Posts by Christopher Lochhead
313 Revenue: How To Drive Growth & Prevent Revenue Leak with Andy Byrne, CEO of Clari

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In good times and bad, every drop of revenue matters. Without it, none of us even has a business. On this episode, we have a riveting conversation about the past, present, and future of revenue operations with Andy Byrne – the entrepreneur, CEO, and category designer of revenue operations.
Andy Byrne is the CEO of Clari, and is known widely in the industry as the prime minister of revenue. And right now, Clari is doing an extraordinary thing, and has become the category King in revenue operations.
Pay special attention to Andy’s insights into how boards and investors are now starting to focus on revenue governance. As you listen to Andy, you’ll also be getting a masterclass in how a CEO can be an evangelist for their company, and their category.
You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.
Andy Byrne on being the CEO of a Red-hot Company
The discussion begins with Andy being asked about his experience as co-founder and CEO of a successful startup, particularly over the last three unusual years.
Andy expresses excitement about the impact his company has made, including the creation of a new job category called Revenue Operations, which is now the fastest growing and most lucrative job in the industry in the United States. He also mentions how proud he is that their platform has managed over $1 trillion in assets.
He believes they are only getting started and will have a significant impact on the world.
How Revenue Operations and the rise of AI
Andy describes how he and his team saw an opportunity in developing an enterprise system to manage the revenue business process from beginning to end. They saw revenue as more than just an outcome, but as a critical business process in need of a dedicated system. He is pleased with the effect their company has had on the lives of many people, particularly revenue-critical employees, and believes that this is only the beginning.
With regard to AI, Andy is excited about the potential of machine learning and artificial intelligence to make a meaningful impact, citing an example of their system accurately predicting a healthcare life sciences company’s $1.6 billion quarter within hours of being turned on.
The Problem with the Three-Headed Hydra
Andy then chimes in on importance of revenue and the challenges that companies face when using antiquated revenue management systems. He re-emphasizes that revenue is a business process, and it is the most important process in a company.
Unfortunately, many businesses continue to rely on the three-headed Hydra: CRM, Excel, and BI, resulting in revenue leaks, reporting leaks, and inaccurate forecasting. Christopher shares his experience working with businesses that face unexpected deals in the final days of the quarter, which can be problematic if the company’s forecasting is inaccurate. Andy agrees and stresses that using these subpar systems increases risk and should put a stop to investor interest in that stock.
To hear more from Andy Byrne and how to avoid revenue leaks in your business, download and listen to this episode.
Bio
Andy Byrne brings over 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, business development and management to his position as CEO of Clari.
Clari is the category leader in the Revenue Software Platform market, with over $1 trillion in revenue under management.
Prior to Clari, Andy was part of the founding executive team at Clearwell Systems, which he helped grow from pre-product & pre-revenue in 2005 to $100 million run rate until its acquisition by Symantec (SYMC) in Q2 2011.
Prior to joining Clearwell, Andy co-founded Timestock, Inc., which was acquired by Computer Associates (CA) via the acquisition of Wily Technology. Timestock delivered world-class enterprise application management solutions to large fortune 500 corporations.
Before Timestock, Andy was VP of Marketing at Desana Systems. Prior to Desana, Andy was VP of Product Management at Lucent Technologies. Andy came to Lucent Technologies via the acquisition of VitalSigns Software. He has also held sales, marketing & management roles at Bay Networks and at MiLAN Technologies, which was later acquired by Digi International.
Andy holds a BS in Economics from the University of Nevada and received his MBA with honors from San Jose State University.
Links
Connect with Andy Byrne!
Clari website | Clari Revenue Leak Assessment | LinkedIn | Twitter
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
173 Untold lessons from the SVB bank run | Christopher Lochhead on Starting Greatness with Mike Maples Jr.

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Pirate Lochhead is sailing the seven seas this week, so we’re dropping a legendary conversation that he had recently with Mike Maples Jr. and Ann Miura on the Starting Greatness Podcast.
They discuss the recent SVB bank run that lead to a variety of situations and accusations by “experts” on social media. They also discuss what lessons a Founder can learn by studying the cause and effect of such crisis and circumstances.
Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind.
How a crisis can make us better
Mike opens up the discussion by stating that while crisis is something we do not wish to happen on anyone, it can be a valuable source of information and introspection on what Founders can improve upon within their own companies and organizations.
No one saw it coming
Ann Miura shares that the SVB bank run has caught her completely unawares, as did most of the companies in Silicon Valley. Even those who had their teams monitoring SVB activities only caught wind of the situation a day or two before it happened, and by then it was already too late even for them.
The Difference between the Public and the Founders
Ann also observed that while people on social media and the news media are shouting doomsday scenarios and blaming each other over the situation, the Founders that she was working with at Floodgate had their head down and was busy finding ways to mitigate the situation, and looking at possible scenarios to move forward, should the SVB run not get resolved in the near future.
It showed a stark contrast on how the mind of a Founder operates in crisis situations, and it should be something that a lot of business leaders should emulate if they themselves suffer through a sudden situation that needed their immediate focus and levelheadedness.
To hear more from Mike Maples Jr. Ann Miura, and the Pirate Lochhead himself, download and listen to this episode.
Check out more Starting Greatness episodes!
Bio
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
312 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do with Amy Morin, One of America’s Favorite Psychotherapists

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Over the recent past, we’ve all been through one of the craziest, most challenging times in modern history. simultaneously, we’ve had to negotiate all of these things, inside of the context of dealing with our personal lives, our businesses, our careers, and any life challenges that we may have had along the way. So we thought that it would be great to welcome back the legendary Amy Morin, for some much needed group psychotherapy.
In less than a decade, Amy Morin has become one of America’s most popular psychotherapists. She’s just got that special quality. Amy is a person who is radically human, incredibly smart, empathetic, and surprisingly, approachable. Maybe that’s why we think she’s become America’s top or one of the top Psychotherapist and a multi-time Bestselling Author.
Her new book is out, and it’s called 13 things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do Workbook. So in this episode, we dive into all that and find out ways to tactically bolster our own mental strength as we go along.
You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.
A Quick Update on Amy Morin
Amy has been a guest before in Follow Your Different, and since then she has written new things and accomplished so much more.
While Amy has many years of experience and success as a psychotherapist and writer, she quickly found herself with new inspiration and multiple inputs when Covid struck the world. Given the mental strain of worrying about a pandemic, the additional factor of having to stay home and people being exposed to a plethora of terrible news on TV, as well as the helplessness of being unable to do anything, did a number on everyone.
Amy realized that she was in a unique position of having the knowledge to assist and a way to share that knowledge through her podcasts and later, in print. As a result, she has written a few works on how to deal with mentally demanding situations and stress, and she recently released a workbook on how to boost one’s mental strength.
Mental Health Podcast or Therapy?
Amy shares that sometimes, their mental health podcast turns into an impromptu psychotherapy session – not just for the guest, but as well as the listeners who are going through the same situation in their own ways.
When asked about the difference between podcasting and her psychotherapy sessions, Amy admits that there are times that those two seem to blur together, yet she thinks it is important to keep a distinction.
Sometimes, the therapist in me wants to respond one way, and then I’m like, but there’s people listening. So you need to respond in another way. So I’m always very aware of that, like, ‘Oh, am I gonna respond to this a little bit differently. And I want to be empathetic’. But at the same time, I didn’t want to open up a can of worms for somebody who forgets that this is a podcast. I don’t want to ever make it seem like we’re getting them to open up in a way to then take advantage of them.”
– Amy Morin
The importance of having a healthy amount of Not-Give-A-Shit Attitude
We then talk about what it is like to have a public following, and how having a healthy amount of no-give-a-shit attitude helps wonders with their own mental health.
Amy agrees with this, and shares that she recently did a podcast about the topic of bad mental health advice you might be getting in social media. She had wanted to explore the topic more, and even go so much as contact those who posted the now-viral meme “advice”.
But she didn’t go through with it in the end. At the end of the day, all she’d gain is a migraine from arguing with people who don’t care. She would rather focus on her own inner peace and work on other topics for her own podcast.
To hear more from Amy Morin and how to bolster your mental strength to take on the world, download and listen to this episode.
Bio
Amy Morin is a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and a lecturer at Northeastern University.
She’s been dubbed the “self-help guru of the moment,” by The Guardian and Forbes refers to her as a “thought leadership star.”
Her knowledge of mental strength stems far beyond her professional experience.
She’s experienced a series of losses in her personal life that gave her first-hand insight into the strategies that build resilience.
In 2013, her article 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do was read by over 30 million people around the world.
Her best-selling book, also called, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, is being translated into 25 languages.
Her newest book, “13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don’t Do: Raising Self-Assured Children and Training Their Brains for a Life of Happiness, Meaning, and Success” is a sensation.
Amy’s advice has been featured by a number of media outlets, including: Parenting, Time, Fast Company, Good Housekeeping, Elle, Business Insider, Cosmopolitan, Success, Oprah.com, Health, Fox News, US News & World Report, and The Washington Post. She has also provided on-camera interviews for Fox Business, Forbes, TheBlaze TV and an upcoming documentary with Red Bull. She’s a frequent guest on a variety of radio shows as well.
Amy serves as Verywell’s Parenting Teens Expert and Child Discipline Expert. She’s a regular contributor to Forbes, Inc., and Psychology Today.
A sought after speaker, Amy loves to share the latest research on resilience and the best strategies for overcoming adversity and building mental muscle.
Links
Connect with Amy Morin!
Amy’s Website | Twitter | Verywell Health
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
172 The New Way To Create Content & Code

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There is a fundamental tectonic change happening in the way work gets done – White Collar knowledge work to be specific.
This new technology is creating a new category of worker beyond what has been the sort of top of the pyramid, the Knowledge Workers. There’s a new layer above the Knowledge Worker emerging called the Creator Capitalist – someone who gets paid not simply to apply knowledge, but to create it. And that’s because the value of existing knowledge is dropping exponentially every day with the emergence of AI.
Today, let’s talk about how this is already becoming a radically different future right in front of our eyes, powered by chatGPT.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is the fastest growing application or website in the history of humanity by quite a lot. And while there are users that only see it as a minor amusement at the moment, people have been heavily using it for their jobs and businesses already. There are entrepreneurs, writers and other related enterprises that use it to write newsletters, blog posts, and even outlines for book ideas.
Of course, you don’t just put it the prompt and take the ChatGPT output as it is. While it is doing a pretty good job, even with niche-y things, there’s still room for improvement, as well as giving it the old human touch. But the biggest thing here is, it saves people time. Time that could be better spent on improving other aspects of your business.
How ChatGPT can innovate your craft
In terms of creating content, whether it be an blog article, newsletter, or marketing content, there is so many ways you can take advantage of this technology.
As mentioned earlier, you can use it to write first drafts to flesh out an idea you have and refine it afterwards to make it more unique and correct stuff that seem off-point to what you had in mind. You can also use in something as simple as improving the readability and format of the thing you’ve already written beforehand.
You can even use ChatGPT to learn new things before creating your content by providing it with sources and different templates on which to base the content you intend to create later.
The AI is as smart as you make it to be
While the AI has a lot of capabilities that it can do, it all still boils down to how we use it. An example would be the prompts that we give ChatGPT to execute. Being too vague or general with your prompts can yield confusing and subpar results, as multiple users have observed. So it is best to do some research from prompt engineers on how to maximize the results of your requests to the AI, so you’ll get the best quality of content or feedback all the time.
To learn more on how you can use ChatGPT and other AI technology to create content and code, download and listen to this episode.
Bio
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:
Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One
The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche
A Marketer’s Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
311 The Future of American Healthcare with Dr. Ashwini Zenooz, CEO of Commure

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All of us want the best healthcare for our families, our communities, and our country. But Legacy approaches and technologies in the United States often stop our healthcare heroes from being able to deliver the legendary care they want to deliver. So let us have a dialogue about this and much more with our guest, Dr. Ashwini Zenooz.
Dr. Ashwini Zenooz is a radiologist who became the chief medical officer of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. She then joined the technology industry, and became the chief medical officer at Salesforce.com. Dr. Ash is now the CEO of Commure, a venture-backed startup on a mission to produce a breakthrough in digital health. Her achievements thus far have been incredible, and we hope that her personal story will inspire you.
You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.
Dr. Ashwini Zenooz on the current state of COVID
The conversation starts of with a question for Dr. Ash on the current state of COVID, particularly if we are past the crisis part of it.
Dr. Ash responds that there’s still a lot of things to look into, as COVID has not only affected our healthcare, but different parts of society and fields as well.
“I would say it’s yet to be seen. I think it’s not just the healthcare part. There’s a lot of other implications from the pandemic that were seeping into with the economy. There’s a lot of stuff that’s happening around us that’s related or as a result of the pandemic. So it’s yet to be seen. But yeah, I would say that at least the crisis is over.”
– Dr. Ashwini Zenooz
On how the US fared in the COVID pandemic
As much as it hurts to say, Dr. Ash shares that there were things that the US could have done better on. She thinks its partly because we try to “reinvent the wheel” every time there’s an epidemic or pandemic. As a society, we have had a lot of ways to learn how to properly respond and mitigate the damages, yet we tend to commit the same mistakes over and over again once it happens.
What’s even more frustrating from a healthcare standpoint is our lack of concern for future occurrences. When a major healthcare issue is resolved, it appears that no one is interested in researching how to prevent the next case, or what to do if the next one would be on a larger scale than the one before.
It’s like we only care to look back once the current one is already at our doorstep.
Dr. Ashwini Zenooz on masks and vaccines
On the topic of preventive measure, Dr. Ash was asked about what she thought about wearing masks and taking the vaccine.
For mask-wearing, Dr. Ash shares that for her, it is a personal choice. Even if airlines and public spaces don’t require you to wear them anymore, she opts to wear them because she wants to. For her, having that extra precaution for a little inconvenience is not a big deal, but she wouldn’t be offended if she sees someone not wearing one in a public place.
For vaccines, her thoughts as a layperson or a simple mom is that there would be more documentation or data available to the public on the tests that were done that passed the approval of the FDA, and have someone who can explain it to the general public. This avoids confusion and misinformation from spreading out, and less hesitation for asking assistance when someone eventually decides to finally get their vaccines.
To hear more from Dr. Ashwini Zenooz and the future of American healthcare, download and listen to this episode.
Bio
Ashwini Zenooz, M.D.
Dr. Ashwini Zenooz is the CEO of Commure, a venture-backed technology company dedicated to building a health ecosystem rooted in collaborative care and connected innovation.
Prior to Commure, Dr. Zenooz was Chief Medical Officer at Salesforce.
Dr. Zenooz was also the Chief Medical Officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) overseeing the national EHR modernization program, where she was responsible for organizational change management, business process redesign, and implementation of a new digital health platform. She has also held senior policy development and operational roles including serving as Deputy for VA Health Policy and Services, Legislative Health Policy Fellow with U.S.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Committee Staff on U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, and Chief of Imaging Services.
Dr. Zenooz graduated with summa cum laude distinction in undergraduate studies and received an MD in the Medical Honors Program at the University of Florida.
She completed radiology residency at Henry Ford Health System and an Abdominal Imaging fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Dr. Zenooz is board certified in radiology and continues to practice medicine today.
Links
Connect with Dr. Ashwini Zenooz!
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
171 Why Treating Your Creative Marketing Like It’s Not Tied To Revenue Will Get You More Revenue | Christopher Lochhead on Modern Startup Marketing Podcast with Anna Furmanov

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Pirate Lochhead is sailing the seven seas this week, so we’re dropping a legendary conversation that he had recently with Anna Furmanov on the Modern Startup Marketing podcast.
They discuss creative marketing category design, guns, human composting and more. Yes, human composting. Just… listen, trust me.
Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind.
What does “Creative” mean to you?
The conversation starts off with Anna asking for Christopher’s definition on being a creative.
Christopher shares that in order to consider something as being “creative”, it has to be something new.
“Being creative is bringing into being something that did not exist. You can take an existing thing and innovate on top of it and create something new. But at the end of whatever the creative process is, it yields a new creation. And sometimes that’s a doodle on a page. And sometimes it’s a new piece of code. There’s lots of different acts of creation that bring new things into the world. But fundamentally, I think creation is about exactly that.”
– Christopher Lochhead
On when you feel the most creative
Continuing on the topic of creativity, Anna asks when Christopher felt the most creative, whether its on a specific project, a certain period of time, or something else entirely.
“So for me, creativity, really at a high level, comes in two ways. One is just pure inspiration. Right – you’re out on a walk, you’re washing the dishes, you’re in the shower, your whatever it is you’re doing, an idea comes into your head. Because I’m a writer, I get sentences delivered to my head, and/or power ideas hiding in paragraphs. And then I’ll have to immediately get to a piece of paper or my iPhone and write that shit down. That can happen anytime, all the time. My wife will see me running across the house to grab a pen or to grab my phone and start talking to it, so I don’t forget the idea.”
– Christopher Lochhead
Thinking about thinking
One of the things Christopher pointed about how people perceive thinking is that they misconstrue having thoughts as “thinking”. Having thoughts just means an idea or a thought that pops in your head, without much effort put into it, almost like a kneejerk reaction.
Thinking, on the other hand, is actually taking that thought and processing it. It’s the suspension of that immediate and reflexive thought that one can really get into deeper details of the topic, and even find out why it elicited that sort of reaction from you and other people around you.
To hear more from Christopher Lochhead and his conversation with Anna Furmanov on the Modern Startup Marketing Podcast, download and listen to this episode.
Check out more Modern Startup Marketing Podcast episodes!
Bio
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
310 The Work/Life Flywheel with Bestselling Author Ollie Henderson

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Almost everybody wants to design a legendary life and make a difference, but it can be harder than it sounds. On this episode, you’ll get a very different conversation about designing a life with meaningful work that works for you. And who better to have this conversation than with our guest, Ollie Henderson.
Ollie Henderson is an entrepreneur, CEO, and bestselling author of the book called “The Work/Life Flywheel”. He is a great guy, and we really get into a heartfelt conversation about how we can all design the legendary life for ourselves. By the end of this episode, we hope you’ll have some new tools for living your life, your way.
You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.
Ollie Henderson on Work/Life Balance
The conversation starts off with the two agreeing on how much they “love” work/life balance. Ollie responds that he had kept a few choice words in the book that his editor would rather not have, but it was important to the point Ollie was making.
That being said, Ollie shares that his issue with Work/Life balance is just a term people used to oversimply a supposedly complex matter in our lives, mostly due to laziness and have something easy to adhere to, like a schedule or a task to do.
“I think the thing about work life balance is that it’s a lazy feeling that we all have. It’s something we think we should adhere to. Like, ‘yeah, we should all have better work life balance’, and it kind of makes sense. It has the best intentions, but it’s frankly, wrong. It doesn’t make sense.”
– Ollie Henderson
Work vs Life
Another thing that Ollie pointed out is that the semantics of the word is also all wrong. Work/Life Balance conjures up the image of you pitting up Work versus Life; that you cannot have both at the same time, and that one of them is better than the other.
“I think when people say they aspire for work/life balance, what they’re saying is, ‘I am going to place work in life against one another, because work is bad and life is good. And if I can’t find this equilibrium, then my life is not complete’.”
– Ollie Henderson
The issue is that statement is not true for every individual, and there is no one-and-done balancing to be done. Nobody has achieved that precise equilibrium, because it doesn’t work like a countermeasure of one over the other.
Work/Life Flywheel
Christopher adds that we have to reject the notion of work and life are compartmentalized in different sections, and we somehow need to balance them on weighing scales. There is only “Life”, and we do a lot of things in that life.
So if not Work/Life Balance, what then? Ollie shares that there are some who use the term “integration” to add a new perspective to it. For him, he prefers to use the term “Flywheel”, because it entails that everything he does in life are interdependent of each other.
“It’s this idea that there isn’t a single part of your work your life that is any more important than the other; they’re all interdependent. For me, when I’m doing great work and I’m happy at work, I’m a better person, I’m a better dad, I’m a better partner. And when I’m a better partner and a better dad, that manifests more in my work.”
– Ollie Henderson
To hear more from Ollie Henderson and the Work/Life Flywheel, download and listen to this episode.
Bio
Ollie Henderson
Experienced founder and CEO, Ollie Henderson, pivoted his career while juggling the pleasures and pressures of raising a young family.
He believes work/life balance is a myth. Rather than seeing career and personal life as two opposing forces, Ollie argues that the secret is to design an integrated approach that allows them to work in harmony.
Ollie’s weekly newsletter and Top 10 Careers podcast, Future Work/Life, provides news and analysis to thousands of people interested in the future of work, covering subjects like creativity and innovation, data and technology, peak performance and workplace culture.
He’s the author of the Amazon bestseller Work/Life Flywheel: Harness the work revolution and reimagine your career without fear.
Links
Connect with Ollie Henderson!
LinkedIn | Future Work/Life Newsletter | Work/Life Flywheel
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
309 Ancient Wisdom For A Modern America with Simran Jeet Singh, Bestselling Author of “The Light We Give” & Aspen Institute Religion & Society Executive Director

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Have you ever had a conversation with someone where you feel very lucky to have been able to meet and talk to that person? My conversation with our guest, Dr. Simran Jeet Singh, felt like just that.
Simran Jeet Singh, PhD is the Executive Director of the Religion and Society Program at the world-famous Aspen Institute. He’s also the author of a new national bestseller, called The Light We Give: How Sikh wisdom can transform your life.
You’re listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let’s go.
Dr. Simran Jeet Singh on Sikh Wisdom
The conversation starts with one of the major proponents that Dr. Simran shares to everyone, which is Sikh wisdom. He defines it as such:
“I think Sikh wisdom is these experiences and insights that people before us have developed and we have access to if we want. And one of our choices is do we want to learn all the lessons the hard way, or do we want to step into these treasures that are already available to us. It is the Sikh philosophy and traditions that I didn’t really learn to appreciate until I got older and started meeting real challenges in my life.”
– Dr. Simran Jeet Singh
Dr. Simran used these Sikh wisdom in moments of his life where he felt huge struggles and difficulties to guide himself into the person that he wants to be.
The Challenges of being Different
On such moment was when the events during 9/11 occurred, and the whole country was, in many ways, suffering a collective sense of trauma. It was a vulnerable feeling that people of the United States did not think they would feel. But the feeling of vulnerability was even more so for Dr. Simran and his community.
“In this moment of extreme difficulty for our country, of extreme anger and violence, all of a sudden, I and people belonging to my community fell into the stereotype of how Americans saw their enemy. And so that, I think, is partly what felt so difficult in this moment: on the one hand, I felt like I was an American and belonged here and was going through the same trauma as everyone else. Yet at the same time, so many people around me, my fellow Americans would look at me and be like, “no, no, you’re not one of us here.””
– Dr. Simran Jeet Singh
It hurts doubly for Dr. Simran, as he understands the pain and vulnerability that they are experiencing, as someone who has lived in the US for quite some time. But at the same time, the hate created by the almost-kneejerk reaction that some had afterwards was something that his community and others did not deserve, simply because they were different.
Dr. Simran Jeet Singh on educating the masses
Dr. Simran believes that this reaction is fear born from ignorance, and is something that could be remedied by educating the people on what the Sikh ideologies and culture really stand for.
Sometimes, he would be surprised that an average American doesn’t know where Punjab is, let alone what a Sikh was. That gave Dr. Simran a sense of where he needed to start. Even before educating about the different cultures and ideologies, they might not even have an idea of where you came from, and they have been making assumptions about your culture based on the wrong information.
To hear more from Dr. Simran Jeet Singh and Sikh wisdom, download and listen to this episode.
Bio
Simran Jeet Singh PhD is Executive Director for the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program and author of The Light We Give: How Sikh Wisdom Can Transform Your Life.
He is a visiting professor of history and religion at Union Theological Seminary and a Soros Equality Fellow with the Open Society Foundations, and in 2020 TIME Magazine recognized him among sixteen people fighting for a more equal America.
His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN, and he is a columnist for Religion News Service.
Author of the award-winning children’s book Fauja Singh Keeps Going: The True Story of the Oldest Person to Ever Run a Marathon, Simran is an engaging guest speaker who delivers keynotes and facilitates workshops.
His message has been described as “critical and essential” and he’s noted for his “unwavering and empathetic approach to anti-racist work.” Simran lives in New York City with his family.
Links
Connect with Dr. Simran Jeet Singh!
Website | The Light We Give | The Sikh Coalition
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
170 Silicon Valley: What Happened & What People Are Confused About

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It’s been a crazy handful of days in Silicon Valley. But now that the federal government has made their announcements and has the ball rolling, I wanted to spend a few minutes with you just clarifying some things that seem to be creating confusion in the recent Silicon Valley Bank situation.
There seems to be more confusion about what just happened with the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and what the federal government just did as there was about COVID. So let me see if I can break this down for all of you.
Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing. The number one charting marketing podcast for marketers, category designers, and entrepreneurs with a different mind.
There is no Bank Bailout for the Silicon Valley Bank
Let me say that again: there was no bank bailout here.
The executives got fired. None of the investors, creditors, nobody doing business with the bank, in that sense, are getting any of their money back, particularly the investors in the board. The Silicon Valley Bank is gone.
The Effect on the US Finance
The President has said that this will not cost taxpayers’ money. You may choose to believe it or not, but that is the current position of the government on the matter. What they’re saying is if there’s any protection money required, it will come from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).
The FDIC is an insurance company managed by the federal government, which is paid for by Wall Street and the banks. They pay insurance fees to the FDIC for drastic instances such as these.
Making that point clear as soon as possible was a good move by the federal government, because if they have wavered in their decision to do so, twisted narratives about bank bailouts and conjuring the past instances of it happening would have been a bad blow to the US government’s image.
The Silicon Valley Bank Depositors will get their money back
White there’s no direct timetable for when the depositors can get their full funds back, the federal government, via the FDIC, came in and said that they will make sure that the people will get 100% of their money back.
Here’s where most of the confusion lie at the moment, because there are some who spin the narrative like this resembles the recent FTX crash. But unlike the FTX crash where the money is in large parts gone, the Silicon Valley Bank’s money is still there. The main issue at the moment is that there were some horrendous mistakes in investing the money, which caused it to be stuck and become inaccessible at the moment. So when a bank run happened, they didn’t have enough cash. And that’s what caused this.
But the money is still there, unless we learn otherwise after the ongoing investigations.
To hear more updates and suggestions on how Silicon Valley, the federal government, and the FDIC can prevent such a crisis from happening again, download and listen to this episode.
Bio
Christopher Lochhead is a #1 Apple podcaster and #1 Amazon bestselling co-author of books: Niche Down and Play Bigger.
He has been an advisor to over 50 venture-backed startups; a former three-time Silicon Valley public company CMO and an entrepreneur.
Furthermore, he has been called “one of the best minds in marketing” by The Marketing Journal, a “Human Exclamation Point” by Fast Company, a “quasar” by NBA legend Bill Walton and “off-putting to some” by The Economist.
In addition, he served as a chief marketing officer of software juggernaut Mercury Interactive. Hewlett-Packard acquired the company in 2006, for $4.5 billion.
He also co-founded the marketing consulting firm LOCHHEAD; the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!