Podcasts about everyday innovator

Welcome to my MindFULL conversation with Dr. Caroline Brookfield. Caroline is a speaker, veterinarian, an entrepreneur, a mom, a stand-up comic and an author. She believes that if we do one small thing every day, we will change the world. Caroline holds many schools of degrees from several colleges in Calgary and has a stand-up comedic license. She loves to make people laugh.  When I asked Caroline about some of her Dan Pink Giving Days she says, “Robin I will always remember how I met you!” She went on to tell the story of Dan Pink and of how she found his request for regrets to be rather odd – she didn't realize that he needed REGREATS! Oy…And so it went along!  When I asked Caroline for several things to share with you guys, she said:Give them the example of Brownies for Your Fieldtrip. What is that I asked? And so, she told me. Ya gotta listen!Tell them to listen to Brene Brown. She's an author that by now I suspect you should have heard of. She is amazing and down to earth. She told the story of how Brene Brown tells a story of Grief. Oh boy, listen there, too!DANCE. Daydream. Ambiguity. Novelty. Curiosity. Edit Later. FOR SHURE YOU MUST HEAR THIS!And so on, and so on. It just never ended. So, for you all, I leave this page open.  It's a page of good cheer and good laughs. Funny coming from a veterinarian, who is also a stand-up comic. But hey, if ya can't listen, you can't laugh!  Robin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

Sue Seserman is the Creator and Author of Epilectra, and she couldn't be more proud. The graphic novel reflects many of her own battles with, and successes over, different autoimmune disorders, all while trying to live a "normal" life. She was diagnosed with epilepsy in 2013 and with type 1 diabetes in 1993.The graphic novel conveys the crucial message that being different should not invoke shame, but rather pride in the strength it takes to manage a disability and deal with the unknowns and inconveniences it throws your way. Epilectra's motto is, "Your Difference Is Your Strength," and everyone is different in one way or another.Ms. Seserman is a creative writer, memoirist, and publicist who, prior to starting a freelance writing career in 1990, worked in sports marketing for Edelman Public Relations in Chicago and as the Director of Public Relations for George Lucas's computer and video game company, LucasArts Entertainment, in San Francisco. Today she resides in Denver, Colorado and New York City with her husband, Doug, and their wonderdog, Scooter. Epilectra will be published this Fall. It provide a sense of empowerment and possibility for anyone managing a disability, insight for their loved ones, and a wonderful entertainment experience for anyone who enjoys superhero adventures filled with one-of-a-kind characters.In this MindFULL conversation, Sue has 4 takeaways:Eplicetra is a Guide to show folks that no matter their circumtances, it's OK to reach for your dreams...and ask for help! People saw her as  Hero for taking public transportation to work with folks in the hospital.From Inc magazine, 21% of today's workforce has a disabilty, 4% disclose it, 28% of companies have hiring goals and 76% of college students don't want to admit they have a disabilty like dyslexia. Epilectra is to Team SEEZ (support & empower everyone zealously) as Captain America is to The Avengers.You can find Sue at:website: www.epilectra.comLinkedIn: Sue SesermanFacebook: Sue SesermanInstagram: EpilectraRobin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

In today's epsiode, Best Ways to Get Over Jet Lag has landed on your nightstand. Take a read, then let us know what you think! We are so excited to hear your thoughts :)!! https://www.healthline.com/health/healthy-sleep/how-to-get-over-jet-lagRobin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

Woohoo! We are almost done with mindfully pondering the 10 Tips for SelfCare After Traveling For 2 Weeks. Below is the link to the article on GREAT self care after you have been away. Give a read and then let us know what you think! https://www.worldpackers.com/articles/coming-home-after-traveling-abroadRobin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

In today's epsiode,  you have just landed in your country of choice and your pants are splitting from eating your way through the airport, on a layover and while enorute. What to do now? Check out the article below for tips on beating Constipation and Diet While You Are Traveling! https://health.clevelandclinic.org/8-tips-to-keep-you-regular-while-traveling/Robin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

Whether you are Jewish, or not Jewish, I hope you will find this mindful conversation fascinating and helpful.Mark Horn is the author of Tarot & The Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Path to Liberation. He may be the only person who has taught at both the Jewish Theological Seminary and the Readers Studio International Tarot Conference. Myth and sacred story have always been central to his spiritual path, and he uses both as a performing storyteller and a tarot guide. He applies his understanding of the archetypes in sacred stories from all traditions to the individual spiritual path of clients as they are revealed in readings. I had a reading with Mark and it is changing my life...A few takeaways from this MindFULL conversation:1. There is a Power greater than Us and anything we can do to cleanse our energy centers that can help us see, express and experience these energies, can be helpful.2. The Tree of Life  is a "map" that has 10 inner energies represented, and if you overlay it on the the Chakra system, they align and give you a way of examing how they manifest in you. We ALL have blocks and this practice is a way to purify with specific meditations. 3. Counting The Omer is a journey over a 49 day period (also learn why 49 days and what 49 days these are) and helps people clear spiritual and creative blocks inside so they can be free and more connected. You can buy Mark's book, Tarot & The Gates of Light: A Kabbalistic Path to Liberation  via the bookstore link at the bottom of these notes. Visit Mark at: gatesoflighttarot.com  Follow him on Instagram at Gates of Light TarotRobin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

In today's epsiode,  we are watching Laurie take us through everything we need to bring on our trip! She has terrific tips on how to pack, what to pack and where to pack. I think you are going to be AH-MAZED. Let us know what you think! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJi-uBr3_RYRobin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

Hi Everyone! This episode is on the Best Travel Accessories for Two Weeks Away. Click the link below to go to the article on best-travel-accessories and learn what you need to have to make sure your two week trip is action ready! Then, take a moment and let us know what you think! We are all ears...https://www.cntraveler.com/story/best-travel-accessories Robin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

Hi Everyone! Thanks for joining us for this amazing series on TRAVEL! It's similar to NAPODPOMO in the length of episodes (short MindFULL musings) and in the content I have found to share with you. I really hope you will find things in the series that will help you prepare for your trip, know what to take, watch what you eat, think about who you are meeting on the road and how to readjust when you return. Give a read, give a watch, give a listen! We hope you will walk away with 3 things that will have made this series worth it! It's a long one, but so was the plane ride. Trust me, it was all worth it :)  Robin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

The book title is a mantra that today's Guest, Christy Beltz, has used for many years.  While she isn't sure where it originally came from - it stuck!  When she journals in the morning, many times she ends her pages with Oh God of Second Chances, Here I Am Again. Christy is the president of Empowerment Coaching and Consulting, a leadership development practice helping individuals and organizations focus on maximizing employee engagement to improve overall company performance. Christy guides her clients toward a conscious transformation using a mixture of human behavior motivation techniques, including the Leadership Circle, the Root Cause ™ system, HeartMath, Clarity International: SHIFT Training and Brené Brown's Dare to Lead methodology.Christy's lifelong dedication supporting women's leadership has led to her role as Co-Curator with TEDxCherryCreekWomen. In this position, she works with TEDx speakers to guide presenters to stand in their own power and share an idea worth spreading with the world. Christy's life's work has been focused on lifting women up so they can step fully into their authentic selves. Our mindful conversation was Mind FILLING! Wowsa. I read the book and highlighted and post-it-noted more pages than I could have a conversation about! Check out the link below to buy Christy's book Oh God of Second Chances, Here I Am Again. And check out her website for more on her work and leadership course curriculum - http://christybelz.com3 Takeaways from today's conversation:1. We are ALL Whole, Perfect and Complete at the core of who we are.2. MSU - Making Stuff Up - We all do it! Christy gives us a tip for knowing when it is happening. There are Facts and there are Emotions about the Facts. Learning to identify them can help you. 3. HeartMath is one of Chrity's favorite techniques. Listen in as she guides me through a Heart Lock-In. It's vulnerable and helpful! Eek!  Robin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

It's easy to believe that your way of doing things or your perspective on a situation is the only one. Or perhaps to believe that your opinions and viewpoints on matters are right, while others are wrong. In this episode I explore how we can all be climbing the same mountain and yet have drastically different experiences. I dig into how two (or more) people can have very different vantage points that lead to different stories, perspective and opinions. However  those differing experiences don't have to pull you further apart. In fact, it's actually helpful in so many ways. I also give you a few personal examples to help bring this to life.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: You can be on the same mountain and have very different perspectives Lesson & Action: Recognition, empathy and curiosity create understanding and connection Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook  

Today's mindful conversation is with Ostap Manulyak (OS-TAP ManOOYA).Almost exactly a year ago, I had a spontaneous conversation with my friend John Yackus, who phoned  it in from the border of Poland, where he and other retired United pilot friends had joined the World Kitchen to distribute food to folks fleeing Ukraine. Sad to say, that today, the war is raging on. John and his friends went back to Ukraine last month and John met Ostap and called me and said, "I have a guy for you to talk with". Ostap Manulyak is an assistant professor in the Composition Department of the Lviv Music Academy and a co-founder of Art Association NURT, director of the Festival of electroacoustic music VOX ELECTRONICA and Experimental Educational Studio of Electroacoustic Music (EESEM) of Lviv Music Academy. During the 2018-19 academic year, he was a visiting researcher at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustic (CCRMA) of Stanford University (California) as Fulbright Fellow. He has recently received several awards. In 2020, he received the Mykola Leontovych Award for choral composition and in 2021, the Stanislav Liudkevych Award for works composed since 2018. In our MindFULL conversation, Ostap refered to many interesting web sites:Website links for Unarmed Civilians killed that are Culturally related https://apnews.com/hub/war-crimes-watch-ukraine A few stories which he translated to English  https://drive.google.com/file/d/16ZVv0y1Ogywl_YJkg8hDX0aBvjeaXZaV/view?usp=share_linkCarols of Bells link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shchedryk_(song)NYC – Ukrainian Festival https://www.ucmfnyc.com/And a  few stories about artists who joined Ukrainian Armed Forces https://ui.org.ua/en/culture-fights-back-2/Give a listen to our conversation! I think you will agree with him that keeping art initiatives alive is very important to showing that Ukraine stands tall and has not lost!  Robin has been a guest on several podcasts including Creative Lifescaping and Everyday Innovator. Check out my conversations via my LinkTree https://linktr.ee/robinglicksteinPlease follow my blog, The MindFULL Creative. It's the inspiration for this podcast and has tons of ideas and links to fill your mind with fresh perspectives! https://themindfullcreative.comBe in touch with me! You can DM me on Instagram at MindFULL conversations and let me know what you think! Also, let me know if you'd like to be a guest (or have a suggestion for a guest) and fill our minds https://www.instagram.com/mindfullconversations/And, if I have mentioned a book above, I might have moved the link up there - in case you need it again, click below to easily support local bookstores, shop my page and fill your mind. https://bookshop.org/shop/mindfullconversations

In a time when people are stressed out and burnt out, it's easy for conflict to occur. Sometimes it seems that the simplest question, conversation, or meeting sparks unnecessary conflict. While you are trying to move your ideas, decisions and projects forward that conflict only leads to spiraling down the negativity drain, stuck in a rut or spinning your wheels in place. I've learned that the key to productive conversations isn't in the objectives, or who is in the room, it's in the questions you ask. In this episode I'm going to cover the key keys for how to ask questions that spark meaningful conversations that move you forward, not conflict that holds you back. Ask open-ended questions (not yes or no questions) Get specific (not general) Ask for a story or example (take out assumptions of understanding) Follow up three times (go deep) Be curious like a kid (push your expertise and knowing aside) Ask about reactions (don't respond to them) Ask what questions you didn't ask (you don't always know what to ask) Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: Ask questions that spark conversation, not conflict Lesson & Action: Use one of the 7 keys to change the outcomes of your conversations Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook  

Did you know gratitude is more than just saying what you are thankful for? Gratitude is the antidote to fear, anxiety and stress. It's a dose of happiness, wellbeing, and even optimism, despite the odds. Studies have proven that gratitude can actually enhance your creative problem solving abilities. When you experience positive emotions you tap more of your mind. When you are stressed out your thinking is more rigid, reducing your creative thinking. When you are less stressed you are more open to innovative ideas, and able to make more meaningful connections that lead to new ideas.  In this episode I explore how gratitude is the gateway to creativity and three steps to help you get grateful in any situation.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: Gratitude is the gateway to your creative mind Lesson & Action: Get grateful, connect emotions and do it daily with intention Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook   Raw Podcast Transcript:   Welcome back everybody. Your host, Tamara here, author of the Books. Innovation is Everybody's Business and Think Sideways and creator of the Innovation Quotient Edge Assessment. The only tool out there that helps you discover your natural innovator strengths. So that you can ignite innovation, influence others, and make an impact. I am so thankful to be here today, and I think that falls right in line with our topic of discussion for the day, which is gratitude.  now, I'm not here today to talk about gratitude in their traditional sense and why you should be a grateful person. I think we all know. We all know that it, you know, leads to a life of abundance. We know that. It makes us feel good. We know we should be thankful for the things that we have had, that we currently have that we're going to achieve. I think that's all a part of it. I think that's all really important. But I'm gonna take a little bit of a different. , did you know that gratitude is more, so much more than just saying what you are thankful for? Gratitude is actually the antidote for fear, anxiety, and stress. It combats all those things. It is actually a dose of happiness. Well,  and even optimism despite the odds. Here's the cool part about gratitude. Studies have proven that gratitude can actually enhance your creative problem solving abilities. Isn't that cool? So when you experience positive emotions, you actually tap more of your mind. It's why when I find myself a little bit stuck in a rudd or getting really frustrated because I can't figure out how to do something, or you know, the email I need to write, or the solution to that big problem, whatever it is, instead of just white knuckling through it, sometimes I'll just stop and write out a list of the things that I'm grateful for and get myself into that. not just because I don't wanna be all curmudgeony and negative, I don't want that, but also because I need to tap more of my mind to solve the problem. And the funny part is I often find that when I do that, when I'm stuck and I stop and just take a second to be grateful for things that that solution that I've been looking for, that path to success, that innovative idea that's been alluding me is actually right in front of my face. Funny how that works isn't. According to the Stress Rx founder, Peter slac, hope I'm saying your name right. Gratitude affects the Olympic system of your brain replacing fear, dread, doubt, and cynicism with gratitude, joy, and possibility. Now, I think we all know that fear, dread, doubt, and cynicism, those things suck us under, don't they? They make us insecure. They tend to lead to bad decisions when we.  decisions based on fear doesn't often go well, does it more often, not dread, doubt, cynicism. Those things make us feel small, play small. It keeps our ideas close in and incremental, so we never get that. Those innovative, creative solutions are gonna really help us move things forward, but gratitude replaces those with joy and possib. Those are the things that tap more of your brain. So like I was saying, if I feel particularly stuck or kind of in the weeds of a challenge, I can't seem to get my head out of, or if I know I'm going into a stressful situation, like a big meeting or a, a conversation with someone that I know is gonna be tough, I'll actually not just take five minutes to plan out. What am I gonna say? What is the outcome I'm looking for? I'll actually take five minutes to write down what I'm grateful for in the moment. , and I'll also write down how that gratitude makes me feel. I'm gonna talk more about that emotion part in a minute. And often that list includes small things, like a hot cup of coffee or warm house slippers, or big things like the opportunity ahead of me, or the success I've had, or you know, all the everyday innovators in our community that show up to our, on our live events all the time. It can be a range of things. So what I wanna do, For our sticky inspiration and for our lesson for today is I wanna get right to it, and I wanna give you three things that you can do to reduce stress and increase gratitude so that you can get to those innovative ideas. You can get to that place of happiness and joy and possibility because it's in that. that we find the solutions that we're looking for, we find the innovative ideas that push us further faster. Okay. Here's what I want you to do. Number one, I want you to list out 10 things you are grateful for. Now, I know 10 may seem like a lot, but it will push you to look past the obvious and find gratitude in the small and. unnoticed things. I'm gonna share with you in a minute my list, and you'll see as I'm going through my list, some of 'em are pretty obvious and some of 'em, it took me a second to get to them, but once I, once I got there, I was really happy that I did. So, 10 things that you're grateful for. Then number two is I want you to take five minutes to record your. After you make your list, think about the feelings gratitude brings you. Think about the things on your list, how they make you feel. Perhaps it's joy, peace, or just simply feeling less stressed or accomplished. Here's the reason why we do it with emotions. Emotions are like, Best way to say data logs in our brain. And so we wanna connect what we're grateful for with emotions we wanna feel, because that emotions, when we unlock those positive emotions, that's where we unlock our best everyday innovator inside of us. So this will help us connect our brains to the happy feelings that come with gratitude, to the feelings that get us to that better place and lead us to actions. You know, we always talk about being logical creatures with some emotions, but the reality is we're emotional creature.  with a little bit of logic or a little bit of action. Emotions drive not just our thinking, but our actions, and they happen fast. So we wanna connect those feelings that we get from the gratitude and the things that we're listing out to the actual emotions that they create, so that we can imprint those on our brain and we can access those quickly and when we need them most. So then number three is practice. Writing down what you're grateful for every day isn't just being about good person. That's all great, but also it's about continuing to open up those creative problem solving skills and positive emotions. It continually puts you into that frame of mind of being the everyday innovator that you are. Now, if you've taken our assessment and you know your everyday innovator style, it will access that.  with a snap of a finger. So I'm a risk taker, experiential, so I'm all about bold, tangible innovation. So when I create gratitude, I go into my best self, into my most innovative self, almost instantly. For someone who's a collaborative, inquisitive, who's about whole and deep innovation, right? Doing their gratitude list is gonna access that and their way of being innovative and their think.  instantly. For someone who's a futuristic, imaginative who's all about forward novel innovation, it's gonna tap that instantly. So I think practicing gratitude shouldn't just happen in the moments where you need it most. Absolutely use it there, but also if we start to do it every day, we get the compounding benefits of it. So number one, list out 10 things you are grateful for. Push yourself to really list out. Number two, take five minutes to record your emotions, imprint the emotions connected to that list into your brain so that you can tap those feelings, get the benefit of those feelings in that moment and all the other times you need it. And number three, with intention practice daily so that you can step into being an everyday innovator. Every single. All right, so as I was recording this just a few minutes before I hit record, actually, I wrote down the 10 things I'm grateful for today and the emotions that they connected that connected to them. So let me share these with you and you'll see what I mean about why 10 million matters. So number one is the sun window next to me while I work, I have a big, I guess it's called a storybook window. You know when it's kind of like a, so almost a floor ceiling window and it lets in the morning sun and it feels so good against my face, against my arm as I'm working. I love it. So number one, as I love this, I'm so grateful for this window and my little workspace. Number two, I'm so grateful that I can work virtually and from anywhere. And in fact, yesterday I got. From a, how long was I on four or five day trip? Here's the thing. I wanted to go check out this area, this beautiful lake, and um, but I had work to do, I had live events, right? I had a deep dive. I had an innovation jam session. I had some elite coaches, those who are certified, I had an event for them, but guess what? I can work from anywhere. So I worked from this Airbnb on this lake and. Amazing. So I'm so grateful. As tired as I am today, my first day kind of back at my desk, I'm grateful that really with some planning, I can work from just about anywhere. Number three, I'm super grateful for our new puppy barley, who is a St. Bernard. Um, My fiance and I went to Switzerland. In fact, that's where we got engaged and then we fell in love with the area we were in Lake Tune and with St. Bernard's. Oh my gosh, they're the most beautiful, big cuddle buns ever. So we got one, and she's amazing. And her name is Burley. So I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful. Number four, that I have a soon-to-be husband that shares the big dreams that I have, and not just always that they're the same, but. He like me, dreams really big, almost to others, unrealistic, but to us, something to go for. I'm so grateful to be with someone who dreams in a way that others seem unreal, seems unrealistic, and to both of us is like, yeah, that's what we're gonna go for. I love that. It's really important to be with someone who has that same level of dreams that you do. Okay. Number five. I'm grateful for the fact that when I got home last night, The house was only slightly messy. So this morning I only had to spend a little bit cleaning up. The, my two boys were here watching our dog and watching the house and hanging out. And, um, you know, I thought I was gonna come back to a hurricane, but I didn't. So when I woke up this morning, I was grateful that it just took me a few minutes to clean some things up. Thanks boys. All right, number six. I'm grateful for my CrossFit gym, Mach 9 83. I love that place. The community's amazing. The people are amazing. They. , even though I go at five o'clock in the morning, which I know sounds crazy to some people, I just always walk away happier than when I walked in. I just love being with those people. Number seven, I'm grateful for my coffee mug, which is this super cool mug that I got when I was visiting Alaska, and it's black and red and white and it's got that cool kinda like tribal pattern on it. I just love it. Number eight. . I am grateful for the pictures of my family that I have on the wall in front of my desk so that I get to look at them, and it reminds me of the people that I love. Number nine, I'm pretty grateful that the house is quiet right now while I'm recording this. You know, this whole open floor plan seemed like a great idea until we were all home all the time, and now I'm like, I don't know. I think I need a door. So right now I'm pretty grateful that the house is quiet and there isn't so much noise going on that I have to stop every five. I have those days too. Okay. Number 10. The last thing I'm grateful for is the fact that in, when I'm done with this recording, I've gotta pack up, take my boys out for spring break tomorrow. So we're headed on a little road trip and I'm pretty excited to, to get going and explore some new places with them. So I got a lot. That's my 10 to be grateful for. But you can see when you do 10, you gotta really stretch yourself and think about some things that maybe you overlook on a day-to-day basis, like my mug, things like that. I also wanted to share with you that the emotions that I connected with it and that I want to imprint in my brain. So there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 of them. So the first one is I feel accomplished in myself. Like I built a business that allows me to work virtually, that I work with amazing people. I've got this globe full of everyday innovators. That's just so cool and all of you impact me and teach me so much so, but I feel accomplished that I worked hard to get to this place and I've got more than I wanna accomplish. But that sense of accomplishment actually keeps me going. The second emotion I wrote down is satisfied. I'm satisfied that I'm doing my best, trying my best, giving it my all going for those unrealistic dreams. Number three is happiness just makes me happy. My mug makes me happy. Drinking coffee out of it makes me happy. Looking at my family makes me happy, and that leads me to my second emotion, which of course is love. I look around, I'm surrounded by the people and the things that remind me of those people and experiences that I. The next one I wrote down was excitement. Um, you know, I've got some more travel coming, I've got more big things happening at work. So that leads to excitement. And that excitement for me is like a bunch of really excited butterflies that forced me into action because the butterflies are excited to get going. And then lastly, the other emotion I had was hunger, right? In an emotional sense to achieve more. So, I look at all these things and I get so grateful, and then I'm grateful for the fact that I'm gonna keep going and that there's more to achieve. And it makes me a little. So accomplished, satisfied, happy, love, excitement, hunger. Those are the emotions that are attached to these. And as you can see, I'm grateful for a lot of things, big and small for my 10 things here today. And those emotions really matter because those are the emotions that unlock. The creative problem solving the strategic thinking. I mean, just to really sum it all up, it unlocks your everyday innovator mind, which I'll tell you again, the research has shown as we dug into the neuroscience, behavioral psychology of it all. Being innovative is universal. We all do it. However, how we innovate is unique to each of us, and in fact, have you have not gone and taken the iqe, the innovation, quotion Edge assessment. And discovered your everyday innovator style. I would jump over to the website and do it. I'm sure there's a link in the show notes on our webpage everywhere else. Go to launch street.com as a website. You can find it there. I would encourage you to go do that because knowing how you innovate is gonna make it so much easier to access. Knowing your strengths. It's gonna make it so much easier, less stressful, less exhausting. For you to actually become that everyday innovator across work and life and being that everyday innovator is what gets you what you're going after. That was so not articulate, , but you get my point, right? It's what gets you to your goals and your dreams and what gets you around and under and through those brick walls that are holding you back, kind of both mentally and right in front of you, in reality, in real world. So go take the assessment. , if you haven't. There are nine triggers, ways that we as human innovate, and what each of us has is something called a unique everyday innovator style. No two are alike. Where we have two that are our top two power triggers, our wellspring of innovation, and then one dormant trigger, which is our least powerful play. So for example, I'm an a risk taker and experiential, that's my power. Those are my power triggers. My dormant trigger is collaborative. I will talk more about what that really means. What I want you to do, forget about me, is I want you to find out about you and how you.  and when we're done with this podcast, how about you go write up 10 things that you're grateful for, write down those emotions and make gratitude a part of your everyday practice so that you can be an everyday innovator all day, every day.   Tamara Out. 

We've been told that the best approach to life (and work) is to only focus on what you can control and to accept what's out of your control. I think that's very wrong, and here's why... What's in our control is important as it is our internal emotions and responses to situations and some of the actions we can take. But, stopping there only minimizes our sense of confidence and momentum. I believe If we stop at what's in our control we almost become victims of our environment. I also believe, and have experienced, that there is this gray zone I call the "sphere of influence" that actually holds a lot of space for innovation, influence and impact. In your sphere of influence you have more ability to take action and impact outcomes. In this episode I'm going to break down the problem with in and out of control thinking, how to leverage the "sphere of influence" and 3 key questions to ask yourself to help you identify where you can innovate, influence and impact any situation.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: If you focus on the "sphere of influence" you'll gain confidence, momentum and make an impact Lesson & Action: Ask the three influence questions to help you leverage the "sphere of influence" Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook     Raw Podcast Transcript:   Hello. Hello everyone. Tamara here, your host, creator of the Innovation Quotient Edge Assessment, founder of Launch Street and Experiential Risk Taker. Oh, and also lover of a good charcuterie board. As my kids know, because for the holidays they got me a charcuterie board. They know me so well. Love it. It's like the perfect foods all on. Wood slab, it's the best. So for today, I wanna talk about a topic, or I guess a mindset, a way of being that is pretty close to my heart right now. I've been going through a lot of changes, some of 'em, really positive and really exciting. Some of 'em a little intimidating, a little scary, you know, like on the positive side. We just had a thousand people this morning take the innovation quotient edge assessment and discover their everyday innovator style. I think that's the most we've ever had in one morning. That's exciting. On maybe a more scar or intimidating side, my oldest is going to college in a few months and we're in the process of doing the housing application, putting down the down payments, and just the realization that he's maybe in this house for a couple more. It's a change. It's a little bit scary. It's, it's exciting. At the same time, I'm happy for him, but also, you know, as mom, I'm like, oh, my baby's leaving. So a lot of change going on, and I think a lot of change in the world right now too. I think that's just a constant that we're dealing with. And so I wanna talk about a topic that's really all about tackling. Change with some confidence and some control. And in fact, I wanna talk about the concept of in control versus outta control. And I wanna bring to light the space in between that we often miss that I call the sphere of influence. I think understanding the sphere of influence can help you navigate forward with more ease, less stress, and a little bit more confidence. And. So here's the thing. I want you to visualize my sticky note for a moment. And there's a person in the corner of a stick figure and in their hand, they're holding a tiny little ball, and that ball represents everything that we feel is in our control. That tiny little globe of control and outside of that is everything that is out of our control. What we often talk about is don't worry about the things that are out of control. Only focus on on what you can control. The challenge I'm finding though, is that space of out of control seems to be getting bigger and bigger, and the space, that little globe that you can hold in your hand, that is everything that you have in control is getting smaller and smaller, or at least not growing. So let's, let's put some context behind it so you know what's out of our control. Well, we can't control the motives of others. We can't control how other people decide to.  to see us. We can't control the weather. We can't control, you know, what's happening at the big global, even federal level. We can't control whether might your organization decides to reorg or lay off people or change the system. We can't control what's happening on the other end of the table. Sometimes the people that we're talking to, um, we can't control what happens with, you know, the coronavirus or any of those other things out there in the world. We can't control war that's happening in other c. , we can't control the greater housing issue or unemployment. You get my point, right? I could go on and on and on, but all the things that are out of our control, in fact, I'm pretty sure you could add a few to that list. But as you can see, the fricking list just goes on and on and on, and more and more is getting thrown into that area. So when I talk to people today, what they tell me and how I feel too is. what's out of control seems to be getting bigger and bigger and harder and harder to manage even more out of control, if that's possible. So, you know, if I were to do a word cloud and surround you with everything that's out of your control, not only is it getting bigger and bigger, but it's things that are scarier and a little bit more overwhelming because the, not only they're outta your control, but they have the possibility of impacting you. Great. , do you feel that? Do you sometimes feel like the weight of the world and all the things that are out of your control weigh on your shoulders even though you can't control them? I, I have to say, I really feel like that there are days where I just look around this and everything that's happening and all the things that are out of my control and it's spinning around me and you know, I know that I have no control over it and I know that pretty much anything I do is not gonna really impact it. And I get overwhelmed or I. Frustrated. It doesn't stop me moving forward. It doesn't stop me in doing the, taking the actions I need to take or making the decisions I am. I'm good at plowing right through. But there are days where, gosh, especially after I watch the news note to self, stop doing that. So every time I watch the news, I just think, wow, wow. All this stuff is so big, you so outta my control. And sometimes the things that are outta your control are things that are in your own home or in your own work. Reorganization, a new boss, a colleague that you're not getting along with. Like all those things that it's kind of feels like other people out there doing it to you or maybe in your home. Like, I can't control the fact that my son is going off to college. I mean, I guess I could, I could not pay for it, but I'm not gonna do that, right? That is part of the natural cycle of life, right? So of course that's gonna happen. But even the little things in your own world feel can feel out of your control. I'm gonna tell you right now, you know what feels most out of my control on a daily. My laundry, I cannot get it out of control. I used to joke that my laundry was like wildfire because we talk about it in how it was contained. Like laundry today is 10% contained, meaning I had too much to do. Or if I felt like I'd gone through a lot of laundry, it was 90% contained. So a lot of things in your everyday life, they feel out of control. So I think I've made my point. If you're feeling like your heart is racing a little bit and you're getting stressed out listening to this podcast, I think at this point you should, because we're talking about what you cannot control. So there's a light, by the way, at the end of this tunnel. So stick with me here. And then you've got that little globe that you're holding in your hand. That's what you can control. And most of that is what happens inside you internally, right? So I can't control the reorging, my company, but I can control how I think about it. I can control my mindset, I can control. Response. I can control my emotional response. I can control my words and how I choose to communicate with others. I can co choose the, I can choose the actions that I take. I'm gonna share a story about that in a little bit. But you see my point here, out of control is kind of everything spinning around you. And then what's in control is mostly internally, right? How you think, how you respond, how you behave, and I think a lot of what's in control. , it's about the actions that you take and the things that you think that help you sleep well at night, meaning you act in alignment with who you want to be. You know, when I let my emotions take control, when I don't put them in my little globe of in control and I respond in a way that I don't like later, right? It's an emotional outburst. It's a negative response that you know, has me playing the low ground versus the high ground. . I don't sleep well at night because I know that's not who I want to be. And I don't always, in fact, don't often let that happen, but it does. Every now and again, it gets the best of me. It does for all of us. And we just have to remember that that's the stuff that's in our control. And I think those things, by the way, are really important. So I'm not minimizing them with what I'm gonna say next. I think how you think your mindset, how you choose to respond to a person or a situation.  how you choose to act in light of situations or outer your control, say a lot about you. And a lot of people abdicate that, and that's not okay in my book. And anytime I have not acted in a way that's in alignment, I, I feel it and I own it and I recognize it. And so we've gotta really hold on to those things that are in our control. They make us happier, they make us c. , they make us feel like we're moving forward. But I wanna talk about for the rest of it, and the part that we missed, because there's this area in the center that's like the gray zone. Cause we have all this stuff outside our control. We have this little very important globe in the holding in our hands of what's in control. But there's this gray space in the middle, and that gray space in the middle is what I call the sphere of. and the sphere of influence isn't places that are completely in our control, like how we respond, our mindset, our actions, but they are things that we can make an impact on greater than we initially think We can. Let me share with you some personal and professional examples for myself and others to really highlight what I mean by this sphere of influence. So I'm, I'm gonna start with a work example from one of our everyday innovators in our community, Colleen. Colleen. Was posting on the private platform that her company just did a reorg and she was very frustrated because this reorg meant there was another layer of people between her and the kind of the VPs, the, the high levels. So she used to have a direct line to the people that made decisions so she could influence, she could impact, she could connect. They knew her, she knew them, right. That was good for her work. It was good for her career. It was good for her, her personal and, and professional development and. , but this reorg put a whole nother layer of people, middle managers, between her and the people that were making the decisions. And so in her mind, she's one step away from the people that matter. She's gonna get less recognized, she's gonna be put on fewer of the important projects that she wants to be on, and she doesn't have a direct line to impact the decisions that are being made so you can understand her frustration. So we did this whole thing around sphere of influence in this, in this workshop that we did for our community and. She emailed me later. It was such a wonderful email. I was so, so excited when I received it because she basically said that this was game changing. She said, she told me, here's what she did. She goes, after that workshop, she actually decided that she was gonna influence the situation. She couldn't impact it. She can't control it, right? She can't change the fact that this reorg happened, but she can influence that she. So what she did is she went to her new bosses and to her old VPs and she said, Hey, because we now have this new organization and I think it's gonna work for our better, I wanna make sure we don't lose touch with each other, that we don't end up siloing communication and work and doubling efforts where it's unnecessary. So what I'd like to do is I'd like to host a monthly town hall meeting or team meeting with these new middle managers and the VP so that we can hear best practice. Hear challenges. I think it'll help everybody as we get used to this new structure. Stay in the loop, make smart decisions and connect with each other so that we don't silo. We don't double up. Well, they were thrilled because you know what? Guess what? They were having those same worries. They were worried about the siloing and the doubling up of work and being disconnected from the work being happen, happen from the work happening. Try that one three times. So she has this meeting and she said it was wonderful. They loved it. They got so much out of it. They asked her to keep doing it every month. So she couldn't control the reorg, but she did influence the outcome in a big way. So I want you to think about where do you actually have more influence than you think you do? May not be in your control, but you might be able to influence how it goes, and especially how it goes for. So let me share a couple personal examples in this way too. And it kind of goes to what I was saying earlier about being in alignment with who you are. So I have someone in my world who, hmm, at the best, doesn't like me.  at the worst hates me. Probably more of the worst. And I'm not gonna say names, I'm not gonna give specifics cause I don't believe in throwing people under the bus, as you know. But I wanna share the story cause I think it highlights influence. And so,  what's out of my control, her perception of me. It actually has nothing to do with me and everything to do with do with her fear of change, her situation, kind of being territorial, not wanting other people to step in. So this has nothing to do with me, and I know that. Right. I know. I, I have empathy actually for where she's coming from. I, I get it right. She, there's all this change happening around her. Things are moving forward without her, and she's feeling left behind. I totally get it. So I can't control that though. I can't control her situation. I can't control. . Her perception of me, what's in my control, well, how I respond to her when I interact with her. Right? I can't. And oh, and I can't control that. She's in my life in some way. So she is, whether I like it or not. So what can I control? Well, how I respond to her. I can control the actions that I take. So there was this one point where we were all gonna be meeting up and her included, and I have so much stress and anxiety going into it because I. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to spend time with this person. I don't like this person. Worst kid. The person doesn't like me. And she, she tends to show it.  is probably the best way to say it. She, she's pretty clear in her dislike for me, and so I'm sitting there thinking, all right, so what's in my control? Well, as nasty as she is to me, I can just respond with a smile and just let it go. Right? Be like tough, long, let it bounce off. But I think you and I both know that as much as we say that in the moment. , it is extremely hard. It's hard, right? Because, you know, you're, you're bumping up against massive toxicity and resistance. So I get to this situation, I'm feeling all stressed out because what's in my control still makes me feel a little bit small, and I realize, all right, Tamara, go back to the sphere of influence. So what can you influence? All right, again, I can't control her perception of me or her situation. But I can influence how I behave at this party. So what did I do? Well, I was responsible for bring, bringing cupcakes to this party. And, um, without going into too much detail, the, the, the short of it is they were kind of customized cupcakes for the people that we were celebrating. So I thought, well, I could leave her out and not make cupcakes for her. Right? So each person that we're celebr. , they had their name on the cupcake, and I thought, well, I could just not make 'em for her. I know she doesn't like me. I know anything I do is gonna be taken the wrong way. So what's the point right now? I can, I can control my response and I can smile and I can not be negative, but I wanna go back to that sphere of influence. And I thought, you know what? I'm gonna do? I, I'm gonna put her name on the cupcakes too, because here's the thing, I'm not a mean girl. I don't wanna be a mean girl, and I will never. Put myself in a situation where I behave like a mean girl because I will not sleep at night. That is not in alignment with who I am. And so I thought, all right, in my sphere of influence, I can be inclusive, and how she chooses to respond or not respond is up to her. So I make these cupcakes for this party that everybody that we're celebrating, I add her name to it. Now, does she suddenly love me and I'm her bff? Not in any way whatsoever. not at all. Her feelings are still the same for me. Mine are still the same for her, but guess what? I influenced. That event cuz I walked in with more confidence and being inclusive like that made the party a bigger hit so everybody felt connected and there was no weirdness about who was in, who was out. Everybody had a great time at this party. I was able to influence that in my tiny little part with bringing these cupcakes. . I hope that story kind of resonates with some of you because oftentimes the situations that we're dealing with have to do with how we respond to someone in the room, and whether that person is at work, maybe they're a family member, uh, maybe they're a client, maybe they're a kid, maybe they're a spouse, maybe they're a family of your spouse. They're in-laws or connected. We can't control their response to us. We can't control how they think about us. We can't control what motivates them. We can't control their. , but we can influence the situations that were put in. And that's where I think the sphere of influence is so powerful. And sometimes I, here's the real deal, sometimes I overestimate my ability to influence. But in thinking about that sphere of influence, I always, always find a way to make the situation, to make the environment, to make the relationship, whatever it is a little bit.  and I, so I think this narrative of only focusing on what's in control and forget everything else actually doesn't serve us because at least in my experience, it still leaves me frustrated and angry and not getting what I want out of the situation because I feel helpless, right? All I'm controlling is what's inside me, but if I can influence how things impact me, I can have a better. , I can get more of what I want and what I deserve. And that's what I think for you as well is don't just think about it as this little ball of control and out control. Think of your dotted line sphere of influence that goes a little bit out from that ball of control into the out of control world. And in that gray area is a lot of opportunity. And just like Colleen, the client who was talking about the reorg that actually ended up working in her, Ben,  thinking through her sphere of influence and coming up with that idea for that monthly town hall team meeting, she actually now is being recognized for that effort and being promoted. Fear of influence. So think about your world, think about what's out of control. Maybe even write it all down. Don't hold back. Think about what's in control, but your internal world. Think about your sphere of influence, because that is where the action is. That's where you can take action to get to better results. Here's the other thing I found is feeling more in control and putting some action behind sphere of influence makes me happier. Maybe it's the momentum I get. Maybe it's the confidence I get. Maybe it's knowing that I've done my best. I'm not sure exactly where it comes from, but I can tell you that I feel more confident and happier when I focus on my sphere of influence. I really hope that you'll do the same as you move forward today and through this week. If you're not sure how to start thinking about your sphere of influence, if you haven't thought about it in this way before, let me give you some questions to get you started. One question might be, what can I do to influence this situation? Not what can I do to change the situation? Very different. What can I do to influence the situation? Another question might be, what's one action I can. To impact what's happening Again, not change, not control, impact what's happening. The third question might be, how can I change this into an opportunity for me? I think even asking that question, you start to see the gaps in the holes where you might actually be able to fill them in a very positive way. Tamara out.

Do you ever find yourself stuck, or even moving further away from your goals, despite your best efforts? You work harder than ever before to only find yourself stuck in the same place, or worse even more behind. You double down only to find yourself with your head barely above water. I think of these moments like rip tides in the ocean. In this episode I'm going to share my experience in getting stuck in an actual rip tide, what I had to do to get out of it, and how that experience became an invaluable life lesson about what not to do. I hope in hearing about my experience you'll learn a few things about what to do, why doubling down and working harder is the opposite of what you should do, and how to get out of those exhausitng rip tides of life.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration:  Doubling down on what you've always done will only get you further away from your goals Lesson & Action: To get out of the rip tides of life you need to think (or swim) sideways Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook

You know that how you communicate with others can be the key to good or bad relationships. It can be the key to success or failure at work. It can be the key to getting momentum or getting stuck in life. In this episode I'm going to share the three words I've been using for years to propel me, my relationships, and my work forward. These three words will make sure that you aren't having conversations led by your primal brain that is reactive, have deeper more meaningful connections and get to the outcomes you are looking for. These three words have the power to change your life.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: "Tell me more" are the three most poweful words and will impact your life Lesson & Action: Don't let the primal brain take over. Instead go deeper with "Tell me more." Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook       Raw Podcast Transcript:   Hey. Hey everybody. Tamara here, your host and risk taker, experiential, everyday innovator, and I think it's safe to say I enjoy running. Hmm. More on that later. I'm not sure. Yeah, you can tell the question in my voice. I've been doing a lot of it lately and I think I might be coming to enjoy. It just goes to show you that something that you think you hate or you're bad at may actually be something you enjoy if you give it enough. Okay, that's for another podcast today. The sticky inspiration behind this podcast is actually an experience that I had that actually changed how I communicate and really elevated my ability to get buy-in. So one of the struggles I often hear from everyday innovators across the globe is that, Struggle not to innovate. They've unlocked their ability to innovate. They are creative problem solvers, they're strategic thinkers. But it's then the second step, which is getting buy-in for your ideas. It's no fun trying to push a boulder uphill by your, by yourself or beyond an island, or whatever analogy you wanna use. , it's really does suck When you've got an idea that you know is a solution to a problem that you know is gonna propel you forward, that you know is gonna solve something in your work and in your life that you know is a great opportunity to go after, to only have whomever it is sitting across the table from you, give you the thumbs down, even though you know is a great idea. So I wanna share a story with you about an experience that I had that is what changed. As I was saying, how I communi. Innovative ideas and how I get buy-in for innovative ideas and how I get other people on the journey to being everyday innovators, thinking differently and seeing their own problems and opportunities. So early on in my career, I was recruited to head up the strategic arm of a marketing firm in New York City, and our parent company was one of the largest advertising agencies in the world, and they were based in Chicago. So when I was recruited to take on this job, not only was I the youngest person in an executive role that they had ever hired, so I had a lot to prove, but also the department, the strategic arm of this advertising agency. Hadn't been created yet. So my first job was to figure out what this department was gonna be about. Meaning what services did we provide? What clients did we go after? What type of pricing did we give to our clients? So all of the stuff, right, to set the stage. And then I had to go out and it and sell it and bring in the millions. So every couple of weeks I had to fly to Chicago and present to my bosses. Think of 'em as my internal board of directors. There were about six of 'em, and at every stage I had to go present to them what my thinking was, where I was, their research, all that, and then get to the next level. One time there was this really important meeting, so this was the meeting where I was gonna get the thumbs up that I needed to get the resources that were critical for actually launching this department. So this presentation had to go well. In fact, it had to go better than, well, it needed to be exceptional. I needed thumbs up from everybody in the room so that I could go back and actually make this thing happen. So I had about three months to prepare for this presentation, and I spent more hours than I can count, creating the most beautiful. PowerPoint presentation you have ever seen. I labored over every image. It mattered. What did it say? How did it say it? Every picture had to be right. Every word had to be just right. I'm telling you, this might be the most beautiful presentation I have ever put together to this day. And then I spent hours, hours, roleplaying in the mirror. I thought of every question they could possibly ask me, every objection they could possibly have, and I had answers. For everything. I practiced it all. So then the day of the big meeting arrives. So I fly to Chicago, I go up to the executive floor, open the doors to the green carpet. Now mind you, this is the only floor with this beautiful carpeting in it because it's the, you know, the executive suite. So I'm in the conference room with my internal board of directors, and I'm presenting, and I'm crushing it. I'm doing such a good job. I am c. , I am on point. My, my presentation is beautiful. It is drawing them in. So good. And as I'm finishing up the presentation, I look over and I see one of my bosses give me a thumbs up and I think, yep. Nailing it. And then I look over and my main boss gives me two thumbs up. So now I'm about to pat myself on the back. I'm thinking, yep, I'm getting the resources, the money, everything that I need to make this happen. This is, my dreams are coming true. , but then one of my internal board of directors raised her hand and she asked me a very challenging question, or at least I perceived it as very challenging and. I turned too mush. I went into freeze. My primal brain took over and I was panicking. I didn't know what to do. I was getting sweaty and hot and I couldn't see straight. I just, and all that research, all that confidence was just out of my brain. It was like scrambled eggs up in my head. I did not know what to do. I was so panicked and in an effort to just buy myself some time and get my feet under. . I stopped and I looked at her and I said, that's an interesting question. Tell me more. The most amazing thing happened. First of all, I had a chance to get my feet under me. So stress lives in the neurological system. And where research has shown is that it takes us about three deep breaths to calm our neurological system, get ourselves out of that unnecessary fight, flight, or freeze, and into our higher thinking, into a calmer self, you know, decrease our heart rate. So I had a chance to calm myself down, get my feet under me, compose myself, and pull back my thinking. but something else happened that was really interesting, and it's actually the point of this story. She started to talk. She started getting herself out of her primal brain. She started to tell me why she asked the question, the reason behind it, her past experience that led to her concern. She started to talk herself into solutions to her own obstacle. See, here's what. . We're not the only one in our primal brains all the time with our emotions and our lizard brain driving our decisions and our reactions. So are the people on the other side of the table, the people you're trying to get buy-in from. And oftentimes, particularly in today's world, where we've been dealing with unprecedented, unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety. this kind of primal brain stress living has become this insidious part of our lives. So while the primal brain and stress used to be this response, it was like, you know, fight, flight, or freeze, right? It happens in an instant and it goes away. Now we're living in this brain more than we like to think we are. And sh she in asking that question, was coming from a reactive place, right? Something set her off. But in asking her, oh, that's an interesting question. Tell me more. , it actually gave her a chance to open up. She got to calm down. She got her three breaths, and she talked and told me everything I needed and went deeper and deeper and deeper. And we got to have a real conversation about what matters and drive to some innovative solutions. Not only did I get buy in from my ideas that day because of that moment, because of, tell me more, but our conversation helped strengthen the ideas I was present.  tell me more. Are the three most magical words when you put them together. And so if you wanna get buy-in for your ideas, if you wanna communicate in a way that gets people on board with your thinking, that takes them along for the journey, instead of trying to answer their question, instead of trying to resist their resistance, instead of trying to convince them, convey more inform. Just stop and say, Hmm, that's interesting. Tell me more. People will always talk if there's a vacuum to fill, believe me, people fill it. Tell me more. Has been my not so secret weapon in getting people on board with my thinking and opening up new ideas in moving things forward, getting traction, and it's so simple, isn't it? It seems so basic saying, tell me. , but we're humans. We wanna jump to solution. We wanna look smart. We don't wanna look stupid, right? We have a fear of looking like idiots and someone asking us us. A question feels confrontational. Remember at the beginning of the story I had said she asked a challenging question. So I think she did ask in a challenging way, but even more so, I took it really personally in that moment. That's why I went into freeze, because not only did I not have the answer, I often don't have the answer that doesn't rattle me. , but I thought she was challenging my authority and suddenly my panic of, oh my God, I'm not getting a yes. This is so stupid. What have I done? That is the voice that kicked in and that's why my brain went to scrambled eggs. So the next time you're in a situation where you're trying to get the person on the other side of the, of the table to buy into whatever it is you're talking.  and they ask you a question instead of trying to answer it, even if you think it's obvious, in fact, especially when you think it's obvious, I want you to stop and just say, oh, that's interesting. Tell me more. Now, the story that I just shared is work. So let's talk for a moment about how powerful, tell me more can be in your personal life as well with your family, your friends, your relat. Have you ever been in an argument with your significant other or boyfriend, girlfriend, parents, siblings, kids, whomever it is. We, you probably argue with all of them. I know I do at some point in my life and it's just going nowhere. Everybody's digging in their heels. The, the volume's getting louder and by the end of it, it's that agree to disagree moment, which really doesn't resolve anything. And sure enough, six months. , that argument comes back. Here's what I found. The reason those arguments are so frustrating, don't go anywhere and never get resolved. And then of course, come back around at some point or another is because we are having a conversation on the surface. So in that work story I just shared about presenting my ideas and that one internal board member. I mentioned the fact that the, the challenge we were having is both of us were on the surface in our primal brain. So her question and where she was coming from was in her primal brain because she was set off. And then my response or lack of was also coming from my primal brain. And tell me more, gave us both the chance to calm down and dig deeper. Well, in your personal life, this applies doesn. , you get in an argument, you're on the surface. Nobody's really getting anywhere. Nobody's taking a moment to understand beneath the surface, and the entire argument is happening in your primal brain. Now, if you've known me long enough, you know that I've actually named my primal brain. Research has actually shown that if you name it, you take it out of the driver's seat, right? You can actually manage a little better. So my primal brain is named Bernard, and when I let Bernard take over, He is very stubborn. He digs in his heels and he wants to convince the other person why he is 100% right, and they are 100% wrong. But when I have a chance to calm down and when I have a chance to get outta my primal brain, brain and dig a little bit deeper, and Bernard gets a little quieter, instead of trying to convince a person that I'm a hundred percent right, I try to actually understand where they're coming. And get to a deeper real conversation that'll actually move us forward. When I lived in New York City, I had a boyfriend for part of that for about two years. His name was David.  and every Friday night after a long week of work for both of us, we would go out to dinner and we got into this routine where I would pick the place to go to dinner. Now, just to date myself, this was before Yelp and TripAdvisor and really the internet. So you had this little book called Zag Getts, and Zagats was the end all, be all of restaurant reviews. And just so you know, if you had one of the latest additions of the Z. Restaurant guide you were considered super cool. It was like a badge of honor if you got it before everybody else. So funny to think about that. But on, so on the weekends we would go out to eat and I would pick the restaurant and so he'd get home from his job. I usually got home before him. We changed and I'd say, okay, here's the place I picked. Let's go. Well, what Friday? Never forget. He got so mad at me for. Picking this restaurant and out of nowhere, it's like we were walking down the street and he just starts, I don't wanna go to this restaurant. I've heard bad things from other people about this restaurant. I don't know why you picked this restaurant. And he's practically yelling at me on the street corner about this stupid restaurant. And I'm, I'm a little bit shocked. And so what do I do? Well, I start, are you going back? Well, the review said this, I heard this. The menu has this, we could do this another time. We could go to a different restaurant. Another time. We're going to this one.  and I'm convincing him, well, don't you want some good pasta? Don't you want some good Capri salad? Right? So I'm arguing about the restaurant we're going to, and then I remembered what happened and my, tell me more situation that it happened in work not too long prior. And so I turned to him after his last yelling moment and I said, oh, that's interesting. Tell me more. So at first there was this moment of silence between us and I thought, uhoh, I'm not sure this is gonna work. But as we're sitting there in that moment of silence, first of all, once again, I got a chance to calm down. And that was good for both of us too, cuz I was getting severely riled up on that street corner. We were just going at it. And then he looked at me and he said, you always pick the restaurants. I never get a say in. , it would be nice if I could contribute to our Friday evening dinners and not just be told where to go and I sta I stayed quiet and then he said I spent all week being told directions, being told what to do, being given advice. It'd be nice if when I came home that didn't happen. Oh. . Well, that is something I could respond to. So I whipped out the Zagats book. I handed it to him and I said, you know what? You're absolutely right. I was simply trying to make it easy for you because I know your work is very stressful. You worked out on Wall Street. I said, so how about this? How about you pick one? I'll pick one. And then between the two, we'll decide which one we want to go to. The entire situation was diff.  and we ended up going to this other re restaurant, which was absolutely delightful. But do you see the point of the story there? It wasn't about the restaurant at all. And most oftentimes, our arguments, our debates, our conversations with the people in our lives are not about whatever it is that started the conversation. Tell me more. Allows us to go so much. I'm so thankful I had that conversation because I was over there, you know, from my perspective, trying to be helpful, thinking, oh, this is making it easy for him, and he's coming home and thinking, why doesn't she let me make any decisions? We were coming from two different places and we didn't even know it. And when he realized that all I was doing was trying to make it easy for him, he calmed down. He became appreciative of my.  and at the same time I calmed down and realized his perspective. Tell me more. Works in trying to get buy-in for your ideas. It works in debates and in arguments because you get all those layers deeper, so the next time you are in an argument, you're trying to get buy-in for your ideas, you're trying to make a decision to move forward in some way instead. Of trying to convince instead of digging in your heels, instead of instantly jumping to that primal brain, just stop and say, huh, tell me more. And with that, Tamara out.

Where are you on the roadmap to Innovation and Influence? In working with tens of thousands of Everyday Innovators in our global community, I've discovered that there are 5 stages on the road to "Innovation & Influence" and 3 insights that help people move forward. These 5 stages move you from unhealthy habits and behaviors that don't serve you to being a confident Everyday Innovator that ignites innovation, influences others, and makes an impact. In this episode I'm going to deep dive into the five stages so that you can move forward, faster in your work and life. I'm also going to share three critical insights that I've found help you minimize resistance and progress forward with more ease and speed.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: Your roadmap to being an Everyday Innovator includes 5 stages Lesson & Action: To progress forward you must remember these three key insights: don't compare yourself to others, each stage is not created equally, and the end is never the end.  Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook       Raw Podcast Transcript: Hey everybody, Tamara here, your host, creator of the Innovation Quotient Edge Assessment Guide at the Everyday Innovators Online Toolbox, and according to my kids average cook. All right, today I wanna talk about your roadmap to innovation and influence. I've worked with tens of thousands of everyday innovators. They're in our global community through the clients that we've reached, and one of the things that I've discovered is that there are five stages to your roadmap, to innovation and influence, and. Three insights that help people move forward. And I wanna share the five stages and those three insights with you today. Cuz I think whether you're starting the journey in the middle of it towards the higher levels of it, it's gonna apply to your work and to your life no matter where you are. So let me back up for a second and just talk a little bit about what I even mean by the road to innovation and influence to me. This is really all about getting to that place where you live your life, make your decisions, guide your behavior, your mindset through the lens of being an everyday innovator. That's someone who sees opportunities. CR, a strong creative problem solver, strategic thinker, great at making decisions when they need to be made. An innovator is the one that leads in uncertain and challenging times.  and influence is all about influencing others, making an impact that ripple effect out, not just getting buy-in for your ideas, but also that's very important of course, but also being that rising tide that lifts all boats. So innovation is about you being that everyday innovator, unlocking that incredible talent you have inside of you. And influence is about amplifying your voice and your. . And what we want in these five stages is to go through the journey that makes that innovation and that influence being an everyday innovator, something that happens naturally. You know, oftentimes people will say to me things like, oh, Tamara, um, I'm not the innovative one. It's um, Xander down the hall with his cool glasses and his purple hair. Like he's the innovative one, not. What I know what they're really saying is, and they may not realize it is, I've not. Engage that skill that I have inside of me. And so it's hard and it's dormant and it feels exhausting and it feels not for me. And I think unfortunately, we've developed this narrative in the world that says that being an innovators for the select few, you know, these elite geniuses with their, you know, people like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and JK Rawling, and they're all, don't get me wrong, they're all incredible. I. , but they're also geniuses. And as someone said to me once, it was actually a neuroscientist I spoke to, he said, here's the thing, Tamara. He said, genius is rare, but creativity is common. And I love that because what our research and our work has discovered is that everybody ha is an everyday innovator. But as you know, how we do it is unique to each of us. And what our research uncovered is that there's nine triggers or styles, ways that we as humans innovate and what we all. Is the combination of two power triggers our wellspring of innovation and a dormant trigger, and that's our least powerful play. That's our unique everyday innovator style. And when we leverage that, we get on the road to innovation and influence. So no longer do we say that's Xander down the hall. We say, yep, that's me. I'm an everyday innovator. I solve problems. I move further faster. I think sideways. I seize opportunities. Change and uncertainty are. Fuel for the recipes that I build. All right, let's dig into what those five stages to innovation and influence look like. Um, and I recently posted about this actually yesterday as I'm recording this, and it got so much conversation. That's why I'm talking about this on the podcast today. And I think understanding the five phases really helps people move through them and then the insights will help you. , I think help you go further faster as well. All right, so let's talk about 'em. So the first phase is discover. Discover is all about reframing your mindset and discovering this powerful new innovation framework that serves you and that's your unique everyday innovator style and the method that goes along with it. Here's what happens in this phase, this is where we recognize that business as usual, no longer works for. So we're finally saying, you know what? How I'm doing things isn't working. The approach that I'm using, what got me to here is not gonna get me to there. I need to make a change. That in itself can be very hard for people, don't you think? So at this point, we go, okay, what I'm doing isn't working, and I know that innovation could be my greatest advantage. I know that innovators are the ones that lead during change and uncertainty. , but I don't necessarily have the right framework to make it happen, or Right. I would've done it already. So now we're gonna reframe the mindset around what it means to be an everyday innovator and accelerate that success. So discover is all about uncovering the habits, the routines of behaviors, the mindsets that aren't serving you, and starting to really shed those. Think about for a moment what it would be. , if you shed that mindset, that belief, and the actions and behaviors that are keeping you stuck, what would it be like to shed those? I think it would feel pretty great, and what I've dis what I've found in this discover phase is that reframe. Allows you to see the world through a different lens. So once we get through discover, and we're reaming those mindsets and we're discovering that powerful new innovation framework, what we have inside of us, we go to unlock. And that's where we start to actually shed old habits that keep us stuck. And add innovator habits that propel you forward. Think of it like this. If you've got a B, um, let's say you've got a bunch of bricks inside of you and these are holding you up. These are like your bone.  and you wanna remove the bricks that aren't serving you. But you can't just leave blank space, you crumble. And in fact, when there's a void, oftentimes the old habits, the negativity, the things that aren't serving us are what try to sh rush back in. So in this case, right, we're going to take new bricks that serve us, those innovator bricks, and we're gonna put those in. So here you're ready to unlock your hidden or dormant innovation skills. By unlocking your unique everyday innovator style, you know, in this phase, and unlock number two, that diving deep into your natural innovation talent is the key to solving your sticky challenges, unearthing new opportunities, and feeling more joy and satisfaction. So in unlock, We're shedding the things that don't work for us, and we're starting to really explore and delve into those incredible natural talents and strengths that we have inside of us, particularly about being an innovator that do serve us. So we've gone through discover where we're reframing. We've gone through unlock, where we're shedding and adding new ones, new habits. Now we move into activate. Activate is where we start to experiment, actually put into motion. Your powerful innovator talents, sharpening and strengthening your skills daily. Here's the thing, your brain, while not technically a muscle in this way, acts like one. So the more we sharpen it, the more we strengthen it, the more fuel we give it, the stronger it gets. So here as we experiment and build and test and grow, we are actively strengthening our innovator muscles. We've gotta do it consistently and with, in. So here you start to get excited to put who you are at your best. That's what an everyday innovator is. It's you at your best into action daily, and you begin to explore and experiment with your newfound innovation skills. It'll start to feel like things are getting easier as you sharpen your natural innovation talents. So no longer does being an innovator feel exhausting, hard for someone else, frustrating. It starts to get a little easier and a little easier as you sharp. These natural talents inside of you. So the activate stage is all about practicing and bringing your style of innovation to life daily. It's very, that's why it's called active. It's very in motion. We are starting to take these things that we now understand about ourselves and put 'em into practice daily. Like I said, it's like going to the gym of Innovation every single day. And when we do that, you can't. , but get to the next phase. Number four, which is command. Command is where you achieve new levels of innovation mastery as you heighten your abilities and the success you're getting from it. Think of it like this. It's kind of like being a black belt in martial arts. So you now have this new level of mastery, and it shows other people can see it in you. You innovate daily with intention, applying your skills to your challenges and opportunities, big and small, and you continue to invest in yourself because you recognize that in order to maintain mastery, you must continue to learn and grow. In this phase command, I mentioned being like a black belt in martial arts. Well, if you've ever done martial arts or know anything about martial arts and you know that when you hit black belt, you don't stop. It's not game over. You haven't learned everything there is to know. What happens at the black belt level is you continue to train. You just do it differently, right? You have to maintain your level in your skill, just like any other skill in life. And we, we've done that and we are masters of being everyday innovators and we're continuing to grow and. We move up to the final stage, which is influence, and this is where you elevate your game as you become an innovation influencer, amplifying your voice and value. So in this phase, now that you own like truly own, from the inside out, from mindset to action, to environment, to all. Your everyday innovator style, you can focus on how to amplify your VO voice and value. Here you are moving from not just being a rockstar, everyday innovator, but also in learning the skills to lead and influence others. You elevate your game by igniting innovation, influencing others, and making a massive impact influence. This stage is about the ripple effect out that you can create. Remember I was saying about an everyday innovator that not just you get buy-in for your ideas? Yes, that's part of influence stage. Also, you become that rising tide that lifts all boats so that people around you are impacted in a positive way by you and they become stronger innovator. Because of you, your value is recognized. You have a strong voice in your work, in your community, wherever it is. So lemme go back real quick and just highlight these. For you, and I want you to be thinking about where you are in the phase. And then I wanna get to the three insights because I think this is a part that's really important to remember as you start to really map out your journey. So one is discover. So this is where you reframe your mindset and discover a powerful new innovation framework that serves you. Two is unlock, this is where we actively shed those old habits that keep you stuck and add in innovator habits to propel you. , then we move up to activate. This is where we start to experiment. Start to intentionally go to that gym of innovation and use your powerful innovator talents, sharpening and strengthening your skills daily. That moves you up to command, which is where you achieve whole new levels of innovation. Masteries, you heighten your abilities and success. This is that black belt of martial arts. Then up to the top is influence where you elevate your game as you become an innovation influencer.  amplifying your voice and your value. So think about where you are on this. Now, I've interacted with tens of thousands of everyday innovators across the globe, and I've learned some really important and very interesting things about being on this journey. And I wanna share three really important insights that have come out of this that I. Can also help you move yourself forward. So let me share with you what they are and then I'll dig into each. Number one is you can't compare yourself to others. Number two is each phase is not created equally. And number three is the end is not the end. So number one, you can't compare yourself to others. You might be in the unlocked phase while someone you admire is in the command phase. It's not better. It's just at a different phase of the journey you'll get there and in the way that works for you, and they got there in a way that works for them. I know in our social media, instant gratification, let's all put our best self online world that we live in. It's comparison is very easy and it's very hard not to do. But I really, I've learned that people who don't compare and just do their.  are the ones that win. You know, I'll tell you on a side note, I was swimming today. Um, My partner and I were, we were swimming, we were training for an Ironman, and so we're in the pool. We're doing the same program, so we're, we're doing the exact same swimming, right, the same speed, same distances, all that. And he is faster than me. And I started getting really frustrated because I couldn't catch up to him, and I kept trying. I don't think he even knew I was competing by the way he was doing his thing. And at one point about halfway through the training, I had to realize, okay, ta. You're not even competing against him in the race. You're doing this race for yourself. Why are you competing against him in the pool? Why are you comparing yourself to him? Now, I'm all about friendly competition, but I was comparing like, why is he faster than me? Well, also, he's been doing this for five or six more years of me. I didn't even have my first swim lesson until I was 49 years old. That's right, you heard it, right? 49. So why am I comparing myself to someone who's been doing iron? For, I don't know, is it 10 years now? I'm not even sure. And has done, oh my gosh, almost 12 of 'em, and he's amazing. But why am I comparing myself? It's not worth it. Don't do it. We all go through the journey at different phases, different paces. We experience different success. We hit different roadblocks. What bonds us all together in this case, and the innovation influence journey, and what matters.  is that we're all working towards unleashing 1 million everyday innovators across the globe so that we can innovate, influence, and make an impact on the personal, local, and global scale, meaning the things that we wanna do. So it's great to have that bond. It's great that he and I are training together towards this event that we're both doing, but comparison is the enemy and your journey is your journey. Okay? The second insight is each phase is not created equally. We often need more time to shed old beliefs and eliminate the behaviors and patterns that don't serve us before we can begin to build new mindsets and habits that transform us into everyday innovators. So sometimes that initial discovery phase or even the phase right after that, the unlocked phase, sometimes people need a little extra time and attention. . And when we do that, the other phases go faster. But you know, from being on other journeys in life progress and the speed of progress changes as you move through your journey. So don't get frustrated when one phase seems to be taking a long time and maybe the one before move quickly, but now this one you're struggling. That's how it works. Progress and speed of progress changes. So each phase is not created equal.  and it's def definitely different for each person. All right. Third, insight is the end is not the end. So like I said, just like playing a, being a black belt in any martial arts, you don't stop training. When you hit that elite level, you just start training differently. So, in fact, not many people know this, but I have a black belt in TaeKwonDo, and I'll never forget my sensei coming to me when I got my black belt and after the ceremony, and he said, you know that this now. That you are gonna work harder and have more responsibility for others in this community. I took that very seriously. He's absolutely right. I needed to continue to train. I needed to continue to perfect my skills or create pro. I don't know that perfection ever happens that maybe as progressed my skills, but I heard his point, right? We just start training differently. Being an innovator becomes. , but we have to continue to train so that we don't lose it and that so that we get stronger as the masters that we are. So the end is not the end. And you know, I'm so proud of the thousands of everyday innovators in our community that have reached command and influence phases. But you know what? I'm even prouder of the fact that they continue to grow and evolve. They continue to put in the work to be everyday innovators because they know the benefit of it. They know how valuable it is. In their own lives when they do that. So don't compare yourself to others. Each phase is not created equally, and the end is definitely not the end. I hope. After listening to this podcast, you'll do two things. One is if you don't know your everyday innovator style already, take a second and go find out. I think you'll find it really worth your while. It is. At your best, how you perform at your peak, how you add value, all of it. And then I want you to go onto any of my social media accounts. The links are on the website page, and if you type in original tomorrow or Launch Street, you'll find us. And I want you to look at the infographic I put up with this journey, and I want you to think about where you are and what you need to. I bet you have the answer. And sometimes I think that internal voice is there and it's calling to us and it has the answers, but we never just sit down and give it a chance to speak. We never just think about it. So discover your everyday innovator style and then think about where you are in the journey and how to map it out for success.   Tamara out.    

My mentor once said, "You can step in the sh** traps, but don't get stuck in them!" In this episode I'm going to talk about the sh** traps we all face. Those traps include obstacles big and small, sabotagers, distractions, and bad mindsets. The thing to know about sh** traps is that they are inevitable. No matter your journey, if you are pushing forward, you are stepping in sh** traps. The key is to have a strategy to get out of them as fast as possible. I'll also share the simple 3-step strategy I've developed over my many years of getting sh** on my shoes. It includes #1) face it (don't fake it), 2) innovate, 3) act. Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: You can step in a shit trap, just don't get stuck in it Lesson & Action: When you step in it, 1) face it (don't fake it), 2) innovate, 3) act Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook   Raw Podcast Transcript: Hello. Hello, Tamara here, your host, creator of the Everyday Innovator Method and zombie movie Aficionado. I love, love a good zombie movie and TV show. All right, today's topic. Today's sticky inspiration is all about what I call the shit. Now I'm gonna warn you right now that if you have kids in the room while you're listening or, uh, swearing is not your thing, I totally get it. But I'm gonna say the phrase shit trap a lot because it highlights exactly what I'm talking about today. So I actually drew this out for a friend of mine the other day when we were talking about getting stuck. Feeling like things weren't going as planned and kind of why and what that feels like and how frustrating that is. And I drew this, um, map for her that explained kind of what we think things are gonna be like when we decide to take action, to be innovative, to move forward versus what they really look like. And that's where this kind of shit trap comes from. So let me, let me.  oftentimes, and I know that I have most definitely been guilty of this. When we decide to take action and we know it's the right thing to do, we know it's gonna get us where we, where we wanna go. Maybe it's innovative, maybe it's bold. Maybe it's just the right thing to do. We think it's gonna be a straight lineup. Right Point A is where we are now. Point Z is where we're trying to go, but clearly we're doing the right thing. So it's gonna go well. It's gonna be a straight line up. Maybe there's a few bumps in the road. Maybe there's a little bit of a squiggly line, but hey, we're on the right path. However, I think as we all know from our own personal experience, that is typically not , how it goes in real life. What I have found is that along the way, we hit a. Of shit traps. And as my mentor once said to me, you'll always step in the shit traps. But the key is to not get stuck in them. So if you see my stinky inspiration, my little doodle that goes with this that I drew for my friend, that's on social media everywhere. And on the podcast page, you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Let me explain what a shit trap is. And I want you, as I'm talking about this, to visualize if you have a piece of.  and on the bottom left you have point A, which is where you are now, right now in this very moment. And at the top right of that piece of paper, you drew a dot that was Z, and that's where you're trying to go. So here's where you are at the bottom left and on the top right is that goal you're trying to achieve, that decision you made of kind of what you're going for and members I said, . Typically, we think it's a straight line up, but I have found that you start at point A, that bottom left and you go up and then you kind of veer off into these little shit traps. Sometimes those shit traps get really big. Sometimes they get really long and they're filled with a lot of poop, and other times it's just a little bit, but we veer off, we hit these traps, and it's our job to try to get back on track. Move forward with what we've learned, what we've discovered the experience, right? Maybe we've had to pivot a little bit, but then we hit another one and then another one. And all along the way this path is filled like that until we get up to our goal. Now, what exactly is a shit trap? Well, I think can be one of many things. It could be. A big obstacle, often one that's not expected. Maybe it's a big brick wall that's kind of thrown up in front of you that's keeping you from moving forward. But like I said, oftentimes it's not expected or maybe it's a lot of little obstacles or problems that start to wear you down and make you exhausted, or maybe that shit trap is full of sabotage. You know those people, they love mediocrity. They don't love that you've decided to move forward. And sometimes those sabotages are verbal is how, how they talk to you and they try to pull you down. And sometimes it's physical. And what I mean by physical is they actually sabotage your efforts. They block your ideas, they shut down things. They make it impossible for you to move forward for one reason or another. They just, they sabotage what you're trying to do. So sometimes a shit trap can be full of sa sabotages. Sometimes it's mindset. Maybe things aren't happening fast enough. So you start to get frustrated. You start to doubt yourself, oh my gosh, so much doubt comes in, doesn't it? Or maybe you just start to get overwhelmed and exhausted, so you start to almost slow down. Let the shit take over you. Let that smell go everywhere and just stop putting in the effort you should be putting in because your mindset is not in a good. , or maybe the shit trap is full of distractions. You know, those distractions, all those other things that get in the way of your, of what you're really trying to accomplish. And that makes you feel disheartened. Like, I'm never gonna get th to this. This is never gonna happen. Maybe it's a bad idea. I'll get to it later after I focus on all these things. Now you and I both know that later never actually happens. So all these shit traps that you experience along the way can be like, I. Big obstacles that make it really difficult to move forward oftentimes are ones you didn't expect could be a lot of little obstacles that start to, or problems that start to wear you down. It could be those sabotages, either verbally, they're jabbing at you. . Well, tomorrow that'll never work. Why would you do that? Here's all the reasons why it won't work. Or maybe they're physical sabotages, meaning they're actually sabotaging your efforts. They won't sign off on your idea. They make it impossible for you to move forward. They throw up so many roadblocks that you can't get that next step. Or maybe it's mindset, it's not happening fast enough. You start to doubt. You start to get exhausted or distractions, all that other stuff that gets in the way of what you really wanna be going. So you start to get disheartened and you start to slow it down. It could be one sum or all of the above. Your shit trap could have a little bit of distraction, a little bit of mindset, and a lot of sabotages. It could have a big obstacle and also distractions. I know that I've stepped into a lot of shit traps in my day, and they have had a lot of, all of the above, all of the. So the question then becomes, if we're gonna experience these shit traps, is how do we get out of 'em? Because I think the biggest challenge that a lot of us face, and myself included, is that once we get into a shit trap, it's hard to get out. And the more and more bogged down by the shit that we get, the harder and harder it gets to move forward. You start to almost accept. , what is that old phrase? I'm probably gonna get it wrong. You know, I always mess up my analogies and my phrase is, but it's something like, you know, when you've been surrounded by shit for so long, you stop smelling it. Isn't that it? Or something like that. You know what I'm talking about? You ever walked into a person's house that has like, and I love dogs by the way, but they have like 10 dogs. They can't smell the dog anymore, and you're like, whoa, this couch. Ripe, right? It's the same kind of thing. So sometimes when we're in it, the problem we have is either we get too exhausted and we start to accept it as our reality, or we simply stop smelling the shit. We don't even realize that we're in it until one day we wake up and we go, oh my gosh, why am I still here? How did I get here? I was moving this way, and now I'm stuck over on the left, over here on the right, in this shit trap that I can't get out of. , let me tell you the lesson or insight that I've had about how you get outta shit traps. And here's the thing about what I, I'm about to tell you. It's super simple, but it isn't always easy. It takes some effort, it takes some shifts in your thinking, but it's a hundred percent possible if you just follow these steps every time. And over the years, I have come to implement this every time I fall into a shit trap and. We all have 'em all the time. I will have more in my life. You will too. So we gotta have a strategy to be able to get out of it because man, it's no fun. It feels exhausting and overwhelming and it brings in a lot of self-doubt. And it's frustrating and it's, uh, for me it's anger. Like there's a rage. There's a lot of things to go into the shit trap. So we gotta have a strategy to get out of it. So I'm gonna share with you mine, the one that I've develop.  over my many years, it has really helped make sure that not only can I get out of the shit traps, but I don't have the anxiety about getting into them anymore. So here it is. Number one is face it. Don't fake it. So what I used to do in all truth, is I would get super.  be like, no, this challenge is an opportunity. Oh my gosh, I'm gonna see the good in all this. This is not as bad as I think it is. So I'm all about optimism, but BS positivity keeps you stuck because you're not facing. The reality that you're in and you're in it, you're in the shit trap. So just freaking own it. And I find that if we really, as someone once said to me, one of our everyday innovators, Mia actually in our, I was interviewing her for our, um, membership, for all our online events, our webinars, and where our community comes together. They're pretty cool. I love it because we get to bring all these people from across the globe.  with the drive of being innovative come together. And I was interviewing her and she said, my motto is, face it till you make it. Not fake it till you make it.  and actually interestingly, some people in the kind of mindset growth mindset research area have shown that fake it till you make it doesn't work because our brain has this little BS meter that's like, it's not all, okay, Tamara. That is a problem. Tamara, that is poop on your shoe. Tamara, I don't know what you're talking about. It's not chocolate. So fake it till you make it doesn't work. And that's the reason it's so frustrating and I, it drives me nuts when I hear the people out there talk about like, you just have to be positive. You'll just be positive. I'm positive I can get outta the shit trap with these strategies, but the situation isn't always rosy and we have to accept it. There's nothing wrong with that. So face it till you make it. We need to really dig into what's real about the situation. If we wanna get outta the shit. We just have to own what's really about it. And again, maybe it's tiny, maybe it's a little shit trap. It's one piece of poop. Maybe it's a whole pile of it. But either way, we just have to be honest about the situation. Optimism, in my opinion, comes from knowing you can deal with it, not thinking that everything's rosy all the time. I think that's a huge, uh, mistake and something that really keeps us stuck actually. And I don't know if you've ever experienced that. Tell me in the comments section on our webpage, if you, if you're listening through, . I find that that positivity feels good for a moment, but it doesn't really move us forward. We gotta face it. So that's number one. Face it till you make it. Not fake it, no bs. Number two is innovate. You don't wanna think or do what you've always done to get outta the shit trap, because whatever those things are probably dug you in a little bit deeper inside. To begin with, right? What is, what's that old phrase? What got you here won't get you there. So whatever problem got us into the shit trap and is keeping us stuck there is not gonna get, get us out. We need to think differently. Otherwise we just end up deeper. So we're gonna think differently to get out. We need new ideas, new approaches, new behaviors, new mindsets, new. You know, um, in another podcast I talk about getting out of a riptide in the ocean and how you have to go sideways, which is not your normal inclination. When you are stuck in a riptide in the ocean, your natural instinct is to double down, swim harder, right? Move your arms faster, kick your legs harder, but that actually pulls you under and further away from shore. and what we actually have to do to get outta that riptide is actually go sideways, get out of that lane. Right? If you kind of visualized it in the ocean. Well, this is the same way to get outta the shit trap. We gotta think differently. We gotta go a little bit sideways. So we've gotta use our everyday innovator mind, our talents to think differently about the situation so that we can actually get out of it for good. What I find is that if I do what I've always. I think I'm getting out of it. Like I got one step out, but the shit trap pulls me right back because I'm not actually moving the needle. I'm not actually changing anything enough to really walk away from it and get out of it. So number two is you've got to innovate. And then number three to no surprise is take action. If it all loves, it lives up in your head, you're just standing in place in the shit trap, then you're gonna end up like those people I was talking about before where either you're so far in deep, you accept it as your reality, or you stop smelling the shit and everybody else around you is like, hello, Tamara. Do you, do you smell that and you don't? Now here's the thing about the action. I find that the action can. Tiny, tiny, tiny. It can be small like little, or it can be big or a mix of all of the above. It can be a, you know, a lot of little steps. It can be one big leap, it can be a mixture of all of it, so don't get hung up on. It's gotta be this huge big leap to move myself forward. I've doctor found that's not the case for me. I found it's a mixture of a couple small steps, a couple big, brave, bold leaps. Couple small steps, and here's the. , the first step is the hardest because you're fighting inertia and you've got 10 pounds of shit at your feet weighing you down. But as you keep moving and keep moving, it gets easier and easier. And I've also found that those first steps don't always get you completely out right. It, it loosens up your foot a little bit. Get your leg in front of you a little bit, and then over time, hopefully quickly, you move and move until you. But like I said, sometimes it's a bunch of tiny, sometimes it's a big bold move. More often than not, it's a blend of all of 'em. So the way to get outta the shit traps that you are experiencing and going to continue to experience is to face it, to innovate and to act. That's what I've found for me anyway, and for a lot of people that I've talked to and shared this with. That's what gets us out of the shit trap. Now, here's the thing, I have to remind myself of all the. . The shit trap isn't a one time thing. In fact, it's a constant thing. So once you get out of one shit trap, you get on track, and then eventually you'll find yourself in another and then another, and then you'll get back on track, and then you'll find yourself in another. Then you'll get back on track. Life is full of obstacles, sabotages, distractions, struggling with your mindset. Those things never go. So now you're thinking, well, tomorrow, why are you giving me tools to get out if they're always there? Well, because you don't, as my mentor said, it's okay to step in it. You just don't wanna get stuck there. So here's what I'll say about that. I used to have a lot of anxiety about getting stuck in the shit trap. , I was afraid that I couldn't get out. I was like, it used to just put me not in a panic, but let's say high anxiety and pretty stressed out. When I found myself there, I used to have a very emotional reaction to it. Or if I got out of the shit trap, I'd be panicked about what was around the corner, the next shit trap that was coming, that could I handle it? Could I not handle it? And it's like I expected every time I got out that it would be smooth sailing from there, and it never ever was. And the anxiety was about not being sure I could get back on. and not feeling confident in my abilities to handle the situation. Now I know that whatever shit trap comes my way, I have the ability to get out quickly. And I think, let me go off on a tangent for a minute here. I think realizing and owning the fact that your journey is gonna be filled with a bunch of shit. makes the whole thing a lot easier because your expectations are right. You know it, you may not know what those are. You may not even know h exactly how you're gonna handle it, but you know they're coming. Don't you find oftentimes when people are really thrown off, it's because they weren't expecting it and something happened, right? An obstacle got thrown up, a distraction came along, whatever it was. Um, it's because we don't expect it. So now, Whatever comes my way, I'm like, I'm good. I know. I know it's coming, number one and number two, I know I can handle it. And it's not because I'm like, oh, the worst is always in front of me. It's not that. It's much more of a realism perspective of, all right, it's coming and when it comes, I'll handle it and. Please know that, um, shit traps bother me. It's not that. I'm like, okay, here we are again. Smells horrible. Love it here. It's just that I know they're coming and so they don't bother me the way they used to in any way. And of course, I have emotions when I'm in there. Sometimes I get angry, sometimes I get frustrated. , but it's a point in time. I feel that emotion and then I move quickly into face it and then into innovate and then into action. And I think those who know me will tell you that I don't get stuck in shit traps very long. No matter how big they are. I find a way out and that's the innovative mind by the way, if you really wanna get outta that shit trap fast, especially the big ones. It's innovation. I always get out and I think now with my str my simple strategy and just really years of experience under my belt, I have the confide. That I'm gonna be able to get out, and I don't always know how, because sometimes the ones that come up are ones that I would never kind of have imagined. But I know that I'm gonna face it. I know that I'm gonna innovate and I know that I'm gonna take action. And just having that in my back pocket keeps me from getting stuck in the shit trap for too long. And I hope that you. Use this very simple strategy and I hope you think about your work and your life and kind of, you know, that blank piece of paper of A in that small corner and Z up on top where you're trying to go and know that there's a bunch of little traps along the way, but also know that you have the tools, the mindset, the ability to get out of it. That I know for certain.    Tamara out.

You've probably heard that exercising in the morning has many benefits, including upping your energy and metabolism all day. Well the mind works in a similar way. All it takes is 5-minutes of mental exercises in the morning to make the other 1,435 minutes of the day more innovative. Imagine if all you had to do is schedule 5-minutes in the morning to stretch and warm up your mind and for the rest of the day you'd be a stronger problem solver, better strategic thinker, and decision maker? That's exactly what we are going to talk about in this episode. I'm going to break down what it takes to be an Everyday Innovator all day. It's much simpler than you think it is.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: 5-Minute Morning is all it takes to be more Innovative All Day! Lesson & Action: Schedule 5-minutes every morning to stretch, warm up and strengthen your innovative mind.  Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook     Raw Podcast Transcript:  Hello, everybody. Hey, Tamara here, your host, creator of the Innovation Quotient Edge Assessment, author of the books. Innovation is Everybody's Business and Think Sideways. I just want to give a moment of gra gratitude. A little bit of a shout out to all you listeners out there. As you all may remember, if you listen to the last two episodes, um, this is our, what we're calling our season two. We took a little bit of a break to kind of take a breather, figure out what, what we wanted to focus on for the podcast moving forward. There's some other parts of the business that were, have been really taking off that needed our attention.  and we're back. And what I'm most excited about is I was looking at the numbers yesterday and Wow, they were better than they were the first season, which was already incredible. So, Thank you. Thank you. I am, I'm honored that you're still here and that you're sharing it with friends and still getting value out of it. That is amazing. Now, for those of you who are just listening in and going, I don't know the difference between this and last time, Tamara, let me just tell you. The way the podcasts are structured for season two is twofold. One is a sticky inspiration, and the second one is the lesser action that you can take. Now, the sticky inspiration, the reason it's called that is because I.  love my sticky notes and I use them for everything. For my to-do list, my to be list, my goals, my plans, my notes, love 'em. And I also tend to doodle ideas on them. And these ideas that I've been doodling and giving to people and sharing have become the.  inspiration for the podcast. So when we release the podcast, we release the doodle that goes with it on the sticky note. Um, they're often stick figures. I'm not an artist, so, and you know, which to me is proof that you can be an everyday innovator and not be creative in a traditional sense of, you know, being an artist or a dancer or photographer, or anything like that. I am none of those things, but I love my stick figures and my sticky notes. That's how the podcast is structured. So what do you say? We dig in. Today we're gonna talk about how five minutes, just five minutes in the morning can make all the difference in the rest of your day. Now, this is not a fitness podcast, and if you know me, you know I do love me some exercise, but today I actually wanna connect fitness and the mind for you in a bit of a different way than people normally talk about. I wanna talk about how five minutes of mental exercise in the mornings ups, your innovation, metabolism all day. Kind of like working out in the morning ups, your physical energy and metabolism all day. So I think to do this, we need to first talk about why morning fitness is so beneficial and then we're gonna apply that to our mental fitness and being an everyday I. Actually, this is great timing because it's, what time is it? It's about 10:00 AM mountain time when I'm recording, and on this day I went to my 5:00 AM CrossFit class and I'm feeling all the things we're about to talk about. Here's the thing, we've heard it many times that exercising in the morning is super, super beneficial. So I dug into why that's the.  because I found it to be true. I know a lot of people find it to be true, and frankly, the research backs it up. So here's the interesting thing about working out in the morning. So according to Hackney, who's a researcher, says in the early morning hours you have a hormonal profile that would predispose you to better metabolism of fat. So people naturally have elevated levels of cortisol and growth hormone in the morning, both of which are involved in metabolism. So you'll draw more energy from your fat. So what this tells me is if I exercise in the morning, I get more of the benefits from it, and that energy keeps going and going all day long. I love that, by the way, about working out in the morning. I know the difference in the days that I don't and the day I do, I can feel it.  and when I don't work out in the mornings, I definitely feel more of a mental fog or a lull all day long. And when I do in the mornings, everything just feels like it's humming a little bit better. And I think that's because of what he is saying about what it taps into. Here's the other interesting thing, by the way, about working out in the morning. A study published in 2019 in the Journal of Physiology found that exercising at 7:00 AM Now I'm a five Amer, but I'll consider 7:00 AM still the morning. May actually shift your body clock earlier, meaning you'll feel more alert in the morning and get tired earlier in the evening, potentially priming you to get enough rest to wake up and do it the next day. So, , it suggests that it's easier to stick to healthy habits if you do it in the morning. So let's just think about that one for a second because I think this is really important what this, what this study has found. So if you know me, you know that because I get up at four o'clock in the morning on most days, by about eight o'clock I'm, my head is like ready to hit the pillow. , but, and I used to actually by the way, get really, I dunno if I wanna say embarrassed by this, but you know, I got people texting me at nine o'clock at night. I got, my kids are up and I'm like, oh my God, I gotta go to bed. But what this is telling me is that, that's good because it means, it is putting me into the right habit. And if I do, if I exercise in the morning, those healthy habits are easier to obtain, easier to sustain. So I thought that was interest. Here's some other interesting thing. This is where it gets really relevant to what we're talking about here. Actually, it's all really relevant. I'm gonna, I'm gonna connect the two in a minute. The mental and the physical, so a morning sweat may also lead to better mental health and productivity throughout the day. So because why? Because exercise is actually great for reducing stress. So we go into the day less stressed, more focused, and more productive when we exercise in the morning. And you're gonna find, as I talk about it, this is true for your mental exercise as well. Exercise improves circulation and unleashes endorphins that leave you feeling energized and ready to start your. So how great is that You exercise in the morning, you get your circulation going, you get your blood flowing, which by the way goes directly to your brain too. So your brain has, is more energized, you're clearer, you're thinking better, and it unleashes us feel good endorphins. So no wonder on the days we exercise in the morning, we feel better all day. So when, and because you're less stressed, you start your day less stressed, and the entire day you're just able to manage situations better.  Research also shows that early morning exercise helps regulate your appetite for the remainder of your day while also improving your concentration. How great is that? So making good decisions gets easier. I definitely think this is true. By the way, on the days where I exercise in the morning, I make better food decisions and I make better business decisions. How great is that? Okay, now you're going tomorrow. Are you just trying to sell me on getting up early in the morning? Okay. Maybe a little bit. I love my morning exercise, but I wanna parlay this over into the mental exercises. Here's the thing. When we exercise our brain for just five minutes in the morning, we get all those benefits we are just talking about from fitness, but for our innovative mind, we up our innovation metabolism. All day long if we just spend five minutes at the gym of innovation in the morning. Research has shown that doing a creative exercise like journaling for just five minutes clears your mind. Builds your confidence and creates a path for greater creativity all day long. So while the brain is not technically a muscle in this way, it actually acts like one. So if we open it up, give it that circulation, give it that focus and attention in the morning, if we exercise it, that metabolism and all those benefits. Come to us directly in the moment and then all day, there's this great story I heard of this general in the military who kept winning these idea contests. So the military would have these contests where people could, um, submit ideas on how to solve things or how to do things. He would constantly win and someone on the committee came to him once and said, how are you so innovative? How do you have all these idea?  and he said, don't. I'm no different than anyone else, but every morning I take a blank piece of paper and pen and before I get to work, before I answer phone calls, before I look at email, before I have meetings, I spend five minutes and I just get everything I can think about on paper. Sometimes that's filled with ideas. Sometimes that's just thoughts randomly in my head, but I spend every morning, five minutes. Five minutes. That's what he does at the Gym of Innovation, and he gets the benefit of that all day. So when people are coming to him with problems and challenges, he's trying to figure out his day, his workload, the problems he needs to solve, he's got it because he unlocked that in the morning. So when I was talking about exercise earlier, I was talking about how it minimizes stress, it increases concentration, you make better decisions. Um, you have feel good endorphins, so you feel better all day long. . All of that is true. All of that, by the way, helps your innovative mind as well. It helps it going for sure. But also when we mentally exercise, we get those benefits and on top of that, it is easier for us to step into being an everyday innovator. We can be more innovative. We get into that zone more. You know that that the zone that they talk about where you're kind of at peak performance and all engines are fir. We walk through the world as everyday innovators. All we have to do is go to the Gym of Innovation for five minutes every morning. So, you know, everybody talks about these morning routines and it's usually, you know, don't hit snooze, which I totally agree with by the way. So get up early, drink water, um, walk around the block, like get some movement going. Uh, right. That's kind of what they talk about, but they're missing this one thing I think, and I think this is. Critical for success during your day to be more productive, to be more innovative. That morning routine should always include five minutes of a mental exercise, something that's gonna spark your innovative mind. And all it takes, by the way, is one simple exercise, five minutes. And you'll be more productive. More innovative. You'll have more confidence, you'll make better decisions. You will see opportunities and solutions in front of you all day long.  because you did this one little thing in the morning that helps you throughout the day. Now, if you know your everyday innovator style and you've received your custom report, there are actually exercises in the back of that report, four of 'em that speak directly to your power triggers to how your brain works. That is going to naturally unlock your innovative. . So for me, for example, I'm an experiential risk taker. So the experiential side is all about innovating in motion, innovating in action, seeing things kind of in 3D and innovating that way. And the risk taker side of me is all about innovating in the uncomfortable leaping and figuring it out is actually where I thrive and how I innovate best. So that combination means that my value to the world and the strength that I bring is tangible and bold in. could be very different for you. It should be. But what that means for me in the morning is my five minute activity usually includes building something, mapping out my day with sticky notes, putting something actually physically together, because I'm all about that physical and the tangible, you know? Now I'm thinking about it. I think this is why CrossFit, in particular for an exercise for me in the morning really works because if you do CrossFit or if you see it on tv, you know, Every exercise is a, is a little bit uncomfortable and you're pushing yourself, um, and you're kind of pushing limits and try to go to that next place. So it doesn't just make me feel physically uncomfortable, it makes me feel mentally uncomfortable too. But I think it taps because of that. And because being uncomfortable is where I thrive as a risk taker. It actually taps the risk taker side of me. But all I need to do to really, for my five minutes is give me some sced markers, some sticky notes, maybe even, I don't know, um, some other regular pens and. I'm on it, right? Just five minutes of building in the morning. For someone who is a collaborative instinctual, spending five minutes playing, kind of what do these things on my desk have in common or what's different about them will unleash incredible innovation all day. For someone who's an inquisitive, imaginative, Something like taking a random photo and creating a story around it will up their innovation metabolism tenfold because it taps their desire to dig, to question things, right? Figure things out. What's this picture about? And then the imagine imaginative side of creating novel ideas. If you don't know your every unique everyday innovator style, go to our website and take the five minute assessment. It really is five minutes online and the rewards of knowing how to perform at your peak and elevate your value will last a lifetime. So go take that. That is number one. Let me give you three examples from everyday innovators in our community. So first, let's talk about Max. So here's what Max does. This is what he told me. He takes a blank piece of paper and he fills it with just random thoughts every. For him. This unlocks his innovative mind and gets all that clutter out so that he can start to clear his head, see the connections, and get focused. So he's a fluid, imaginative to no surprise. So Jesse loves to doodle. She says every time she spends five minutes doodling, the ideas just flow flow for the rest of the day. . Interestingly about doodling by the way, is that, um, what studies have found is that it taps our brain in a different way. So, you know, usually we write or we speak, but doodling is actually a visual medium and physical cause. We're using our hands, we have to create it, and that taps our brain in a whole different way. Doodling has also been found to up concentration. So if you're in a meeting and you're struggling paying attention, turns out doodling can help you with that. So Jesse loves to doodle. . Bill loves to take sticky notes, Legos and what other funky fun building stuff he has on his desk and build something. He said that sometimes he has something specific he's trying to create, like a toy car. He said most of the time that's the case, but if he can't think of anything, he just starts building and it comes together. He says the days he does this, he just spends five minutes building. He is more productive and more innovative. I think that's worth spending 20 bucks at the store to get some materials to be able to build every day. He's an experiential futuristic. It makes sense. So here's the thing I really want you to consider now that we're talking about all this, all those benefits of upping your physical metabolism apply to your mental metabolism as well. But it can't be left a chance if it's left a chance it doesn't. So build these five minutes into your calendar. You schedule your workouts, your meetings, your evening out with friends. Why not schedule this? What I found is that when things get on my calendar, they get done. They don't get on my calendar, and I'm like, oh, it's just five minutes. I won't, I won't worry about it. I'll remember, I don't remember. This is five minutes. Just it. That's it. Five minutes.  that makes the other 1,435 minutes in the day more productive and more innovative. You'll work smart. And oh, by the way, we're not even getting into the compounding benefits of doing it daily. We're gonna leave that to another podcast for now. I want you to go to your calendar, put in five minutes in the morning. If you can make it consistent across every morning, great. If not, go look at your calendar and see where you can fit it in and get the benefits of going to the gym of innovation up your innovation metabolism. See solutions, solve problems, make better decisions every single day.   Tamara out.

It sucks being the only innovator surrounded by status quo minds. As I learned in my thirty plus years, it sounds good to be the solo disruptive innovator out there pushing the limits and seeing opportunities everyone else misses. But, in reality it's lonely, and not much gets done. In fact all you are left with is frustration and ideas that never get realized to their full potential. In this episode I share for ways to build a team of Everyday Innovators around you so that you can get the traction and support you need to accomplish anything. In these four of 1) knowing the difference between wrong and different, 2) allowing small wins, 3) focus on the why, not the idea and 4) speak their language, I'll delve into stories, inspiration and tactics for you to do the same. As I share, my efforts to push that boulder uphill alone usually led to failure. And, doing it with a team usually led to success.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: You can't push your idea uphill and succeed alone Lesson & Action: Know the difference between wrong and different, 2) allowing for small wins, 3) focus on the why, not the idea and 4) speak their language Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook     Raw Podcast Transcript:   What's up everyday innovators. So today I wanna talk about something, maybe a little personal, but I think relevant to a lot of us who are out there pushing the limit, trying to get things done, trying to go a little further, a little faster, trying to kind of push the boundaries out. And that is feeling like you're on an island. you know, early on in my career I think I took a lot of pride in being the disruptive innovator. And I say that laughing a little bit now, by the way. Cause it sounds so silly cuz you just don't do it alone. But back then I, I took a lot of pride in being the one who thought differently than everybody else. And, you know, being the one who was out on the ledge and making it happen and other people just didn't. , I, maybe that's part of being in your twenties too. I don't know. I think, you know, you, there's a little bit of bragging rights and like, oh, I'm, I could do this so much better than everybody. And those people don't get it. And they're all jaded and they're all too experienced and, you know, stuck in status quo. And that might have been true for some of 'em. But the reality is when I look back is that I actually didn't get much done. I was pushing water uphill by myself.  and you know, that whole narrative about the innovator being that lone inventor in the garage, you know, up until three o'clock in the morning doing crazy things is untrue. And in fact, if you look at the great innovators of our time, and by the way, we all, we're all everyday innovators, all of us, our innovators make a massive impact in our world. And there are.  that are also on the genius level that we know about because they've done things like Steve Jobs and invented the iPhone. But even if you look at someone like Steve Jobs, some of the people that we revere, they didn't do it alone. Steve Jobs had wosniak, he had a whole team of people. Nobody does it alone. And I don't remember when that switch flipped, but I can tell you that at some point, , I realized that, you know, standing up on my righteous pedestal of being an innovator by myself wasn't getting me or my ideas anywhere. In fact, all I was really getting was resistance. Do you feel that way sometimes when you're out there on the ledge by yourself and you're trying to push an idea forward, make things happen, and all you're getting are nos and resistance and yes. But.  and things getting stuck in the bureaucracy of things. Well, I think what my career has taught me is that part of, that's the system, part of that's some legacy thinkers, but you know what? A lot of that was me taking pride in perpetuating the problem because I wanted to be up on this pedestal as this disruptive innovator that was, you know, different than everybody. And when that switch flipped, I realized that I need other people to move things forward. I can't do it alone. I need other people to up their innovation game with me. I needed to be less of that, you know, solo innovator on an island and more of that rising tide that lifts all.  and there's a little bit of selflessness and a little bit of selfishness in that, you know, the selfish part of it is my ideas get moved forward. I get traction, I get buy-in for my ideas. I get recognized for being an innovator. And that's is a little selfish. Yeah, maybe. But for a good reason. And the selfless side of it is I get to help other people be innovators too. To get them to.  change their game and to get more satisfaction in their work and be more innovative and solve their biggest problems. So I think it takes a little bit of both sides of that coin, selfless and selfishness. And I would encourage you to think about when you are tackling a problem, whether this is personal or professional, if you're going in there kind of guns blazing, like you're the solo innovator and everybody else's lame, or if you're going in there really working, To elevate everybody's game and getting everybody on board the journey with you. It is no fun pushing a boulder uphill by yourself. I think that's the analogy I'm gonna stick with. As you can tell, I tend to muddle my analogies quite a bit and go back and forth, but if I really visualized what it felt like, I've got this boulder, and this boulder needs to be at the top of the hill. In fact, it's the right place for it is up at the top of the. but I'm the only one pushing it and it's too big and it's too hard. And maybe I move the needle a little bit, but then I get pushed back. I move it a little more up the hill, then I get pushed back and I kind of get stuck in place. Do you ever feel like that? Have you ever had an experience where you know, you've got your idea, this big boulder, that's awesome, it's gonna take some work, some effort, and you're pushing it uphill to where it should be. you're kind of either spinning your wheels or you're not getting anywhere. Or maybe it's even going backwards. It's not. It's not only is it not going forward, but you're getting further from your goals could be cuz you're pushing alone. I would really encourage you to start thinking about how can I be that rising tide that lifts all boats, the people around me? And you know what? It feels good. It feels really good to go into a meeting, into a conversation, into a relationship.  into a presentation with that perspective in mind, and it's ama. It's been amazing to me as I've gone through my almost 30 year career now, the difference that I've seen in people's responses to me and to I, my ideas when I shifted from I am the disruptive innovator. Look at.  to, Hey, we're all innovators. So let me figure out how to bring you on board for the journey. Let me figure out how to tap into you. So why don't we talk about, why don't we talk about doing that? I've got four ways that you can elevate the innovation and the vision and the energy of the people around you that are are proven. I know they work cause I've used them in my career. Throughout in many, many different ways. I've used them in my personal life throughout, in many different ways. And let me share these four with you and some stories behind them. Cause I think they're really gonna help you get more of what you are looking for out of work and life too. Get more traction for your ideas, get more yeses from the people on the other side of the table, from you. Okay? So let me tell you what the four are and then I will back up and explain them. So the first one is different. Isn't. . The second one is allow for small wins. The third one is focus on the why not the idea. And then the fourth and final one is speak their language. So let me dig into all these because I know from the people in our everyday innovator community that these have made a massive impact on their world too. Okay. The first one different isn't, There's this great TED Talk out there by a man named Derek Sivers, and if you haven't seen it, I'd encourage you to go find it. I think it's, I think the title is, is It Wrong or Different? And I think it's a Three Minute Ted Talk and he talks about how in the US if you ask for directions, people tell you the street, oh, it's on 23rd and Maple. But if you go to Japan, they say Block one house five. Right. Talking about is the things that people present to you, are they wrong? Are they just different? When I was leading this consulting firm in Denver, one of the mistakes I realized I was making is if it wasn't.  an idea that fit into my mold of what an idea should look like. It was wrong and we shouldn't do it. I wasn't able to recognize other people's innovative ideas cuz they didn't fit my vision of how that solution should look. And consequently, because of that, I was shutting down the innovation in the room and then, What happened? I turned myself into that lone disruptive innovator narrative that I love so much, and I'm up on that pedestal by myself, and I'm pushing that rock uphill by myself and nothing was working. And I, I remember walking to the office one day and just having this epiphany of, you know what, maybe their ideas aren't wrong. Maybe they're just d.  and maybe if I allow them to pursue those different ideas, not only will they work, they might even work better than what I had in mind. And sure enough, that was true. One of the mistakes that we make as humans, and it it's natural, is that if it doesn't fit our mold of what assumption something should look like, we see it as wrong. We've gotta open our eyes and recognize that it's not wrong, it's just d. This happens at home to me all the time, by the way. Like I'll say to my kids, Hey, we need to clean the house. And my vision of how we need to get that done looks a very specific way if you know, you know, that's very specific. And my kids on the other hand, have their way of doing it. And for the longest time I fought it, I wanted 'em to do it my way.  and one day I just said, Hey, I'm leaving. I'm coming. I'll be back in an hour. Clean the house. And they did it and it looked fantastic. And the way they did it is in no way the way I would would've done it. But it wasn't wrong. It was just different. And we both got, all of us got to the outcome that we were looking for. So be careful. You might be shutting down people.  innovative ideas. You might be shutting down their drive to be innovative with you because you're seeing what they're saying as wrong, when really it's just different. That's all. It is just different, and I think there's a lot of benefit of that if we open our eyes because we start to see things from different perspectives, different approaches, different angles, and there's some benefit to help us grow our innovative minds in that as well. So, . Remember, it's not wrong. It's probably just different. Go check out that Ted Talk from Derek Sivers. It really nails it the way he talks about it. I find though, that when I start to allow for those differences and start to see them a as if not more valid than kind of how I would've approached it, people become more innovative with me, right? They help me move that boulder up that hill. The second one is allow for small wins. So often time we see innovation as this big blue sky disruptive, crazy thing that we're going after. And so people come to us, right, with these big, crazy, innovative, disruptive ideas, and we're supposed to yes or no them, and oftentimes there's a no that is attached to that. How many times have you had that? Well, Your team or the people in your life work in the same way. If every time they go to you with an innovative idea, you shut it down, you stop it, then they're gonna stop and they're gonna resist more of your ideas. So what I've found is the best way to overcome that and to give people the confidence that they need to continue to innovate alongside with you, is to give them small wins. I will absolutely say yes to my kids, to my partner, to my team, to my clients on something that they really wanna go after. When I know that it's low or no risk, when I know that going after it means more to them than it does to. , I will give 'em all the time. The small win. And you know what? You never know where it's gonna end up. Sometimes those small wins turn into really big opportunities, but to start, just give the people around you some small wins. It has helps so much with people's confidence, their sense of independence, their desire to wanna help and support you. They deserve that. We all deserve small wins. So if one of my team come to me and says, Hey, Tamara, I wanna try so,  and here's a tiny little thing I can do to to experiment with it. You better believe I'm gonna say yes, even if I don't see the value in the idea yet. I'm going to give them the small win and see where it goes. But I know for a fact that not only could that idea be something, but more importantly for me in that moment, it's gonna help build confidence and trust and relationship, all the things that we both need to move those boulders up. Allow for small wins. It doesn't hurt you. I've never understood why, you know, people are so quick to shut stuff down that's insignificant or that, I don't wanna say insignificant, that's not the right word, because it all matters, but doesn't have a massive impact on outcomes in the moment. Or, you know, doesn't harm or hurt them in any way. Why not give them the small win and just say, . You know, one of the things, I think my doctor just did this to me recently, by the way, because, and I love it. I love him for it. He's one of the, he's the best doctor. So I had gone to him and said, Hey, I'm having some trouble losing those last pounds. I'm struggling. And I'm wondering if, you know, with my, I've been doing a lot of reading on glucose and kind of blood sugar and what it does to your weight, and I'm, you know, I'm headed into doing a lot of training for some upcoming events. I'd love to really optimize my performance. I'd like to get a continuous glucose monitor. You know, one of those ones you put in your arm and then it's connected to an app and it monitors your blood sugar. And he emailed me back and he said, well, you're definitely not diabetic or even pre-diabetic. He said, you know, your numbers don't show that in your blood work. He said, um, and here's a different monitor you could use that doesn't require a continuous, like you, I think you prick your finger or whatever. And I responded back with, yeah, but like, I don't wanna prick my finger or whatever. And so he responded. . If this gives you the information that you're looking for, or that's gonna help you customize your nutrition the way you want, then let's go for it. I've written you a prescription. It's waiting for you at the drugstore. Okay, let's break this down for a minute. The doctor didn't need to say Yes. This continuous glucose monitoring is for people with diabetes, of course, right? Who really need to monitor their blood sugar. . I wanted it for lifestyle purposes. I wanted it for data really. I really wanted to see, you know, what, how certain foods affect me and what I can do to optimize my physical performance. And he gave me the small win. He didn't have to say, yes, of course not. Now, remember what I was saying before? If it doesn't do any harm, why not? If it helps the person kind of feel, trust, and rapport and connected, and get them what they need to move forward, why? . Well, that's exactly what he did. Doesn't harm knowing that data. It doesn't harm at all. I just want it for a couple months. Right? And made me feel like, yes, this is a thing I wanted and I got it. Small wins. That's all it takes. Okay. Number three is focus on the why not the idea. I think ideas are like icebergs and all we see is the tip of 'em and. Yay or nay, the tip of 'em. And we focus on what we think is gonna work or not work. You know, based on that little bit of it we see. But the thing that we miss is underneath that water, as you know, with an iceberg, is a lot more. A lot more. And to me that's the why. And if we want people around us to minimize resistance, be innovators with us instead of focusing on the idea focus. on the why. Why do they love this idea? Why are they passionate about it? What are they really trying to solve? Why does this matter to them? Why are they going to bat for this idea? Often I found that that's where the gold is. It's underneath. It's not on that tip or thing that we can see the idea. It's the why behind it. And. . It's also been my experience that when we understand the why, we get to stronger, more collaborative ideas together, because we're digging into, well, what is this really trying to solve? What are we trying to accomplish? Why does this matter? Who does this really impact? Right to all those things, but really seeking to understand the why behind what people are saying behind their ideas. Also behind their resistance too. I'll do a whole nother podcast on minimizing resistance. One of the most powerful things that you can do to minimize someone's resistance around you is to understand why they're resisting. So don't fight the resistance, understand the why. So focus on the why not the idea, and they're more likely to focus on your why back as well. But somebody's gotta start that conversation. All right. Lastly, speak their language. So simple. . Here's the reality. We speak the language that we know, and that we understand the language that motivates us. That gets us energized and excited, and then we bring that language to other people and it doesn't motivate and excite them. How many times have you said, Hey, oh my God, I'm so excited. There's this new restaurant, we should go try it. Like, I've never had food like this before, and the, you know, your wife or husband or boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, is that. The other side of the kitchen counter is like, eh, I don't know. Because that's what excites us, not them. How many times have you been in a meeting where you've put together a beautiful PowerPoint presentation, you've presented your thinking and you're like, yeah, this is gonna pave new ways and build new opportunities. And even though you know it's the right thing to do, you get the most lackluster res response from the people on the other side. Yeah, it's cuz you're speaking your language, not theirs, by the way, , did you, I just realized this. Did you notice in both of those, example, I gave you examples that would speak to me. I'm a risk taker, experiential, so I want bold and different and new. I wanna push boundaries, right? I wanna carve new paths all the time. That totally speaks to me. Those two examples were exactly it, which by the way, I have a collaborative tweaker on my team, and if I go to her with those, it's like, want, want? . But if I say to her, Hey, this is gonna help you build connections, you're gonna really have to kind of embrace a lot of different perspectives to get this idea done. Um, you're gonna, I would suggest taking what we've already done and springboarding off of that, optimizing it. She's all in. That's her language. So if you know the People's Everyday Innovator styles around you, this becomes very easy. In fact, one of our most downloaded documents in the online Everyday Innovators online toolbox is our personality, one page cheat sheet, because it has what motivates everybody, what drives everybody, the type of language they use. So you can recognize them, but you know, awareness.  half half of it. So if you're just simply aware and listening to the type of language the people across from you use, what tends to light them up and what doesn't, you'll start to adjust your language to match what's gonna make them the most receptive. To me, this is one of the most important things we can do as a leader, as a partner, as a friend, is just listen to how people talk so that we can actually speak their language.  and connect with 'em in a way that works for them and for us. All right, so let me back up for a second. Let me summarize these four. And again, just a reminder to us all. The point here is let's not push that boulder uphill alone. It's exhausting and it often never works. Often never works. Wow, that didn't sound right. It often doesn't work. , that was a little bit of an anchorman moment. What was that? 60% of the time it works every time. I think I just did that. All right, let, let me back up. I'm making myself laugh over here. Pushing that boulder uphill alone is ineffective. It's exhausting. , it usually leads to failure. And even if you get that boulder uphill by yourself, yay you, that's no fun. The reality is we need other people to be pushing with us. We need help. We need other people that can build tools that'll pull that boulder uphill faster. We need people to help sh bear the burden. We need people to help do the things that we don't know how to do. And the four ways to do that very simply are open up your eyes. And be aware of and recognize that things aren't wrong, they're different. Be open to those differences. The second one is allow small wins. Give people the confidence and the connection they need to move forward with you. And the third one is focus on the why not the idea. Here's the other thing with the why that I didn't mention before. It's been my experience that people don't need to be right, but they need to feel valued and they need to feel heard and digging into their why does both of those things. And like I said, underneath that water in that iceberg, there is so much goodness there to pull from. And then the fourth one is speak their language. Know their everyday innovator style and speak to that. Acknowledge, recognize, listen to the words that they use, listen to. They tend to say yes to what? They tend to say no to. Look at their body language, pay attention, and then make sure that you're speaking their language, not yours. All right. I gotta say I, uh, I feel very strongly is not coming across that we can't do it alone. And like said, my almost 30 years now, that is my 30 years have proven that. when I made that change of kind of, you know, doing it by myself to trying to kind of be that rising tide or get other people on board, man, I've gotta fix my analogies, . But when I flip that switch, not only did more things get done more effectively, and the outcomes were stronger and better, but also it's more satisfying. It's more rewarding to lift up other people in the process and to do it together.   Tamara out.

A mind is sort of like a balloon. At first it's stiff and impossible to blow up (parents with little kids know what I'm talking about) but with a little extra it stretches and grows, never to return back to its tiny, out-of-the-package, shape. A mind stretched by new ideas, new experiences and new perspectives will never go back to its original dimensions. In this episode I share my experiences about feeling stale and stuck, how stretching my mind with new experiences is the antidote to that, and several easy ways you can keep growing and evolving.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours? Sticky Inspiration: A streched mind is forever changed Lesson & Action: Small actions that stretch your mind can add up to big changes. Get lost, try a new restaurant, talk to a new person, travel, explore, and seek out differing opinions.  Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook     Raw Podcast Transcripts: Hey. Hey, Everyday Innovators across the globe. Tamara here, your host, creator of the Innovation Quotient Edge Assessment, author of the books. Innovation is Everybody's Business and Think Sideways. I'm a risk taker, experiential, everyday innovator, and a lover of nehi socks. Welcome to the show. Today we are gonna be talking about your brain. I know. Is there anything sexier than that? No, I don't think so. Actually, the thing specifically that I wanna talk about today is how when you stretch your mind, it never goes back to what it was. In fact, there's this great quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. That says exactly that. It says, A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimens. Isn't that cool? So think about that for a second in your work and life and about being an everyday innovator. If we wanna keep growing and evolving and having those innovative ideas and being able to communicate innovation in a way that moves us forward, we need to keep growing and stretching our mind. I think sometimes when we feel stale or stuck, , it's because we haven't stretched ourselves in a while. I know for me personally, that is very, very true. I tend to not do as well when I get stuck in routines and habits without any, anything new or any variables, any surprises coming in. Now, here's the thing with habits, routines, and repetition. I think they can be really good for you. They make us efficient. I think they give us a sense of security, of knowing. I think without that we have too much uncertainty in our world. So we need a little, a baseline of habits and routines and repetition so that we're not always thinking about how to do the things we know how to do or, or how to schedule our day in a way that's gonna work for us. We got that covered and that's good, but it can also be. Bad. I think it's what ends up leaving us lacking or is stuck in the mundane or maybe even feeling listless. So we wanna keep stretching and growing our brains like Oliver Wendell Holmes said, so that it doesn't go back to its old dimensions, so that we keep learning and growing and evolving and changing as life around us changes. I think of it a little bit like a rubber band. Our brains are a little bit like rubber bands. Here's how, so, you know, when you pull a rubber band out, um, to go first use it and it's really stiff and it's got like a certain size to it, but then you stretch it a little bit and you stretch it a little bit, and over time it becomes really loose and it never goes back to that original resistance, that original size or I guess strength. I don't know what the language is, but you know what I mean. Well, I think our brains are like that too, right? We stretch it and we stretch it like a rubber band, and over time, right, it, it gets stretched out and it never goes back to what it was. Here's another funny analogy that I just thought of. I don't know if this works go with me, but it's like blowing up a balloon. if you have kids, you know what I'm talking about and how annoying it is. And that first, like you go to blow it up and that first blow, you're like, huh. And it's so tight and the balloon is so small and you're like, this is never gonna work. And then with a little more effort and a little more effort, the, you know, balloon starts to stretch and grow. And it never goes back to that original, annoying, frustrating size than it was when you pulled it out of the bag. All right, I'm done with analogies now I think. I'm not sure how all those worked, but you get the point. , a mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimension. So we've gotta keep stretching and we've gotta keep growing. And what I have found, what I think is really exciting about that, is when we stretch our minds, when we make a an intentional effort to grow in one area, it impacts everything else as. So you may grow and evolve in one part of your life, but that's gonna impact everything else. So maybe you grow and evolve through travel, and that's awesome. But travel, as you know, anyone who's traveled, knows, travel, doesn't just stay with travel, travel goes with you. And in fact, there's another great, great quote that I love that I wanna pull up. I'm full of quotes today by F Scott Fitzgerald. This is one of my favorites. It says, . It's a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what's changed is you. I think that's so true. I love that quote. Our minds need to stretch and evolve and grow, or we get stuck. We get stale, we get trapped in mundane. If you're feeling that way, it could simply.  that you've got a little too much repetition and a little too much routine in your life and it's time to break free a little bit and get some new experiences. So recently, um, my man and I decided that we were just going to, we were gonna go do like a little mini road trip for 24 hours. Nothing fancy, nothing big, but we found this super cool container like shipping container. They turned into an Airbnb in Taos, New Mexico, and that's not far from where we live. So we decided to go there for the night. , what a cool new experience. We're being stretched by going to this new contain experience in this place that I hadn't really explored before. I'd spent a lot of time in Taos before in this container, so that's a whole new way to be in. It's, I gotta tell you, if you go to my Instagram account, you'll see some photos from it. It was so cool. But the other thing that we did, which was so much fun, is we decided to sign up for an. Photography class, so great class, and if I can find the link to it, I'll put it in the show notes. I, I get nothing for it. I'm not a sponsor. I just, it had a lot of great video lessons. Some of it were technical, some of it weren't more about angles and lighting, and it was just, Super cool. So we decided we would take this class, this iPhone photography class. So we, we got to the air and b, Airbnb and we watched some videos. Then we went out and took some photos, we watched some more videos. We went out and took more photos, right? And the next day we kind of rinse and repeat. We did the same. And it was so much fun to learn a new thing. Now, are either of us gonna be iPhone photography experts or get paid to be photographers? No, that's not in our wheelhouse. It's not what we. , but that whole experience of traveling, of staying in this kind of funky little place, this contain shipping container that they turned into a little apartment of taking this iPhone class. It just stretched our minds. It just so much, you can probably hear it in my voice. I absolutely loved, loved the experience and, but that came back with.  and it just, it gave me some new ideas. It gave me some new insights. It gave me a renewed sense of energy because I was growing and I was evolving, and it wasn't even something specific that I took away and thought, oh, I learned this in my iPhone class. Now I'm gonna apply this over here in my podcast. It wasn't even that specific. It was just the energy and the growth that I felt from doing that translated into everything. It's actually why I love TikTok, and I know, right? I shouldn't be on here talking about go spend hours on social media, wasting your time away. But you know what? Sometimes when I scroll through TikTok, I find things that I just would've never known about before, that I would've never considered before. And I love it. Now I gotta manage myself. What TikTok, cuz. I could go down a rabbit hole or two on TikTok, but sometimes I just find things that surprise me and delight me and then I take that knowledge and I apply it somewhere else. So I think there's a lot out there that we can explore and experience to help us continue to, to stretch our minds because a stretched mine is always growing a stretched mine is never. , it's never in the same place. It's never bored because it's always growing and stretching. And in fact, here's where kind of we, let's move into from the sticky inspiration. That's what all that was. You'll see the little sticky note going out with this podcast due with my drawing on it. But let's move that over to the lesson and the activity. So here's the interesting thing. Um, neuroscience shows that our. Have something called neuroplasticity. And what that means is our brains have the ability to grow and evolve. So while our brains aren't technically a muscle in this way, it actually acts like one. So the more we exercise it, the more we stretch it, right? The stronger it gets, the less the weaker it gets. . And I think we can correlate that back to what I was saying earlier about, you know, when you stretch your mind, you're not stale, you're not stuck, you're not mundane or listless. Both cuz your brain's growing and evolving and making new connections and learning new things. And you know, when I'm continually stretching, I am more inspired, I'm more innovative. Everything seems to flow more.  when I'm stuck, when I'm not leveraging that neuroplasticity that my brain has, I feel it. Do you feel it? I definitely feel it. Now, here's the thing, we can't always travel the world, and maybe it's not in our budget or time. Maybe we have kids. Maybe we have a demanding job and we certainly don't wanna spend all our time. Watching other people travel the world on Instagram now, great. You get some great ideas from it, but that's not the only place you wanna do it. But there's a million ways that you can stretch and grow and evolve without having to leave your backyard or maybe traveling a few steps out. So let's talk about those so that we can continually be those stretched minds, be those everyday innovator. Okay, so number one is get lost. So have you ever noticed when you are in a new city, let's say you've rented a car, you're traveling somewhere, maybe it's for work and you don't know where you are, and your brain goes into create a problem solving mode, it's like, okay, there's that gas station over there, the sun is sitting over there. That means that's west and the highway numbers are going up, so that means I'm going in the right direction. Right? Our brains actually kick into kind of a more creative problem solving gear, getting lost.  is like a lot of little new experiences in your brain. So take a new path to work. Um, walk the dog in a different direction and see new things and notice new things in your neighborhood that you didn't notice before. Go in a different direction. Getting lost actually helps us stretch and grow. The other thing we can do is try a new restaurant or a new recipe. . I totally get stuck in ruts when it comes to restaurants because you know what? I find my favorites and then I just keep going to them. So a little tradition isn't bad, but venture out every now and again. Try a new restaurant, try a new dish at the restaurant you love. Try a new recipe. Anything that gets us, again, stretching our brains and experiencing new things. Do a little close in travel. , do an Airbnb for a night somewhere else. Go to a hotel down the street, go take a road trip, whatever it is. But there's a lot of places in where most of us live. I'd say I actually, I'd venture to say all of us have little mini road trips that we could do that would be really energizing and inspiring, even if it's just for one night. Learn a new skill, learning a new skill. It can be really powerful in stretching the brain and never going back. And here's the thing, you gotta learn the new skill for the experience of the learning, not because you're gonna become an expert at it. So my two right now are, as the one I mentioned, iPhone photography. I happen to love taking pictures, so there's a little bit pardon of me that wants to be good at that, but I'm loving the experience of trying it out, of going out and taking photos and seeing what worked and what didn't work. It's so much fun to put that skill into motion. And then the second one I've picked up is mixed media art. You know, where you use like paint, but also you cut out things from pictures and put 'em together. It's just like a lot of different materials. I'm not good . I'm not gonna pretend that I'm mildly good, but I love the experience of it and it makes my brain work in a totally different way. I mean, most of the time. I'm talking or I'm writing, I'm not creating in that way. So this stretches me in whole different ways I hadn't experienced before. So find a skill, find something that you can do. You can pull up stuff on YouTube, on Pinterest, on TikTok. I mean, there is, there is no shortage.  of things for you to learn for how to, so just type in how to be a bird watcher, right? Um, how to make cheese, how to create a mixed media art, how to learn iPhone, photography, um, how to make coffee. I mean, everything is out there, but that learning, that new skill, if I could say, do one thing right now, it would be that because you don't need a lot of time, you don't even need money. Most of the time you don't even need new materials, but it'll stretch, stretch your brain in a whole different. The other thing you know that you could do too is, I was just thinking about this, is you could ask questions you've never asked. So you know, I'm a big believer in questions and is answers out. So how about instead ask different questions. If you ask different questions, you'll get different thinking, different conversations, different ideas, and you'll be stretched by that. One of my favorite things to do is to talk to people I know about their opinions or things that they. , let me back up and explain this one. I find often that we have people in our lives that we think we know well or that are continual parts of our lives, but we've never actually spent the time to ask them a lot of questions and dig under the surface of who they are. We just kind of wait for them to tell us, and oftentimes people don't, and I find my brain is so stretched by.  instead of even responding to people, just asking questions of who they are, what they love, why they believe, what they believe, and I don't have to agree or disagree. It's not even about that. It's just listening to someone with a different opinion or perspective or experience. Share it from their view. Your mind is stretched. You can't help it. It's such a powerful thing to do. So this is something you could do with your spouse, with your kids. With colleagues that you work with all the time, with aunts and uncles, with, um, your clients. I mean, anyone in your life you can do this with. , but that'll stretch your brain talking to someone you know about something different. And if you wanna stretch, you really wanna stretch, talk to somebody different that you don't know, you can do that as well. So there's a lot of different ways that you can stretch and grow your brain and be that rubber band that just expands and expands. And I think it's really magical actually, because it is an instant relief to boredom, to the drudgery, to the mundane. It's just getting out there. Gathering new experiences because as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr said, A mind that is stretched by new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. I think that's pretty powerful. It is so easy to be an Everyday Innovator and to see those opportunities and find the solutions that make your life easier and better to put those things out there that really work and get you moving forward.  when you are constantly stretching and growing. So avoid getting stuck in the rut. Be that mind that is forever stretching and never going back with that. Tamara out.

I'm back! It's been a minute, but as I explain in this podcast, I took a step back so that I can come back on FIRE! I've got a new format, new content, new conversations and new value for you. I explain all this in the podcast and then I dive right in! I talk about the relationship between fear and resistance. As fear dials up, so does resistance. And conversley, I talk about how to minimize your resistance by recognizing and understanding where your fear is coming from.  You can't be fearless. But, you can push through and even harness fear to move forward Tamara's Everyday Innovator style is Risk Taker Experiential. What's yours?     Sticky Inspiration: Increase fear = increase resistance   Lesson & Action: Don't be fearless! Instead, learn to recognize where your fear is coming from so that you can push through it.      Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn Join our global Everyday Innovators community on Facebook

A senior executive worries that his lieutenants are not being taken seriously by the senior leadership team. He discusses with a coach how to help his rising leaders accelerate their growth. This is that conversation.     We created a new free Essential Tool for you called “Executive Thinking.” It illustrates the “altitude” analogy Tom told during the episode. It also supports one of the four exercises you can do with your team.Additional Essential Tools that support other exercises are “Before You Write Your Presentation” and “Sorting & Labeling.”Liberating Structures is the free resource Tom was raving about. The specific exercise he mentioned was TRIZ. Tom has talked about Liberating Structures in the episodes “How to Re-engage a Team” and “Leading Offsites.”If you're approaching year-end performance reviews, there are tools to support you – no matter which side of the review you're on! – in Performance Reviews. Tom referenced two shows that can help you learn Sorting & Labeling.Coaching For Leaders with Dave Stachowiak: The Way to Make Sense to Others.The Everyday Innovator with Chad McCallister: How Product Managers Look & Sound like Leaders.This current episode is tagged in the library in three categories:Executive PresenceLeadershipPerception – How You're PerceivedIn addition to the various episodes listed above, five that relate specifically to executive thinking are:180  Becoming Expert193  Branding Yourself202  The Executive Executive178  Executive Presence – Three Pillars11  Sounding ExecutiveAs we hurtle in our year-end traditions, stay mindful!Tom and The Look & Sound of Leadership team. 

Let's face it, failure is a part of life. Failure can often feel devastating, and worse, it can feel final. In today's episode, I'm going to go open up, get a little vulnerable and share a recent failure I had and the lessons around mental toughness, not counting yourself out too early, and cheering on your supporters. Of course, I'll also talk about why this failure, while it hurt, isn't final and what I'm going to do to bounce back. I hope in sharing this you'll get some inspiration and determination to push through your next failure. I'm also going to share a technique I often use to solve my biggest problems, and how to leverage the little quirks of your brain to work for you, not against you. This format is a little different than my usual Friday wrap-ups. This is experimentation so let me know what you think. Tamara's Everyday Innovator style: Risk Taker Experiential Connect with Tamara on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Are you playing to win or playing not to lose? As our Everyday Innovator guest, Evans Mehew shares that mindset difference is also the difference between innovating and moving forward or falling behind. It changes how you think, act, the goals you set and so much more. As the founder of FastFulcrum, a content design and creation firm, Evans shares his passion for driving innovation and how the culture you set often determines your outcomes. He also digs deep into how to shift with relevancy in today's uncertain world, and why it's important to recognize that pivoting is now a part of life. He also gives some great advice on how to not give in to the power of inertia, aka staying still. And, he talks about the power of value stacking, understanding what you believe in, and how to let that guide you to a more fulfilling personal and professional life. Evans' Everyday Innovator style: Inquisitive Instinctual Connect with Evans on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Disruption can be a positive force for helping you find your value. In fact, keeping up with disruptors on the edges takes a real understanding of the value you bring to the table. Our Everyday Innovator guests, Mike Kenevan and Jessica Howard share how they see the human role in a technology-driven world, and how to define the value you bring. As leading branch managers at Spire Financial, they talk about how they've adapted to change in their industry and being nimble when necessary. They also dig into how to keep moving forward when the obstacles you face feel insurmountable and being the person that helps others ease their stress and make good decisions. They also talk about how "this is the way we've always done it" is the worst phrase you can think and say in the face of uncertainty if you want to be innovative and why you need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. They also open up about the negative consequences of sweeping things under the rug and avoiding the tough conversations and situations, and why you can't lead from a place of fear. Mike's Everyday Innovator style: Collaborative Inquisitive Jessica's Everyday Innovator style: Inquisitive Risk Taker Connect with Mike on LinkedIn. Connect with Jessica on Linkedin Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Being the absolute best you can be doesn't mean being good at everything. In fact, it means recognizing where you aren't the best and letting go of those things. Today's Everyday Innovator guests, Matt DeLuzio and Turner Williams share how they've learned to work in their genius zones, not project what they love or hate to do on others, and why meeting people where they are is the key to tapping the human potential of themselves and those they lead. As the top producing loan officers at Spire Financial, they share how going back to the basics, focusing on what you can control, and adjusting your sails is the key to their success in changing times. They also share how the fear of loss can actually drive strong innovation. We dig into how the key to leading through change is about recognizing the signals before they become an undertow that sweeps you out to sea. Matt and Turner also open up about what they think it takes to continue to be top producers in changing times, including understanding your personal value propositions, and what motivates you to keep going. Matt's Everyday Innovator style: Collaborative Tweaker Tuner's Everyday Innovator style: Instinctual Risk Taker Connect with Matt on LinkedIn. Connect with Turner on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

The winter season always comes. It's inevitable. Today's Everyday Innovator Dan Brown shares with us how he thinks about preparing for the winter seasons and uncertain futures. As the Regional Director of Spire Financial, Dan shares how he's always working on contingencies to prepare for the future. He also talks about what it took to get out in front of the quickly changing and highly competitive real estate market in a way that gave their customers the competitive advantage, and why you shouldn't wait until you are disrupted to think about change contingencies. He also shares some major insights into how to put your customer and their needs first by offering products and services that your competition doesn't and sets your customers up for success. And, a story of creative ways to serve their customers that brings in the fun and the value. He also opens up about the arc of inspiration, motivation, and determination, and why you actually need all three to succeed.  Dan's Everyday Innovator style: Collaborative Inquisitive Connect with Dan on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Today's uncertain and volatile world requires more than hard skills – it requires soft skills. In fact, soft skills have become essential to your success. In this episode, I'll share the six soft skills essential to success in complex times. Then I share the major insight I received from each of the Everyday Innovators. First is Toni Shelton (Collaborative Inquisitive) in the public schools and education space, then Mark Flint (Futuristic Instinctual) the CEO of Escape Game, Emilia D'Anzica and Sabina Pons (Tweaker Risk Taker & Instinctual Collaborative) in the technology space, and Justin Bieganek (Instinctual Futuristic) owner of Mercury Creative.    Tamara's Everyday Innovator style: Risk Taker Experiential   Connect with Tamara on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

As I always say questions in is answers out. Asking good questions is the difference between incremental, useless answers and big breakthrough solutions. But, what makes a question a “good question?” Our Everyday Innovator guest, Justin Bieganek, shared with me that in his view asking the right question is not actually about the answer, it's about asking questions that make people think. As the Creative Director & Founder of Mercury Creative Group, Justin talks to me about how he wants people around him that tell him “no” and the struggles he's experienced with stepping away from the weeds of the work and more into a leadership role and what he's done to work through that. We also have a lively conversation about teaching others to read and respond to the energy of a room, making you a better listener, facilitator, and collaborator. He also opens up about the importance of curiosity in a time when we can re-think everything, and the power of deeper conversations and allowing yourself thinking room. Justin's Everyday Innovator style: Instinctual Futuristic Connect with Justin on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

None of us achieve our goals alone. We need support, help, and people that push us forward. Our Everyday Innovator guests today, Emilia D'Anzica and Sabina Pons, don't just work together, they've created a connection of trust and support that helps them both go further, faster. As the authors of Pressing on as a Tech Mom and Managing Director and Operating Partner of the technology consultancy, Growth Molecules, they know first-hand how a partnership is more than one plus one equals two. In their experience, one plus one equals exponential growth. They also talk about how to overcome the fears that hold you back and how the biggest obstacles they faced in their lives became their biggest motivators – even when everyone around them told them they couldn't do it (actually that just motivated them more). Sabina and Emilia also talk about what they've learned about themselves in working with each other, and how learning that has helped them grow into their best selves, together. They also give some great advice about creating the time to “go for it” and “trusting your gut.”  Emilia's Everyday Innovator style: Tweaker Risk Taker Sabina's Everyday Innovator style: Instinctual Collaborative Connect with Emilia on Linkedin. Connect with Sabina on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Sometimes we forget how much we ask of those around us during challenging times. We ask people to take on more work, work longer hours, deal with new and unknown challenges, drive more innovation, and do it all with a smile. Our Everyday Innovator guest, Mark Flint, understands that in a challenging time when we ask for more withdraws from our people than ever before, we also need to add more deposits. This is how you keep people motivated, engaged, and moving forward. As the CEO of the Escape Game, Mark shares how they thought about innovation as something that is good for their customers and their employees, and how that thinking led to breakthrough ideas - including one that allowed customers to play Escape Game in person or at home through avatars. He also opens up about how he never thought of himself as a risk-taker because he prefers to be more calculated and thorough, but how in fact that is a form of risk-taking, in his world. He also talks about how desperation can lead to great innovation, how innovation and structure go hand in hand, and why your values are your guideposts in challenging times.  Mark's Everyday Innovator style: Futuristic Instinctual Connect with Mark on LinkedIn. Check out Escape Game Rooms Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

When I was first promoted into a leadership role I was paralyzed. I was good at my job but I had no idea how to lead others to do the same. Our Everyday Innovator guest today, Toni Shelton, realized that setting people up for leadership success before they actually took on the roles is essential for their success. As the Manager for the Office of Professional Development for Denver Public Schools, she created a program that allowed people to get skills and experience their future selves will need as leaders. Toni also talks about how important being humble and shifting the focus from self to others is in becoming a leader. Toni also opens up innovation in education with how the last two years have forced the school system to change in areas they previously thought were unchangeable, and why massive transparency is key to removing the resistance to change, especially when you are stepping into the unknown. She shares how the “can'ts, don'ts, won'ts” turned into “cans, ares and wills,” and how to change that in your organization too. Toni's Everyday Innovator style: Collaborative Inquisitive Connect with Toni on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Sometimes rules are good for us, and other times they are just other people's way of doing things. And, sometimes rules are used to keep people small-minded and in place by other small-minded people that don't want to move forward. In this Friday episode, I share my personal experience with feeling held back by the rules, a teacher squelching my dreams, and what my dad taught me about breaking the rules to get to my goals. Then, I share my major insight from each of the Everyday Innovators. First is Lizza de la Garza (Tweaker Imaginative) in the oil and gas, economic development space, then Tony Jamous (Fluid Imaginative) global workforce and talent space, Taylor McCarten (Inquisitive Collaborative) in the composting space, and Yuri Elkaim (Instinctual Imaginative) an expert health-preneur.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style: Risk Taker Experiential Connect with Tamara on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Having a growth mindset is the key to leaning into the challenges you are inevitably going to face. Our Everyday Innovator guest, Yuri Elkaim, shares his keys to growth which include obsessing about your clients (not your competition), making the painful recognition that no one cares as much as you do, and realizing that you don't get full effort by giving fractional energy. As the founder of Healthpreneur, Yuri shares his hard-knock lessons about how to balance the dangers of delegation with working in your zone of genius, and how the key to avoiding commoditization is in your client's pain when they leave you. He also opens up about how you can't grow a million-dollar business doing ten-dollar tasks. Yuri's Everyday Innovator style: Instinctual Imaginative Connect with Yuri on LinkedIn Check out Healthpreneur group Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Have you ever found yourself frustrated by a persistent problem? Or have you ever wondered why something you do is so complicated or never quite meets your needs? Our Everyday Innovator guest, Taylor McCarten knows all about taking one of those frustrating moments and turning it into a global business opportunity. Taylor shares with me how his frustration with the clunkiness and challenges of composting, along with his passion for working on climate change, led him to seek out solutions that didn't exist today. As the founder of BinBreese, he shares how his willingness to be open to the surprising opportunities, not the ones you planned out, often leads to the greatest success, why asking for help is his superpower, and balancing what needs to be done today with moving towards his big vision helps his team stay on track and innovate at the same time. He also shares how the idea for BinBreeze didn't come from what existed in the market today; in fact, it came from walking away from current options. Taylor's Everyday Innovator style: Inquisitive Collaborative  Connect with Taylor on LinkedIn Check out BinBreeze Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for the discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

It's amazing how far a little initiative and imagination can take you. Our Everyday Innovator guest, Lizzy de la Garza Putegnat shares with us how she combines both to drive innovation that provides massive value. She also shares how she thinks about delivering real value to her leaders, her team, and the community. Lizzy gives us her key to success which is really a simple question that drives everything. As the Executive Director of Marketing and PR and Total Fuel, Lizzy shares her story of turning company values into innovative programs that serve her community and engage employees. She also opens up about how she deals with being afraid to take bold steps and how she thinks the biggest thing we should fear is lack of progress, i.e. staying in place.  Lizzy's Everyday Innovator style: Tweaker Imaginative Connect with Lizzy on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Self-doubt can be debilitating. It seeps into your subconscious and then shows up in how you think, act and respond to the world around you. In this Friday episode, I share my personal experience with self-doubt, how it impacted my life and what I did to overcome it and move forward. Then, I share my major insight from each of the Everyday Innovators. First is Richard Fertig (Risk Taker Instinctual) in the real estate and investing space, then Ayal Annac (Imaginative Inquisitive) in the healthcare innovation arena, Stephan Parent (Collaborative Tweaker) in the meetings and events industry, and Matt Ley (Collaborative Inquisitive) an expert in leadership and people development. Tamara's Everyday Innovator style: Risk Taker Experiential Connect with Tamara on LinkedIn Check out our sponsor Howdy Puppy Code ‘Tamara' for 20% off your order Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

As founder of Flip The Script, Matt Ley describes himself as a lover of people and a chaser of shiny things. His goal in life is to have interesting conversations with interesting people, and in his eyes, everybody is interesting, in some way. He shares how he's learned that when people fight things it's not a cue that they are disengaged but in fact a cue that they are incredibly engaged. As he says, it takes a lot of energy to fight ideas and people. He also opens up about how most failures or misunderstandings start with a lack of clear or explicit expectations. He also gives some great advice about moving from right versus wrong to optimal versus suboptimal. Matt also digs into how for him being an innovator is about growing on the edges, not in the center. Matt's Everday Innovator style is Collaborative Inquisitive. Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

We throw around the words "pivot" or "adapt" a lot. But, what does it really mean to do either of those things? Our Everyday Innovator guest, Stephan Parent, shares his stories of having to truly pivot and find new opportunities for himself and his business when COVID pulled the rug out. He opens up about how almost overnight he had to rethink his business and in doing so found surprising ways to add value to his customers. As the President of Novam Interactive, he helps us see how the questions you ask at the front end can drastically change how the solutions you create on the back end. He also opens up about how pushing your ideas and thoughts on people actually pushes them away and why respect and value are a give and take. Stephan's Everyday Innovator style: Collaborative Tweaker Connect with Stephan on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

When you are a pioneer in your field you have to recognize that lack of recognition and acceptance is the price of being ahead of your competition, But, like our Everyday Innovator guest, Ayla Annac shares with us, being a leader is highly rewarding in other ways. As the CEO and President of InvivoSciences (innovation in heart care) Ayla shares with us how she leads from the heart both in terms of her passion and how she leads her team. She also opens up about how she thinks about taking risks, the power of intent, and how you differentiate between the naysayers and the supporters. She also talks about why as a leader it's important to be and show positivity to your team so that you can get through the good and tough times. Ayla also opens up about how her personal experience of losing her dad to heart failure is the driving force behind her work. Ayla's Everyday Innovator style: Imaginative Instinctual Connect with Ayla on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for a discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book  

One of the hardest things to do is admit you are wrong, or made a mistake? It's hard on our identities and our egos. But, as our Everyday Innovator guest, Richard Fertig, shares with us, admitting you are wrong pays off ten fold. He also digs deep into his strategy for building a global lifestyle. Richard also talks very honestly about the highs and lows of finding a new job after the 2008 crash and how his exciting ride on Wall Street put him in uncharted territory. Richard also shares his approach to getting unstuck with includes asking, "How do I move towards what I want?" not "How do I get away from that?" He also shares how he's always willing to be wrong, even rewards it and why having the right metrics of success will keep you from getting trapped chasing the wrong goals. Richard's Everyday Innovator style: Risk Taker Instinctual Connect with Richard on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

Do you feel like you have to wait to stretch your mind? Are you waiting for that right moment appear? Our Everyday Innovator guest, Margie Mauldin, shares with us how she finds way to tap her creative mind in the most mundane tasks, why pivoting is essential to success in uncertain times and how to get over decision-fear when dealing with changing times. As the President of Executive Forum, Margie also shares a story of adapting to the new needs of her customers while maintaining what her organization does best. 

Does it ever feel like there's a big gap between where you are and where you want to be? Or perhaps you big goals that almost seem almost too daunting? Our Everyday Innovator guest, Emmanual Bello shares with us how focusing on the first step, and then the next step has helped him accomplish more than he thought possible. He also talks about how he thinks about learning new skills, how he searches for inspiration all around him, and why sometimes you just need to take a break. As a software engineer and designer he also opens up about the challenges he faced in learned a new skill and how he had to think differently than his competition when it comes to pounding the pavement to get new clients in a field that is crowded and cluttered.  Emmanuel's Everyday Innovator style: Inquisitive Tweaker Connect with Emmanuel on LinkedIn Check out Emmanuel's work in software and design Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

There comes a time when the path we are on no longer serves us. Or perhaps the goal you worked so hard to achieve didn't come through. Or maybe you are bored, feeling like you've mastered your current role, and are ready for a new challenge. Our Everyday Innovator guest, Robin Glickstein, shares with us her journey of reinvention, why being bold often works out, and sometimes doesn't, and why sparking her creative mind is a top priority (and how she does it). Robin also gives us her unique journaling technique, that we can all do, that has helped her build her dreams and execute on them. She also opens up about what traps she sometimes falls into that sabotage her and how keeping your eyes and ears open to new ways of thinking is essential to being an innovator.  Robin's Everyday Innovator style: Inquisitive Instinctual Connect with Robin on LinkedIn Check out Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book  

It's easy to miss the ideas and opportunities all around us. Tunnel vision, stress and everyday tasks keep us in our lane. Our Everyday Innovator guest, Sandy Lardinois, shows us the power of always having your eyes open for problems to solve. She even shares with us a story of how she is trying to tackle a challenge that's much bigger than her. Sandy also opens up about what it feels like to be filled with ideas with no outlet to make them happen, and why getting older is both an advantage and disadvantage when it comes to launching new ideas into the world. She also gives some great advice for how to recognize opportunities for new ideas.  Sandy's Everyday Innovator style: Inquisitive Imaginative Check out our sponsor, Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

This week's insights are all about problems as benefits, being certain, listening to your ahas and taking out the fear. I also share a story and a few insights around staying ahead, as an innovative leader. The Everyday Innovators came for a diverse set of experiences, backgrounds and Everyday Innovator styles. Dawnna St. Louis (Instinctual Risk taker)  founder or FyreBrand,  Jenny Glick  (Instinctual Inquisitive) marriage and sex counselor, Philip Winter (Risk Taker Fluid) founder of Nebia, and Jonah Lupton (Tweaker Inquisitive) founder of Soundguard paint. I'm going to share my big insights and experiments and in doing so I hope you find ways to take what you are learning and transfer it into action. Click and listen to any of the episodes.  Tamara's Everyday Innovator style: Risk Taker Experiential   Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Check out our sponsor Howdy Puppy Code 'Tamara' for 20% off your order Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book

There are many factors that make or break the success of a new idea, especially an innovative one that bumps up against a traditional industry. Our Everyday Innovator guest, Johan Lupton, shares how to solve a big enough problem that you create a massive market for your product, and how to actually leverage instead of fighting the traditional players in the industry. As the founder of SoundGuard, Jonah open sup about his mistakes, successes, and how he thought differently about where his product fits in the bigger picture. He also opens up about and why staying focused on who you serve is key. Jonah's Everyday Innovator style: Inquisitive Tweaker Connect with Jonah on LInkedIn Check out SoundGuard Check out our sponsor, Howdy Puppy Use code ‘Tamara' at checkout for discount Discover your Everyday Innovator Style Everyday Innovators Online Facebook Group Innovation is Everybody's Business Book