Podcast appearances and mentions of kathy fish

Susan Cain, author of the groundbreaking bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, shares a guide for how introverts can thrive in the workplace without sacrificing their authentic selves. Drawing from her extensive research and personal experience, Cain offers a powerful reframing: success doesn't require becoming more extroverted—it demands becoming more fully yourself.—What you'll learn:1. A simple definition of introversion and how it differs from shyness—plus a simple two-question test to determine where you fall on the spectrum2. Five practical tactics introverts can use to be more successful in business while staying true to their natural temperament3. How to handle challenging workplace scenarios like meetings dominated by loud voices and networking events that drain your energy4. Specific strategies for managers and founders to create environments where introverted team members can contribute their best work5. Practical techniques for saying no to energy-draining commitments6. Strategies for managers to better support and leverage introverted team members7. Practical advice for raising introverted children to help them develop confidence while honoring their natural temperament8. Why seeking to become “more extroverted” is the wrong goal—and what to focus on instead to achieve professional success—Brought to you by:• Enterpret—Transform customer feedback into product growth• Vanta—Automate compliance. Simplify security• Fundrise Flagship Fund—Invest in $1.1 billion of real estate—Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-hidden-power-of-introverts-susan-cain—Where to find Susan Cain:• X: https://x.com/susancain• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susancain/• Website: https://susancain.net/• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/susancainauthor/#• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorsusancain• Substack: https://substack.com/@susancain—In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Susan Cain(05:07) Understanding introversion(08:55) The spectrum of introversion and extroversion(13:27) Overcoming public speaking anxiety(17:13) Learning to embrace your introverted self(23:16) The power of leaning into your strengths(24:36) Strategies for introverts to thrive in their career(34:06) The importance of saying no(38:35) What to do instead of networking(41:59) Effective meeting participation for introverts(47:31) Creating a productive work environment(51:14) Raising an introverted child(57:58) Finding the right career fit(01:08:09) Lightning round and final thoughts—Referenced:• The power of introverts: https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts• The hidden power of sad songs and rainy days: https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_and_min_kym_the_hidden_power_of_sad_songs_and_rainy_days• Why bittersweet emotions underscore life's beauty: https://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_why_bittersweet_emotions_underscore_life_s_beauty• Desensitization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_(psychology)• Malcolm Gladwell's website: https://www.gladwellbooks.com/• Warren Buffett on X: https://x.com/warrenbuffett• Dale Carnegie speaking courses: https://www.dalecarnegie.com/en/presentation-skills-public-speaking-training• Bill Gates on X: https://x.com/billgates• Kathy Fish on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathy-fish-23b5777/• Why most public speaking advice is wrong—and how to finally overcome your speaking anxiety | Tristan de Montebello (CEO & co-founder of Ultraspeaking): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/master-public-speaking-tristan-de-montebello• Ultraspeaking: https://ultraspeaking.com/lenny/• Rethinking the Extraverted Sales Ideal: The Ambivert Advantage: https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Grant_PsychScience2013.pdf• Cutco: https://www.cutco.com/• Tim Ferriss's post about his new book: https://x.com/tferriss/status/1878936085033791817•  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi• Naval on X: https://x.com/naval• On saying no: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-say-no• Susan Cain—How to Overcome Fear and Embrace Creativity: https://tim.blog/2019/01/24/susan-cain/• Zigging vs. zagging: How HubSpot built a $30B company | Dharmesh Shah (co-founder/CTO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from-30-years-of-building• Renee Wood on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/recoale/• The Sopranos on Max: https://play.max.com/show/818c3d9d-1831-48a6-9583-0364a7f98453• The Talented Mr. Ripley on Prime Video: https://www.primevideo.com/detail/The-Talented-Mr-Ripley/0HA0GNFQ4ZXYPDNJHQEENK2Q6Q• Tugboat Institute: https://www.tugboatinstitute.com/• Leonard Cohen quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/4484-there-is-a-crack-in-everything-that-s-how-the-light—Recommended books:• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking: https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Introverts-World-Talking/dp/0307352153• Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention: https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-Invention/dp/0062283251• Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverted Kids: https://www.amazon.com/Quiet-Power-Secret-Strengths-Introverted/dp/0147509920• Gandhi: An Autobiography—The Story of My Experiments with Truth: https://www.amazon.com/Gandhi-Autobiography-Story-Experiments-Truth/dp/0807059099• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience: https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Psychology-Experience-Perennial-Classics/dp/0061339202• The Power of Myth: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Myth-Joseph-Campbell/dp/0385418868/• Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole: https://www.amazon.com/Bittersweet-Oprahs-Book-Club-Longing/dp/0451499794• Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health: https://www.amazon.com/Good-Energy-Surprising-Connection-Metabolism/dp/0593712641• The 5 Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life: https://www.amazon.com/Types-Wealth-Transformative-Guide-Design/dp/059372318X—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

In this episode, John interviews the notable flash fiction writer Kathy Fish about the anxious nuances of that medium and genre. Is flash fiction just a very short story, with all the rules of fiction at work? Or is flash fiction a less traditional, immersive fictional happening that takes somewhere between the length of a flash of lightning and the length of time needed to smoke a cigarette? The complicated answer is yes and yes in this delightful conversation recorded at The Kerouac Project of Orlando.

Nancy Stohlman is a flash fiction writer, a performer, and a professor. She holds workshops and retreats around the world to help you learn about yourself as a writer and a person.Nancy provides professional and aspiring writers the gift of time, a new community, instruction, and the opportunity to reconnect with your own imagination and sense of possibility so you can confidently bring the work inside you to fruition.Nancy shares how her workshops, always held in inspiring locations, provide the perfect backdrop for focusing on your writing practice with like-minded short fiction writers. "The world demands more substance and less filler. Flash fiction is all meat and no fat," said Nancy. Find out how travel inspired her newest book, After the Rapture, a socio-satirical flash novel set in a post-Rapture landscape. A must read! Also on Speaking of Travel, discover why traveling with your family will build life life-long memories and break you all away from the same old-same old routine. Stephanie Carson, who lives a life full of adventure, sometimes pushing the limits on heart-stopping adventures with her own family, works full-time and is still living the dream!Tune in!Photo credits include Laura Alexander and Lizzie Woofenden, and Kathy Fish.Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories and so much more.

Bio  Chris Boeckerman is currently Vice President of Research & Development for Fabric & Home Care. Prior to this she was R&D Vice President for P&G Ventures, the company's internal startup studio that partners with entrepreneurs and startups to create new brands and businesses in spaces where the company doesn't play today.   Known as a “change agent” during her 30-year career with Procter & Gamble, Chris co-founded P&G's Lean Innovation movement, known as GrowthWorks, and has specialised in developing dynamic teams worldwide to strengthen the company's innovation capabilities.  Her impressive P&G career also includes more than 20 years in the company's Global Fabric Care business, working to create breakthrough innovations with iconic brands such as Tide, Ariel, Downy, Gain and Bounce.     Chris holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati.  She has been honoured as a YWCA Rising Star, is an active leader in the Girls in STEM program for P&G and across Cincinnati and serves on the Advisory Board for the Greater Cincinnati STEM Collaborative.     Chris resides in Cincinnati, Ohio with her family.    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-boeckerman-06577110/       Interview Highlights  Timestamp  02:12 - Growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio  07:07 - Studying engineering in a cooperative education setting  12:25 - R&D Vice President at P&G Ventures  19:38 - Productive failure  37:00 - Co-founding GrowthWorks  44:30 - No one size fits all  53:22 - Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful , committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has    Books/ Resources Mentioned The Lean Startup by Eric Ries https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lean-Startup-Innovation-Successful-Businesses/dp/0670921602/  The Startup Way  by Eric Ries https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B06Y1G9RVC  The Leader's Guide by Eric Ries https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Leaders-Guide-Audiobook/B07K8WQHYW  New to Big: How Companies Can Create Like Entrepreneurs, Invest Like VCs, and Install a Permanent Operating System for Growth by David Kidder and Christina Wallace https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Big-Companies-Entrepreneurs-Permanent-ebook/dp/B07FC3C51Z  Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland https://www.amazon.co.uk/Scrum-Doing-Twice-Work-Half/dp/1847941109  Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman https://www.amazon.co.uk/Four-Thousand-Weeks-Embrace-limits/dp/1784704008    Episode Transcript  Ula Ojiaku (Intro): Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener.  Ula Ojiaku (Guest Intro): My guest today is Chris Boeckerman. She is the Vice-President of Research and Development with the startup studio for Procter & Gamble that partners with entrepreneurs and startups to create new brands and businesses in spaces where the company doesn't play today. Known as a change agent during her 29 year career with Procter & Gamble, Chris co-founded P & G's lean innovation movement known as GrowthWorks and has specialised in developing dynamic teams worldwide to strengthen the company's innovation capabilities. In this episode, Chris talks about herself and gives us a glimpse into the influences that shaped her into who she is today and how she got into Procter & Gamble and developed her career, as well as her experience setting up GrowthWorks within Procter & Gamble. It was a very insightful conversation. I definitely will be listening to this episode again, because there were lots of gems and I know you will find it useful as well. So thank you again for tuning in and for watching. Without further ado, my conversation with Chris. Enjoy.  Ula Ojiaku  So Chris, thank you so much for making the time to join us on the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. It is a great honour to have you here.   Chris Boeckerman  Oh, thank you. Thank you for asking me. It's a wonderful honour to be here.   Ula Ojiaku  Awesome. Now let's get to know you, Chris. Can you tell us about yourself, your background?  Chris Boeckerman  Sure. My name is Chris Boeckerman. I work at Procter & Gamble. I've been here almost 30 years, which is exciting, but going back to the beginning, so I'm actually born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I've never left. And it's kind of funny, when you're born in Cincinnati, many times you don't leave. I've been prepping my parents from the day I got my job at P & G that I would leave and I just, I never. I never left. So it's very fun, but yeah, so I'm born and raised. My family is still here, and yeah, I love it.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. So you, based on what you said, it seemed like you had expectations growing up that you would leave. So what was it about, you know, the whole set up that made you end up not leaving Cincinnati?  Chris Boeckerman  I don't know that I ever thought I would leave because, like Cincinnati is a great place and a lot of people I know don't leave, but when I got my job at Proctor & Gamble, which is a multinational company, I expected that I might have to, but really no, I, went to grade school in Cincinnati and then high school. And then I ended up going into chemical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. And I co-oped and ended up, you know, getting this great job at P & G. So that's just kind of how it all happened, which is why I ended up staying in Cincinnati. It's a great place. It's a wonderful place to raise a family. I'm married. My husband works full time, at a company called Turner Construction. And, I have two children, my oldest child is 21 and he's at the University of Dayton doing mechanical engineering. And then my daughter is 17 and she's at a local high school here in Cincinnati. So, and my family and my husband's family, we met at the University of Cincinnati. So I think a lot of those things kind of keep you in a place.   Ula Ojiaku  I can imagine. Well, whilst I didn't grow up in the town I studied, I also graduated with an engineering degree, but it's an electronic engineering degree and I met my husband in the university as well. But that's about, you know, the parallel, I've moved a lot, I've kind of lived everywhere else in the world.  Chris Boeckerman  Well, what I'm happy about is, I'm so happy that I work at P & G, because P & G has introduced the world to me. And so I've been able to travel all over the place and then it sparked that interest in my husband and my family being able to travel. So we definitely, because of P & G we now know it, but I've just never lived anywhere else, that's all.  Ula Ojiaku  And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you travelled when you wanted to. And I can only imagine, because that's not been my experience having family and friends, you know, it makes things easier as a full time working mother, a family person.  Chris Boeckerman  Yes, yes. I don't know how you do it otherwise. So I bow to you, to all my friends. It's difficult, but we all figure it out.   Ula Ojiaku  Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's great. So, what do you do, Chris? When you're not working, what would you say you do to recharge yourself?  Chris Boeckerman  Well, I am, as you've already found out, I'm very family oriented. And so, we are a family of SciFi lovers. And so we like movies and shows and things like that. We just celebrated my husband's 50th birthday at Disney at Galaxy's Edge.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. Happy birthday to him.   Chris Boeckerman  I know, it was great. We both turned 50 this year, so it's a big year. But that was fun. We were able to get my son back from college and my daughter, and we were able to spend a fun long weekend there. We love rollercoasters and so we've organised family vacations around rollercoasters and getting to rollercoasters all over the world. And we all love to golf. And so that's something I picked up later. My husband's a wonderful golfer. And so now we really enjoy that as the kids have gotten older, I can spend more time golfing along with my full-time career, but yeah, so it's a lot of fun. I just really like to be outdoors. I think that's the common theme. I love to read, I love to do, but I love to do it outdoors. So that's my favourite.   Ula Ojiaku  Yeah, that sounds very interesting. The first and the only time I tried golf, I was so horrible at it. I think I gave myself an advisory, you know, just to do it not in public.  Chris Boeckerman  It's not for everybody, it's not for everybody.   Ula Ojiaku  Yeah. Okay. I also got the, when you're talking about yourself, that you studied chemical engineering at the University of Cincinnati. What made you choose that discipline, that line of study?   Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, and that's kind of a funny, it's kind of a funny story. So, my parents didn't get to go to college, but I've known since I can remember that I was going to college. So, they worked their whole life, I'm blue collar raised. The one thing I can tell you is I work hard. That's what, you know, my parents really instilled that in me. And so I really liked chemistry in school, and I was pretty good at maths. And so my counselor was like, oh, chemical engineering. My grandpa was actually a chemical engineer. So it was a familiar term, even though I think it's hard to just understand what engineering is by talking to people. But I did some shadowing and I thought, okay, engineering sounds good. And University of Cincinnati was close by, but they invented cooperative education. So, this kind of go to school, go to work. It helps pay for your school, and what I didn't even realise at the time is I'm a very practical person. And so University of Cincinnati was the best for me because I didn't always love the theory. I could learn it, I got the theory, but I'm an applied learner is what I've learned since then. And so by having a co-op job, I could take the theory, apply it, and then I loved it. And so I got the chance to co-op six quarters at P & G in all different parts of the company. So I got to see how, I got to see the company, the company got to see me. It's really how we hire now is through interns and co-ops. But back then, it was just perfect for me. So I'm so glad I made the choice. Like I said, when your parents don't go to college, I don't think you even realise there's that many opportunities, what all the colleges are. But I just got really lucky and then obviously had to work hard because engineering is extremely difficult, and like I said, I think if I wouldn't have had co-op, I may not have stayed in chemical engineering, but because I had the experience of what I could do with it, I made it through.  Ula Ojiaku  Well done you and it's people like you, that paved the way for people like us women to get more into engineering as well. So the co-op, was it the University of Cincinnati, did the university help you with getting the job with P & G as part of the studies?  Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, it's integrated into a five-year program at the University of Cincinnati. And so you have to co-op to graduate and therefore they have a very structured way of introducing you to many companies, and so they have great relationships with local companies, with national companies. And so, because you know you have to, it's just part of the curriculum, and so they work hard to make sure you get a job. You work hard to make sure you get a job, and then you graduate with experience. So, yeah, I encourage anybody who's going into engineering, even if it's not integrated, like it was at UC, to do internships over the summer. It's a very popular thing to do here in the US so like my son did internships, most of the colleges have support here to be able to do an internship or they have co-op abroad, learning abroad. Any of that I think is amazing.   Ula Ojiaku  Yes, it helps with the balance, you know, to know what reality is and what the theory is of this discipline. Okay. And how did you, you said you made it through, so how was it for you as a student?   Chris Boeckerman  I am the person that you should send anybody to who struggled, because I struggled. You know, in high school I was a straight A student, and I memorised everything. I, like I said before, I know how to work hard. I worked hard, grades were very important to me, but it was more of a memorisation thing in high school. I understood the problem solving up to that point, but then I got into university, and yeah, it was just a whole other ball game. One of the things that I think I just learned about engineering is, in the real world, you never have enough time. You never have enough money to do what you want to do. Well, engineering preps you for that because you walk into a test and there's not enough time to finish the test. You're never going to get the right answer. Right. And it's hard to go through that, but I think it creates this grit and tenacity of like, I just have to keep going now.  And that is, I mean, that's kind of what I learned when I got into the workforce, is that engineers are problem solvers and that experience, that difficult experience through school just preps you for real life. And you know, when you feel like you can't keep going, you're like, I am, let's just, you know, this is the way it is. There's not enough time. There's not enough money. We've got to keep moving.  Ula Ojiaku  Exactly, let's make the most of the situation. So, you were co-opting with P & G, they loved you and they said they wouldn't let you go. And here you are. So how did you get to your current position as the Vice President? You're now for R & D right?  Chris Boeckerman  Right, it's R & D Vice President in a part of the company called P & G Ventures, which I can explain. So I'll try to take 30 years and give you the shortened version of it. So I started with Procter & Gamble and I worked 20 years actually in the part of the business called fabric care, so Tide, Gain, Ariel, Lenor… like I could talk to you about laundry all day long. So I worked there for 20 years. I worked upstream, downstream, consumer facing, technical facing, internal, external. Like, if you're going to stay somewhere for 20 years, you better do it all, and it was a wonderful, great experience. I've always lived in Cincinnati, but I've had teams all over the world, and so, you know, getting to know the cultures and how people work and the diversity, it's just, it's been amazing. You know, even the different brands and the different countries was great. And so I did that for 20 years, loved it, but I had this wonderful boss who said, hey, it's time to go try something else. And so I went into corporate R & D, and I wasn't sure about it because I come from the business and I have a P & L and I know what I'm delivering to the company, but I really trusted her. And she said, this is where you should go. And the minute I met with the leader of that organisation, he convinced me because he said, hey, my goal is that we are tailwinds for the business units. So, we're not off on the side, but we have the time to look internally and externally at all the best practices. And then we become tailwinds for our businesses who don't have time to do that because they're running the business. And I just loved that vision. And you know, P & G, our mission, our purpose at P and G is to improve the lives of consumers every day. I always say I love my job. I don't love it every day, but I do really love my job. I think if anybody tells you, they love it every day, they're just lying, but I really do love my job. And I think it's because my personal mission in life is to nurture and inspire the people in my work, my community, my family, and P & G's mission and purpose to improve the lives of consumers comes together in a great place. And that role in particular, in corporate R & D, it all really came together because, you know, I did feel like it was a mission. So when I got into that organisation, it was when, I like to say Dollar Shave Club had happened to us. So it was something where we stand for irresistibly superior products, and that is what our business model was made of. And this was a new, digital business model and it was new to the world and we were trying to figure it out. And so right as I got into this role, the Chief Technical Officer, Kathy Fish, and the Chief Brand Officer kind of came to me and my boss and said, you know, the world is changing really fast and we need to make sure that we are sustainable in this changing environment. So can you go find out what's happening and figure out, you know, how to make sure that we survive, right. How to make sure that we can live in this changing world.  And so I was like, wow, that is like a very clear work plan. And I have no idea how to do that, right. It was very big, the company is big, it's a hundred thousand people, and you know, but I did what I do and I just went and started talking to everybody. And as I was talking to everybody, there were two very clear themes that came out. One was fear of failure, and the second one was that commercial and technical were working in silos. We weren't really a connected team, and so we just kind of looked around and said, what other industry or what other space is tackling these two issues in this dynamic world? And it was the startup Ecosystem. And so we just went to school. I mean, I, the number of podcasts I looked into, like everything I had to learn. We are lucky enough to be a big company. We were able to get to the likes of like David Kidder from Bionic and Ian Berkowitz and Eric Ries. And I could give you the five names of the people that I would go to, but we were lucky enough to get those experts to come in and counsel us, which, that's one of the things I'm so proud of us to do is we didn't pretend we knew how to do it. Yeah. And that's one of the advice I would give everybody is don't pretend, go seek external help, always, because they're always going to give you a different perspective. But anyway, we just kind of, that's how we got into lean innovation, that's how we got into, hey, there is a different way in which we can, you know, learn quickly, learn fast, fail fast. We kind of learned nobody wants to fail, but if you can fail fast and early, then it's, it feels much more like learning. How fascinating, why did that happen? If you fail later and expensive, that's bad. And so, you know, we were, we had to get to school on it. We had to learn how to do it. And then the organisation I was able to create really was a small organisation that was meant to enable the business unit. So we created a framework that was agile and could kind of meet the business units where they were and helped them to understand this is the framework that you can apply to wherever you're at in this journey, because we were all at a different place in the journey, but we enabled startups inside the company is the easiest way for me to talk about that.  And then I did that and now I got the great opportunity, about two years ago, to come into a part of the company called P & G Ventures, which had actually, they were the first part of the company to kind of work like a startup, and they worked internally and externally to start up, what are the next businesses going to be? So we have 10 existing business units. Their job was, how do you develop the next business unit, which, talk about a high hurdle. Right. But, so I basically got to take the five years of kind of learning and enabling the business units, and I got to apply it to one of the toughest problems, which is how do you create a new business unit in an already very big and successful company?   Ula Ojiaku  That sounds exciting. And the journey so far, it sounds really impressive and exciting. So, given that P & G, you know, already is renowned for, you know, research, the extensive research and development, would you say that you already had that culture where it's okay to fail because not everything in the research would, you know, go on to be commercialised and end up on the shelf, or did you have to also change people's mindsets towards failure to know that if you fail fast it's okay. You know, was there any, from a leadership perspective, did you need to change anything in terms of people's perception?   Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, I mean, we really did, and it's still, you know, it's never perfect inside of an organisation because, you know, it is a large organisation. It was more around though, the speed of learning is what I would say is the biggest difference, was get something out there faster, to let people react. So it was almost and we do, we have a great, behavioural learning mindset now as well, but it was earlier back then. Right. And so I think what happens is, you know, you have your standard, large base qualification tests. That was, you know, the standard process that we had, and it worked well, but the world was shifting. And so it was like, if you were going to need to be more dynamic in how you evolved it, you needed, we needed to follow more of what the lean innovation process would be, which is, you create a quick and early prototype. It doesn't have to be perfect because you're only going to test it with 10 people, get it out to those 10 people and you're going to learn much more, very fast. I always joked, I had this old project or I'm in a project I did a long time ago and I had a bad package, but I knew the product was amazing. And I had this team and the packaging group did not want to place this package. Of course, we all knew it was bad and nobody wanted to look bad, right. And I was like, listen, I promise, I'm going to get the highest level person to say, he knows the package is going to fail. Well, if that's okay, will you let us place this test? Because I've got to find out if the juice is good, right. I've got to find out if the product is good, and I promise when I come back, I'm going to have even better information about what the package needs to do to be amazing. And so, you know, this was what this was way before, but it like, it just took people, you know, a little bit of time. And they needed to be reassured that it wasn't going to come back on them, right. And it's the difference, it's not the qualification test or I'm spending a million dollars, it's a small test, but you just need to make sure you're intentional about that, right. And we did, we learned a ton. We learned that the juice was magical. The product was great, and the package was bad, and this is exactly what we needed from the package. And we wrote up probably the most beautiful package brief ever. So I really think that's the difference, is you had to make sure that there weren't repercussions. You had to take the risk lower. And if you can take the risk lower, then the failure, like I said, it's more of, oh, you learned that, awesome, you learned it fast, you learned it cheap and now we know what to go do. I always used to say in the early days of GrowthWorks, because everybody's polarised by the term failure, which I totally understand, but it was like productive failure is failure that enables you to know fast, cheap, and easy what to go do next. And as long as you do that, that is productive failure. I had these great managers one time who, I was very uptight about a very large test market that was going to get delayed. It was under my charge and I felt very responsible. And as you can tell, I'm very passionate and you can read my emotions on my face. So I walked into my two leaders and they're new too, they don't know me, so I don't have a relationship with them, but they can just tell, I haven't slept for a week and, like, things are bad and, you know, and they kind of looked at me and they said, hey, Chris, is this the worst thing that's ever happened to you at work? And I was like, uh, yeah, like million dollar test market, right. And they're like, oh, okay, we're going to talk to you about that tomorrow. Today, we're going to talk to you about things that have gone wrong in our career, and what we learned from them. And I just, this was a transformative conversation that my leaders, I'm so thankful, took the time because when I found out what went wrong in their history, I was like, that's not even close to what is happening. Put things in perspective, right. They really, they were able to put things in perspective for me, and they were able to help me see you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. Don't make the same mistake twice and make your mistakes, or do your failures as early and as cheap as possible. And you know, this was 10 years before I did GrowthWorks, but that stuck with me and it turned me, it turned me from a micro-managing crazy person, which is what I was doing at that time into a learning leader is what I would say. I learned to then, when things came to me that were surprising, I always try to say, no matter what the data is, I try to say, oh, how fascinating, why do we think that happened? And it's, you know, like the results are awesome, clean, fascinating. Why do we think they're great? Like, why do we think that happened? The results are bad, fascinating, why? Why do we think that happened? And what we learned is if leaders can approach everything that way, then the team moves into a learning mindset and you learn a lot faster. It's hard to do. And I don't do it every day. If my team were here with me, they would be like, we're going to remind Chris on Monday about that. So, you know, nobody can do it all the time, but that learning mindset, which is something P & G has, you know, focused on a lot, it makes all the difference in the world of creating a culture in which people can learn fast, because everything's fascinating and you need to understand why you got good data, just as much as you need to understand why you got bad data. That's just good science.   Ula Ojiaku  I love that term productive failure. I think this is the first time I'm hearing. So do you get to share your failures, you know, after experiments do you get to share that with the rest of the organisation or how does that work?  Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, I mean we try hard. We actually try hard in P & G Ventures, because anybody who's listening, who's done any type of venture, new business building type stuff, you have to shut down more things than you keep going and it's really hard to shut a program down, and so we really try to celebrate when we stopped something as much as we celebrate when we're moving forward, because Kathy Fish had this, she would say to us, she was our past, Chief R & D officer when we were doing GrowthWorks, and she was like, it's so important to shut things down because you need to shut the good things down so that you have people to work on the great things, right. And it's, but I'd say that that's the hardest thing to do. And we just did it this week and I compliment the team and it's so exciting to see it's not all roses all the time, I'm telling you, it's not, this is very hard work.  Everybody's job is hard, but when you have a team that really does the sprint together to get to the bottom of how big is it, how big is the problem? Does P & G have a unique, proprietary gift to solve it? And, you know, they come back and the answer is, hey, we did all the due diligence and we don't think that we should pursue it. It's like, I am so excited that they had the confidence and they gave us the confidence because you just want to be confident in your decision, whether it's to go forward or to not, this world of disruptive innovation is uncertain, right? It is just uncertain. It's hard to live in uncertainty every day. But if you have clarity of, we did the due diligence in the team, like I always used to say in GrowthWorks, I want the teams to shut the programs down, or the teams to be the ones that are driving it forward. But it's hard, it is hard to create a culture where people can be agile enough to move to different programs, and we are in the learning, we don't have it all figured out, but you know, we've been at it for a while, and so it's just really, it's exciting to be part of this organisation at this time, to see how far we've come.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. So, for them, because you said something about clarity in times of uncertainty and, you know, the teams actually come to you and say, they've done the due diligence, it doesn't meet the criteria. That suggests to me that you've, you know, and you, as a leadership team have taken the time to sit down with them to identify what those clear criteria are. Are you able to share what these are, or at least the process, you know, that made you arrive to those criteria that is open and transparent to everyone that it makes the team, you know, that helps the team to determine if it meets the, it aligns with what P & G is looking for?  Chris Boeckerman  Right. Well, I can share it in general terms, right. And so a lot of people listening into the podcast would understand a funnel, right? You know, you have big, broad ideas in the beginning of the funnel and you're trying to figure out, and that's what this particular project was at, is you're trying to figure out really at that point in time, how big is the problem? It's got to be a problem big enough that P & G will care about it. Right. But the problem itself, that's more of a, how many people have it? How many solutions are out there already? What are the dissatisfiers with the solutions? So you kind of go through the essence of how big is the problem? And could we do something about it? So how big is the problem? Does P & G have a proprietary, unique reason why we should go after this versus somebody else? Do we have the capability and the technology, or do we have the partnerships? We do external scouting, right? So do we have external solutions that look viable? And then you put that together to figure out financially, what do the signals look like? Does it look big enough that it's going to be a business that P & G would care about? Because there are plenty of businesses. I've done this myself, I've fallen in love with the business, I want to do this business, and at the end of the day, it's not going to look attractive to P & G, you, at the end of the day, you are choosing to put resources on different programs at different times, and they have to not compete, that's not a great way of saying it, but they have to be big enough that it's worthy of putting a team on it. So we take a small team, they do that early work, and there's a sprint that you go to it, but it's not the same for everybody. Like it's not hard and fast numbers at this point in time. But it is all around, is the problem big enough? Do we have a reason to think that we can deliver a breakthrough solution? And then, when you put that together financially, does it look good? And so we have, I would say, what we have, the leadership team has determined is, there are some ranges that the teams work within, but what really helped this team in particular, which is something that I think people could value is we really enabled the team to focus, right? So they did this broad, like what are the parts of this problem that we think are interesting? And they did a sprint, they identified those spaces. We were like, great. We love it. Now, with that criteria go run some sprints to figure out quickly, how big is it? Is it growing? What are the gifts we have in the company? What is the quick scouting? And is this something that makes sense for, you know, P & G to create a new brand VR work or not. And they really, they came back and they said, thank you for the focus, we met with them every month after the sprint, we made decisions, but they made the recommendations and then they were like, this one isn't big enough, it's not growing, we're going to stop work on that one, do you agree? They were like, yeah, because you made such a compelling case, how can we not agree? And then the other, you know, the other, we were like, we are still really interested in the other two. Do you have enough time? And do you have the right people to do that? They went after it, they came back and you know, and then it becomes much more of a discussion because it's like, is it really something we should do? Is it something the other businesses have a better, do they already have a brand? It is expensive to create a new brand. So, we have amazing brands in this company. And so, many times it's like, wait, do we need to influence, or do we want to try to influence another brand to really take this on, because it's big and growing. So that's how it, early in the funnel, as we go later in the funnel, it becomes much more of, the first question is, could we do it, the second question is, should we do it? Right. And so the, should we do it is all based on can you create the business? Right, so then you really start pulling in all of the business aspects, the full qualification that we tend to do, transactional learning tests, incubations either in stores or in small markets or in direct to consumer. So you really start to get that behavioural and transactional data giving you the signals that this is a business. Janice Fraser, who was also one of these external experts, she would always say, you know you're ready to scale when you've put the variables together and you know where to pour the money to make it grow, you know where the money should be poured to make it grow. If you don't know where to pour the money, you're not ready to scale. And, you know, those are always, so it's complicated. Business is complicated. The channels are complicated, the platforms are complicated. So, you know, that's when you really have to figure out, do I have, you know, should I invest the big money in this? And I think one of the things that you have when you're doing intrapreneurship, you're creating startups inside the company, is you should be able to get through that funnel faster, if you can get all those parts to come together and that's, you know, that's our goal, that's what we're getting to. In P & G Ventures,  I mean, we have a new opportunity area around safe and effective insect control. And it's a brand called Zevo and it's amazing, right. And so it's nice to have a program that has been through those parts and is really kind of in that space now that we can all look to and, you know, say, all right, how are we looking compared to where they were looking at the time? Because it's like, that uncertainty and clarity, like you said, it is just uncertain space. You don't know, you can't predict a billion dollar brand, you just can't, but what are the things that you can start running after and you can learn fast and you can validate that gives you the signals at all different fidelities and levels to then go, all right, we're going. So anyway, that's the goal.   Ula Ojiaku  So, the listeners might be wondering, especially for those of us who are not so familiar with the intricate, you know, organisation, the way P & G is organised. So, what's GrowthWorks and then, what role did you play in that?   Chris Boeckerman  Perfect. Well, I ended up being able to be the co-founder of GrowthWorks. And GrowthWorks, in a simple term, is, a framework that you can apply to nurture startups inside the company. So, we are a big company and we know how to do big, big programs. Right. As we got into this disruptive world and we were being disrupted and, you know, we were looking for how to become agile, it, you know, it was sort of like we needed to shift how we did our innovation. And so we needed to be able to apply these principles from lean innovation, but in a way that made sense for P & G. So one of the things we learned, you know, very early on and everybody would know is, you know, at the end of the day, our goal is to build a business that we cultivate. We're not trying to sell to somebody. That's a very different aspect of being a startup, in a startup you want to get bought, right. But here we need to create a value creating business. And it is interesting during this time is when, Marc Pritchard, who's our Chief Brand Officer, really started to talk quite a bit about constructive disruption, and it was really important, and I think it's important for any big company to understand as they're doing this, is our job is always to build categories, to build the industry. We don't ever want to take the industry down. We want to build the industry. So we want to be disruptive, but in a building way, and so as we were thinking about that, it was just like, okay, there's probably three components that we were pulling together that you can apply, whether you're doing sustaining innovation, or disruptive innovation.   There's a, how do you learn, right. So it's the build, measure, learn, but how do you handle this, helping an organisation feel okay about sending five prototypes to consumers and not being concerned that it's going to fail. Right. So that is sort of the build, measure, learn loop. We base everything in the consumer love and the consumer need. And so we wrapped that together to kind of give it, this is how P & G applies the lean innovation model. There's also, how do you think about the type of innovation you're doing? And so, like I said, whether it's sustaining, disruptive or anything like that, but visualising that is really important, helping everybody understand, what are the new spaces that we're looking at? Placing lots of bets in these new spaces and knowing the high percentage is going to fail, right. And so, how do you measure progress in this uncertain space? That was a part of the framework as well. And then the last part of the framework was how do you organise to do this work? And I'd say the biggest thing we learned then is yeah, when you're early in the funnel, a small team can make tremendous progress, make it less hierarchical, let the team lead, leaders learn, because this is new. So I used to always joke. I was 20 years in fabric care, right. And so I would be working with an internal startup team in fabric care. And my 20 years of knowledge of fabric care wasn't what was helping the team. I was holding them back because I have all these biases of the past and they needed to go into the future and I needed to learn, so you just have to let the teams lead at that point in time and you have to learn, and be supportive. Then you do get to the point though, where my 20 years of knowledge of fabric care does become important. And that's where every startup runs into as well, is you get it to a certain point, but if you need to industrialise something, that is the core capability the company has, and you can't do that with three people, and you need hierarchy and you need to, so it's like, how do you take the best of both worlds and bring them together? And so that was how we had to figure out how to organise for where you're at and what you need at the time.  And then how do you shift to that when you need to shift it quickly? And so those were the three aspects, how you learn, what is the type of innovation you're going after, and then how do you organise, and that we made it a broad enough framework so that we have 10 business units and P & G Ventures who were at the tip of the sphere of doing this for the company anyway. And we were trying to help the rest of the company, but you wanted to give them that framework and then no matter what they were working on, could they fit themselves into that framework or could the framework enable them? And so we started as two people and our leader, and I was able to grow that organisation to about 25 people across every function of the company, but just a small group, like we just had, you know, 25 people out of a hundred thousand, right. But each of us were a function in the company, but we were one team across all functions. And so that's how we were able to kind of like be like the Navy Seals, we could come in and we could help support the business unit for what they were doing. And then the business unit would take it on. That was the only way we could become sustainable because we weren't, I never wanted to create a 500 person organisation.  Everything I learned about from all my predecessors who've tried this at other companies as well, that just gets to be too heavy. And it doesn't integrate into the entire company because you're reliant on the coaches or the experts versus our job was eventually like when we were about three years in and we kind of knew what we were doing, when we would come in and help train some part of the organisation, we would only do it if they offered up a person that would then take it from us and do the next training. And so, you know, then you start to really get into the fibre of the company to really drive the change. And it's not perfect, right. But it really was able to shift how we did our innovation and the BUs own it, right, the business units own it.   Ula Ojiaku  That's the only way it's going to be sustainable, if there's ownership from them.   Chris Boeckerman  Exactly. And they applied it in different ways, our beauty care business is very different than our fabric care business. So one size fits all was never going to work.   Ula Ojiaku  Oh my gosh, sorry, that was a theme at the conference I spoke at, you know, it was like, no, there's no one size fits all approach.   Chris Boeckerman  I'm very thankful that I had the support around me, and that the company invested to bring external people in, right. One of the people I haven't mentioned yet is Maxine Friedman and she started with Bionic and, you know, now has her own work that she does, but she was my partner day in and day out as we were trying to figure out how to make this change. And without having people like that near me, Karen Hershenson's an internal person that was with me. They're the ones that really helped me see it was more than us. And in order to make it more than us, we had to enable others. We had to give it away. So first we had to figure out what it was. So don't get me wrong. That was not easy. It took us an entire year of really crazy experiments that the business units did. And we were just learning and running and helping and doing everything that we could, but we were pulling together the learnings. We were strategically figuring out what was working and what wasn't working so that we could land within the first year with this framework. Then once we had the framework, then we had something more intentional that we could work with the business units on. And we showed up for free. That was the other thing is, when they called, we showed up, right? Like nobody paid for us, we were helping them, but then they started to pay with their people, and they became the experts who then moved it forward and they moved it forward in different ways, because the external experts were the ones telling us we've seen other companies try this, don't try to mandate, don't force it, help figure out an agile framework that people can fit for what they need. And to this day it still exists. I mean, I'm not on it anymore, there's a small team that's still is working through it and, you know, but the businesses own it. They're the ones who really drive it in the way that they need.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. I respect your time. I could delve in more. I think, Chris, this is an official invite to have you back sometime, you know, for a sequel to this conversation.   Chris Boeckerman  I would love it. I would love it. This has been so much fun. I really, I have a ton of passion for this type of work and our motto in GrowthWorks was unleash people to unleash growth. I do think P & G has the best people. I think everybody thinks that about their company, but I just really, I believe it, you know, when I was 20 years in fabric care, when I was, you know, 5 years in GrowthWorks, and now in P & G Ventures, that we just have the best people. And as we unleash them, we're growing, and so it's just a ton of fun, so happy to come back.   Ula Ojiaku  Your passion shines through and for you to say P & G has the best people, speaking with you, I am left with no doubt about it because you are a great ambassador for that. So thank you for that. So, in terms of a few more questions, so what books, if you had, because you said you had to go to school to learn more about innovation and you got in coaches. Are there any books that have helped you, you know, in this learning journey?  Chris Boeckerman  Yeah, there's a group of books just on lean innovation that definitely helped. So the Eric Ries, like kind of trilogy of books, I would say is The Lean Startup, The Startup Way, but he also had a small printing of something called, The Leader's Guide, which I think you can only get on audio now. And Janice Fraser, Eric introduced us to Janice and she had a lot of that, that really helps you to figure out how to help an organisation, how to help leaders to bring this to life. So those were really critical. And then David Kidder from Bionic wrote a book called New to Big, and I would say that's a great synopsis of what they taught us. And so, that's a good one to go to. And then there's a Scrum book that, I'm going to have to look up afterwards to give you the actual title, but twice the work and half the time.  Ula Ojiaku  That'll be Jeff Sutherland, Scrum, How to do Twice the Work in Half the Time. Dr Sutherland was my guest a few episodes ago.   Chris Boeckerman  Yes, it was life-changing for me, not necessarily because I became, I did not become a Scrum master. We have people inside the company that have done amazing things, but that was the book where he really articulated the questions that we started to ask, that helped us with teams lead, leaders learn. So he articulated that leaders, you know, should ask, what did you learn? How do you know? What do you need to learn next? And how can I help you as a leader? And, you know, that simple articulation was really great for us. So those are the ones that I kind of went back to again and again, to really figure out how to do lean innovation. I have another book for you just in general to share, and that's called Four Thousand Weeks, and it's a productivity book that somebody had just shared with me and it's by Oliver Burkeman and this, I just really liked because it's made a big impact in my life right now. If you live to be 80, you live 4,000 weeks. So it puts a finite amount of time, which can be scary, but we all know is real. But what I loved about this, it's the first productivity book that I received the message because I'm sure other productivity books have told me this, but it's the first time I was able to openly receive the message that you cannot do it all, so stop trying. You need to be choiceful. You need to be intentional on what it is you want to do and what it is you're going to intentionally not do. And that was just really impactful for me. And I think it can be impactful for a lot of people that really, the quality of your life is based on the choices that you make, and it's part of the reason I'm here because I'm a very busy person, but I just decided, no, I really, this is a passion that I have. I have a unique experience, I would really like to share that with other like-minded people who are on this, you know, what I call rollercoaster journey. It is like high highs and low lows when you are a change agent in big companies, but it's so fulfilling. So that book just had a big impact on me, that I really am in control of my destiny, but I need to make some choices.  Ula Ojiaku  Well, I've made a note of those books and they would be in the show notes of your episode. So thank you for that. Would that be, if the audience wants to get in touch with you, how can they find you?  Chris Boeckerman  The best way is through LinkedIn, I'm on LinkedIn, and while I would love to talk to everybody in the world, right. The way that I kind of make my choices, like I just said, which is exactly when you reached out to me is, anything that enables P & G and you know, what, what we all have passion for, I make time for, so yeah, so LinkedIn is the best way.   Ula Ojiaku  Definitely. I mean, you're a busy person, so LinkedIn would be the best place. And any final words for the audience so we wrap this up.   Chris Boeckerman  Yeah. I think, you know, I think it just really is, if you can, you follow your passion and people are everything. I just, everybody in the startup world, everybody in a corporate environment will tell you that the team and the people, they make all the difference in the world. And I just have found through my career as well, the more I invest in the people, the better, and so, yeah, I mean, if there's a way that you can ever really drive together your passions and then the ability to kind of bring an amazing team around you, you can do anything. My favourite quote is, never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has. It's by Margaret Mead. And I just really, I really believe it. I think, and, in what we've been able to do at P & G, we had the people, the groundswell, and we had the leadership support in, and you need both, but it just really starts with a small group of people that have a lot of passion and are amazing. And so that's what I would focus on.   Ula Ojiaku  Wow. Thank you so much, Chris. This has been an inspiring conversation, more like me learning from you. So I do think, and I know that the audience, the viewers and listeners would also find this episode very useful. So thank you again for your time.   Chris Boeckerman  Oh, thank you very much. And I've listened to all your podcasts now. And so I'm learning a ton from this forum as well. And just thank you for taking the time and doing it. I love your story and I was really happy to be part of it. So thank you.  Ula Ojiaku   That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show.   I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com  Take care and God bless. 

Michael talks with Robert Vaughan about the creation of Bending Genres, reading and writing with dyslexia, almost becoming a musician, finding book publishers from public readings, his sixth book ASKEW, creating distance, form, and technique in revision, telling it slant, upcoming work, and more.Robert Vaughan is the author of six books of poetry, fiction, and cross-genre writing, including Addicts & Basements, RIFT (a collaboration with Kathy Fish), Funhouse, and most recently Askew (Cowboy Jamboree Press, 2022). He's the editor-in-chief for the literary magazine Bending Genres.Podcast theme: DJ Garlik & Bertholet's "Special Sause" used with permission from Bertholet.

Today we talk with Sara Lippmann (JERKS) about her great new collection, the annoying persistence of the Madonna/whore complex, rage, hope, motherhood, mosaic-y fiction (shoutout Kathy Fish), forgetting how to write a novel while writing stories and vice versa, her favorite story collections (Rebecca Schiff's The Bed Moved; Nina McConigley's Cowboys and East Indians; Danielle Lazarin's Back Talk; Margaret Malone's People Like You), taking breaks, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kathy Fish is the recently retired Chief Research, Development and Innovation Officer of Procter & Gamble. Kathy retired in 2020 and was at P&G for over 40 years. This episode will explore the relationship between Marketing and Research and Development within a company. P&G excels in both disciplines, and Kathy talks about the best strategy to align the goals of each team. She also discusses GrowthWorks, an initiative she launched to bring lean innovation to scale at P&G (which would later become a Harvard Business School case study).CMOs often hold one of the most innovative and challenging roles in business today. Those who excel can operate at the highest level to drive growth and create value for their organizations. To learn more how Deloitte helps bolster the value CMOs deliver, visit www.cmo.deloitte.com See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How do set up your organization to “Perform AND Transform” at the same time? How do you ensure you are leveraging what you have to maximize value extraction through relevant incremental innovation? And in parallel establish the agility for constructive disruption ahead, tapping into emerging consumer and societal challenges with new technologies and capabilities. Listen in to our first episode on the subject of ‘Learning to Lead Innovation' with our guest Kathy Fish, former CTIO of Procter & Gamble.  

Melissa Llanes Brownlee is a native Hawaiian writer living in Japan. Matt Mitchell is intersex as hell and wrote The Neon Hollywood Cowboy published by Big Lucks in 2021. Kathy Fish's most recent work may be found in the Norton Reader, Copper Nickel, Washington Square Review, and is forthcoming in Ploughshares. Links and Info: MelissaContinue reading "Brownlee x Mitchell x Fish" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melissa Llanes Brownlee is a native Hawaiian writer living in Japan. Matt Mitchell is intersex as hell and wrote The Neon Hollywood Cowboy published by Big Lucks in 2021. Kathy Fish’s most recent work may be found in the Norton Reader, Copper Nickel, Washington Square Review, and is forthcoming in Ploughshares. Links and Info: MelissaContinue reading "Brownlee x Mitchell x Fish"

Kathy Fish reads her flash fiction story, "Tenderoni." (Contains explicit language.) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-artists-statement/message

Kathy Fish joins us for this episode of The Artist's Statement focused on flash fiction, defined as stories under 1,000 words. She discusses the genre, its origins, and how it can be distinguished from short stories and prose poetry. She also elaborates on techniques she uses to create her flash pieces, including juxtaposition, contradiction, and repetition, and how she finds titles for her work. Fish's most recent collection is Wild Life: Collected Works 2003-2018, now in its 2nd print run with Matter Press. She reads and discusses “Foreign Film,” “Today When I Asked You About a Couple We Knew in Canberra,” “Collective Nouns for Humans in the Wild,” inspired by the 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas, and “Unfettered and Alive.” Hosted by Davin Malasarn. The Artist's Statement is brought to you by the Granum Foundation. Visit us for more information. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-artists-statement/message

Mr. Bear reads from LAKEWOOD, the stunning novel by Megan Giddings exploring class, race, memory, trauma, and what we're willing to do for those we love. Featuring beautiful music by and a mini-interview with Annie SewDev, an original writing prompt from Kathy Fish, and introducing Miss Mousie's Apothekarium!

David Kidder is an entrepreneur and an angel investor in more than 30 companies. He's the co-founder and CEO of Bionic, unlocking growth and competitiveness in the world's largest enterprises. He's also a bestselling author, which includes: The Startup Playbook and his latest book, New To Big. Find out how you can get #TheBionicLife and learn lots from David in this inspirational show including: The philosophy of growth and transformation The entrepreneurs mindset Control is a myth The concept of a Growth Mindset for a big company Plus loads more hacks Join our Tribe at https://leadership-hacker.com Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services Find out more about David below: Bionic Website - https://onbionic.com David's Website - https://www.davidskidder.com The Startup Playbook -  Book New to Big - Book David on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidskidder/ David on Twitter – https://twitter.com/davidskidder David on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/davidskidder/   Full Transcript Below ----more---- Steve Rush: Our special guest on today's show is David Kidder. David's an entrepreneur and an angel investor in more than 30 companies. He's the co-founder and CEO of Bionic, unlocking growth and competitiveness in the world's largest enterprises. He's also a bestselling author, which includes The Startup Playbook and his latest book, New To Big. But before we get a chance to speak with David, it's The Leadership Hacker News.   The Leadership Hacker News Steve Rush: What comes to mind when you hear the word “Startup”, if it's a trendy loft conversion in London's Shoreditch, or a grungy basement in the heart of Silicon Valley, you're probably not alone. A large proportion of people think that startups is just a term for a team of one or two people that have a common thread. In fact, many startups include large scale growth companies, and of course a startup, does not stay a startup. It can often graduate to larger organizations readily, requiring more office space, generating higher revenues and having many employees. The global pandemic has spurned a rise in new companies, startups. In the UK in 2020, 278,300 new companies were started. And then the US 804,000 businesses were also started. That's about 10% up year on year. So, if your entrepreneurial spirit has been ignited, I just wanted to share some simple facts with you about startups. Some of the things we can get excited about, and some of the things we maybe need to be wary about. Patience is a virtue. The average time between seed funding to Series A is typically 22 months. And between A and B is 24 months and B to C is 27 months. So, there's a long lead in to successful organizations of which 47% of Series A start up spend more than $400,000 dollars per month. Not all startups are big, but the average round for Series C investments is $50 million dollars between the UK and the US. The average time to incorporate a business globally is typically six days, not much time really. And when we look to the ratio of who's leading startups, the ratio of men, entrepreneurs to women entrepreneurs in 2020 was 10 versus 7. Statistic show whoever's leading them, but 90% of all startups fail with 10% failing within the first year across all industries. And the number one reason for failure was that startups fail to misread the market demand. And the second largest reason why startups fail is due to running out of cash. The good news is that 33% of startup capital for employer led firms is less than £10,000 (pounds) or $14,000 (dollars). With one in three businesses, starting with a less than £5,000 (pounds) or $7,000 (dollars). So, what did the experts say? Well, according to respondents of small business trends survey, the best way to learn about entrepreneurial ship is to do it. Start a company, test and learn. And if you have an idea, research businesses similar to that, that you have in your head, and you're thinking that have been active for longer than five years, assess all the potential bottlenecks apart from the competition and make sure that the team that you gather to help you on your journey is experienced enough that you're aware of those threats and have some experience in helping you fill your gaps in knowledge and expertise. In a recent interview with Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, he suggests the secret to successful hiring is this. Look for people who want to change the world, don't just look at the resume. And having done it and got some t-shirts along the way. The most valuable thing you can do as a founder of a business is to recognize your downfalls beforehand, learning from other businesses, how they've won and how they failed and apply that knowledge as part of your startup thinking, that's been The Leadership Hacker News. Please get in touch, if you have any stories or news that you want our listeners to hear.   Start of Podcast   Steve Rush: David Kidder is our special guest on today's show. He's a serial entrepreneur, having invested in over 40 startups, including SpaceX. He's also a New York times bestselling author and the CEO and co-founder of Bionic. David welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast. David Kidder: Very grateful to be here. Steve Rush: Me too. It's been a while since you and I last met, the world is a very different place now. Before we get into some of the things that are presenting themselves with the work that we do now, perhaps for our listeners, you can give us just a little bit of a backstory as to how you've arrived at doing what you do? David Kidder: Well, I've been an entrepreneur now and founder four times. I've had three venture backed services and SAAS companies that I've sold over the last 25 years. This company I've been involved in building for the last eight years as a co-founder in Berkowitch and it started really with a book, The Startup Playbook about in 2007, 2008 and onstage at a fortune 10 company after doing a keynote with a single question, actually from the vice chairman about how to disrupt. And from there I started doing keynotes and workshops with Eric Reese all over the world. Bionic was really born out of that. And it's been an incredible journey building, you know, a $20 million dollar company. We saw the biggest CEOs in the world P&G, General Mills, Microsoft and others. Really just a privilege to be doing this work of growth transformation. Steve Rush: And its that whole philosophy of growth transformation that sits at the heart of disruption. And when people hear the word disruption, they don't often think of it as a positive thing, but in fact, you call it out as being essential, don't you? David Kidder: Well, I think as something that's really about you, then it could be problematic because you think, you know, it's your fault or it creates discomfort. Disruption usually is something that happens from the outside in, is changed, right? The needs and the world change, which we have experienced last year. Steve Rush: Right. David Kidder: And, you know, it forces you to reset and to move outside of what has been working in rediscovering things. And that's not something you can plan for. So, it draws out a completely different mindset and skillset to do that work, which, you know, is largely uncomfortable because it's managing the unknowable and that comes from a completely different skill set. So, it's an exciting chapter and we should be grateful for the test because we'll be better on the other side of it. But you can't try to get out of the discomfort and you have to be able to grow comfortable with that. Steve Rush: And it's the uncertainty that causes most discomfort in people. How do you grab hold of that uncertainty and create more certainty? David Kidder: Well, I think it's important to reframe it like if you have, it draws some of the psychology of loss of version, which is you always overvalue what you have and you undervalue what you could become, what is available to you. And so, in that context, knowing how the mind works, knowing how you know, humans, the species love to have planning and safety as comfort. When you have this these transformation opportunities, it's really about reframing and overvaluing, what is possible, what's available to you. And so, by holding on to that and saying, ah, I have this value in my hand, but I'm required to either replace it or add a new opportunity or new hand, so to speak that I have to become. You reframe it because it's something to pursue, maybe it's required, but that pursuit really energizes the change. And it's not to something to be feared. It's something to be embraced because it's just the natural way to evolve into growth. Steve Rush: It's kind of ironic, isn't it? Because if you think back over the last hundred years, nothing's really been certain, we've always been in a world of uncertainty, but we've had perhaps a different mindset. David Kidder: Yeah, I mean, control is a myth. I mean, I've made it all, lost it all. It made it all, lost it all twice now in my career just by investing in building companies and, you know, I've gone through incredible highs and I've gone through a brokenness. And I think one of the things that has accelerated my failure in the past when I've had it is just the idea that it's about you and to control. And so, the more you hang on to your plan, your vision, and you don't accept all of the possibilities from extraordinary success to extraordinary failure and be comfortable with that, right? David Kidder: And say, success, you know, comes in two front-page coverage, you're a hero, and you're an idiot, right? Steve Rush: Yeah, exactly. David Kidder: You have to be able to be a position to give it over and ask for the outcome, because then, you know, the universe and your people can conspire to help you solve the need as opposed to directly and exclusively coming from you. That's where mistakes are made is that we don't get to the truth because we don't ask from our team and we're not willing to accept it. Steve Rush: There's this lack of control that comes with also giving away some of the stuff that you have; and ironically, the more you give away, the more you receive in return, that's kind of how the world kind of plays out, right? David Kidder: Yeah, you can you can always suffocate possibility by hanging on to things in a zero-sum view of the world. It's really a non-zero, right? I think this is essential to what you're saying is, that people, their very nature is there's a limited supply of an outcome. There's a limited supply of, you know, consulting. There's a limited supply of services. There's a limited supply of customers, and that's a total addressable market view of the world. That's a limited zero-sum view of the world. It's actually the non-zero. The unlimited version is to think about the total addressable need in the world and how it's evolving. And that takes you from the inside out to the outside in. From zero sum to non-zero, from fear to abundance, from market to need. And you start to really radically evolve your discovery of what your role is in solving it. The marketplace is an opportunity is unlimited. It's only limited to the fact of your ability to create the permission for you to go pursue it, that's it. And that's inside your mind, Steve Rush: Big organizations, I guess, think the same way or the people that work in big organizations also feel the same way as that's the focus of the work that you have with Bionic. Maybe you can just give us a little sense of how you're helping organizations go through that same transformation? David Kidder: Thank you for that Steve. We have a philosophy. That's in a book I wrote called, We, as a company wrote called New To Big. I wrote it with Christina Wallace, who was our VP of marketing and a brilliant writer and thinker. She helped curate this from the company, which is this concept that the big to bigger organizations, that scale are literally at war with growth. They're paid to create efficiency and certainty. And so, when there's change and you're paid incentivized to make what you have work, you actually can't evolve. It's actually, you're at war with growth, stakeholders and the addiction of being right and, you know, rack and stack ROI and all things really limits the organization ability to evolve because you're literally making what you have work. New To Big, really describes a way of thinking and working. We've pioneered the idea of growth mindset in a big company and the systems to support that, we call a Growth OS. It really solves the discovery missing skills versus the planning skills inside an organization in a model. So, we set up growth boards. We set portfolios of total addressable problems and needs. We launched large volumes of entrepreneurs inside and outside the organization to experiment and test, to figure out what to build partner or buy that creates their future as we go launch it. But more importantly is that we fix the growth operations of an organization, the functions that are designed to stop new things from happening, become entrepreneurial. Marketing and sales and compliance and fines come around because they learned to act small because the question that companies need to ask is, should we do this? So, if you're only asking that with planning in five big bets a year, you're in big trouble, you're not learning anything, you're making what you have work. Our model creates that pipeline of always on growth, in the same way, you know, Six Sigma lean manufacturing created efficiency. Bionic has pioneered a model, which is sort of the anti of that. And every company in the world needs this. We've done this at the top of organizations at the CEO level P&G, General Mills, Nike, Citi Corporate, others, with extraordinary impact. Steve Rush: And when I read this from you, I had a little bit of an “A-HA” moment because from a consulting perspective when I work with my clients, it's often around how can we do things faster, more efficient, more effectively, which comes with either streamlining a process, saving some money, looking at resources. And you literally have just flipped that on its head around,  it's not about the efficiencies. It's about the effectiveness. Tell us a little bit about how you came to that? David Kidder: It's because we don't come from the industry. You know, I, my entire background, and my co-founders are all entrepreneurs. And so, we didn't come competing with McKinsey or BCG who we do almost exclusively today. Who kind of copy us at this point which is sort of a compliment and also annoying. We could never be them and they can never be us. The way we think, they will be a radical outsider. Be able to walk away at the cost of the truth, creates a friction in the leadership that allows them to go on offense, because, you know, the leaders thought leaders like Adam Grant and Linda Hill and Justin Berg and General Stanley McChrystal who all serve on Bionic advisory board so often have driven a way to think differently as a way of running the company. And here's why this is so important. About 70% of all growth comes from 7% capital deployed. So, if we make a hundred bags or I spent a hundred million or whatever it is, 7% of that is going to be all the returns. So, if I go back to the beginning and say, why did I invest in those ideas or innovations? They have two qualities. One is high conviction. Why us and why now? And two is, is non-consensus. We make all of our decisions from the ideas, with the highest disagreement. Steve Rush: Wow, yeah.   David Kidder: So conversely, when you have consensus, you're basically screwed. You have to be able to hold. Non-consensus, high conviction solutions to new problems from the outside in portfolios, a lot of failure to figure out why us and why now. Disruption is important, but how you react to it is more important. Steve Rush: I love that. And it makes loads of sense when you say it. It's almost one of those, why didn't I do this before? Because ultimately what you're suggesting is consensus is another word for group think almost, isn't it? You're looking for convergence, rather than divergence and strategic thinking. David Kidder: Yeah, the reason why it's so uncomfortable, because it's new to you and new to the world, your entire bias is to make what you have work, and it's super dangerous. Steve Rush: Yeah, it is. For sure. Now, there's not many chances you get to say to people. Yeah, well, you wrote the book on it and you did, you wrote The Startup Playbook and you had the network and opportunity to interview over 40 of the world's greatest Gamechangers, including Elon Musk and Sarah Blakely, just to name, but a few. What did you notice having had the opportunity to interview all of these great leaders and entrepreneurs and thinkers that was consistent? David Kidder: Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. The summary of the book I wrote on a single flight in six hours from, you know, let's say San Francisco back to New York where I live. And I didn't realize how significant that introduction would change my life, but it was really the synthesis of those that time. I remember 10 years ago, Elan was broke, sleeping on my friend's couch in Palo Alto. And you know, last week is the world's richest guy, because he always was in his mind. What I think is interesting is that when you listen to that summation of the time with them and in the book, The Start Playbook, there's like summaries of the lenses, those entrepreneurs use to select their ideas. So, it's the way they view it. It's their mindset that allows them to lead and bet their life on an idea that has turned into in most cases, a huge outcome. I summarize this called the five lenses. So, if you listen to all the time, basically they say an idea would pass through these five lenses in the same order, over a period of typically three years before you know how big it could be. And the first lens is proprietary gift. Why you and why now? Like, what's your unfair advantage? The second one is extreme focus. You don't want 10 ideas. You want one solution to one problem. So, getting the validation, the first principles logic in place, so you can get extreme focus. So, you have night and day obsession, conscious and subconscious working at problem is could vital to making this work. The third lens is you have to go painkillers, not vitamins. Vitamins are wishful thinking and wishful thinking is the enemy, according to Elon. So, getting the painkiller, which solves who is the customer, right? Solves the chronic lifelong malignant problem that is you can solve forever, which leads the last two lenses, which are something that you become, which is the 10X factor was the fifth, fourth ones, which is what element of the business given enough time could be 10 times better than anyone else in the world. And then the fifth lens is permanence. Like, how do you build a monopoly? How do you put hooks and barbs in customers so they can never leave? So, you could evolve with them for years and so, they'll quit. So those five lenses are very high bar. They're not something to be thought about that some of you discovered and you need to learn them over a period of time that allows them to become true because you're deploying energy, money, capital, people into becoming that. So, I'll pause there, but they're quite profound when you think about your own business. And I hope that listeners do as well. Steve Rush: Yeah, I love the whole principle. It's almost a systematic approach to thinking about this is the direction I need to take the business in. Need to take the leadership of the organization in as well. David Kidder: Yep Steve Rush: If you were to peel back all of the layers across all of the lenses across those 40. Is there may be the one thing that stands out beyond everything else that is the most important, the most significant? David Kidder: You got to care the most, it's obsession. I'll tell you; I mean, I can speak my very modest career. But I think that whatever you do, when you care the most, it almost always works in whatever view of works defines you. So, I think that's the most important thing is that you deeply, deeply care. You just won't be able to get through the hard times if you don't. Because you know, no matter how successful the company is, you're going to go through blink at death moments. I mean, you know, we had one, you know, this last year of the pandemic and, you know, not only survived, but thrived through it as a result of that, you know, you don't sleep on the factory floor on the brink of death unless you care more. And I think that's the central limit. It's not just passion, and yeah, I love something, it's obsession is born to do it. And I think you should listen to that voice inside of you and not play to lose. You have to play to win, to be able to produce something of any meaning. Steve Rush: I love it. Awesome. So, if I'm a leader in an established team or business, I'm not involved in the VC startup environment, is there anything that you think that would be useful for me to consider? So that would fully propel me in my existing business. David Kidder: Yes. I mean, the idea that, you know, growth is exclusively a venture capital entrepreneurship idea is false. We proven that over the world-class bunch of years, you know, this is a form of management. In the same way have actually master's degree of administration that solve the big to bigger, because it's no noble. We have management skills in discovering investing and solving new problems that are called growth investing in entrepreneurship as a form of a career. And it's not exclusive to outside of companies. It's that outside of companies have not created the incentive to be paid to do it, but they can do it, we've proven that, at billions of values. So, I just think that you know, the biggest mindset shift when you're thinking about how to manage and why you manage this and how to solve disruption is one of the concepts that Bionic has pioneered called TAM to TAP. It's sort of Total Addressable Marketplace view of the world to a Total Addressable Problem. From linear five big bets a year to portfolio with a 90% failure rate, recollect five, let's 50 where 90% fail within two or three years, but they're going to discover the proprietary gifted in us and the need of the world that we had to solve become. So that Tamba Tap really changes from an inside out to an outside of a new world. So, it ends the technology in search of a problem or science in search of a customer problem challenge, that is almost always fatal because how do you know what to make? If you don't know a problem you're solving. These ideas are so profoundly simple, but they have massive impact organizations that are literally crossing their fingers and hoping their ideas work. So, if you read New To Big, the book, you'll start to get kind of the beta or the 1.0 of how to think about this. And then we have a whole bunch of new learning you can go to onbionic.com and learn more about it, or just reach out to me. But I think these are concepts that help shift the organization's mindset and begin journey of like discovery because it draws a distinction from efficiency and planning. Steve Rush: I think mindset is massive here, right? So, when I hear you talk about a portfolio with a 90% fail rate, my stomach does starts to churn, right? So how do you get into the mindset to help people in an organization recognize that's okay. David Kidder: Well, you need to play into their, you know, genetics, which is, you know, if we launched 90 things and it's more efficient than launching five big expensive failures, because they now, these people are really smart. They know that they're launched five things, one will work, they're all going to cost 50 million. But if I could launch a hundred, the all costs a hundred grand, I actually saved money. I get more shots on goal. I see more. I discover myself and I'm right on time because market timing drives these needs. They realize that we can't just show up my balance sheet and my brand and make it work because it's not about us. It's about solving the need. It's the outside force. It's the rip that makes the business work, not ours. And so, it's being there when it happens. When you're positioning capital or new need or the need that just changed of your customer, which is why disruption happens. Disruption happens, when the change comes to you versus you arriving with it, but it shows up at your doorstep, like what happens in the pandemic. It's all because the need changed. The customer's behavior changed, that's it. Behaviors don't lie, how it got delivered, how it got paid for, how it gets solved, AI, technology outside forces. But none of that matters. It's simply what the customer does that we're trying to solve. And in many cases, the customer doesn't even know. So how do you discover the change? The customer doesn't even understand that's happening. You only can discover that through experiments and learning with them. Not for them, not inside, for them, with them. And so, this is profound. Like, I mean, it sounds simple, but when you start working, thinking this way, this changes everything. Steve Rush: Is academically sounds very simple, but behaviorally. There is so much going on with mindsets, behaviors, systems, political warfare internally, I guess, plays out here too. Has it been a time maybe that you found that when you've met with an organization, they've gone no way, David, we're not playing this game? This is far too risky. David Kidder: Of course, of course. Steve Rush: So how do you deal with that? David Kidder: Well, I mean, listen, Bionic has worked with 26 companies in the last eight years, but we work at the CEO level. These companies work with the largest of the world. I mentioned a couple of names, Citi Corp you know, General Mills, Nike, Santander, P&G is a very incredible case study for us. There's actually an HBS case study on this work written by Linda Hill about the Growth OS, but largely about Kathy Fish, the head of global R&D at P&G, She's amazing. But the point is, is that not every company is ready because the CEO it creates or denies the permission to grow. I wrote the purpose of Bionic was to ignite growth revolutions. And what I've come to realize is it's actually not about money. It's about the interior life of the leader. They are the ceiling of what's possible for our organization. Steve Rush: Right. David Kidder: What freaks them out is, in the past. When they launched a hundred things, nothing ever died. They started lighting money on fire. They had to manage it. They need a way to manage it and not light their money on fire. And our model is that answer. And when they get comfortable with that, they go to scale. I mean, our partners are launching hundreds of startups, a quarter zonally vertically. They're adding hundreds of millions in some cases, billions of new revenues each year repeatedly. So, I rarely use the word innovation because of the brain damage around it, it's a toy. You have to create urgency, grow or die. When that happens, the question is, how? And the work Bionic does, New To Big is the how. Steve Rush: From your portfolio experience. So, you're an investor and you've got a significant portfolio of your own investments that you've made in other startups and businesses. Is there one that you've got there? It's the favorite child?   David Kidder: I do. It's just one that you wouldn't think. Of course, there's the unicorns and those are exciting. And it takes about 50 bets to produce one in your life, even if you're connected, your shot is 1 in a 50. Unless you're very fortunate and network effect. And I was very fortunate because of that, but there's a company that I love and it's a founder, Lindsay Rosner, it's called Wellthy. The obsession comment I made earlier, born to do it. She is the, like the perfect case study for this, for profound reasons. So, Wellthy does a care coordination and they help families manage care at a distance. Family lives in lots of parts of the world or the country or town, even. A family member is sick, maybe they have mental illness. Maybe they have a degenerate disease or dementia, lots of stakeholders, lots of regulation and complexity. And they built a platform to solve that. It's like a quarterback managing all the aspects of caring for a single loved one. So that everyone's on the same page always. And you know, that was because, you know, Lindsay, when she grew up, you know, her mom had MS. And she was an only child and she had to lead and love and care for her mother through her very young age, through college, where she put herself through to Ivy league schools, started her own company. She is incredible, and she did this because she was born into it, obsession and gifted. And along the way, you know, she lost her mother and that continued to drive the purpose of her life. But Wellthy is a born to do a proprietary gift story that I love to tell because I love Lindsay, but I also just love the purpose of that company is on. And it's a great example of what will be a huge success because of her. Steve Rush: Awesome. Now, from your perspective, looking outside in at new opportunity like that, what drives your fire in your belly more? Is it that obsession with the people you work with or is it the product or return on investment? David Kidder: I mean, I probably should be more investment driven, you know, I've had raised a lot of venture, deployed a lot of venture. I love the becoming, I had a mentor and a relative of mine who passed away in 2014. Amazing guy, clinical psychologist, on the board of a bunch of big famous companies, great consultants. When he sold this company age 70, he passed away. Roger Fronske about nine months later. I was the last week person to see him. And he started me on my career as my uncle when I was 16. As he passed away, I saw him a couple of days before, and we were together and were forehead to ford, as he was saying goodbye. He had brain cancer, and he said, don't focus on who you are to the world, focus on who you're becoming. The idea becoming now, which is central to my philosophy but also that of my companies is that, you know, when you get to the top, you realize there's nothing there. The journey is where the growth is. That's where the love is. That's where the people are, relationships the vulnerability, the change. So, when you try to escape that, get out of that, to get to the exit, get to the top, finally get blank, you realize like what a perishable identity you have with that success. The success is falling in love with the becoming. And I really counsel my teams and the company, my culture, to create the doctrine, to make choices that choose the becoming versus, you know, performance and, you know, kind of like the silly comparison. That's a solving to probably an old shame in your life that you have to be successful but, in this case, find what you love. I love that part of the work. And so, wherever I apply, the energy will be important to me. Steve Rush: Really profound story, thank you for sharing it by the way, David, I appreciate it. David Kidder: Yeah, of course. Steve Rush: So, this part of the show is where we start to hack into your leadership brain. And I'm going to ask you to distill all of the years of learning experiences in organizations and tap into the very top three leadership hacks that you have. David Kidder: One that is new to me is to lead with the truth. This is one of the profound lessons I've learned in building Bionic is that people want the truth so they can help. Not because they're scared, but because they want to help and what they resent when you don't tell them the truth and ask them to help is that you didn't ask them because that's why they're there. So that is a gap between you, the CEO and the team, and that gap is can really only be filled by the team because most of the answers always come from the edge of the team. So that was one of the big one is lead with the truth. And it will shock you where you end up. Number two is I start in my day with a five-minute journal and it helps me understand where I am in the journey each day. I think there's a famous saying, which says, you're always optimistic about what you can accomplish in a day and you undress it and you can accomplish it in a year. So, getting the day right is most important. So, my five minute opens and closes the day with what I'm grateful for, what I need for that day. What I asks of the truths I need that day and also ask the universe, like, what do I need? And so, I close and begin the day, figuring out those things, but also reflect on like, hey, how could I have grown? You know, what can I handle better? That's the second one. And the third one is really the becoming part, which I just shared why that was important, but the becoming is philosophical, but it's also really important because you need a lot of patients when you're trying to create change and grow something. You know, the greatest force of the universe is compound interest. Will you do the right thing for a long period of time, it's inevitable. If you get that system right, that you'll be successful in whatever you define success, because it's what you think about. So, getting those things right, you know, those hacks right of the truth, that's reflective in the five-minute journal. And then you focus on becoming, I think no matter where you focus, your energy will lead to extraordinary outcomes. Steve Rush: Very great lessons. Thank you so much. The next part of our show is we call affectionately Hack to Attack. So, this is where something in your life or work has not worked out as planned. Could have been quite catastrophic or even screwed up. But as a result of the experience, we've now used that experience as a positive force in our life and work, what will be your Hack to Attack David? David Kidder: Hit the reset button, start over. I think people underestimate how powerful it is, is to set down an old truth, set down a day, set down an hour and start over. The ability to restart, reset, restart, however you want define it, is a miracle. You could restart your life. You could restart your career. You could restart your day. You could restart your relationship with person, your kids, your spouse, your co-founder, yourself. In a minute, in an hour, in a day, in a week, whenever you want. It's just a choice. And so being able to say, okay, that was a super bad morning. I'm going to restart my morning. I'm going to restart this meeting in the meeting. I'm going to restart this conversation. I'm going to restart my financial life, my savings, my spending, whatever it is. That power is available to you. I remember I had a moment when I went through total abject failure and had to build back. I was imagining myself running through these thorns, right? This my metaphor, but this how I felt. The harder ran the deeper the thorns got. I had nothing left. I was bleeding out, but I kept going because I would not fail. And I had this moment. It was probably one of most courageous resets in my life. As I imagined myself, lifting myself out of that road and putting myself on a clean new road. But what I did is as I moved myself back to when I was 20 years old. And when I realized is that all the same things that I knew and believed and was hopeful for about the future when I was 20 was still true today. I just need to re up, re believe, reset. And what were the challenge for me was I felt foolish and naive because who does that? Maybe I should just quit and find safety, that was all fear. And so that courageousness of starting over, but starting back in time, when you knew what was possible, all that optimism back, it just an amazing force. So, my hack is to reset or restart, however you define it. I think it's probably the greatest privilege and power we have in our lives. And you have the choice to do it at any moment in your day, week or life, to begin again. Steve Rush: Comes back down to mindset as well, doesn't it? David Kidder: Hundred percent. Steve Rush: Having the conviction to say, right. Need to change, need to do it. Now, ironically, our third and final thing that we wanted to take you through was a bit of time travel and you get to almost revisit the 20-year-old. And in this case, the 21-year-old David and give him some advice, what would be your advice then? David Kidder: To love yourself. And I think it's hard to not think about that through a lens of like selflessness, because I think that it's like, what I've discovered is that. I have three sons and I love them like the power of the sun, right? And as you think about how you love them; you would never want them to do something or be something that was harmful to themselves, that wasn't for loving themselves, right? Because they become, you know, a performance addict or, you know, all the dope, right? Steve Rush: Sure. David Kidder: Make the field better. So, I think if you can take that same power and shine it from your soul to yourself, you can realize, am I doing this through love or fear? And so, when you start to look at the choices that you're making in your life, in your business, yourself, especially largely they're made through performance and fear, but if you can get that orientation, right. That observer self to yourself saying, you know, I love you Steve, then I could ask the question is, why are you doing this? What are you needing? And that changes everything. And I taught my kids about this, but I would talk to myself about this, if I went back to when I was 21, because it would have saved me probably 10 years of my life, at least I'm 47 now, because I just made choices out of fear. Steve Rush: Yeah, and we often do, because that sense of fear is that self-preservation thing working out, which is what most entrepreneurs flip to use, their opportunity. David Kidder: Yup, a hundred percent. They're not even solving the problem. They're solving something inside themselves. Usually, it's an old shame. Steve Rush: I did some research for this many, many years ago, actually. And most entrepreneurs happen to be the least academical individuals as well, because they've used their creativity. They've focused on intuition. They've used all of those raw kind of right-hand emotions versus the left-hand emotions that we need to be effective in business too. David Kidder: Yeah. It's funny, you mentioned the word academic. I am almost anti academic and my dad was a psychologist, PhD. It's hilarious because, while we have a couple of PhDs at Bionic, who I love, where, you know, we create the outcome and you know, it's grounded in good academics, but it's not all that. Steve Rush: Right. So, what's new and what's next for you David? And for the folk at Bionic? David Kidder: You know, for now. I mean, it's the same, the purpose of our lives, the purpose of Bionic. My writing, thinking, and the company has never been more needed in the world today than any time in my lifetime. And certainly not since we started the company, I mean, transformation and growth are the most important things in the world today. And it's what we do. And so, I am in the right place, right time, you know, classic overnight journey, eight years in the work. And I couldn't be more honored to be doing it. Steve Rush: And if ever there was a right time to get you onto our show, it's also the now. So thank you for being with us. David Kidder: Grateful.   Steve Rush: Where's the best place for us to send folk who would like to learn a bit more about you, but more about the work that you do, you're writing and Bionic. David Kidder: Sure. So, there's two places for big companies. If see a big company you can go to onbionic.com O-N-B-I-O-N-I-C.com, learn more about transformation for big organizations there. For speaking or keynotes or books. You can go to davidskidder.com, D-A-V-I-D S in Steve K-I-D-D-E-R.com and there is a bunch of stuff up there. And hopefully it's enjoyable, feel free to reach out. I'm pretty available. So, we're accessible. So, no worries there but love to stay in connected with the world. Steve Rush: You're also pretty accessible through social media. We'll make sure that we have all of those links in our show notes as well. David Kidder: Thank you, wonderful. Steve Rush: It's only left for me to say thank you, David. I just love chatting with you. You're a really inspirational guy and that's no surprise why you have been so successful in winning and losing, and the 10% that are successful growing into great organizations and great companies. But thank you very much for being on The Leadership Hacker Podcast. David Kidder: It's my pleasure. Thanks, Steve.   Closing   Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers. Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handle there @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.  

Kathy Fish heads the 7000-employee R & D division of Proctor & Gamble having worked with the company 41 years. She talks about a time when she was not satisfied her position and career with P & G and did not feel valued. She proactively took action by having an important conversation with her manager resulting in a positive and pivotal point in her career.  As an introvert, she developed skills to overcome weaknesses and believes leaders must embrace a “growth mindset” otherwise organizations and people can get stale and lose productivity. What a great podcast! LeadingShe.com Instagram.com/LeadingShe Facebook.com/LeadingShe https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadingshe/

In this episode, Shaindel Beers talks craft and poetry with Booktails co-hosts Reine Dugas and Heather Fowler as well as reading a gorgeous group of poems from her poetry collection Secure Your Own Mask.  She shares her experience with living in Oregon, her process with her writing, her enjoyment of Kathy Fish's flash fiction workshops, and her favorite cocktails or drinks.  The recipe for her book's custom cocktail, the Masquerade Heartthrob,  is on the Hot Redhead Media blog (https://www.hotredheadmedia.com/post/the-masquerade-heartthrob-a-custom-cocktail-for-shaindel-beers-booktails-literary-podcast-ep2) .  Grab a copy of her book Secure Your Own Mask (https://bookshop.org/books/secure-your-own-mask/9781945680175?aid=12334) , make a cocktail, and listen.

We talk with Kathy Fish, Chief Research, Development and Innovation officer at Procter & Gamble. We learn that this 182-year-old organization—the largest branding company on the planet—adopts a startup mentality when creating new growth opportunities. Leveraging lean innovation allows P&G to deliver superior experiences and disruptive technologies. In her experience, telling stories about past innovation processes inspires organizations to take on these difficult challenges. Not only do stories shape company culture at P&G, but they drive products to success. In this episode, Kathy shares example innovation stories from two successful P&G products: Pampers Swaddlers and Always Discreet. Kathy tests out product stories with friends and family before an invention is ready for the shelves. If they wouldn’t go out and buy it, she encourages the team to go back and sharpen the story. For more information, visit our website: https://untoldcontent.com/ You can also find us on Instagram: @untoldcontent

Today on our show, we are talking about what we can't stop talking about, the coronavirus. Every email, text, call starts with, “How are you holding up?” It's beautiful and exhausting, so we put out a call for coronavirus stories.We have two stories to share. One is by our own Andrea Askowitz who is still living in Madrid. Madrid is one of the most contagious cities on earth and if you've seen her videos of her family dancing on FB, you are aware she's going a little stir-crazy. Writing has helped calm her. And we have a story by Sari Botton, the essays editor of Longreads. In Sari's essay, she gives us permission to tell our stories even if they feel petty. We always say, stories matter. And now, stories matter as much as ever. But for those of us too freaked out to write, Sari also gives us permission to take the pressure off producing. We talk a lot on our show about situation and story. The stories you will hear today are both about this coronavirus situation, but they also bring us something more about the human condition. We hope these stories are both comforting and inspiring.Sari Botton's list of writing resources for anyone interested in writing now:Vanessa Mártir offers many personal essay prompts that she made available for free in 2019 on her Writing Our Lives site.Cookbook author Julia Turshen is offering free food writing workshops via Instagram Live.Rachel McKibbens is offering writing prompts for 30 days in a Twitter thread. (Anyone can access them, but she is asking for donations to The Pink Door, the writers' retreat for women-identified writers of color.)Weds., 3/25 The Writing Barn is offering a free webinar called “Writing Through Troubled Times.”Nancy Stohlman and Kathy Fish are offering 30 days of free writing prompts.Toby Litt has a free 10-session short story writing workshop online.The Porch Writers' Collective in Tennessee is offering daily writing prompts on Twitter. They'll be moving them to email, so sign up here.Barrel House is offering free online write-ins.Anna Polonyi has started Quarantine Quill, via the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking, a podcast on which she offers one writing prompt and one writing tip each day, for the duration of the lockdown in Paris.Stonewall Writers & Readers is hosting free writers' groups online.Leigh Shulman is offering free online writing workshops next week, and also free writing prompts via email.And one more from Sari: I've got an into-level essay writing workshop on Skillshare. If you sign up for it, you can get a two-month free trial that lets you access all the courses on their site. Right now, Skillshare is also offering two months free (without having to give credit-card information) for current K-12 and college students, and others who qualify based on need. (I'm pretty dorky in my video, and I wish I'd thought to like, style my hair that day…? But I stand by the content of it.)Writing Class Radio is a podcast where you'll hear true personal stories and learn a little about how to write your own stories. Writing Class Radio is equal parts heart and art. By heart we mean the truth in a story. By art we mean the craft of writing. No matter what's going on in our lives, writing class is where we tell the truth. It's where we work out our shit, and figure out who we are. There's no place in the world like writing class and we want to bring you in.Writing Class Radio is co-hosted by Allison Langer (www.allisonlanger.com) and Andrea Askowitz (www.andreaaskowitz.com). Writing Class Radio is produced by Virginia Lora, Andrea Askowitz and Allison Langer. Ariel Henley is our media specialist.Theme music is by Emia. Additional music is by Ari Herstand, Justina Shandler, and Poddington Bear,There's more writing class on our website (www.writingclassradio.com), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/writingclassradio/), Instagram and Twitter (@wrtgclassradio).If you love the lessons you get on each episode, you can get them ALL in one place--our three-part video series--for $50. Click Video Classes on our website.Writing Class Radio is now open to submissions from our listeners. Go to the submissions page on our website for guidelines. We pay!If you want to be a part of the movement that helps people better understand each other through storytelling, we are now on Patreon. For $10/month you can join Andrea's submissions conversation. We'll support each other as we try to get our stories published. For $25/month you can join Allison's weekly writers lunch, where you can write and share your work. Go to www.Patreon.com/writingclassradio or click here to support us.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! We have another rerun for you here. Next week we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming. 

What kind of writer are you? What kind of culture do you want to create? What kind of writing life are you aiming for? In this episode I ponder these questions and talk a little about this month's theme of Flash Fiction. And I invite you to share what inspires you, right now: https://stada.me/124 :LINKS: Seth Godin's The Big Sort https://stada.me/g-bigsort Chuck Wending's blog post about writers and day jobs https://stada.me/w-dayjob Story Review: Joan of Arc Sits Naked In Her Dorm Room https://stada.me/rr-joan More short stories:  And You Thought Your Last Breakup Was Bad: Five love stories by Matt Leibel https://stada.me/leibel Seven Stories by Alex Epstein https://stada.me/epstein Sh*t Boyfriends, stories by Kathy Fish and Dorothy Bendel https://stada.me/valentine :CREDITS: Main title music by Alan McPike: https://www.standardstrax.com/ Incidental music by Rebecca Reads www.fiverr.com/rebecca_reads

Karen Stefano is Fiction Editor for Connotation Press. Her stories have appeared in The South Carolina Review, Tampa Review, Santa Fe Literary Review, Epiphany, and elsewhere. She was nominated for the XXXVIII Pushcart Prize. To learn more about her work, please visit www.stefanokaren.com. Nancy Stohlman's books include The Vixen Scream and Other Bible Stories (2014), The Monster Opera (2013), Searching for Suzi: a flash novel (2009), Live From Palestine (2003), and Fast Forward: The Mix Tape (2010), an anthology of flash fiction that was a finalist for a 2011 Colorado Book Award. She is a founding member of Fast Forward Press, the creator of FlashNano, the founder and curator of The F-Bomb Flash Fiction Reading Series in Denver, and her work has been recently nominated for The Best of the Web. Kathy Fish teaches for the Mile High MFA program at Regis University in Denver. Her short fiction has appeared in Indiana Review, The Denver Quarterly, New South, Quick Fiction, Guernica, Slice, BEST AMERICAN NONREQUIRED READING 2018, edited by Sheila Heti. THE LIST: 25 PROVOCATIVE WOMEN WRITERS (Black Lawrence Press, 2014), and BEST SMALL FICTIONS, 2016, 2017, 2018. She is the author of four collections of short fiction: a chapbook of flash fiction in the chapbook collective, A PECULIAR FEELING OF RESTLESSNESS; FOUR CHAPBOOKS OF SHORT SHORT FICTION BY FOUR WOMEN (Rose Metal Press, 2008), WILD LIFE (Matter Press, 2011), TOGETHER WE CAN BURY IT (Lit Pub, 2012), and RIFT, co-authored with Robert Vaughan (Unknown Press, 2015).

Writer Meghan Phillips talks about how a goal to write more poetry, plus a Kathy Fish workshop, plus memories of hormones came together to make her flash fiction story, ANGEL PEACHES BABY HONEY SWEETIE PIE SUGAR, published last year by WhiskeyPaper. Read her story ANGEL PEACHES BABY HONEY SWEETIE PIE SUGAR over at Whiskey Paper! http://www.whiskeypaper.com/whiskeypaper/angel-peaches-baby-honey-sweetie-pie-sugar-by-meghan-phillips Meghan Phillips is the fiction editor for Third Point Press and an associate editor for SmokeLong Quarterly. You can find her writing at meghan-phillips.com and her deep thoughts about dad rock on Twitter @mcarphil. She lives in Lancaster, PA.

On this episode, a guidebook for writers looking to get published and learn the secrets of the writing world. Meg Tuite is our moderator and our panel is Robert Vaughan, Kathy Fish, and Len Kuntz. What you’re going to hear about specifically is: Submitting to literary journals Competitions           Rejections, dealing with rejection, learning from rejections, levels of rejections Publishing collections and books Promotion

Do you want to systematize your business? In this interview, Kathy Fish CPA & President of Fish & Associates reveals reveals how she went from losing $7,000 in her financial planning business due to a lack of systems, to building a streamlined team that manages over $100 million for clients! You will also discover what […] The post How Kathy Fish is able to Manage Over $100 Million with a Small Team of 4 Employees as Result of Systematizing Her Business! appeared first on SweetProcess.

Kathy Fish and Robert Vaughan are the guests. They are the co-authors of a flash fiction collection called Rift, available now from Unknown Press. Rift was the official December 2015 selection of the TNB Book Club.   Kathy and Robert were in town for AWP about a month ago. Normally I interview book club authors in the month that their book is featured. In this case, we waited a bit so that we could record in-person. It was worth the wait. Fun meeting these guys. We got into all sorts of stuff. And I think they're the first flash fiction authors I've ever interviewed. I could be wrong. But to the best of my recollection they're the first.  In today's monologue, I answer some mail from a listener. He wants to know how I feel about the work of authors younger than I am.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The F-Bomb is Denver's premier flash fiction event, happening every month at Denver's own Mercury Cafe. January's F-Bomb "Mouth Crimes" featured Gay Degani and Sally Reno, with the fantacular Kathy Fish as our host. This is a live recording, prepare to get F-Bombed.

TURN THE PAGE Host Kayla Greenwell interviews the literati and oddball creative-types with a focus on DIY and grassroots initiatives. This week, Kayla will interview Robert Vaughan and Kathy Fish. Robert Vaughan’s writing has appeared in over 500 print and online journals. He leads writing roundtables at Red Oak Writing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Also, he teaches workshops, like the October 18-25 Poetry & Fiction: Writing from the Well of Diverse Genres at The Clearing in Door County, Wisconsin.He is in his 5th year as senior flash fiction editor at JMWW, as well as poetry and fiction editor at Lost in Thought magazine. He also is guest editor of Uno Kudo magazine, issue 5.Kathy Fish has joined the faculty of the Mile-High MFA at Regis University in Denver. She will be teaching flash fiction. Additionally, she teaches two-week intensive Fast Flash© Workshops. She also serves as Consulting Editor for the Queen’s Ferry Press series, THE BEST SMALL FICTIONS. Her fourth collection of short fiction, RIFT, co-authored with Robert Vaughan, is set to release in December, 2015 from Unknown Press.Her stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers, Black Lawrence Press, 2015, Richard Thomas (ed.), Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up to No Good,Upper Rubber Boot Books, 2015, H.L. Nelson and Joanne Merriam, (eds.), and various other journals and anthologies. She was the guest editor of Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web 2010. She is the author of three collections of short fiction: a chapbook of flash fiction in the chapbook collective, “A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women” (Rose Metal Press, 2008), “Wild Life” (Matter Press, 2011) and “Together We Can Bury It” available now from The Lit Pub.

TURN THE PAGE Host Kayla Greenwell interviews the literati and oddball creative-types with a focus on DIY and grassroots initiatives. This week, Kayla will interview Robert Vaughan and Kathy Fish. Robert Vaughan’s writing has appeared in over 500 print and online journals. He leads writing roundtables at Red Oak Writing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Also, he teaches workshops, like the October 18-25 Poetry & Fiction: Writing from the Well of Diverse Genres at The Clearing in Door County, Wisconsin.He is in his 5th year as senior flash fiction editor at JMWW, as well as poetry and fiction editor at Lost in Thought magazine. He also is guest editor of Uno Kudo magazine, issue 5.Kathy Fish has joined the faculty of the Mile-High MFA at Regis University in Denver. She will be teaching flash fiction. Additionally, she teaches two-week intensive Fast Flash© Workshops. She also serves as Consulting Editor for the Queen’s Ferry Press series, THE BEST SMALL FICTIONS. Her fourth collection of short fiction, RIFT, co-authored with Robert Vaughan, is set to release in December, 2015 from Unknown Press.Her stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers, Black Lawrence Press, 2015, Richard Thomas (ed.), Choose Wisely: 35 Women Up to No Good,Upper Rubber Boot Books, 2015, H.L. Nelson and Joanne Merriam, (eds.), and various other journals and anthologies. She was the guest editor of Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web 2010. She is the author of three collections of short fiction: a chapbook of flash fiction in the chapbook collective, “A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women” (Rose Metal Press, 2008), “Wild Life” (Matter Press, 2011) and “Together We Can Bury It” available now from The Lit Pub.

Rift, the newest release from Robert Vaughan and Kathy Fish from Unknown Press is a co-authored collection of flash fiction. In this episode Kathy and Robert read several stories from their new novel. During the interview they discuss bringing the book to life, indie publishing, their writers' journey and give lots of great advice to new and aspiring writers. 

In the final installation of this flash fiction trifecta Denver's best and brightest flash-stars read for F-Bomb's open mic. Readers include but are not limited to: Nancy Stohlman, Kona Morris, Nick Morris, Jack C. Buck, Steven Dunn, Kathy Fish, Roseanna Frechette, Nora Cox, and many more.

The People Here Are So Hardy and Cheerful by Kathy Fish and The Last Thing I Need by Meghan Kenny

"Delivery" written and read by Kathy Fish (listening time is 2 minutes and 38 seconds, starts at 0:45). "Girl on the Floor" written by Thomas Kearnes and read by Ann Rushton (listening time is 4 minutes and 45 seconds, starts at 3:58). "The Smallest of Offerings" written and read by Susi Wyss (listening time is 5 minutes and 9 seconds, starts at 9:15). "Mario's Three Lives" written by Matt Bell and read by Mark Rushton (listening time is 6 minutes and 29 seconds, starts at 15:05).