfectionism and shame, bolstering resilience and wellness.🔍 Practical steps start with self-talk – Add the word “yet” to limiting beliefs (“I’m not good at X…yet”) and shift feedback questions toward improvement (“What’s one thing I can do better next time?”).🛠️ Embracing mistakes with a growth mindset – Leads to more effective feedback loops and improvement do this by building a culture of psychological safety is crucial for growth and reducing medical errors. Click here for Direct Download of the Podcast. 👀Previously Covered and Related Content: REBEL EM: The EM MindsetREBEL EM: Titles Dont Make LeadersREBEL EM: Mind of the Resuscitationist with Scott WeingartEM Crit: Making Things Happen with Cliff Reid 📝 Introduction Welcome to this episode of REBEL MIND, where MIND stands for Mastering Internal Negativity during Difficulty. Here we sharpen the person behind the practitioner by focusing on things that improve our performance, optimizing team dynamics and the human behavior that embodies the hidden curriculum of medicine. Mindset shapes everything we do in medicine—from how we teach and learn to how we show up for patients at the bedside. Drawing from Carol Dweck’s influential book Mindset, this episode of REBEL MIND explores the critical difference between a fixed mindset (believing abilities are innate and static) and a growth mindset (seeing skills as things that can be developed through effort and feedback). We sat down with Dr. Kim Bambach, an emergency medicine physician and medical educator, and Dr. Frank Lodeserto, a dual-trained intensivist and internal medicine program director, to unpack how mindset influences medical education, bedside performance, and physician wellness. In this episode, we delve into how the mindset of clinicians can profoundly influence their performance, professional growth, and ultimately patient care Cognitive Question How does adopting a growth versus a fixed mindset influence clinical performance, medical education and patient outcomes? 🌱What is Growth vs Fixed Mindset? In Carol Dweck’s research, two primary mindsets are highlighted: Fixed mindset: Which sees intelligence and skills as staticIn the medical field, adopting a fixed mindset might lead a clinician to avoid complex cases due to fear of failure.Growth mindset: Which views abilities as improvable through dedication and effort. In contrast, a growth mindset encourages embracing challenges as opportunities for learning and development. 🏥How This Applies to the Emergency Department or ICU? In high-stakes environments like the ICU or the ED, the mindset adopted by healthcare providers can distinctly shape patient care and team dynamics. A fixed mindset might lead to defensive behaviors and a reluctance to engage in challenging cases, potentially stunting personal and professional growth. Conversely, a growth mindset not only fosters resilience and adaptability but also enhances team collaboration and patient outcomes by encouraging open communication, continuous learning, and acceptance of constructive feedback. ⏩Immediate Action Steps for Your Next Shift **Monitor Self-Talk**: Notice your internal narrative when faced with challenges. Replace negative, fixed-mindset thoughts with growth-oriented ones like “Not yet” or “What can I learn from this?”**Promote a Culture of Inquiry**: Challenge yourself and your team to engage in constructive questioning and explore alternative diagnoses or treatment plans to encourage a growth-centered environment.**Model Vulnerability**: Share personal learning experiences and mistakes with colleagues to normalize the growth process and reduce the stigma of imperfection.**Reframe Feedback**: Instead of broadly asking, “How did I do?” inquire, “What’s one thing I can improve on next time?” This shift helps maintain focus on growth rather than performance validationFeedback is a whole another topic that we plan to have dedicated episodes and blog posts. This is an area where sometimes faculty struggle and often learners are asking for more/improved feedback. 💬Conclusion Cultivating a growth mindset in medicine isn’t merely about staying positive; it’s about embracing continuous learning in the face of challenges. It involves creating supportive environments that encourage vulnerability, experimentation, and resilience. By adopting these practices, clinicians can improve not just personal competencies but also enhance patient care quality and safety. 🚨 Clinical Bottom Line Clinicians who embrace a growth mindset not only enhance their skills but also contribute to a more dynamic, adaptive, and error-resilient healthcare environment. Remember, the best clinicians are those who never stop learning, not the ones who never make mistakes. Episode Audio Edited By: Kim Bambach, MD and Mark Ramzy, DO (Twitter/X/IG: @MRamzyDO)Post Peer Reviewed By: Marco Propersi, DO (Twitter/X: @Marco_Propersi) Further Reading and References Claro S, Paunesku D, Dweck CS. Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Aug 2. Epub 2016 Jul 18. PMID: 27432947Blackwell LS, et al. Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: a longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Dev. 2007 Feb; PMID: 17328703Hopkins SR, et al. Trainee growth vs. fixed mindset in clinical learning environments: enhancing, hindering and goldilocks factors. BMC Med Educ. 2024 Oct 23 PMID: 39443909Memari M, Gavinski K, Norman MK. Beware False Growth Mindset: Building Growth Mindset in Medical Education Is Essential but Complicated. Acad Med. 2024 Mar 1. Epub 2023 Aug 30. PMID: 37643577 Meet the Authors Mark Ramzy, DO Co-Editor-in-Chief Cardiothoracic Intensivist and EM Attending RWJBH / Rutgers Health, Newark, NJ Kimberly Bambach, MD Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Columbus, OH Frank Lodeserto, MD Internal Medicine Residency Program Director Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, Fayetteville, NC The post REBEL MIND – Growth vs Fixed Mindset in Medicine appeared first on REBEL EM - Emergency Medicine Blog.
What if the way we lead young people is the very thing holding them back?In this episode, Dr. David Yeager, psychologist at UT Austin and author of 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People, shares the “mentor mindset,” a practical approach built on high standards and high support. You will hear why wise feedback works, how the stories we tell ourselves shape motivation, and what real support looks like when it removes barriers without taking over. Thrive Global Article: David Yeager on the Mentor MindsetAbout Our Guest:David Yeager, PhD, is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and the cofounder of the Texas Behavioral Science and Policy Institute. He is best known for his research conducted with Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, and Greg Walton on short but powerful interventions that influence adolescent behaviors such as motivation, engagement, healthy eating, bullying, stress, mental health, and more. He has consulted for Google, Microsoft, Disney, and the World Bank, as well as for the White House and the governments in California, Texas, and Norway. His research has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, CNN, Fox News, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and more. Prior to his career as a scientist, he was a middle school teacher and a basketball coach. He earned his PhD and MA at Stanford University and his BA and MEd at the University of Notre Dame. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and their four children.About Lainie:Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing, focusing on community building, emotional intelligence, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn both a post-graduate credential and a master's degree in education. An international keynote speaker, Lainie has presented in 41 states as well as in dozens of countries across 4 continents. As a consultant, Lainie's client list ranges from Fortune 100 companies like Apple and Google to school districts and independent schools. Learn more at linktr.ee/lainierowell.Website - LainieRowell.comInstagram - @LainieRowellLinkedIn - @LainieRowellX/Twitter - @LainieRowell Evolving with Gratitude, the book is available here! And now, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You and by You is available too!Both Evolving with Gratitude & Bold Gratitude have generous bulk pricing for purchasing 10+ copies delivered to the same location.
Principal Matters: The School Leader's Podcast with William D. Parker
Why Your Growth Mindset Matters William D. Parker, March 19, 2026 I've been thinking about growth a lot lately. Maybe it's because it's spring, and the past two weekends I've found myself kneeling in the dirt, pulling weeds, trimming back perennials, and hoping for the burst of life that comes into gardens and trees. Another reason I've been thinking about growth is that I've been revisiting the idea of growth mindset, made popular by the work of Dr. Carol Dweck. Recently, while meeting with a group of leaders, we watched a short summary video of her findings. I asked them to write down words or phrases used to describe “fixed mindsets” versus “growth mindsets.” We created lists that looked like this: Fixed Mindsets My skills are innate and unchangeable. This condition is permanent. Negative feedback is a personal attack. I should choose the easy or minimal-effort option. Why not give up, since I can't change this? My accomplishments only matter if they're measurable. I'll take fewer risks since I have little chance of succeeding. Growth Mindsets This is a chance for me to improve or change. Maybe this problem is an opportunity to pivot or experiment. Perhaps we can design a better system for a better outcome. The harder or more challenging task will help us grow stronger. If I try, perhaps I'll have a better outcome. The lessons learned in the journey—not just the outcome—matter. I'll take creative risks because I have the chance to improve. I don't know about you, but when I read those lists side by side, my head hurts. I quickly realize that I can fall into either mindset depending on the day or the season. For instance, I think all of us yearn for days of peace or stability in our work and lives. We do a lot of executive-function work to make that happen. We set schedules, exercise accountability, develop others toward collective outcomes, and measure growth — all in pursuit of better results. At the same time, what happens when the systems we create or the stability we achieve cause us to believe we've arrived? It only takes one day for that illusion to crumble. And when the next conflict or difficulty comes, we often run back to the idea that the goal is simply to calm the storm and stabilize the situation. But what if the goal is different? What if the goal is to see each challenge as an opportunity to learn something new? What if we allow curiosity to drive us toward new ideas, actions, or experimentation? Let me make this practical. All of us want to work in schools where students are well-behaved, teachers are prepared, and the culture is strong — where student learning and achievement are evident. But how do we define those outcomes? By quiet, orderly, compliant behavior? Or by welcoming difficult, challenging moments that push our thinking and experimentation toward deeper understanding? You could walk into classrooms that are quiet or boisterous and still not know if real growth is happening — until you look closely at whether the teaching and learning are rooted in a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. I think every student and teacher struggles with their mindset, just like you and I do. So how do we recognize which mindset we're seeing? When I asked Carol Dweck similar questions in an interview exchange from my blog in 2013, she shared the following: Embrace failure as part of success: Failing early and often accelerates learning and leads to better outcomes over time. Adopt and model a growth mindset: Believe abilities can be developed through effort, strategies, and support from others. Step outside your comfort zone: Growth requires taking risks, facing challenges, and stretching beyond what feels safe. Let go of the need to always appear “smart”: Fear of failure limits progress; prioritizing learning over image unlocks potential. Actively seek feedback: Honest criticism is one of the most powerful tools for continuous improvement. View success as an ongoing journey: Leadership is not about “arriving,” but about continually growing and helping others thrive. These commitments can be heard in the way we talk and reframe challenges. For example, if a child says, “I'm not good at math,” a teacher might respond, “I see you haven't figured out how to solve that problem yet. Let's try it again like this.” Or instead of saying, “That person is impossible to change,” we might ask, “What could we try next that we haven't tried before?” This isn't positive toxicity, as some might argue. It's an invitation to rethink the way we think. Let's Wrap This Up So, where do you want to see growth as you step into this new season? Maybe you're simply hoping for a little peace — a few days of spring break to rest and recharge. If so, I hope you get that. But when your next challenge comes, how will you face it? Will it tempt you to believe that nothing you do really matters — that the situation is unchangeable? Or will you see it as an opportunity to grow? For the interview exchange with Carol Dweck: https://williamdparker.com/2013/interview-with-carol-dweck/ The post MONDAY MATTERS with Jen Schwanke and Will Parker – Why Your Mindset Matters appeared first on Principal Matters.
Relationships can be hard. When the spark fades and every conversation feels like walking on eggshells, it's easy to drift apart. That's where today's guest, Dr. Dan Sneider, comes in. He's a licensed couple's therapist, educator, and creator of The Intimacy Shift: A Blueprint for Moving from Conflict to Lasting Connection, a 12-week program that transforms couples' relationships by rebuilding trust, improving communication, and rediscovering real intimacy.With personal experience and over a decade of professional expertise helping hundreds of couples, Dr. Dan knows what it takes to shift from conflict to connection — and bring the spark back for good. When you add Brain Lady Julie's expertise on how the scientific differences between the way a male and female brain communicate, we've got a great show on how to keep us all connected.Connect with Dr. Dan...DrDan@GrowthAndGratitudeTherapy.comTheIntimacyShift.comConnect with Brain Lady JulieDo you have a great question or topic you'd like Brain Lady Julie to cover? Think you'd be a great guest? Message our producer Kelli@BrainLadySpeaker.com and let us know.PLEASE NOTE: The information contained in this podcast is not at any time and for any reason meant to replace the guidance and/or treatment of any health professional. Whether it be a medical doctor, psychologist, psychotherapist, or anyone in the medical field. If you are under the care of such a health professional, remember this is an “added value” and not designed to replace any care you are currently under.
David Yeager: 10 to 25 David Yeager is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and the cofounder of the Texas Behavioral Science and Policy Institute. He is best known for his research conducted with Carol Dweck, Angela Duckworth, and Greg Walton on short but powerful interventions that influence adolescent behaviors such as motivation, engagement, healthy eating, bullying, stress, mental health, and more. He is the author of 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People (Amazon, Bookshop)*. Older generations have been complaining about younger generations for all of recorded history. Today is no different, and I often hear how leaders are struggling with motivating their younger employees. In this conversation, David and I explore the most recent research and practice for what actually works. Key Points Older generations have been complaining about younger generations for all of recorded history. Often, our complaints are the result of our own past experiences. Many leaders experience the mentor's dilemma: being nice and putting up with poor performance, or being critical and demanding higher performance. Status and respect for a young person are as critical as food and sleep to a baby. When satisfied, they can open up much better motivation and behavior. The mentor mindset embraces both high standards and high support for the young person you wish to motivate. Because this is a mindset, you can absolutely get better at it. When giving feedback to a young person, acknowledge the high standard you are setting and also tell the young person that you believe they can meet that standard. Young people have often experienced a lot of “enforcing” behavior from parents, teachers, and coaches. They assume this in the workplace if you don't make a point to say otherwise. Resources Mentioned 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People by David Yeager (Amazon, Bookshop)* Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes How to Challenge Directly and Care Personally, with Kim Scott (episode 302) How to Reduce Drama With Kids, with Tina Payne Bryson (episode 310) How to Solve the Toughest Problems, with Wendy Smith (episode 612) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.
The Strong[HER] Way | non diet approach, mindset coaching, lifestyle advice
Send a textIf you've ever told yourself "I'll start fresh Monday" after one off day — this episode is going to change the way you see yourself.Today we're diving deep into the brain science behind all-or-nothing thinking, and why so many high-achieving women struggle to build consistent habits — not because they lack discipline, but because their biology is working against them.If you're a busy woman, mom, or professional who feels like you're either fully on or completely off with your health — with your workouts, your nutrition, your routines — this one is for you. We're breaking down exactly what's happening in your brain when the all-or-nothing cycle kicks in, and giving you four evidence-based tools to finally break it.IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN:→ Why perfectionism and all-or-nothing thinking are neurological patterns, not character flaws→ What stress does to your prefrontal cortex (and why your "logical brain" goes offline on hard days)→ The real reason dopamine drives you to quit — and how to flip it→ How identity-based habits create more consistency than willpower ever will→ The minimum effective dose approach: why doing less, more consistently, beats doing everything perfectly→ A 2-breath nervous system reset you can use the moment the spiral starts→ Why women in perimenopause and menopause face unique neurological challenges — and what to do about itRESEARCH REFERENCED IN THIS EPISODE:· Dr. Amy Arnsten (Yale) — stress and prefrontal cortex function· Dr. Andrew Huberman — dopamine, motivation, and the physiological sigh· James Clear — Atomic Habits, "never miss twice," and identity-based habits· Peter Gollwitzer — implementation intentions· Carol Dweck — fixed vs. growth mindset· Brené Brown — shame, resilience, and behavior change· Dr. Stephen Porges — polyvagal theory and nervous system regulation· Deci & Ryan — self-determination theoryEPISODE TIMESTAMPS:[00:00] Cold open — does the Monday restart sound familiar?[02:30] Why this keeps happening (and why it's not your fault)[07:00] The neuroscience: your prefrontal cortex vs. your amygdala[13:00] Dopamine, shame, and how quitting becomes a reward loop[18:00] Tool 1: Redefine what "counts" — the minimum effective dose[21:30] Tool 2: Build an identity, not just a goal[25:00] Tool 3: If-then planning (implementation intentions)[28:30] Tool 4: Regulate your nervous system first[33:00] What life looks like on the other side[35:00] How to take the next stepREADY TO TAKE THIS FURTHER?If you're done white-knuckling restarts and want a personalized, science-backed plan that works with your real life and your hormones — apply for Fit and Fueled, my signature coaching program for women who are ready to go all in on themselves (without the all-or-nothing):→ thestrongherway.com/fitandfueledNot quite ready for coaching? Come hang out with us in our free community — connection, resources, and zero pressure:→ Join The Strong(HER) Way SisterhoodCONNECT + SHARE:If this episode helped you, share it with a friend who needs to hear it. A quick review on Apple Podcasts helps more women find this show — and it genuinely means the world.
BONUS: Guardrails Over Processes—How to Scale Teams Without Killing Creativity What actually slows down tech teams—lack of talent, or lack of ownership? In this episode, Prashanth Tondapu shares lessons from leading through global-scale failures, scaling from a small team to a 100-person company, and discovering why guardrails beat rigid processes when it comes to building teams that own outcomes and execute with discipline. Diffusion of Accountability: When Everyone Is Responsible, Nobody Is "Crisis is not the problem. Crisis is the one that uncovers the problem that has always existed." Early in his career, Prashanth witnessed a large-scale failure at a major technology company—not because the team lacked talent, but because accountability had become diffused. When too many people are responsible for something, it translates to nobody being responsible. The team was brilliant individually, but there was no clear demarcation of who owned what outcome. On good days, everything worked. But when things went wrong, there was no single person who could no longer delegate accountability to someone else. In this segment, we also refer to the concept from Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink. Prashant argues for: outcome can only come with 100% emotional commitment to a particular problem, and when five people share that commitment, each carries only 20%. That's where breakdowns happen. The Leadership Design Problem: From Computers to People "I was a developer who imagined that humans are also going to be as predictable as computers. Until 6 or 7 people, it works well because you can be everywhere. But as soon as we increased above 7, I was not able to be everywhere." Prashanth's journey as a founder mirrors what many tech leaders experience at scale. Starting Innostax at 27 as a developer with no management experience, he initially treated people like predictable systems. Below seven people, it worked—he could be the hero founder, the catch-all. But beyond that threshold, he had to learn delegation, which meant learning to trust. First came the people-dependent phase, then the process-oriented phase with SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) for everything—even how APIs should look. The SOPs made the team fast at execution, but their clients noticed something troubling: "Your guys do not even ask any questions." The rigid processes had suppressed the very creativity and critical thinking they needed. That feedback became the catalyst for the next evolution: becoming a people-first company. Guardrails vs. Processes: Freeing Creativity Within Structure "If something goes wrong, our guardrail is: we will just ask you one question—what was your intent behind doing this?" Prashanth draws a sharp distinction between processes and guardrails. Processes tell you exactly what to do and how to do it—they create predictable execution but kill creativity. Guardrails define the boundaries within which people have freedom to be creative and solve problems their own way. At Innostax, guardrails take practical forms: Time-on-task guardrails: If a task takes longer than expected, ask for help—don't rabbit-hole into it for three days Don't be a hero: When friction appears with a client or a problem, escalate early rather than trying to solve everything alone The intent review: When something goes wrong, instead of punishment, they ask three questions—was the intent right, was the approach right, and what was the outcome? If intent and approach were right but it still failed, that's the company's problem, not the individual's This framework creates psychological safety while maintaining accountability. People know they won't be penalized for honest mistakes made with good intent, which means they surface problems early rather than hiding them. Vision Elements and the People-First Company "The outcome is not just what is expected, but outcome also consists of what is not expected. People come out in so many creative, great ways that they end up surprising you." The shift to a people-first company meant replacing rigid SOPs with what Prashanth calls "vision elements"—broader directional guidance like "we are working for the client, we need to give the best for the client in the resources that we have." This gives teams a larger sandbox to work in while guardrails prevent them from going too far off course. The daily rhythm includes team leads reviewing work summaries—not to micromanage, but to catch misalignment early and offer support. Prashanth emphasizes that guardrails must be created with emotional intelligence and detachment. If you create guardrails assuming you're also part of the problem, they'll be biased and ineffective. That's why he considers emotional intelligence the prerequisite skill for any leader designing team structures. The Books That Changed Everything "Whenever I was reading through the fixed mindset guy, it was like it was describing me. And that actually changed everything." Prashanth recommends two foundational books for leaders building ownership-driven teams. First, Mindset by Carol Dweck—a book that cracked his own fixed mindset as a confident developer who thought he knew everything. Reading about the fixed mindset felt like reading his own biography, and that uncomfortable recognition opened him to listening more, seeking exposure to experts, and believing there were perspectives he hadn't encountered yet. Second, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman—because without mastering emotional intelligence, everything you hear feels personal, clouding your judgment and making you too close to the problem to design effective solutions for your team. Self-reflection Question: Are you building guardrails that give your team freedom to be creative within clear boundaries, or are you still writing processes that tell people exactly what to do—and in the process, suppressing the very thinking you hired them for? About Prashanth Tondapu Prashanth Tondapu is Founder and CEO of Innostax and a veteran technology leader. He's led teams through high-stakes global incidents at McAfee and scaled disciplined delivery organizations worldwide. His work focuses on ownership, accountability, and designing teams for predictable, sustainable execution as complexity grows. You can link with Prashanth Tondapu on LinkedIn.
(0:00) Intro (1:35) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel (2:22) Start of interview (3:01) Joelle's origin story (7:00) The Journey of Paradigm, the culture company she co-founded in 2014. "Our goal is to help organizations build healthy and high performing cultures where people from all backgrounds can come together, do their best work and thrive." (11:15) On the current backlash against DEI. (16:49) On Coinbase's "mission focused company" statement in 2020. (21:53) The Politics of Company Culture, and Silicon Valley's approach. (26:15) The Shift from Public to Private Companies (29:33) AI's Impact on the Workforce (35:18) The Role of the Board on Workplace Culture (37:23) Talent executives and CHROs on Boards (39:54) Rethinking Compliance in Organizations (42:43) Evaluating an organization's culture (45:22) Books that have greatly influenced her life: Growth Mindset, by Carol Dweck (2007) Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (2025) Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel (2022) (47:04) Her mentors. (48:24) Quotes that she thinks of often or lives her life by "Do the best you can until you know better. And then when you know better, do better." (Maya Angelou) "Forward is a pace" (heard from a Peloton instructor, Robin Arzon) (49:08) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves (49:44) The living person she most admires (inspiring now): Lindsey Vonn. (50:30) The Unique Perspective of a Lawyer-CEO Joelle Emerson is the CEO and co-founder of Paradigm, a company that empowers organizations to create innovative, high-performance workplaces where everyone can do their best work. You can follow Evan on social media at:X: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
Logan McKnight is the founder of GoodKnight Consulting and a strategic advisor to MedTech executives navigating growth, leadership challenges, and operational complexity. Logan shares her nearly 20-year journey from pre-med to neuromonitoring technologist to CEO, and explains why she now focuses on helping leaders build teams that scale without sacrificing culture or burning out. She discusses lessons learned managing remote surgical service teams, why “simple scales,” and how mission, vision, and values enable better decisions and hiring beyond gut instinct. Guest links: https://www.goodknightconsulting.net/ Charity supported: ASPCA Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com. PRODUCTION CREDITS Host & Editor: Lindsey Dinneen Producer: Velentium Medical EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode 075 - Logan McKnight [00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. [00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. [00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. [00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. [00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. [00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and today I am delighted to welcome Logan McKnight. Logan is the founder of GoodKnight Consulting and a strategic advisor to MedTech executives navigating growth, leadership challenges and operational complexity. With nearly 20 years in neuromonitoring and surgical services, including experience as a CEO, VP of Operations and business development leader, Logan brings an experienced perspective to executive leadership. She works with directors, VPs, and C-suite leaders to build teams that can scale without sacrificing culture or burning out. Well, welcome to the show, Logan. I'm so glad to speak with you today, and thank you so much for being here. [00:01:34] Logan McKnight: Yeah, it's great to be here. I appreciate you inviting me. [00:01:36] Lindsey Dinneen: Of course. I'd love if you wouldn't mind starting off by sharing just a little bit about yourself, your background, and what led you to MedTech. [00:01:45] Logan McKnight: Of course. Yeah. So my name is Logan McKnight and I have been in medtech for almost the last 20 years. And I think my journey, I, a lot of people have a very similar like origin story of haphazardly finding their way into medtech. I was pre-med in college. I wanted to go into veterinary school and I think I panicked honestly last minute, not really wanting to go. I interned under vet who basically dissuaded me from doing all the work of vet school and said go to med school. And feeling a little lost, I found my way to medtech, particularly neural monitoring, which was a field, pretty niche, but basically I got trained by a company to go in and run equipment and monitor patient's nervous systems during surgery. And to me, just having my bachelor's degree and having that level of impact and being able to jump right into patient care without having to go to more, you know, years and years of schooling was right up my alley and it's been such a wild ride. You know, I was a technologist and then I became a manager and then VP of development of business development, and head of contracting. And then I went over to a small company where I was the vice president of the whole company, and then eventually CEO, and now I'm consulting for medtech companies. So it's been a really fun journey that I didn't plan at all. [00:03:06] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Okay. Well, excellent. And that brings up so many questions, but to start, so you were thinking originally you might wanna be a vet. Do you have you know, like, did you grow up with animals? Did you just have an amazing love for them? Where did that come from? [00:03:23] Logan McKnight: You know, honestly, I think I would've had way more animals, but my parents were a lot more reasonable than I was. So we just had the regular pets, but I grew up like horseback riding and in the Midwest, in Ohio. So I was around a lot of farm animals and things like that and I was part of like FFA and horticulture. So future Farmers of America. And I actually was really interested in large animals because I didn't wanna deal with people, I didn't wanna deal with people or their pets. So, and you know, and so that was what panicked me about med school was like the whole plan was veterinary school was to avoid the people part. And then I found through medtech you know, neuromonitoring and surgery where my patients are asleep. And so I still got to do all the things that I love, like providing impact, but then, you know, not having to worry about, I guess all for me I just had my head like all the challenges and complications that deal dealing with patients that I thought would make my job and life really difficult. So it's been really fun to kind of focus on just like the care and how to move things forward and explore this big, wide open space of how to impact people's lives in surgery. [00:04:31] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. And you know what's interesting about that too is, though, I think it sounds like throughout your, though, as you've, you know, gone from technologist and then you've had all of these amazing career changes and growth basically. It sounds like, you know, you have developed though your own kind of leadership style, so even though maybe originally you weren't sure about dealing with people, so to speak, you've actually excelled at it. So I'm curious how that has evolved for you in creating and managing teams. [00:05:03] Logan McKnight: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I think like initially I was trying to control all these variables before I got into leadership in people, and then realized like you can't do that once you get to actually working with people. And once you almost like acknowledge and recognize, you can't control that but there's some beauty in that of you just allow for what you allow and then you know, you have to give people the ability to function like at their level. And you create the parameters. But other than that, like some magic happens when you don't try to control every single thing. And I see so many, especially new managers, you know, being like, "I need to control everything." And they're wondering why they're exhausted or their team's not respecting them. And it's like, gotta let go, gotta let go of the wheel a little bit. So, you know, I think those are some lessons and sometimes they just come with time and experience. [00:05:55] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, when you started, well, let's go back to the beg, maybe it's kind of at the beginning of your career. What are some things that you learned as a technologist and as you were growing within the hospital systems themselves, that contributed to basically where you would become now to become an entrepreneur and all of that. [00:06:21] Logan McKnight: Yeah, I mean, I will be very honest, and this is not meant to be a dig at anybody who I'd worked with or any boss. But I just, I went to work for a private company and we went and we were almost like hired mercenaries. So we would go to like, you know, every day I was in a different hospital. I didn't know my schedule till the night before. I rarely saw my manager and, you know, rarely saw other members of my team and it really felt like I was very isolated and alone. And it added to my burnout and also feeling like I didn't have anyone watch, like looking out for me and my back as a younger employee. And I realized there was so much room for improvement there in how you manage a team remotely. And so I think I, I just like mentally I was a psychology major before I switched to pre-med, and so I think like the, like human brain, because I was, you know, neuroscience, but like psychology, I think is so fascinating to me and the way people tick and what makes them tick. And I, I'm a big believer if you can figure out the way people tick, you can unlock so many things in the world and like you can, you know, you can be the most brilliant person, but if you can't communicate effectively, if you can't manage a team, you're really not gonna take things to the next level because you're not gonna activate those people around you to perform and get something done. So I feel like it was a case study for me to kind of watch like these managers and struggle and I'm like, "Ah, that's what I'm not going to do." [00:07:47] Lindsey Dinneen: Yes. Yeah. Sometimes learning from examples that maybe you wish you didn't have to learn from though can be the best teachers and actually serve your, you know, your own leadership style and your people that you end up getting to influence. It actually does help in the long term, but so. [00:08:06] Logan McKnight: Totally. [00:08:07] Lindsey Dinneen: So when you started GoodKnight Consulting, what was the impetus for that? I mean, you'd had this you've had this amazing career so far. You're ready kind of just for the next step or what sparked that? [00:08:19] Logan McKnight: You know, it's interesting, I stepped down from my CEO position 'cause I was feeling, I was running a neuromonitoring service company in the Pacific Northwest. We also had a professional services arm with neurologists. And then I had a medical billing company that I was running and we did mostly out of network billing. And then we also started a company in India right before COVID. So by 2023, I was fried, I was very burnt out in the way that I felt like I was busy all the time, but not really having the same impact I used to have. I think a lot of that was like I, I got more involved on the litigious side of running a company and then also the medical billing side really takes it out of you. So the thing I enjoyed was the coaching and the mentoring, and once I took a little bit of a step back and thought about what would I do every day for free? You know, like, what would I just love to do? And the reality was coaching other leaders, especially one like scratched my itch for helping people and provide and like, impact, which I realize is my biggest driver is like, how do I impact the most people and walk away with, you know, my life feeling like I've touched people in a positive way, and I think that's, you know, my, my driving force. So that's kind of why I started. And I started honestly just trying to go to leaders individually and offer some webinars and some one-on-one coaching. And then I really realized working with companies actually is the best way to go about this because you get ownership and leadership that's totally aligned and they want that support for their leaders. And then, it's so much easier to see the impact spread throughout an organization, so that's been really cool, is to be this outside force driving an owner or an executive's vision of what they want their company or the team to be. [00:10:07] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, and I noticed when I was reading a little bit more about the company, one of the things that I thought was really interesting is you talk about there, this is not just let's say leadership or mindset coaching or something like that, although that is very important as well. It is also about the business strategy. And you talk a lot about, you know, you've been in the position to understand how much, of course, revenue matters. You ha you have to, you know, make sure that's a strong, you know, foundation for the business. So, so how do you balance the two when you work with clients? [00:10:45] Logan McKnight: Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think every client is unique. I have found that just stripping away-- actually with something I, a blog post I was working on today and something I posted on LinkedIn, and it's something I find myself saying to founders and owner operators all the time-- simple scales. And I think, you know, what ends up happening is a lot of times you get this great idea for a product, a service, a company, and you just go. And you don't sometimes sit down and create like the true mission or the vision and like the values of the company. And it's really hard for owner operators and people who are in startup land and you know, small businesses to pause and do that, especially if they've been going for a few years 'cause you know, it's like, "Well, I've been operating without this stuff. It's totally fine." The reality is it's so much easier to grow and scale and also to gut check yourself when you're making decisions and being like "This is the right call because this aligns with our mission and our vision for the company or our growth initiatives for this year. And then it aligns with my values. I feel good about this decision and I can communicate it to people I hire. So I trust those people." And like that's what scales is, the trust and people having like the unified mission and vision and values and like, I know it sounds a little touchy feely, but the reality is like that's actually what I feel like I end up centering owners and operators on. It's less about the minutia and the details and more about like, does this make sense with where you wanna go and the way you, and the way you wanna get there. [00:12:21] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah, I really like that. And with the emphasis on the unified team in terms of, you know, we don't all have to view life exactly the same, but we need to be aligned, at least with our mission and values and things like that. What do you find are some of the best practices when it comes to building out a team? And on the flip side, what are some things that maybe are common or that feel like they would be good practices, but in reality might not be. Like, what are some lessons learned, I suppose, on both sides? [00:12:56] Logan McKnight: Yeah. I mean, I think, I'll be honest, I think a lot of owners and maybe leaders who've been in their position for a while, like, like there-- I was talking to somebody else about this, about your gut feeling and like, go with your gut and trust me. I was a big go with my gut leader especially as a CEO, but like that doesn't scale because you have to be able to verbalize like, what are the things you're looking for? Why did you pick this person? And so at the end of the day you know, I had a policy when I was probably right, became, when I became a CEO that I needed to like approve after a couple not so great hires, I needed to approve every hire. And like the reality is that's not realistic, that's not gonna scale as you grow. And so I just needed to create the, this is what we're looking for like, you know, we're hiring for attitude. We can train the aptitude, we can train the technical depending on what the job is. But, you know, here's what we're really looking for, is a good fit for the company and the culture. And then, because once I had people who I knew really got that and saw the vision, I knew they were gonna make the right choices. And so I didn't feel like I had to. Be the one making that decision, I could scale it and help, you know, allow my team to hire for the people in the places that they needed and saw. [00:14:09] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I really like that. So, one thing that I thought was interesting, especially so on your LinkedIn profiles, I was, you know, enjoying reading more about you and some of the things you've done. But you had mentioned that sometimes there's a trade off between hitting targets and then you're burning out your team for the opposite. You're protecting your team, but then you're not hitting your targets. Could you speak a little bit more about that and how you help companies sort of overcome that challenge. [00:14:40] Logan McKnight: No, and I mean, I think it's like, I equate like, I think when I first became a leader, you know, talking about how my viewed my other leaders maybe know what not to do, I definitely swung the pendulum too far the other direction when I first started. And I was way too, I don't know, I was way too, all the things I didn't get. And so two, like checking in with my team, "How are you doing?" Not wanting to delegate work to them and doing these things because you know, and so I realized there's you, I think that's like an initial thing a lot of leaders go through is that shift. It's when you get stuck in the one extreme or the other and you don't really find your good at equilibrium, that it's really hard to sustain. And I think it's really important to find your equilibrium of, like, "This drives us to hit quota. This drives us to get our metrics and to for success. And then it does it in a sustainable way that our team's gonna stay." Because to me, like, sustainable. I kind of was thinking about my values even this morning and I'm like, I think fun is really one of my values like, I want to really enjoy like not just my personal life, but my professional life, and I think your job, your company, all of those things is a lot more fun when it's sustainable, right, when you're like exhausted. So finding a way for it to be sustainable for your team, for, you know, and everyone likes to win. Like it's fun to hit quota. It's fun to like crush your metrics and celebrate. So it, how do you know, make that sustainable and fun? And I think that's like a long-term success or recipe for success with a company. [00:16:15] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you know, it's so interesting 'cause actually this has come up a couple of times recently on the podcast is the sort of core value of fun and how much that does actually transform people's experience with the company. And you know, because inevitably you're gonna have those days that are just really tough and hard. And so being able to though have a culture of fun and joy is, it does make a difference. Yeah. [00:16:42] Logan McKnight: No, for sure. I remember when I first started working in surgery and someone asked me, they're like, "Oh, is it like Grey's Anatomy?" And, you know, and I'm like, "It's not nearly as like sexy. Like there's no, you know, doctors in closets and whatever." The, I, it's actually more like the show Scrubs and the reality is, and people are like, "Oh, that seems like goofy and comedy." I'm like, "I know." But the, I think the reality is we view in like healthcare and medtech of like this, you know, taking care of patients, a serious job. We're talking to surgeons. But for anybody who's really good at their job, like, you know, you see, especially in surgery in these high stakes environments, like it's actually the best rooms to be in are a lot of fun because you rely on your team, you know everyone's gonna do well, or you know their job well. If shit hits the fan, the tone changes and you can trust that. But I think because you trust your team. It's fun, you know, in more moments than not because there's just so much trust that when things get serious, people will speak up and it's safe. I think you like when you're psychologically safe, it's enjoyable, it's fun, and you also feel like you can speak up when you say something wrong. And I feel like those are the healthiest like work dynamics, both in healthcare then, especially in medtech when you're putting a product out there, like you want somebody to say something if they see a problem with your product before it goes to market, right? [00:18:05] Lindsey Dinneen: Well, and I love that. I love that perspective too of, you're absolutely right, healthcare, medical devices, it is it is serious by nature and it should be like, we should take our jobs seriously. But at the same times, if we could not maybe take ourselves as seriously and, you know, and infuse the fun and it does help also I think dissipate some of that-- well, some of the really hard, you know, again, those days that are tough it helps to be able to say, you know, take a step back and go, you know what, "It's yes, and." [00:18:37] Logan McKnight: Right. A hundred percent. Yeah. It adds a little like, like brevity to those se really serious moments to be able to feel. You know, and I think that at the end of the day, like you being in whatever place whatever your place is in healthcare, in medtech, like whatever role you're playing, like you are helping advance the field, you're helping patient care. And I think always keeping that in mind, even on like the tough days, like you're advancing something in a good way keeps you centered on like your why and drives you forward in a really good way versus like, you know, and I'll be honest, like I, it got hard for me in my CEO role, like, I think I lost my why a little bit and my driver, because it's very hard to see, "Okay, well how am I impacting patient care positively. How am I impacting the world positively?" when you're chasing down insurance reimbursements and whatnot. And, you know, dealing with hospital shutdowns during COVID. So I think at the end of the day, I realize like I need to find a way for this to be enjoyable and fun because I also realize like I'm my best self and I'm more creative and I'm more in like a problem solving zone when I'm in that, that good mindset. And so I, I look at it as a huge positive to, to figure out what, what drives you and make you happy. [00:19:51] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. What drives you makes you happy. And I agree with you, if you can also take a step back sometimes and have that broader perspective and mix it with just a little bit of humor, even if just all you're doing is taking a quick break and watching, I don't know, a funny cat video or something. Yeah. [00:20:10] Logan McKnight: Sure. [00:20:11] Lindsey Dinneen: Reset moments make a difference. So difference, you're a board member of several organizations and I wondered if you could speak a little bit to those organizations and what led you to get involved with them. [00:20:24] Logan McKnight: Yeah. So the two I'm on the board of is one Nepal's Spine Foundation which I went to Nepal with a few surgeons I worked with. And then when I was in figuring out my why when I stepped away the surgeons who are started the foundation invited me to join the board. And actually I will be going to Nepal with them in April and we'll be doing another mission and then hiking to Everspace camp together. I'm looking forward to that, and it's been amazing 'cause I think that's also, I've gotten to go on a lot of mission trips in my career. I've gotten to go to Ghana and Barbados, Dominican Republic, Nepal, India. And so, like I also realized like impact being my driver, like I have so much impact to teach people about neuromonitoring, which isn't a well-known, you know, aspect of surgery always. And so the fact that I could leave a hospital, a community better for going there really was a driver. So the fact that I continued to do that work is really important. And then the second is STRIPES, which is how I met you, women in medtech. And you know, the nice thing is I was looking, I was a, I went back before I fully launched GoodKnight Consulting and became like a device rep just to kind of figure out, you know, do I wanna go back into sales? What do I really wanna do? And I was a little lost and I found my way, you know, I wanted community. And when I found this group, it was just transformative for me. Like I, my mentor was Lisa Jacobs, who is phenomenal and has been inspiring for a very long time. And she actually really pushed me to do my dream and start and really put all into my coaching and consulting. So I'm really grateful for that. And then she invited me to be on the board. So like to continue to give back to an organization that I feel like personally gave me, like it, it's why I am where I am today. It gave me that push I needed in that support. And there's tons of women in the organization like Claire Davis, Kat Hurd, like Courtney Turich. I just, they're all out there, they're all public on LinkedIn. And that was something that honestly, initially scared me. And so just, I was inspired by them, supported, and I think that's a really, you know, great thing when you are becoming an entrepreneur is finding your community and that support. [00:22:42] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So I just, I love the fact that you're doing both of those things. The mission work is really cool. It's amazing to hear how you've gotten to use-- well, because you're so driven by impact how you've gotten to do that and then make a big difference in, in the lives of people that, yeah, may otherwise never have had that opportunity or, you know, at least not for a while or whatever. So. [00:23:09] Logan McKnight: Right. [00:23:10] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that, that's really incredible. So, you know, through that or throughout your career, are there any moments that really stand out to you as kind of affirming, "Wow, I am in the right industry at the right time." [00:23:23] Logan McKnight: You know, I think medtech, like always, even if it's not me and something I'm doing, like seeing people who I know in the industry and accomplishments they've made, and organizations that I've either been a part of or supported in some way in my career, like just seeing like the new tech coming out and the advancements they're making, just reaffirms like I'm part of a bigger picture in an ecosystem that's really great. And even, you know, like I, I came from the spine space when I was doing medical device and it spine is, you know, tough. Like ortho's tough, spines tough. That's a lot of competition. But you know, I think. Competition drives quality, and so it's really cool even if you see your competitor doing something, you know, you're like, "Oh man, I wish we would've," but it's getting done. It's, you know, it's pushing the envelope, it's making it better. And I think that's huge. And, you know, really exciting too when I found you and Project Medtech to see how you guys are helping support like startups and investors and people who are looking to get into this space. Because I think that's the other thing is getting fresh perspective and new innovative companies helps everybody like drive, drives the mission forward, drives the impact forward on patient care. [00:24:38] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. And okay, so another very random thing that I found on your LinkedIn, but I just really liked it 'cause I resonate with this aspect. So you started to paint, you learned how to paint. Tell us about that and does that play a role in your creativity overall, do you think? [00:25:01] Logan McKnight: You know, I think so. So I hosted like a happy hour for girlfriends and we did this thing where we painted like a thrift shop thrift store paintings and like Halloween things in them. And so, and I live in the Pacific Northwest, which is beautiful. We have a hundred year old cabin on three acres, and it's, it was October. It was just like, stunning. And I was looking out in our, my backyard and I was like, "I wanna paint this." And I just sat down. I mean, I'm not artistic. I've never and it looked like a 8-year-old painted it and my partner Joe was like, "Maybe watch a video." It's great. I love it. But, you know, and so I found, you know, like Bob, apparently all, every episode of Bob Ross was on Netflix at least last year. And so I just started watching some videos and some videos on YouTube, and I started getting better and better pretty quickly. Like I, you know, I started, you know, little tutorials here and there. And then I realized, like I was also reading books to help me kind of get in this entrepreneurial mindset like growth mindset or "Mindset" by Carol Dweck, which talks about growth mindset. And I realized like, you can teach yourself to do anything. Like I had told myself for the longest time, I mean, I started my I'm 40 and so I told myself for 40 years, like, "I'm not artistic." That was my box I painted around myself. And then all of a sudden I was like, "Well, let's give it a shot." And so, you know, there's, I realize like you set these boundaries in your parameters in your head and you blow them up a little bit. Like, you know what? Like, let's just see, let's try you know, and I see this with our teenagers too, it's sometimes like when they struggle in school, they'll be like, "I'm not smart, or I'm not this." And I'm like, "You just have to try." Like anything worth doing takes effort. And if everybody quit because they weren't good. The first time or even like the 10th time, like imagine how little progress we would make as a society. So I think if something you wanna do something recognizing, like you can learn to do it. And I think that also helped ignite, like me knowing I could be, do my consulting company and really launch it. And so I just started reaching out to people who had done it and I hired coaches and I started to learn more about what would make it work and what I would need to do. And you know what a novel idea, right? You find the person who's doing what you wanna do and you learn from them. You know, and it's just like that entire journey over the last year was really helpful to, I think, get me to the head place like I needed to be, to like leave the safety of a W2 job and launch a company. Just to like lie, you know, to myself every, and be like, "You can do it." Because, you know, if you start every day with the, "I don't know if this is gonna work," like I, there's no way I would've done this. I really had to tell myself I could do it, it was gonna work, and I realized now that I've gotten past that, it's very harder like to put a boundary around me now. Like now it's a challenge, right? Like if you tell me I can't do something, I'm like, "Oh, let's see." I bet you, you know, even if I'll fail, like the first few times, I want to try to see if I can do it because I now have this delusion that I can teach myself to do just about anything, so. [00:28:18] Lindsey Dinneen: That's awesome. [00:28:20] Logan McKnight: Or not. [00:28:20] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, no, that is incredible. And you're absolutely right. I think we can all relate to, at least in some element of our lives, painting boxes around ourselves and going, "I'm not this," or "I'm not that," or "I'll never get to be able to do this. I'll never be proficient." And those things aren't true. It's just what we tell ourselves. So I love the fact that painting opened up those doors for you. [00:28:43] Logan McKnight: Yeah. No it's so true. And I think it's like a. You know, a metaphor for life. And I think I hear that a lot of times from people will be like, "I wish I could do what you," and I'm like, " You can literally do anything." That's how crazy. And, you know, we're in peak New Year's resolution time, right? And I think a lot of people are like, "Oh, I wanna do this and do that." And that's like, you can, you just like, if you wanna be a person that exercises more. Just go start exercising. That's how wild the world, like our brains can make us do whatever we want. So anyway, I'm also a big psychology buff 'cause I, I'm a big believer in like the power of the human brain and what it can do over your decision making and your life and the impact it can have, you know, everything really. [00:29:27] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I love that perspective and yeah, growth mindset is a wonderful gift because, you know, you can explore, you can try, and as long as you're sticking with it and doing those things, then you're not failing. You're just, you're just exploring and then you can just keep exploring and find things that are right for you. And you know, not everything will stick, and that's okay too, so. [00:29:55] Logan McKnight: Yeah, a hundred percent. Yeah. I always tell people "I'm still figuring what I, or figuring out what I wanna do when I grow up." You know, and I think that's an ongoing thing, and I hope when I'm 80, I still am figuring out like what's next. [00:30:06] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. [00:30:07] Logan McKnight: It's exciting. So. [00:30:08] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. All right, well pivoting the conversation a little bit just for fun. Imagine that you were to be offered a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It could be within your industry, but it doesn't have to be. What would you choose to teach? [00:30:24] Logan McKnight: You know, I think this, it ends up being the thing I talk about most. And it's the thing I think I wanted to do initially, but it was really a struggle to just target and talk to managers, especially like frontline managers. But I think that transition from being an independent contributor to becoming a first time leader-- like if I could teach a masterclass in that, I think that would be really fun. I see so many very empathetic and like capable independent contributors, whether they be like rockstar sales rep or even a great like technologist or engineer. And then they were like, "Okay, well I need to move up the ladder. I'm gonna be a people manager," and then their next step is people management. And they're like, "This sucks. Like I, nobody told me about like all the things I have to deal with and the people." And you're still in the mindset of like box checking, of like, in order to be successful, "I have to do all these things. I have to do X, Y, and Z." And I think that the second I stopped checking all the boxes and trying to do all the things was when I went from being like a manager to an actual leader of people and activating them. And if I could just get a few people who I believe, like I've even seen so many really great people leave the industry because they feel like they want to advance, but they don't see because they weren't a good manager, like, "Well, how would I ever be a good director or a good VP," or so on and so forth. The reality is like probably the hardest transition is going from independent contributor to a manager, and yet it's like the least supported space. So that's I think that's something I feel deeply passionate about and would love to like able to offer as a resource more for people. [00:32:10] Lindsey Dinneen: And that would be an incredible masterclass. Okay, and then how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world? [00:32:18] Logan McKnight: I love that one. I mean, I think at the end of the day, that's the impact thing. You know, and I don't even think it has to be this, like, big, you know, like, "Oh, I, you know, solved healthcare in Ghana." Like, you know, it's not that. It's almost like I, I hope that like my company and my interaction with people leaves everyone feeling a little lighter, a little happier, like a little more capable to do like something, and they feel like talking with me, working with me has unlocked like the next level of something that they've been struggling with and makes them feel like, "Okay, I can do this now." 'Cause I almost feel like that's what, what coaching and consulting comes down to is I'm not doing the thing for anybody. I am only helping to remove the roadblock around them, that they stop limiting themselves and they really see what's possible just by making a few changes in the way they think, in the way they operate their business or run their team. And, you know, amazing things happen. So my hope is that I just continue to get to do that and have people that really feel positive impact from that. [00:33:26] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Well that is a beautiful legacy, so, yeah. All right. And then final question. What is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it? [00:33:38] Logan McKnight: Oh, gosh. Well, we just talked about this before our call, but my dog, I have, I'm an animal lover, and so I have the fortune that every day, most every day I'm in my home office and I get to go on a hike or walk with my dogs, either around our property or out somewhere in beautiful Washington. And I think just like seeing the mountains and being out with my dog, like that just makes me smile. And I think it's also what inspired me to paint and all the things. So I, I think just all the beauty like in the world just makes me smile and makes my heart very happy. [00:34:12] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. Oh my goodness. That's beautiful. All right, well this has been an amazing conversation, Logan. I so appreciate you and your time today. And we're so honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is dedicated to preventing animal cruelty in the United States. So thank you for choosing that organization to support and we just wish you continued success as you work to change lives for a better world. [00:34:43] Logan McKnight: Yeah, thanks for having me. We'll talk soon. [00:34:45] Lindsey Dinneen: Sounds good. Thank you and take care. [00:34:49] Dan Purvis: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium Medical. Velentium Medical is a full service CDMO, serving medtech clients worldwide to securely design, manufacture, and test class two and class three medical devices. Velentium Medical's four units include research and development-- pairing electronic and mechanical design, embedded firmware, mobile app development, and cloud systems with the human factor studies and systems engineering necessary to streamline medical device regulatory approval; contract manufacturing-- building medical products at the prototype, clinical, and commercial levels in the US, as well as in low cost regions in 1345 certified and FDA registered Class VII clean rooms; cybersecurity-- generating the 12 cybersecurity design artifacts required for FDA submission; and automated test systems, assuring that every device produced is exactly the same as the device that was approved. Visit VelentiumMedical.com to explore how we can work together to change lives for a better world.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARYIn 2026's 'forever layoff' era, women leaders who master continuous improvement leadership outperform peers, reduce their layoff risk, and accelerate promotions. Olaf Boettger's 27-year Kaizen framework — courage, humility, discipline — turns daily small improvements into extraordinary career results.Key stat: Toyota workers are 2x more productive than competitors using this same system.? QUICK TAKEAWAYS• Continuous improvement leadership doubles your career productivity vs. peers who stop learning• The 3 capabilities every woman leader needs: courage to name problems, humility to keep learning, discipline to stay consistent• Kaizen's daily 15-minute team meeting is directly applicable to your own career self-management• GE's turnaround under Larry Culp proves CI works in any industry — finance, tech, healthcare, or your own career• In 2026's 'forever layoff' climate, CI skills signal indispensable strategic value to any organizationIf you're a woman leader in 2026, the job market has changed dramatically — and not in your favor. Glassdoor's Worklife Trends report calls it the 'forever layoff': small, rolling cuts that never make headlines but keep talented executives in a constant state of anxiety. Meanwhile, AI is reshaping roles at every level, and the competition for standout positions has never been fiercer.As an executive coach with over 30 years of experience (MA, MFT, PCC) and host of the Women's Leadership Success Podcast — ranked in the top 1.5% globally with over 750,000 downloads — I've interviewed more than 144 of the world's top leadership experts. When I heard Olaf Boettger's approach to continuous improvement leadership, I immediately knew this was the missing framework most women leaders had never considered.Olaf spent 27 years at Procter & Gamble and Danaher — two of the most operationally excellent companies on earth — mastering the Japanese Kaizen philosophy. What he discovered translates directly to career acceleration: the same system that doubled Toyota's worker productivity and powered GE's biggest turnaround in American history can supercharge your leadership brand and make you the candidate no one can afford to pass over. The 2026 Career Reality: Why 'Working Hard' Is No Longer Enough The data is sobering for women leaders right now. According to Glassdoor's 2025 Workplace Trends report, small layoffs — under 50 people — now represent 51% of all job cuts, up from just 38% in 2015. These 'forever layoffs' create cultures of anxiety where talented women question their value daily.At the same time, female manager engagement dropped seven percentage points in 2025 alone — the steepest decline of any group, according to Gallup research. Women leaders are being asked to do more with less, carrying teams through AI disruption and RTO mandates, while their own career advancement stalls.The traditional answer — work harder, be more visible, volunteer for every high-profile project — simply isn't scaling. In a market where 45% of employers rate the job outlook as 'fair' at best, you need a completely different strategy. You need continuous improvement leadership. ? Ready to transform your career trajectory? Download our FREE Leadership Branding Blueprint Accelerator and discover:• A proven system to document your impact and accelerate promotions• How to build a leadership brand that makes you the obvious choice• A measurable framework for expanding your organizational influence• Strategic positioning for high-visibility, career-defining initiatives• The same approach Sabrina uses with Fortune 500 executives to 3x their promotion speed? GET YOUR FREE LEADERSHIP BRANDING BLUEPRINT ACCELERATOR What Is Continuous Improvement Leadership? The Kaizen Framework Explained Continuous improvement — known in Japanese as Kaizen, meaning 'change for the better' — originated at Toyota nearly 90 years ago. After World War II, with limited resources and a need to compete globally, Toyota developed a system to extract maximum quality and efficiency from every process. That system, now called the Toyota Production System, became the foundation of what we know as Lean, Six Sigma, and the Danaher Business System.For women leaders, continuous improvement leadership means applying these same principles to your career, your team, and your organization. It is not a one-time initiative or a January resolution. It is a daily practice — a permanent operating system.The Three Foundation PrinciplesOlaf distills continuous improvement leadership into three core principles:Kaizen — The belief that there is always a better way. This is not about being self-critical; it is about being growth-oriented. Every interaction, presentation, and leadership decision is an opportunity to iterate and improve.Go to Gemba — Go to the real place. Stop relying on slide decks and secondhand reports. As a leader, this means visiting your stakeholders, understanding what your team actually experiences day-to-day, and staying close to the work that creates value.Customer focus — Always anchor to what your 'customer' values. In a career context, your customers are your executive stakeholders, your team, and the business outcomes you're hired to deliver. Everything you do should be filtered through: does this add value for them?The Three Capabilities That Determine SuccessAccording to Olaf, your mindset determines everything. Leaders who succeed with continuous improvement possess three non-negotiable capabilities:CapabilityWhat It Looks Like in PracticeWhy Women Leaders Need It NowCOURAGEHonestly naming when your performance or your team's is 'red' — even when the culture rewards positivity over truth.In 2026's performance-pressured environment, leaders who surface problems first are seen as strategic — not weak.HUMILITYStaying open to learning regardless of your experience level. As Olaf says: the best leaders he's known, including P&G's CEO A.G. Lafley, were the most humble.Imposter syndrome tempts women to prove they already know everything. Humility is the counterintuitive superpower.DISCIPLINEShowing up for improvement consistently — not just in January. Committing to the decade, not the quarter.Career advancement compounds. The women who stand out in 2026 are those who have been quietly improving for years. The Business Case: What Continuous Improvement Leadership Actually Delivers For skeptics — and Olaf acknowledges that many leaders initially resist this approach — the numbers make a compelling argument. Toyota, the originator of this system, generates roughly twice the revenue per employee compared to its nearest competitors. Danaher, where Olaf spent the bulk of his career, has sustained approximately 15–16% compound annual growth for 40 consecutive years.The most visible example is GE's transformation under Larry Culp — the former Danaher CEO who took over when GE was in deep financial trouble. Using continuous improvement as the operating backbone, Culp and his teams executed what many consider one of the greatest corporate turnarounds in American business history, eventually splitting GE into three highly successful independent companies.On a practical level, Olaf shared a specific case study from a Danaher acquisition: a company delivering orders on time just 50% of the time. Using CI methodologies, that number rose to 95%. For context, if Amazon delivered your packages on time half the time, you'd stop using Amazon. A 45-percentage-point improvement is not incremental — it's transformational. TRY THIS NOW (10 Minutes)Apply Olaf's Red/Green method to your career right now: Identify one goal you have for your career this quarter (promotion, salary increase, high-visibility project).Set a specific target. Write your current actual. Color code it: are you green (on track) or red (below target)? If red — write one sentence explaining why.Then write one action you will take this week to close the gap. That's continuous improvement leadership in action. Do this every Monday. How to Apply Continuous Improvement Leadership to Your Career in 2026 The beauty of Kaizen is that it scales from a Toyota factory floor to your personal career strategy. Here's how to translate Olaf's framework into your daily leadership practice:The 15-Minute Daily Leadership HuddleAt every Danaher facility, teams hold a 15-minute standing meeting every morning. They review five metrics — safety, quality, delivery, inventory, productivity — and ask: are we red or green? If red, why? Who does what by when?For your career, your five metrics might be: stakeholder relationships, project delivery, skill development, visibility, and team performance. A daily or weekly 10-minute self-check asking those same questions creates the discipline of continuous improvement at the individual level.Visual Management for Your CareerOlaf emphasizes making performance visible. In organizations, this means color-coded boards. For your career, this translates to maintaining a simple achievement tracker — a running document of your wins, metrics, and impact — that you review weekly. This directly feeds your Leadership Branding Blueprint and becomes the evidence base for promotion conversations.The Growth Mindset + Kaizen ConnectionOlaf's PhD research connected him deeply to Carol Dweck's work on fixed vs. growth mindsets. Dweck's research demonstrates that individuals who believe abilities can be developed through dedication consistently outperform those who believe talent is fixed. Continuous improvement is the operational expression of growth mindset — it gives you the system that turns that belief into measurable career results. Your 7-Step Continuous Improvement Career Action Plan Step 1 (10 min): Define your career target.
When's the last time you heard a leader say, “I don't know?" As we learn in this week's discussion with returning guest Binata Mukherjee, MD, on the Faculty Factory Podcast, those three words actually humanize a leader and signal confidence. It's an important point for this interview's broader discussion on growth mindsets. Growth-minded leaders are willing to be candid about not having all the answers as they are there to facilitate learning and help find those answers. At the University of South Alabama (USA) in Mobile, Dr. Mukherjee serves as Assistant Dean for Faculty and Professional Development in the Whiddon College of Medicine and is Associate Professor of Internal Medicine with USA Health. She is also an Adjunct Professor of Management and Director of Healthcare Leadership Initiatives in the Mitchell College of Business at USA. “Leader As Coach” The concept of “leader as coach” describes practicing leadership as a facilitator who teaches people rather than doing the work for them or micromanaging day-to-day tasks. It's about continually reminding the team of the direction and shifting from a manager mindset to a leader mindset. As we learn in this discussion with Dr. Mukherjee, leadership is defined by behavior, not persona. Dr. Mukherjee discusses Carol Dweck's 2006 book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success," which explores the dynamic between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset and why that distinction matters. “Building trust and enabling an environment of psychological safety are the most important things about working with a team,” Dr. Mukherjee points out. More Resources to Explore Faculty Factory Podcast No. 327 - "Know Thyself: Keys to Self-Awareness Amid Uncertainty with Binata Mukherjee, MD, MBA": https://facultyfactory.org/binata-mukherjee/ "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success": https://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Carol-S-Dweck/dp/0345472322 Learn more about the growth mindset from the Harvard Business School: https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/growth-mindset-vs-fixed-mindset
I'm saying the quiet part out loud: if you don't build your sales muscle, growth stalls - no matter how talented you are. In this episode, Julia Arpag, CEO and Founder of Aligned Recruitment, shares with me how she went from five weeks postpartum and laid off to building a seven-figure tech recruitment firm by treating selling as service, investing early in mentorship, and using LinkedIn + networking like a real funnel.Julia's journey began in August 2023 when she was unexpectedly laid off while on maternity leave. What could have been a destabilizing moment became the catalyst for something extraordinary. While briefly accepting a W-2 role, she started selling for a friend's startup recruitment venture on the side. Within months, she closed three retainer clients. That early traction forced a pivotal decision: continue playing it safe, or step fully into entrepreneurship despite fears around sales, taxes, and “not knowing enough.” She chose the leap. Rather than trying to figure everything out alone, Julia invested her earliest earnings into mentorship by hiring an executive coach who had sold a recruitment agency for $28 million, a LinkedIn writing coach, and systems experts. Inspired by Carol Dweck's Mindset and the philosophy of “Who Not How,” she built her sales muscle, reframed selling as service, and adopted a growth mindset that became foundational to Aligned Recruitment's rapid success. She reminds us that for women entrepreneurs especially, seeking support is often the difference between staying small and scaling meaningfully. We also explored Julia's tactical wisdom as a recruiter, including why job seekers should treat their search like a sales funnel, how to optimize LinkedIn to be discovered, and why networking consistently outperforms cold online applications. At a deeper level, Julia challenges the idea that business success must come at the cost of personal well-being. Her philosophy is clear: build a business around your life, not the other way around. This conversation is a powerful reminder for all of us that profitability, purpose, and peace can coexist. Tune in to hear my conversation with Julia Arpag and how she is redefining what it looks like for women to lead, sell, and scale without losing themselves in the process. Chapters: 01:12
It’s actually a good thing that some books push you to the edge of your ability to understand. But there’s no doubting the fact that dense, abstract and jargon-filled works can push you so far into the fog of frustration that you cannot blame yourself for giving up. But here’s the truth: You don’t have to walk away frustrated and confused. I’m going to share with you a number of practical strategies that will help you fill in the gaps of your reading process. Because that’s usually the real problem: It’s not your intelligence. Nor is it that the world is filled with books “above your level.” I ultimately don’t believe in “levels” as such. But as someone who taught reading courses at Rutgers and Saarland University, I know from experience that many learners need to pick up a few simple steps that will strengthen how they approach reading difficult books. And in this guide, you’ll learn how to read challenging books and remember what they say. I’m going to go beyond generic advice too. That way, you can readily diagnose: Why certain books feel so hard Use pre-reading tactics that prime your brain to deal with difficulties effectively Apply active reading techniques to lock in understanding faster Leverage accelerated learning tools that are quick to learn Use Artificial Intelligence to help convert tough convent into lasting knowledge without worrying about getting duped by AI hallucinations Whether you’re tacking philosophy, science, dense fiction or anything based primarily in words, the reading system you’ll learn today will help you turn confusion into clarity. By the end, even the most intimidating texts will surrender their treasures to your mind. Ready? Let’s break it all down together. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9HLbY4jsFg Why Some Books Feel “Too Hard” (And What That Really Means) You know exactly how it feels and so do I. You sit down with a book that people claim is a classic or super-important. But within a few pages, your brain fogs over and you’re completely lost. More often than not, through glazed eyes, you start to wonder… did this author go out of his or her way to make this difficult? Are they trying to show off with all these literary pyrotechnics? Or is there a deliberate conspiracy to confuse readers like me? Rest assured. These questions are normal and well worth asking. The difficulty you might feel is never arbitrary in my experience. But there’s also no “single origin” explanation for why some books feel easier than others. It’s almost always a combination of factors, from cognitive readiness, lived experience, emotions and your physical condition throughout the day. This means that understanding why individual texts resist your understanding needs to be conducted on a case-by-case basis so you can move towards mastering anything you want to read. Cognitive Load: The Brain’s Processing “Stop Sign” “Cognitive load” probably needs no definition. The words are quite intuitive. You start reading something and it feels like someone is piling heavy bricks directly on top of your brain, squishing everything inside. More specifically, these researchers explain that what’s getting squished is specifically your working memory, which is sometimes called short-term memory. In practical terms, this means that when a book suddenly throws a bunch of unfamiliar terms at you, your working memory has to suddenly deal with abstract concepts, completely new words or non-linear forms of logic. All of this increases your cognitive load, but it’s important to note that there’s no conspiracy. In Just Being Difficult: Academic Writing in the Public Arena, a variety of contributors admit that they often write for other specialists. Although it would be nice to always compose books and articles for general readers, it’s not laziness. They’re following the codes of their discipline, which involves shorthand to save everyone time. Yes, it can also signal group membership and feel like an intellectual wall if you’re new to this style, but it’s simply a “stop sign” for your brain. And wherever there are stop signs, there are also alternative routes. Planning Your Detour “Roadmap” Into Difficult Books Let me share a personal example by way of sharing a powerful technique for making hard books easier to read. A few years ago I decided I was finally going to read Kant. I had the gist of certain aspects of his philosophy, but a few pages in, I encountered so many unfamiliar terms, I knew I had to obey the Cognitive Load Stop Sign and take a step back. To build a roadmap into Kant, I searched Google in a particular way. Rather than a search term like, “Intro to Kant,” I entered this tightened command instead: Filetype:PDF syllabus Kant These days, you can ask an LLM in more open language to simply give you links to the syllabi of the most authoritative professors who teach Kant. I’d still suggest that you cross-reference what you get on Google, however. If you’re hesitant about using either Google or AI, it’s also a great idea to visit a librarian in person to help you. Or, you can read my post about using AI for learning with harming your memory to see if it’s time to update your approach. Narrowing Down Your Options One way or another, the reason to consult the world’s leading professors is that their syllabi will provide you with: Foundational texts Core secondary literature Commentaries from qualified sources Essential historical references Once you’ve looked over a few syllabi, look through the table of contents of a few books on Amazon or Google Books. Then choose: 1-2 foundational texts to read before the challenging target book you want to master 1-2 articles or companion texts to read alongside In this way, you’ve turned difficulty into a path, not an obstacle. Pre-Reading Strategies That Warm Up Your Reading Muscles A lot of the time, the difficulty people feel when reading has nothing to do with the book. It’s just that you’re diving into unfamiliar territory without testing the waters first. Here are some simple ways to make unfamiliar books much easier to get into. Prime Like a Pro To make books easier to read, you can perform what is often called “priming” in the accelerated learning community. It is also sometimes called “pre-reading” and as this research article discusses, its success has been well-demonstrated. The way I typically perform priming is simple. Although some books require a slight change to the pattern, I typically approach each new book by reading: The back cover The index The colophon page The conclusion or afterword The most interesting or relevant chapter The introduction The rest of the book Activate Prior Knowledge Sometimes I will use a skimming and scanning strategy after reading the index to quickly familiarize myself with how an author approaches a topic with which I’m already familiar. This can help raise interest, excitement and tap into the power of context-dependent memory. For example, I recently started reading Doubt: A History by Jennifer Michael Hecht. Since the Renaissance memory master Giordano Bruno comes up multiple times, I was able to draw up a kind of context map of the books themes by quickly going through those passages. Take a Picture Walk Barbara Oakley and Terence Sejnjowski share a fantastic strategy in Learning How to Learn. Before reading, simply go through a book and look at all the illustrations, tables, charts and diagrams. It seems like a small thing. But it gives your brain a “heads up” about upcoming visual information that you may need to process than prose. I used to find visual information like this difficult, but after I started taking picture walks, I’m now excited to read “towards” these elements. If still find them challenging to understand, I apply a tip I learned from Tony Buzan that you might like to try: Rather than struggle to interpret a chart or illustration, reproduce it in your own hand. Here’s an example of how I did this when studying spaced repetition: As a result, I learned the graph and its concepts quickly and have never forgotten it. Build a Pre-Reading Ritual That Fits You There’s no one-sized-fits-all strategy, so you need to experiment with various options. The key is to reduce cognitive load by giving your mind all kinds of ways of understanding what a book contains. If it helps, you can create yourself a checklist that you slip into the challenging books on your list. That way, you’ll have both a bookmark and a protocol as you develop your own pre-reading style. Active Reading Techniques That Boost Comprehension Active reading involves deliberately applying mental activities while reading. These can include writing in the margins of your books, questioning, preparing summaries and even taking well-time breaks between books. Here’s a list of my favorite active reading strategies with ideas on how you can implement them. Using Mnemonics While Reading On the whole, I take notes while reading and then apply a variety of memory techniques after. But to stretch my skills, especially when reading harder books, I start the encoding process earlier. Instead of just taking notes, I’ll start applying mnemonic images. I start early because difficult terms often require a bit more spaced repetition. To do this yourself, the key is to equip yourself with a variety of mnemonic methods, especially: The Memory Palace technique The Pegword Method The Major System The PAO System And in some cases, you may want to develop a symbol system, such as if you’re studying physics or programming. Once you have these mnemonic systems developed, you can apply them in real time. For example, if you come across names and dates, committing them to memory as you read can help you keep track of a book’s historical arc. This approach can be especially helpful when reading difficult books because authors often dump a lot of names and dates. By memorizing them as you go, you reduce the mental load of having to track it all. For even more strategies you can apply while reading, check out my complete Mnemonics Dictionary. Strategic Questioning Whether you take notes or memorize in real-time, asking questions as you go makes a huge difference. Even if you don’t come up with answers, continually interrogating the book will open up your brain. The main kinds of questions are: Evaluative questions (checking that the author uses valid reasoning and address counterarguments) Analytical questions (assessing exactly how the arguments unfold and questioning basic assumptions) Synthetic questions (accessing your previous knowledge and looking for connections with other books and concepts) Intention questions (interrogating the author’s agenda and revealing any manipulative rhetoric) One medieval tool for questioning you can adopt is the memory wheel. Although it’s definitely old-fashioned, you’ll find that it helps you rotate between multiple questions. Even if they are as simple as who, what, where, when, how and why questions, you’ll have a mental mnemonic device that helps ensure you don’t miss any of them. Re-reading Strategies Although these researchers seem to think that re-reading is not an effective strategy, I could not live without it. There are three key kinds of re-reading I recommend. Verbalize Complexity to Tame It The first is to simply go back and read something difficult to understand out loud. You’d be surprised how often it’s not your fault. The author has just worded something in a clunky manner and speaking the phrasing clarifies everything. Verbatim Memorization for Comprehension The second strategy is to memorize the sentence or even an entire passage verbatim. That might seem like a lot of work, but this tutorial on memorizing entire passages will make it easy for you. Even if verbatim memorization takes more work, it allows you to analyze the meaning within your mind. You’re no longer puzzling over it on paper, continuing to stretch your working memory. No, you’ve effectively expanded at least a part of your working memory by bypassing it altogether. You’ve ushered the information into long-term memory. I’m not too shy to admit that I have to do this sometimes to understand everything from the philosophy in Sanskrit phrases to relatively simple passages from Shakespeare. As I shared in my recent discussion of actor Anthony Hopkins’ memory, I couldn’t work out what “them” referred to in a particular Shakespeare play. But after analyzing the passage in memory, it was suddenly quite obvious. Rhythmical Re-reading The third re-reading strategy is something I shared years ago in my post detailing 11 reasons you should re-read at least one book per month. I find this approach incredibly helpful because no matter how good you get at reading and memory methods, even simple books can be vast ecosystems. By revisiting difficult books at regular intervals, you not only get more out of them. You experience them from different perspectives and with the benefit of new contexts you’ve built in your life over time. In other words, treat your reading as an infinite game and never assume that you’ve comprehended everything. There’s always more to be gleaned. Other Benefits of Re-reading You’ll also improve your pattern recognition by re-treading old territory, leading to more rapid recognition of those patterns in new books. Seeing the structures, tropes and other tactics in difficult books opens them up. But without regularly re-reading books, it can be difficult to perceive what these forms are and how authors use them. To give you a simple example of a structure that appears in both fiction and non-fiction, consider in media res, or starting in the middle. When you spot an author using this strategy, it can immediately help you read more patiently. And it places the text in the larger tradition of other authors who use that particular technique. For even more ideas that will keep your mind engaged while tackling tough books, feel free to go through my fuller article on 7 Active Reading Strategies. Category Coloring & Developing Your Own Naming System For Complex Material I don’t know about you, but I do not like opening a book only to find it covered in highlighter marks. I also don’t like highlighting books myself. However, after practicing mind mapping for a few years, I realized that there is a way to combine some of its coloring principles with the general study principles of using Zettelkasten and flashcards. Rather than passively highlighting passages that seem interesting at random, here’s an alternative approach you can take to your next tour through a complicated book. Category Coloring It’s often helpful to read with a goal. For myself, I decided to tackle a hard book called Gödel Escher Bach through the lens of seven categories. I gave each a color: Red = Concept Green = Process Orange = Fact Blue = Historical Context Yellow = Person Purple = School of Thought or Ideology Brown = Specialized Terminology Example Master Card to the Categorial Color Coding Method To emulate this method, create a “key card” or “master card” with your categories on it alongside the chosen color. Use this as a bookmark as you read. Then, before writing down any information from the book, think about the category to which it belongs. Make your card and then apply the relevant color. Obviously, you should come up with your own categories and preferred colors. The point is that you bring the definitions and then apply them consistently as you read and extract notes. This will help bring structure to your mind because you’re creating your own nomenclature or taxonomy of information. You are also using chunking, a specific mnemonic strategy I’ve written about at length in this post on chunking as a memory tool. Once you’re finished a book, you can extract all the concepts and memorize them independently if you like. And if you emulate the strategy seen on the pictured example above, I’ve included the page number on each card. That way, I can place the cards back in the order of the book. Using this approach across multiple books, you will soon spot cross-textual patterns with greater ease. The catch is that you cannot allow this technique to become activity for activity’s sake. You also don’t want to wind up creating a bunch of informational “noise.” Before capturing any individual idea on a card and assigning it to a category, ask yourself: Why is this information helpful, useful or critical to my goal? Will I really use it again? Where does it belong within the categories? If you cannot answers these questions, either move on to the next point. Or reframe the point with some reflective thinking so that you can contextualize it. This warning aside, it’s important not to let perfectionism creep into your life. Knowing what information matters does take some practice. To speed up your skills with identifying critical information, please read my full guide on how to find the main points in books and articles. Although AI can certainly help these days, you’ll still need to do some work on your own. Do Not Let New Vocabulary & Terminology Go Without Memorization One of the biggest mistakes I used to make, even as a fan of memory techniques, slowed me down much more than necessary. I would come across a new term, look it up, and assume I’d remember it. Of course, the next time I came across it, the meaning was still a mystery. But when I got more deliberate, I not only remembered more words, but the knowledge surrounding the unfamiliar terms also stuck with greater specificity. For example, in reading The Wandering Mind by Jamie Kreiner, memorizing the ancient Greek word for will or volition (Prohairesis) pulled many more details about why she was mentioning it. Lo and behold, I started seeing the word in more places and connecting it to other ancient Greek terms. Memorizing those as well started to create a “moat of meaning,” further protecting a wide range of information I’d been battling. Understanding Why Vocabulary Blocks Comprehension The reason why memorizing words as you read is so helpful is that it helps clear out the cognitive load created by pausing frequently to look up words. Even if you don’t stop to learn a new definition, part of your working memory gets consumed by the lack of familiarity. I don’t always stop to learn new definitions while reading, but using the color category index card method you just discovered, it’s easy to organize unfamiliar words while reading. That way they can be tidily memorized later. I have a full tutorial for you on how to memorize vocabulary, but here’s a quick primer. Step One: Use a System for Capturing New Words & Terms Whether you use category coloring, read words into a recording app or email yourself a reminder, the key is to capture as you go. Once your reading session is done, you can now go back to the vocabulary list and start learning it. Step Two: Memorize the Terms I personally prefer the Memory Palace technique. It’s great for memorizing words and definitions. You can use the Pillar Technique with the word at the top and the definition beneath it. Or you can use the corners for the words and the walls for the definitions. Another idea is to photograph the cards you create and important them into a spaced repetition software like Anki. As you’ll discover in my complete guide to Anki, there are several ways you can combine Anki with a variety of memory techniques. Step Three: Use the Terms If you happened to catch an episode of the Magnetic Memory Method Podcast back when I first learned Prohairesis I mentioned it often. This simple habit helps establish long-term recall, reflection and establishes the ground for future recognition and use. Expand Understanding Using Video & Audio Media When I was in university, I often had to ride my bike across Toronto to borrow recorded lectures on cassette. Given the overwhelming tsunamis of complex ideas, jargon and theoretical frameworks I was facing, it was worth it. Especially since I was also dealing with the personal problems I shared with you in The Victorious Mind. Make no mistake: I do not believe there is any replacement for reading the core books, no matter how difficult they might be. But there’s no reason not to leverage the same ideas in multiple formats to help boost your comprehension and long-term retention. Multimedia approaches are not just about knowledge acquisition either. There have been many debates in the magical arts community that card magicians should read and not rely on video. But evidence-based studies like this one show that video instruction combined with reading written instructions is very helpful. The Science Behind Multi-Modal Learning I didn’t know when I was in university, or when I was first starting out with memdeck card magic that dual coding theory existed. This model was proposed by Allan Paivio, who noticed that information is processed both verbally and non-verbally. Since then, many teachers have focused heavily on how to encourage students to find the right combination of reading, visual and auditory instructional material. Here are some ideas that will help you untangle the complexity in your reading. How to Integrate Multimedia Without Overload Forgive me if this is a bit repetitive, but to develop flow with multiple media, you need to prime the brain. As someone who has created multiple YouTube videos, I have been stubborn about almost always including introductions. Why? Go Through the Intros Like a Hawk Because without including a broad overview of the topic, many learners will miss too many details. And I see this in the comments because people ask questions that are answered throughout the content and flagged in the introductions. So the first step is to be patient and go through the introductory material. And cultivate an understanding that it’s not really the material that is boring. It’s the contemporary issues with dopamine spiking that make you feel impatient. The good news is that you can possibly reset your dopamine levels so you’re better able to sit through these “priming” materials. One hack I use is to sit far away from my mouse and keep my notebook in hand. If I catch myself getting antsy, I perform a breathing exercise to restore focus. Turn on Subtitles When you’re watching videos, you can help increase your engagement by turning on the subtitles. This is especially useful in jargon-heavy video lessons. You can pause and still see the information on the screen for easier capture when taking notes. When taking notes, I recommend jotting down the timestamp. This is useful for review, but also for attributing citations later if you have to hand in an assignment. Mentally Reconstruct After watching a video or listening to a podcast on the topic you’re mastering, take a moment to review the key points. Try to go through them in the order they were presented. This helps your brain practice mental organization by building a temporal scaffold. If you’ve taken notes and written down the timestamps, you can easily check your accuracy. Track Your Progress For Growth & Performance One reason some people never feel like they’re getting anywhere is that they have failed to establish any points of reference. Personally, this is easy for me to do. I can look back to my history of writing books and articles or producing videos and be reminded of how far I’ve come at a glance. Not only as a writer, but also as a reader. For those who do not regularly produce content, you don’t have to start a blog or YouTube channel. Just keep a journal and create a few categories of what skills you want to track. These might include: Comprehension Retention Amount of books read Vocabulary growth Critical thinking outcomes Confidence in taking on harder books Increased tolerance with frustration when reading challenges arise You can use the same journal to track how much time you’ve spent reading and capturing quick summaries. Personally, I wish I’d started writing summaries sooner. I really only got started during grad school when during a directed reading course, a professor required that I had in a summary for every book and article I read. I never stopped doing this and just a few simple paragraph summaries has done wonders over the years for my understanding and retention. Tips for Overcoming Frustration While Reading Difficult Books Ever since the idea of “desirable difficulty” emerged, people have sought ways to help learners overcome emotional responses like frustration, anxiety and even shame while tackling tough topics. As this study shows, researchers and teachers have found the challenge difficult despite the abundance of evidence showing that being challenged is a good thing. Here are some strategies you can try if you continue to struggle. Embrace Cognitive Discomfort As we’ve discussed, that crushing feeling in your brain exists for a reason. Personally, I don’t think it ever goes away. I still regularly pick up books that spike it. The difference is that I don’t start up a useless mantra like, “I’m not smart enough for this.” Instead, I recommend you reframe the experience and use the growth mindset studied by Carol Dweck, amongst others. You can state something more positive like, “This book is a bit above my level, but I can use tactics and techniques to master it.” I did that very recently with my reading of The Xenotext, parts of which I still don’t fully understand. It was very rewarding. Use Interleaving to Build Confidence I rotate through draining books all the time using a proven technique called interleaving. Lots of people are surprised when I tell them that I rarely read complex and challenging books for longer than fifteen minutes at a time. But I do it because interleaving works. Which kinds of books can you interleave? You have choices. You can either switch in something completely different, or switch to a commentary. For example, while recently reading some heavy mathematical theories about whether or not “nothing” can exist, I switched to a novel. But back in university, I would often stick within the category while at the library. I’d read a core text by a difficult philosopher, then pick up a Cambridge Companion and read an essay related to the topic. You can also interleave using multimedia sources like videos and podcasts. Interleaving also provides time for doing some journaling, either about the topic at hand or some other aspect of your progress goals. Keep the Big Picture in Mind Because frustration is cognitively training, it’s easy to let it drown out your goals. That’s why I often keep a mind map or some other reminder on my desk, like a couple of memento mori. It’s also possible to just remember previous mind maps you’ve made. This is something I’m doing often at the moment as I read all kinds of boring information about managing a bookshop for my Memory Palace bookshop project first introduced in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utcJfeQZC2c It’s so easy to get discouraged by so many rules and processes involved in ordering and selling books, that I regularly think back to creating this mind map with Tony Buzan years ago. In case my simple drawings on this mind map for business development doesn’t immediately leap out at you with its meanings, the images at the one o’clock-three o’clock areas refer to developing a physical Memory Palace packed with books on memory and learning. Developing and keeping a north star in mind will help you transform the process of reading difficult books into a purposeful adventure of personal development. Even if you have to go through countless books that aren’t thrilling, you’ll still be moving forward. Just think of how much Elon Musk has read that probably wasn’t all that entertaining. Yet, it was still essential to becoming a polymath. Practice Seeing Through The Intellectual Games As you read harder and harder books, you’ll eventually come to realize that the “fluency” some people have is often illusory. For example, some writers and speakers display a truly impressive ability to string together complex terminology, abstract references and fashionable ideas of the day in ways that sound profound. Daniel Dennett frequently used a great term for a lot of this verbal jujitsu that sounds profound but is actually trivial. He called such flourishes “deepities.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey-UeaSi1rI This kind of empty linguistic dexterity will be easier for you to spot when you read carefully, paraphrase complex ideas in your own words and practice memorizing vocabulary frequently. When you retain multiple concepts and practice active questioning in a large context of grounded examples and case studies, vague claims will not survive for long in your world. This is why memory training is about so much more than learning. Memorization can equip you to think independently and bring clarity to fields that are often filled with gems, despite the fog created by intellectual pretenders more interested in word-jazz than actual truth. Using AI to Help You Take On Difficult Books As a matter of course, I recommend you use AI tools like ChatGPT after doing as much reading on your own as possible. But there’s no mistaking that intentional use of such tools can help you develop greater understanding. The key is to avoid using AI as an answer machine or what Nick Bostrom calls an “oracle” in his seminal book, Superintelligence. Rather, take a cue from Andrew Mayne, a science communicator and central figure at OpenAI and host of their podcast. His approach centers on testing in ways that lead to clarity of understanding and retention as he uses various mnemonic strategies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlzD_6Olaqw Beyond his suggestions, here are some of my favorite strategies. Ask AI to Help Identify All Possible Categories Connected to a Topic A key reason many people struggle to connect ideas is simply that they haven’t developed a mental ecosystem of categories. I used to work in libraries, so started thinking categorically when I was still a teenager. But these days, I would combine how traditional libraries are structured with a simple prompt like: List all the possible categories my topic fits into or bridges across disciplines, historical frameworks and methodologies. Provide the list without interpretation or explanation so I can reflect. A prompt like this engineers a response that focuses on relationships and lets your brain perform the synthetic thinking. Essentially, you’ll be performing what some scientists call schema activation, leading to better personal development outcomes. Generate Lists of Questions To Model Exceptional Thinkers Because understanding relies on inquiry, it’s important to practice asking the best possible questions. AI chat bots can be uniquely useful in this process provided that you explicitly insist that it helps supply you excellent questions without any answers. You can try a prompt like: Generate a list of questions that the world’s most careful thinkers in this field would ask about this topic. Do not provide any answers. Just the list of questions. Do this after you’ve read the text and go through your notes with fresh eyes. Evaluate the material with questions in hand, ideally by writing out your answers by hand. If you need your answers imported into your computer, apps can now scan your handwriting and give you text file. Another tip: Don’t be satisfied with the first list of questions you get. Ask the AI to dig deeper. You can also ask the AI to map the questions into the categories you previously got help identifying. For a list of questions you can put into your preferred chat bot, feel free to go through my pre-AI era list of philosophical questions. They are already separated by category. Use AI to Provide a Progress Journal Template If you’re new to journaling, it can be difficult to use the technique to help you articulate what you’re reading and why the ideas are valuable. And that’s not to mention working out various metrics to measure your growth over time. Try a prompt like this: Help me design a progress journal for my quest to better understand and remember difficult books. Include sections for me to list my specific goals, vocabulary targets, summaries and various milestones I identify. Make it visual so I can either copy it into my own print notebook or print out multiple copies for use over time. Once you have a template you’re happy to experiment with, keep it visible in your environment so you don’t forget to use it. Find Blind Spots In Your Summaries Many AIs have solid reasoning skills. As a result, you can enter your written summaries and have the AI identify gaps in your knowledge, blind spots and opportunities for further reading. Try a prompt like: Analyze this summary and identify any blind spots, ambiguities in my thinking or incompleteness in my understanding. Suggest supplementary reading to help me fill in any gaps. At the risk of repetition, the point is that you’re not asking for the summaries. You’re asking for assessments that help you diagnose the limits of your understanding. As scientists have shown, metacognition, or thinking about your thinking can help you see errors much faster. By adding an AI into the mix, you’re getting feedback quickly without having to wait for a teacher to read your essay. Of course, AI outputs can be throttled, so I find it useful to also include a phrase like, “do not throttle your answer,” before asking it to dig deeper and find more issues. Used wisely, you will soon see various schools of thought with much greater clarity, anticipate how authors make their moves and monitor your own blind spots as you read and reflect. Another way to think about the power of AI tools is this: They effectively mirror human reasoning at a species wide level. You can use them to help you mirror more reasoning power by regularly accessing and practicing error detection and filling in the gaps in your thinking style. Why You Must Stop Abandoning Difficult Books (At Least Most of the Time) Like many people, I’m a fan of Scott Young’s books like Ultralearning and Get Better at Anything. He’s a disciplined thinker and his writing helps people push past shallow learning in favor of true and lasting depth. However, he often repeats the advice that you should stop reading boring books. In full transparency, I sometimes do this myself. And Young adds a lot of context to make his suggestion. But I limit abandoning books as much as possible because I don’t personally find Young’s argument that enjoyment and productivity go together. On the contrary, most goals that I’ve pursued have required fairly intense periods of delaying gratification. And because things worth accomplishing generally do require sacrifice and a commitment to difficulty, I recommend you avoid the habit of giving up on books just because they’re “boring” or not immediately enjoyable. I’ll bet you’ll enjoy the accomplishment of understanding hard books and conquering their complexity far more in the end. And you’ll benefit more too. Here’s why I think so. The Hidden Cost of Abandoning Books You’ve Started Yes, I agree that life is short and time is fleeting. But if you get into the habit of abandoning books at the first sign of boredom, it can quickly become your default habit due to how procedural memory works. In other words, you’re given your neurons the message that it’s okay to escape from discomfort. That is a very dangerous loop to throw yourself into, especially if you’re working towards becoming autodidactic. What you really need is to develop the ability to stick with complexity, hold ambiguous and contradictory issues in your mind and fight through topic exhaustion. Giving up on books on a routine basis? That’s the opposite of developing expertise and resilience. The AI Risk & Where Meaning is Actually Found We just went through the benefits of AI, so you shouldn’t have issues. But I regularly hear from people and have even been on interviews where people use AI to summarize books I’ve recomended. This is dangerous because the current models flatten nuance due to how they summarize books based on a kind of “averaging” of what its words predictability mean. Although they might give you a reasonable scaffold of a book’s structure, you won’t get the friction created by how authors take you through their thought processes. In other words, you’ll be using AI models that are not themselves modeling the thinking that reading provides when you grind your way through complex books. The Treasure of Meaning is Outside Your Comfort Zone Another reason to train for endurance is that understanding doesn’t necessarily arrive while reading a book or even a few weeks after finishing it. Sometimes the unifying insights land years later. But if you don’t read through books that seem to be filled with scattered ideas, you cannot gain any benefit from them. Their diverse points won’t consolidate in your memory and certainly won’t connect with other ideas later. So I suggest you train your brain to persist as much as possible. By drawing up the support of the techniques we discussed today and a variety of mnemonic support systems, you will develop persistence and mine more gold from everything you read. And being someone who successfully mines for gold and can produce it at will is the mark of the successful reading. Not just someone who consumes information efficiently, but who can repeatedly connect and transform knowledge year after year due to regularly accumulating gems buried in the densest and most difficult books others cannot or will not read. Use Struggle to Stimulate Growth & You Cannot Fail As you’ve seen, challenging books never mean that you’re not smart enough. It’s just a matter of working on your process so that you can tackle new forms of knowledge. And any discomfort you feel is a signal that a great opportunity and personal growth adventure awaits. By learning how to manage cognitive load, fill in the gaps in your background knowledge and persist through frustration, you can quickly become the kind of reader who seeks out complexity instead of flinching every time you see it. Confusion has now become a stage along the path to comprehension. And if you’re serious about mastering increasingly difficult material, understanding and retaining it, then it’s time to upgrade your mental toolbox. Start now by grabbing my Free Memory Improvement Course: Inside, you’ll discover: The Magnetic Memory Method for creating powerful Memory Palaces How to develop your own mnemonic systems for encoding while reading Proven techniques that deepen comprehension, no matter how abstract or complex your reading list is And please, always remember: The harder the book, the greater rewards. And the good news is, you’re now more than ready to claim them all.
Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3890: Nir Eyal challenges the popular belief that willpower is a limited resource and reveals how this mindset can sabotage our ability to stay disciplined. Backed by research from Carol Dweck and Michael Inzlicht, the article reframes willpower as an emotion that fluctuates and can be managed, not something we "run out" of. Shifting this perspective can help us build resilience, make better decisions, and stop using "lack of willpower" as an excuse to quit. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.nirandfar.com/about-willpower/ Quotes to ponder: "Believing we do [run out of willpower] makes us less likely to accomplish our goals, by providing a rationale to quit when we could otherwise persist." "Ego-depletion is essentially caused by self-defeating thoughts and not by any biological limitation." "Rather than telling ourselves we failed because we're somehow deficient, we should offer self-compassion by speaking to ourselves with kindness when we experience setbacks." Episode references: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs: https://www.jsad.com Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: https://www.pnas.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3890: Nir Eyal challenges the popular belief that willpower is a limited resource and reveals how this mindset can sabotage our ability to stay disciplined. Backed by research from Carol Dweck and Michael Inzlicht, the article reframes willpower as an emotion that fluctuates and can be managed, not something we "run out" of. Shifting this perspective can help us build resilience, make better decisions, and stop using "lack of willpower" as an excuse to quit. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.nirandfar.com/about-willpower/ Quotes to ponder: "Believing we do [run out of willpower] makes us less likely to accomplish our goals, by providing a rationale to quit when we could otherwise persist." "Ego-depletion is essentially caused by self-defeating thoughts and not by any biological limitation." "Rather than telling ourselves we failed because we're somehow deficient, we should offer self-compassion by speaking to ourselves with kindness when we experience setbacks." Episode references: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs: https://www.jsad.com Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: https://www.pnas.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3890: Nir Eyal challenges the popular belief that willpower is a limited resource and reveals how this mindset can sabotage our ability to stay disciplined. Backed by research from Carol Dweck and Michael Inzlicht, the article reframes willpower as an emotion that fluctuates and can be managed, not something we "run out" of. Shifting this perspective can help us build resilience, make better decisions, and stop using "lack of willpower" as an excuse to quit. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.nirandfar.com/about-willpower/ Quotes to ponder: "Believing we do [run out of willpower] makes us less likely to accomplish our goals, by providing a rationale to quit when we could otherwise persist." "Ego-depletion is essentially caused by self-defeating thoughts and not by any biological limitation." "Rather than telling ourselves we failed because we're somehow deficient, we should offer self-compassion by speaking to ourselves with kindness when we experience setbacks." Episode references: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs: https://www.jsad.com Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: https://www.pnas.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode of Acta Non Verba, host Marcus Aurelius Anderson sits down with JC Glick, retired Army Lieutenant Colonel and CEO of the Commit Foundation, for a deep conversation about leadership, transformation, and the power of questioning our assumptions. They explore how multiple truths can exist simultaneously, the dangers of concrete thinking in a complex world, and why being willing to be wrong takes more courage than being right. The discussion moves from philosophy and cognitive bias to veteran transition, AI as a thought partner, and the critical difference between transition and transformation. Episode Highlights [3:33] The Philosophy Tree: JC proposes creating a "philosophy tree" tracing Tony Blauer's influence on modern warrior-philosophers and discusses why Tony deserves recognition as a philosopher, not just a self-defense expert. [6:49] Multiple Truths Exist: JC challenges the idea that you must stand firmly on everything, arguing that multiple truths can exist simultaneously and that your truth doesn't make someone else's false. [34:49] Transition vs. Transformation: JC explains the critical difference: "Transitions happen to you. Transformation is a deliberate process with a desired outcome." He uses the powerful metaphor of turning a can into a Tesla. [46:00] AI as Hybrid Intelligence: The conversation shifts to AI's potential as an equity builder and thought partner rather than an answer machine, with JC advocating for "hybrid intelligence" that superpowers human thinking. JC Glick is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel with 11 combat tours in the 75th Ranger Regiment and Asymmetrical Warfare Group. As CEO of the Commit Foundation, he leads a transformational organization helping special operations veterans, their spouses, intelligence community members, and allied forces reconstruct their identity and purpose beyond military service. JC is the author of Meditations of an Army Ranger and A Light in the Darkness, and contributes regularly to Forbes on topics of resilience, innovation, and purposeful human connection. His work is grounded in evidence-based adult development theory and focuses on helping individuals transform rather than simply transition. Learn more about the gift of Adversity and my mission to help my fellow humans create a better world by heading to www.marcusaureliusanderson.com. There you can take action by joining my ANV inner circle to get exclusive content and information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
The world of work has changed forever—and it's still changing. COVID 19 didn't just disrupt where we work—it transformed how we think about careers, leadership, learning, and culture. In this powerful conversation, Nicole Greer and Steve Cadigan unpack the aftershocks of the “workquake” and what they mean for both employees and employers.Steve shares insights from scaling LinkedIn from 400 to 4,000 employees, explains why learning velocity matters more than tenure, and challenges traditional ideas about loyalty, retention, and talent strategy. From embracing ambiguity and building entrepreneurial teams to rethinking training, alumni networks, and career ownership, this episode is packed with practical wisdom for leaders navigating today's hyper-change environment.If you care about building a vibrant, adaptive culture where people can grow and create value—this episode is for you.Vibrant Highlights:00:03:00 – Steve explains why the “pajama revolution” and remote work debates aren't going away, and why leaders must stop looking for a one-size-fits-all answer and start embracing flexibility.00:07:50 – Nicole and Steve dive into why tolerance for ambiguity is now a critical leadership skill and how being “more human” is the secret advantage AI can't replace.00:13:45 – A powerful mindset shift as Steve reframes loyalty, tenure, and turnover—and explains why creating value is what actually makes employees more valuable in today's workforce.00:22:25 – Steve drops a game-changing insight: people aren't disloyal to companies, they're loyal to learning—and explains what leaders must do to keep great people engaged.00:43:40 – A behind-the-scenes story from LinkedIn on learning velocity, revealing how leaders can identify fast learners and build future-ready talent from within.Connect with Steve:Steve's book, Workquake: https://a.co/d/i5StO4jSteve's website: https://stevecadigan.com/Also mentioned in this episode:Mindset by Carol Dweck: https://a.co/d/i43IUYwListen at vibrantculture.com/podcast or wherever you get your podcasts!Book Nicole to help your organization ignite clarity, accountability, and energy through her SHINE™ Coaching Methodology.Visit vibrantculture.comEmail: nicole@vibrantculture.comWatch Nicole's TEDx Talk: https://youtu.be/SMbxA90bfXE
Episode Description: Kick off 2026 by decluttering your mind and marriage! In this episode, we explore how cluttered beliefs create misery in relationships and share 14 destructive marriage myths backed by research from experts like John Gottman, Murray Bowen, David Schnarch, and Carol Dweck. Learn healthier alternatives to foster deeper connection, reduce resentment, and build a fulfilling partnership. Perfect for couples seeking healthy relationship tips, toxic belief deconstruction, and marriage advice grounded in science.Keywords: toxic marriage beliefs, declutter your marriage, healthy relationship tips 2026, Gottman marriage research, Bowen family systems theory, Schnarch intimacy advice, Harvard happiness study relationships.The 14 Destructive Beliefs & Healthier Alternatives"My spouse should make me happy / complete me." Faulty due to external locus of control leading to lower satisfaction (Australian Study). Alternative: "My spouse is a companion in my happiness—I am responsible for my own emotional well-being.""If they really loved me, they'd know what I need without me saying it." Mind-reading expectations cause conflict (Mind-Reading Study; ResearchGate PDF). Alternative: "Love includes clear, kind communication about my needs and feelings.""A happy marriage means we never fight or have conflict." Gottman's research shows 69% of issues are perpetual (Gottman Institute). Alternative: "Conflict is an opportunity to understand each other better and grow closer through repair.""My partner should change to fix our problems." Satisfaction driven by perceptions, not partner change (PNAS Study). Alternative: "I can only change myself. Leading by example often invites positive shifts in my partner.""Disparate sexual desires mean we're incompatible." Normal in all relationships per Schnarch's "sexual crucible" (Crucible Institute; Psychology Today). Alternative: "Differences in desire are normal and offer growth opportunities.""Keeping score of who does more is fair and necessary." Breeds resentment; generosity boosts satisfaction (
What if weight loss didn't depend on motivation, but rather on who you believe you are? In this episode, Lisa Oldson, MD explores how identity and self-labels shape habits, health behaviors, and long-term weight loss. Drawing on research from James Clear, Dr. Carol Dweck, Dr. Hazel Markus, and other experts, you'll learn how to choose a more helpful identity for the new year, and take small, sustainable actions to transform your health. Thanks for listening! If you'd like more support during your SMART weight loss & health focused journey, sign up for our FREE newsletter, or check out our program at: www.SmartWeightLossCoaching.com. We would love to help you reach your happy weight, and transform the way you talk to yourself about your body and the number on the scale. Negative thoughts about yourself don't have to take up so much brain space, and we'd be honored to help you reframe those thoughts. Also…We'd be grateful if you'd follow us and share our podcast with your friends & family. We're here to help you improve your health, live longer, healthier, and lose weight the SMART way! This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.
In this episode we unpack American Philosopher & Psychologist William James' 1907 classic, "Pragmatism." This book explores...*The Pragmatic Theory of Truth*The Nature of Belief Change*The Psychology's connection to PhilosophyHost: Zach Stehura UnpackingIdeas.comGuest: Brent MondoskinIntro Music: PolyensoFree PDF of the book: Pragmatism by William JamesResources MentionedThe Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand(book)The Essential Pierce vol.1 by C.S. Pierce(book)Radical Empiricism by William James (book)Mindset by Carol Dweck(book)The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy (book)Timestamps0:00 Introduction
Are your top performers actually holding back your organization's growth? Today on Leveraging Thought Leadership, Peter Winick talks with Eduardo Briceño, global keynote speaker, CEO of Growth.How, and author of "The Performance Paradox". Eduardo is one of the leading voices on growth mindset in organizations, building on 16+ years of work with Carol Dweck as co-founder of Mindset Works and two TEDx talks that have each passed 4 million views. Together, they unpack how leaders and companies can move beyond one-off inspiration and build true learning cultures that deliver sustained performance. Eduardo explains his core framework: the Learning Zone and the Performance Zone. Most organizations live almost entirely in performance mode—chasing metrics, staying "on," and delivering results. He shows why that approach quietly caps growth, and how deliberately creating Learning Zone time is the unlock for innovation, resilience, and long-term excellence. You'll hear how he designs keynotes and workshops like a master teacher, not a showman. Eduardo starts with clear learning objectives, then engineers experiences that shift how leaders think, behave, and make decisions. It's not about delivering a great "show"; it's about making sure people leave seeing their work differently and ready to act. Eduardo and Peter also explore what it really takes to build a growth-mindset culture at scale. They talk about partnering with organizations over time, embedding the ideas from The Performance Paradox into leadership programs, talent systems, and everyday language. Eduardo shares why well-intentioned "growth" initiatives often backfire—and how to avoid the hidden traps that send mixed signals to your people. Finally, they look at impact. Eduardo discusses how he went from frameworks to a major Penguin Random House book, how he gathered more than 100 real-world stories to bring his ideas to life, and why he's now focused on working longitudinally with clients instead of just doing single events. For CEOs and senior leaders, this conversation is a playbook for turning your organization into a place where people are both learning faster and performing better. Three Key Takeaways: • Always-on performance quietly caps growth; organizations need deliberate time and space for the Learning Zone, not just the Performance Zone. • "Growth mindset" only works when it's operationalized—through concrete systems, habits, and experiences that teach people how to learn and improve, not just that they can. • The biggest impact comes from embedding these ideas into leadership programs, talent systems, and culture over time—not from one-off keynotes or events. If this episode reshaped how you think about performance and the Learning Zone, your next stop should be our conversation with Phil Geldart on Unlocking Human Potential. Both episodes tackle the same core challenge—how to move beyond "always on" performance and build a culture where learning, experimentation, and behavior change are baked into the way work gets done. Eduardo gives you the strategic lens and language (Learning vs. Performance Zone, growth mindset in action); Phil dives into how to design experiential learning that actually sticks and changes what people do on Monday morning. Listen to both and you'll walk away with a playbook that connects big ideas about learning culture to concrete tools for driving performance across your organization.
In this profound conversation, Dr. Daniel Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA School of Medicine, founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center, and bestselling author—shares groundbreaking insights on parenting, brain development, and human flourishing.Dr. Daniel Siegel is one of the world's leading experts on interpersonal neurobiology and author of influential books including "The Developing Mind," "Parenting from the Inside Out," "The Whole-Brain Child," and "Mindsight." His work bridges neuroscience, psychology, and contemplative practice.THE CORE PRINCIPLE: INTEGRATIONDaniel Siegel introduces the foundational concept governing well-being across all scales—from neurons to nations.Integration means honoring differences (differentiation) while creating connections (linkage). When integration is blocked, we experience chaos, rigidity, or both. The revolutionary equation: integrative relationships create integrated brains, which generate resilient minds, meaningful relationships, and flourishing lives.TEMPERAMENT VS. PERSONALITY: THE NEUROSCIENCEDr. Siegel reveals cutting-edge research on how temperament—rooted in brain stem connectivity formed in the womb—differs from personality. Temperament is inborn (not necessarily genetic) and characterised by sensitivity and intensity across three core motivational drives: Agency (embodied empowerment), Bonding (relational connection), and Certainty (predictability and safety). Personality develops as we adapt our temperament through experience, particularly attachment relationships.THE BEST PREDICTOR OF CHILD OUTCOMESThe most powerful finding in attachment research: how parents make sense of their own life history predicts their child's development better than what actually happened to them. PRACTICAL PARENTING WISDOMLearn the "4 S's" framework—how children need to be Seen, Soothed, Safe, and Secure. Discover why humans evolved for "alloparenting" with multiple caregivers. Understand the COAL state of mind (Curious, Open, Accepting, Loving) when navigating challenging behaviors.NINE DOMAINS OF INTEGRATIONDr. Siegel explains practical applications: Left-Right Integration (your infant's right-hemisphere communication), Vertical Integration (accessing body wisdom), Memory Integration (transforming implicit memories), and Consciousness Integration (the "Wheel of Awareness" practice).THE MWE IDENTITYDaniel Siegel offers hope: we can raise the next generation with expanded identity—not just "me" but "MWE" (me + we), recognizing we're part of interconnected systems. This shift could transform humanity's trajectory toward collaboration and thriving.Other References: "Mothers and Others" by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Roger Sperry's Nobel Prize work (1981), Carol Dweck's research, Ed Tronick's "Still Face Experiment," Jaak Panksepp's affective neuroscience, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang's research(00:00) Introduction (02:59) What is Integration? (08:05) The Integration Equation (09:28) The #1 Predictor of Child Success (12:48) Alloparenting: We Need a Village (19:10) When Your Child Only Wants Mom(24:10) The importance of Temperament in Attachment (30:13) What is Temperament vs Personality (34:50) The Handy Model of the Brain & Our Temperament(40:24) Does Personality Change Throughout Time?(45:37) Personality & Why Understanding it Helps(48:40) Personal Story - How Temperament & Experience Interact(53:57) The Nine Domains of Integration (55:20) Brain Architecture in 2025(56:46) Left-Right Hemisphere Debate (58:44) Bilateral Integration (01:02:01) Intuition vs Flashbacks from Implicit Memory (01:06:48) The ABCDE Therapy Mnemonic(01:10:01) Memory Integration(1:12:05) The Wheel of Awareness (1:15:51) The Plateau of Protection (1:19:58) Nine Personality Patterns (1:29:45) Magic Wand Question for Parents (1:33:00) Magic Wand for Children
霸凌是許多人的切身之痛,今天來談談一個最有效的干預措施,心理學者David Yeager, Carol Dweck發現,只需要「會說故事」,就能為遭受排擠或沒有歸屬感的孩子,建立長久又強韌的自信心。❤️ 單筆小額贊助podacst節目
In this episode, Eli Cahan ('19 cohort) speaks with Ayo Dada ('19 cohort) who imagines a world where education is accessible to everyone regardless of any aspect of their identity. Ayo shares his journey from Nigeria to Stanford—an unexpected path set in motion by a single email—and reflects on how discovering Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset shaped his academic trajectory. He discusses his early steps after studying psychology at the University of Lagos, his PhD research on psychologically wise interventions, and his current postdoctoral work focused on expanding opportunities for girls in underserved regions. Ayo also reflects on how the Knight-Hennessy Scholars community broadened his perspective, the skills he gained through the program, and the global experiences that continue to inform his commitment to education as a collaborative, empowering process.Highlights from this episode: (2:08) Introduction(2:48) Recounting the journey from Nigeria to Stanford and how one email changed everything(4:38) Reflecting on the influence of Carol Dweck's work on growth mindset(6:22) Exploring his path after studying psychology at the University of Lagos(7:58) Describing his current postdoctoral work expanding opportunities for girls in underserved regions(9:05) Discussing his PhD research on psychologically wise interventions(14:02) Reframing education as a collaborative process (19:54) How Knight-Hennessy Scholars complemented his experience at Stanford(25:13) Identifying the main skill he gained from Knight-Hennessy Scholars(27:15) Takeaways from his Global Travel/Study program trip to Norway(30:00) Highlights from the Global Leadership Program(33:10) Remembering favorite Knight-Hennessy Scholars traditions
How do evangelism and business go hand in hand? Well, for today's guest, evangelism is the purest form of sales. Guy Kawasaki is the Chief Evangelist at Canva and former Chief Evangelist for the Macintosh Division at Apple. He's a prolific author, speaker, and podcaster, with hit books like Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference, Wiser Guy: Life-Changing Revelations and Revisions from Tech's Chief Evangelist, and Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.Guy and Greg discuss his evolving career path, why his work's focus has shifted over time from how to succeed in business to how to succeed in life, the practicalities of sales, evangelism, and the overlooked necessity of these skills in business education. *unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:Is evangelism the purest form of sales?42:25: I believe that sales is a very necessary and important skill. I would say that maybe evangelism is the purest form of sales. The difference between evangelism and most sales is that in evangelism, you have the other person's best interests at heart, not just yours.Remarkable doesn't mean reach and famous24:45: Remarkable does not mean rich or famous, although you can be rich or famous and remarkable. But it's really about the impact you've made on the world. And I don't mean you have to sell 300 million iPhones or 300 million computers; it's really what have you done?Stop chasing passion, start pursuing interest14:15: So the bar is so high for a passion. So a lot of people are saying, oh my God, I'm 22 years old, I haven't found my passion yet, what's wrong with me? I'm an underachiever. And what I think you should do instead is have your eyes open, you should have your brain open, i.e., a growth mindset. And whatever interests you, you should pursue it until you can discover if you really like it; maybe then it'll turn into a passion. But to look for Passion, capital P, out the gate is doing yourself a disservice.The three general qualities of remarkable people27:29: I've noticed that remarkable people have three general qualities. First of all, they have the growth mindset of Carol Dweck. If you have a growth mindset, you better back that up with a grit mindset of Angela Duckworth, because if you have a growth mindset, you're going to try things like surfing and hockey that you're not good at for years. So you need to persevere and have grit. And then the final thing you need is a grace mindset. So it's growth, grit, grace.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Dr. Robert Cialdini | Remarkable People podcast Dr. Robert Cialdini | unSILOed podcastInfluence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert CialdiniIf You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda UelandCarol DweckAngela DuckworthGuest Profile:Professional WebsiteRemarkable People podcastGuest Work:Think Remarkable: 9 Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a DifferenceWiser Guy: Life-Changing Revelations and Revisions from Tech's Chief EvangelistEnchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and ActionsThe Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting AnythingRules For Revolutionaries: The Capitalist Manifesto for Creating and Marketing New Products and ServicesThe Macintosh Way Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
In this episode, I break down one of the simplest but most transformative concepts in personal development: The Power of Yet. Inspired by Dr. Carol Dweck's research on growth mindset, “yet” is the tiny word that shifts you from feeling stuck to seeing possibility. Whether you're struggling with money, burnout, confidence, career direction, or new skills, adding “yet” rewires your brain to believe you're capable of change- because you are. You're not good at budgeting... yet. You don't feel confident at work... yet. You're not financially independent... yet. You don't have work–life boundaries... yet. Not “no.” Not “never.” Just not yet. This episode gives practical examples, stories, and tools to help you adopt the “yet” mindset so you can grow in any area of your life. What is covered in this episode: • What the “Power of Yet” actually means A simple mindset shift backed by decades of psychology and neuroscience. • A quick overview of Dr. Carol Dweck's research How growth mindset vs. fixed mindset impacts confidence, learning, resilience, and even burnout. • How “yet” reframes failure Turning mistakes into information, not identity. • Real-life examples of “yet” in action Money, relationships, boundaries, investing, career development, and personal habits. • Why 'yet' is crucial for financial independence If you don't believe you can learn to budget, invest, or build wealth… you won't. • The neuroscience behind “yet” Why this tiny word activates motivation pathways instead of threat pathways in the brain. • How the Power of Yet protects against burnout When you see yourself as someone who can grow, setbacks feel temporary- not personal. • Easy ways to integrate the “yet” mindset into daily life Microhabits, affirmations, self-reflection prompts, and language shifts. By the end of this episode, you will learn: How to spot fixed-mindset thoughts How to rewrite them using “yet” statements How to create microhabits that support growth How to build confidence through incremental wins How “yet” can change the trajectory of your financial life How to use this mindset shift to reduce burnout and self-doubt How to apply “yet” in relationships, career, money, and personal goals Resources Mentioned: Wealthfront HYSA referral link: https://www.wealthfront.com/c/affiliates/invited/AFFA-NGE2-ZDDZ-K8BK Dr. Carol Dweck's TED Talk – “The Power of Yet” If this episode was helpful, subscribe to the PA the FI Way podcast or YouTube channel for more content to help you build financial independence and prevent burnout along the way. Thanks to Caleb Pepperday, CFP, CHFC, founder of Advanced Practice Planning, LLC, for sponsoring this episode! If you're interested, visit advancedpracticeplanning.com/FI to grab your free consultation. Are you just beginning your journey to financial independence and want to learn more? Download your free copy of the PA the FI Way Beginner's Workbook here! Website / Blog: pathefiway.com Follow PA the FI Way on Instagram: @pathefiway https://www.instagram.com/pathefiway/ Connect with Kat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katarina-kat-astrup-mspas-pa-c-175848255/ Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@pathefiway Join the private Facebook group created for current and future PAs on their journey to financial independence: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pathefiway Like the Facebook page to follow along for updates: https://www.facebook.com/pathefiway
In this new podcast, Dr. Jordan makes a strong case for why, when young adults are starting their careers, the 1st step is to prioritize fulfillment because we all tend to get better at things we care about most. Learn the value of autonomy, flow, understanding your micro-motives and identity capitol, fixed and growth theory of motivation, and that we are not fulfilled by being excellent at something, but being deeply engaged with things that we choose. Dr. Jordan's previous related podcast: The good, the bad, and the ugly about being in your twentiesHow Kids Find Their Intrinsic, Lifelong MotivationOne Way We Are Crushing Our Daughter's SpiritsThank you for listening to my podcast!Please join our communityhttps://www.facebook.com/DrTimJordanhttps://www.instagram.com/drtimjordan/https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-jordan-md-79799120b/
Send us a textMaster the rhythm, not the race. In today's episode, we pull back the curtain on the dark side of hustle, discipline, and showing up no matter what. From shame-driven routines to the hidden cost of overperformance, we're breaking down what real sustainability looks like when your capacity changes day to day. It's raw, honest, and probably not the “motivation” talk you're used to hearing. This isn't about doing more. It's about doing what matters. Hit play and learn how to build consistency that fuels you instead of breaks you.Book Suggestions:Grit by Angela Duckworth - https://amzn.to/4o6xeMX Atomic Habits by James Clear - https://amzn.to/42ZojVj The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy - https://amzn.to/4oda5bU Succeed by Heidi Grant Halvorson - https://amzn.to/47FF1eS Mindset by Carol Dweck - https://amzn.to/3L11daG The Art of Impossible by Steven Kotler - https://amzn.to/4noLSy8 Stealing Fire by Steven Kotler - https://amzn.to/4nIfMO5Here are the related episodes, each one builds on today's conversation:#411 | Why Most People Fail Long-Term—And How to Win - https://apple.co/4hzFToW #429 | How NOT to Feel Like a Mess About Yourself - https://apple.co/47oQJcpEvolve Together Experiences:
Hey Friend, Welcome to the “Start That Business” podcast, where I help Christian moms working a corporate job launch their first coaching or consulting business from scratch without quitting their jobs yet. Passion and mindset are important, but without the right skills and tools, your business can stall. In this episode, we explore the power of combining skillset (what you can do) with toolset (what you use to get it done) to build efficiency, consistency, and results. From identifying the core skills every entrepreneur needs to choosing the right digital tools to streamline your workflow, this episode gives practical guidance for Christian career moms ready to grow their business without burning out. I pray this blesses you. . .
Send us a textThis episode examines Harvard Business School research showing failed entrepreneurs are 20% more likely to succeed in their next venture, and Dr. Carol Dweck's growth mindset research on failure as learning opportunity. Learn three strategies: Failure Autopsy Method, Rapid Prototype Approach, and Resilience Bank Account Practice. As Michael Jordan demonstrated, failing over and over is often the path to success!Thank you for spending your valuable time with us. We truly appreciate your attention and support. Stay connected with us everywhere! Click the link below to access all our platforms in one place:https://linktr.ee/yourthoughtlifeRemember, you are enough, you can do it, and you are uniquely equipped to realize your goals. Let's continue this journey together!
Hey Friend, Welcome to the “Start That Business” podcast, where I help Christian moms working a corporate job launch their first coaching or consulting business from scratch without quitting their jobs yet. Starting a business as a Christian career mom is no small feat. Between family, work, and ministry, many women step into entrepreneurship but quietly give up when things get tough. In this episode, I reveal the three major reasons why career moms fail in business, and they have nothing to do with money or opportunity. We'll uncover the missing pieces, and I'll share practical steps you can take today to avoid these pitfalls and thrive in your God-given calling. I pray this blesses you. . .
When most people think of Usain Bolt, they see the medals, the world records, the effortless dominance. But his journey wasn't built on winning, it was built on losing.At the Athens Olympics in 2004, Bolt crashed out in the first round. It was a painful wake-up call, but also the turning point of his career. With the guidance of coach Glen Mills, he learned the habit that would define his legacy: “you have to learn how to lose before you can learn how to win.” In this episode, I share what I took from Bolt's story about truth, resilience, and growth.Together, we explore:Why losing reveals more than winning ever canHow honest self-reflection accelerates progressThe role of setbacks in building resilienceWhy Glen Mills's philosophy shaped Bolt's careerHow to turn failure into the raw material for successHere is more information on the studies referenced: Winning Isn't Everything: Mood and Testosterone Regulate the Cortisol Response in Competition (Zilioli, S., Watson, N.V., 2013)Mindset, The New Psychology of Success (Carol Dweck, 2019)Listen to the full episode with Usain Bolt: https://pod.fo/e/279623 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to the episode of today. (the episode that will likely change your life) I have spoken about this SO many times but cannot believe this is the first time I have done a legit episode. This is a term that was brought forward by Carol Dweck. She has an amazing body of research around this topic so please check out all her work if you enjoy further reading! On this ep you will learn the difference between the two mindsets but also SEVEN steps on how to change from fixed to growth to get more out of life and your own experiences. Hope you enjoy, and please rate and review if you get a chance. Danke! Alexis Join the DYFM Facebook Group Follow @doyoufkingmind on IG Follow @dyfmpodcast on TT Follow @alexisfernandezpreiksa on IG Follow @alexispredez on TT Follow @mindsetrecreationclub on IG Follow @mindsetrecreationclub on TT Order your Brain Journal here: www.mindsetrecreationclub.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices