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On today’s episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, what you’re about to hear is a story of challenge, loss, courage, and triumph. We’re also releasing it now in part because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So join us as we have a meaningful dialogue with our guest, Katrin Van Dam.

Katrin Van Dam is a successful executive in the media business, and she’s focused on content for kids and families. About three years ago, doctors told her that she had to have both breasts removed because of cancer. What she did next will surprise and will likely inspire you because she chose a different path.

By the end of this dialogue, I think you’ll gain some legendary insights into a problem that almost all of us will be touched by.

Katrin van Dam on Breast Cancer

The dialogue starts of with Christopher sharing that as people stay longer in this world, they experience a lot of expected and unexpected things. One of the unexpected things would be cancer and other serious ailments.

Katrin van Dam replies that it is not as unexpected as we all thought. Given that one in eight women get diagnosed with breast cancer. So rather than unexpected, it’s something to be aware of and get checked for every once in a while, after a certain age.

When Katrin was diagnosed with breast cancer, she found that both her breast had an invasive type of cancer. So rather than going for radiation, she opted to nip the problem in the bud and went with mastectomy.

Being Presented with Options

The part that Katrin found perplexing afterwards was when she found out that there was an option to not have breast reconstruction after undergoing mastectomy. Most would’ve probably taken reconstruction as part of the process, rather than an option.

But Katrin also clarifies that she’s not advocating that everyone not to have reconstruction, but consider if it is really something they want.

“I want to be clear about this. It’s a tremendous boon to somebody who wants to have breast mount reconstruction. For many, many women, that is a great way to be able to sort of move on from what’s happened to them and to reconnect with their bodies. And I don’t begrudge anyone that, but knowing that it was not for me.” – Katrin van Dam

She also points out that Breast Mound Reconstruction is not a one-and-done thing. It is normal for those pursuing it to have multiple operations to have the desired outcome that they want, and as with any operation, each one of those presents risks.

This is why Katrin is pissed that women aren’t given all the options upfront, and some have gone through painful and risky operations for something that they may have not wanted in the first place.

Making an Informed Decision

Katrin brings up a conversation she had with her husband when she informed him that she wasn’t getting the reconstruction. It surprised her that he did not give his immediate support on the matter, which got Katrin thinking if she missed something.

In retrospect, Katrin realized that they were not operating on the same knowledge base. She who has had time to research on the complications and risks of reconstruction can confidently say that she doesn’t want one, as compared to her husband who has not delved into the matter as deep as she did.

Another thing was that they were working on different assumptions: him thinking that having no breast would be a constant reminder of the cancer, while Katrin not caring about it at all.

In the end, Katrin realized that she could’ve communicated better, not just on the final decision, but on her process on how she got to that decision.

To hear more from Katrin van Dam on how to be Flat and Happy, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Katrin van Dam has worked in children’s media and licensing for nearly thirty years and is currently a creative executive at a major media company.

A few months after her debut Young Adult novel was published, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy.

After getting a taste of the societal pressure to have reconstruction, she felt compelled to provide a resource for women who are facing this difficult decision. FLAT AND HAPPY, her first work of nonfiction, came out of that commitment.

Katrin lives with her husband in New York City.

She is an avid theatergoer and enjoys hosting raucous dinner parties and traveling.

Katrin is also passionate about good food, storytelling, and saving our beautiful, besieged planet (not necessarily in that order). She is a graduate of Yale University.

Links

Connect with Katrin van Dam!

Website | Flat & Happy

More information about Breast Cancer: www.cancer.org

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

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US President Joe Biden recently warned about the possibility of Armageddon. He said “we have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis.” On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we discuss the current situation in the US and around the world with All In Podcast Rain Man, David Sacks.

David Sacks is a legendary entrepreneur, category and company builder, and now venture capitalist. He’s the founder of a VC firm called Craft Ventures. He was the founding Chief Operating Officer of PayPal founder and CEO of Yammer, which sold to Microsoft for well over a billion dollars. He has been an early investor in companies like Facebook, Twitter, Uber, SpaceX, Airbnb, Slack, and more. And today, he’s also incredibly well known as one of the CO hosts of the All In podcast.

So listen in to keep up with current affairs, and you might learn a thing or two on how to prepare for the future.

David Sacks on Biden’s comment about Armageddon

We begin on the recent comments that Biden made about Armageddon. When asked why he thinks Biden’s thoughts went that way, David’s reply was:

“My reaction to this was the man who can’t see two steps ahead, suddenly realizes where his policy is leading. We’re the ones who have refused to engage in any sort of diplomacy or any sort of negotiated settlement. Our strategy is not to provide them with an off ramp.” – David Sacks

But David also thinks that Biden acknowledging this is a step in the right direction.

“That being said, I still thought it was incredibly useful for Biden to say what he said, because the first step of getting out of a problem is acknowledging that you’re in one.” – David Sacks

David Sacks on Tactical Nukes & Risking Nuclear War

There has also been talks of using tactical nukes to quickly resolve the situation. David does not agree with this, saying that using nukes at this point just opens up the risk of a nuclear war.

“If a tactical nuclear weapon gets used in Ukraine, then the whole world will be different. This thing could escalate very quickly into a larger scale nuclear war.

You had Petraeus on the Sunday shows last weekend saying that if Putin uses attack nukes, the US should respond by hitting every Russian military target in Ukraine? Well, again, think two steps ahead. How do you think the Russians would react to that, given that they clearly don’t have the military might to stand up to the US in terms of conventional arms?” – David Sacks

If countries start using nukes, then it signals that the former agreements against it can be violated with impunity. And that is a dangerous ground to tread.

Prediction or Deterrent

Returning to Biden’s statement about Armageddon, David suggests that, rather than being a prediction, this statement, along with Petreaus’, could be interpreted as a warning or deterrent against Russia going nuclear.

The problem is that the reasons why the Russians might escalate to the use of nuclear weapons is because they’re losing the war by conventional means. Add to the fact that Putin doesn’t have an off ramp that lets him keep his reign. Because if he loses this war, or doesn’t gain anything significant from it, it is very likely that he will be forced out of office by the public.

Putin is pretty much acting like a cornered beast at this point. The scary part is that you don’t know what that cornered beast might do as a last-ditch effort to escape.

To hear more from David Sacks and the current situation of the world, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

David Sacks is co-founder and general partner at Craft. He has been a successful founder and investor for over two decades, building and investing in some of the most iconic companies in tech. He has invested in over 20 unicorns, including Affirm, AirBnB, Bird, ClickUp, Eventbrite, Facebook, Houzz, Lyft, OpenDoor, Palantir, Postmates, Reddit, Slack, SpaceX, Twitter, Uber, and Wish.

David is also co-host of the popular “All-In Podcast” with Chamath Palihapitiya, David Friedberg, and Jason Calacanis.

David first got involved in the technology industry in 1999 when he joined early-stage startup Confinity, later renamed PayPal. Serving as the company’s first product leader and then as COO, David built and ran many of the company’s key teams, including product management and design, sales and marketing, business development, international, customer service, fraud operations, and HR. He pivoted the product from beaming money on Palm Pilots to emailing money on the web, and introduced the business model. When the company IPO’d on the Nasdaq in 2002, David was 29 — the median age of the “PayPal Mafia” executives listed on the S-1. PayPal was later acquired by eBay and eventually spun back out into a publicly traded company (under ticker symbol PYPL).

In 2008, David founded enterprise collaboration company Yammer, which was one of the first SaaS startups to apply consumer growth tactics to enterprise software. Yammer’s viral approach made it one of the fastest-growing SaaS startups in history, exceeding eight million enterprise users in just four years. As Founder/CEO of Yammer, David grew the company to roughly $60 million in sales and 500 employees. In July 2012, Microsoft acquired Yammer for $1.2 billion. It remains one of the fastest unicorn exits in SaaS.

Since Yammer, David has continued to be involved in the SaaS world, with an emphasis on “Bottom Up SaaS,” the strategy he pioneered at Yammer by combining product-led growth with B2B sales. Bottom-up SaaS companies combine the growth potential of B2C with the enterprise budgets of B2B, leading to explosive outcomes when ARR goes viral.

David is well known in Silicon Valley for his product acumen. AngelList’s Naval Ravikant has called David “the world’s best product strategist.” David likes to begin pitch meetings by seeing a product demo.

Links

Connect with David Sacks

Website | Bottom Up | All In Podcast | Twitter | LinkedIn

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

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Most people want to be welcoming of others and believe in equality for all human beings. But we’re all a little biased. On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we go deep on the topic of bias with our guest, Jessica Nordell.

Jessica Nordell is a bestselling author who has written a book called The End of Bias. Jessica’s book has won a boatload of awards, including being named a Best Book of the Year by the World Economic Forum.

What you’re about to experience is a real different dialogue about what it really takes to end bias.

Jessica Nordell on Bias and Racism

The conversation starts off on the topic of Bias, and how it relates to racism.

Christopher asks if racism and bias served a purpose for humanity or not, to which Jessica replies:

“Racism certainly emerged because it had a very specific social, political and economic purpose, which was to enable the existence of chattel slavery. In order to justify and sort of perpetuate the existence of that inhumane practice, what we would look at now as a criminal, criminally inhumane enterprise, Racism had to exist as a as a way to justify it. Because if a group of people are seen as lower on a social hierarchy, then it’s much easier to justify that kind of inhumane behavior.” – Jessica Nordell

Jessica Nordell on the Origin of Racism

Following up on the topic, Jessica was asked if these ideas of being superior over a certain race or gender started existing after a certain period, or did humanity have these notions from the start.

Jessica explains that this particular question was one of the things she really dug into in her research for her book, The End of Bias.

One of the things she found was that in ancient Egyptian civilization, there was no notion of skin color prejudice. There were even evidence of non-ethic people rising on the Egyptian political administration, which suggests a high intermingling of people in the region.

This suggests that contemporary racism was invented at a certain point in time for a specific purpose.

Jessica Nordell on Male-Female Bias

When asked if it was the same for Male & Female biases, Jessica shares that Patriarchy predates the written word, which means the position of men above women is a really old school of thought.

But there have been civilizations and ethnicities that flip that over its head. For example, in ancient Mesopotamia women are associated with divinity. There was a sense of women being associated with authority and leadership, which has eroded over time.

So it’s hard to find the origin of Patriarchy, because by the time we have writing, it was already there, and men were doing the writing.

To hear more from Jessica Nordell and what it takes to actually end bias, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Jessica Nordell is an award-winning author, science writer, and speaker known for blending rigorous science with compassionate humanity.

Her first book, The End of Bias: A Beginning, shortlisted for the 2022 Columbia Journalism/Lukas Prize for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2022 NYPL Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, and the 2021 Royal Society Science Book Prize, is the culmination of fifteen years of reporting and writing on the subject of bias and discrimination and how to solve it, for publications including the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the New Republic.

The End of Bias was named a Best Book of the Year by the World Economic Forum, Greater Good, AARP, and Inc and is currently being used by organizations from newsrooms and startups to universities, healthcare organizations, and faith communities to solve some of their biggest cultural challenges.

Deeply engaged with connecting across differences to expand and heal the human experience, Nordell’s own early-career experience with workplace bias inspired her passion for tackling discrimination and for seeing others in their full complexity and humanity.

With degrees in physics from Harvard and poetry from the University of Wisconsin, Nordell undertakes pioneering collaborations across disciplines; her work with computer scientists to simulate the real-world impact of workplace bias became a 2021 viral NYT story. Nordell is the recipient of a Gracie Award from American Women in Radio and Television, was named a Best New Poet by Tracy K. Smith, and was a 2022 featured speaker at SXSW. She is a direct descendent of the last woman to be tried for witchcraft in the state of Massachusetts, and is an amateur rock drummer.

Links

Connect with Jessica Nordell!

Website | Twitter | Instagram

Read her book: The End of Bias

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

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On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk about something that every single one of us has, very few of us think or talk about, and it’s something that can have a profound impact on our lives. So let’s talk about Secrets with our guest, Michael Slepian.

Michael Slepian is an Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at the legendary Columbia University. He’s also a recipient of the Rising Star Award from the Association of psychological science. Michael is considered by many to be the leading expert on the Psychology of Secrets.

He’s got a brand-new best seller out called The Secret Life of Secrets, which we will get into this episode and much more.

Michael Slepian on Secrets

The conversation starts out on secrets, and how we all keep them. As to why we have secrets, Michael was asked if there were pros and cons in keeping secrets from people.

“So the pros, you are protecting something, you might be protecting your reputation. And in your own mind, you might be protecting someone’s feelings, you might be protecting a relationship with someone. Whatever you think is the outcome of people learning about this thing, you’re preventing that.” – Michael Slepian

But to keep a secret means you are essentially cutting yourself off from other people, so they couldn’t share your burdens or provide emotional support if that is part of what you are keeping your secret from.

“You’re blocking yourself from the availability of getting help from others. You can’t get their emotional support; you can’t get their guidance and advice.” – Michael Slepian

Why We Keep Secrets

One reason that we keep secrets is that we often feel ashamed of those secret. In response, we bury it deep and isolate it from the public, so no one will know.

But this process of isolation also keeps it from receiving any validation if the secret is something to be actually ashamed of, or something that one only thought would be unacceptable.

“We’ll feel isolated with those secrets, we’ll feel inauthentic for keeping them and uncertain that we’re doing the right thing. But all these negative feelings are tempered easily when we start talking to people and getting the help that we need.” – Michael Slepian

Having Secrets is Natural

Michael further explains that having secrets is normal, and that people tend to keep the same secrets. On his research that shows 38 common categories of secrets, an average person has 13 secrets that fall on that list, and 97% of people would have more than one secret that is in that list.

“We all keep the same kinds of secrets. As isolating as a secret can feel, we all have similar ones. And so we’re not alone in the secrets we have.” – Michael Slepian

To hear more from Michael Slepian and the secret about Secrets, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Michael Slepian is the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at Columbia University.

A recipient of the Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science, he is the leading expert on the psychology of secrets. Slepian has authored more than fifty articles on secrecy, truth, and deception.

His research has been covered by The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, NPR, and more.

Links

Connect with Michael Slepian!

Website | Twitter | LinkedIn | Columbia bio

Check out his new book: The Secret Life of Secrets

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

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It is said that the people who have the most legendary careers are what you might think of as other-directed. The key to a successful life is to remove your joy blockers, and the goal of a career should be to, as Warren Buffett says, dance your way to work. We talk about all these and more on Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different with our guest David Novak.

David Novak is the co-founder and was the CEO for 17 years of the legendary Yum! brands. Yum! is the world’s largest restaurant company, which owns Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, and many others. David also has an amazing podcast called How Leaders Lead, and a new book called Take Charge of You: how self-coaching can transform your life and your career.

Learn how be a legendary leader, executive, and entrepreneur from the best by listening in to this episode.

David Novak on Looking Back on his Career

The conversation begins with David’s new book, and how it is a window to his career and life, and the interesting events and tidbits that go along with it.

“I was the first kid in my family to get a college education, got a degree in journalism, didn’t get an MBA, ended up becoming a CEO, and have the time of my life building a fantastic company. Now I’m in my next phase of my life where I’m fortunate enough to be able to spend time on the things that truly give me joy.” – David Novak

Nowadays, David focuses on Leadership Development, and shares his thoughts and insights in his podcast, How Leaders Lead by David Novak. He also has time to write books, which has been a big passion of his.

David Novak on Reaching One’s Goals and What Comes After

The topic shifts on how most of the books and guides in entrepreneurship that is published are focused on personal growth and development, but there are only a few on what happens when you achieve those goals. Because life doesn’t stop when you reach those goals – there has to be something else to direct your passion into.

David agrees and adds to it that after proving yourself and learning to manage and eventually lead people, the goal post shifts ever so slightly, and you find other ways to draw success.

“Well, I have to tell you, that a lot of the research out there says that, you know, the people that are the happiest are other directed. What I’ve found is that the more other directed I got, the more I focused on other people’s success more than my own, the more success I ultimately got. And, you know, it’s kind of an amazing thing.” – David Novak

On the Current State and Rising Up Again

The conversation then goes to the current state of things, where inflation and the looming threat of recession is on the rise. David comments that there is current a huge divide, particularly in the haves and have nots, especially in the environment that they are in.

That is not to say that there aren’t any people who thrive in harsher environments, but David wishes that people would at least have the chance to nurture themselves and grow.

“I hope one day, my goal is somehow from all the leadership development I do that there’ll be one person that will rise up in this country and inspire people again.” – David Novak

To hear more from David Novak and how you can take charge of you, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

David Novak, Founder/former CEO Yum! Brands & NY Times Bestselling Author

Starting with an undergrad degree in Journalism from the University of Missouri, David grew from his first job as a copywriter at a small ad agency to become a New York Times best-selling author, co-founder and former CEO and Chairman of Yum! Brands, the world’s largest restaurant company (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut), and now, founder of the non-profit organization, David Novak Leadership, Inc. and host of top-rated leadership podcast, How Leaders Lead with David Novak.

David was named “CEO of the Year” by Chief Executive magazine, one of the world’s “30 Best CEOs” by Barron’s, one of the “Top People in Business” by FORTUNE and one of the “100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World” by Harvard Business Review. And he’s passed it on. Today, there are over 26 CEOs of major American corporations that David has coached or led earlier in their careers.

Links

Connect with David Novak!

LinkedIn | Podcast | Twitter

How Leaders Lead | How Leaders Lead – Twitter

Read the book: Take Charge of You

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!

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On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we talk about the idea of startup capital, how to have an exponential career, and maybe even a new way to think about the future with our guest, Mike Maples, Jr.

Mike Maples, Jr. is the co-founder of Floodgate Capital. Floodgate has led early-stage investments in companies like Twitter, Lyft, and much more. His podcast, Starting Greatness, is truly one of the greatest business podcasts there is.

That said, let’s get into the discussion of how to think about the future.

From Value Creators to Rent Seekers

Mike Maples, Jr. dives into the idea of the industries and business leader’s mindset and drive for creating new ideas or the lack thereof.

At the time when the animating forces behind industrial economy was mass production, mass distribution, and eventually mass computation, the focus in new technology and ideas revolved around improving performance. Over time, it evolved into developing networks, whether physical or via software, and value was derived on how vast your network reached.

Fast forward to recent years, in which Mike started noticing that there was a disconnect with most of the ideas from the founder of a company, to its current inheritors. A lot of them are starting to focus on creating a status quo, rather than moving forward. As a result, a lot of people in business make money through financial engineering rather than things that improve productivity.

“They’ve transition from being value creators to rent seekers. And they’ve started to become more interested in preserving their institutional power than in fulfilling their mission to their constituents.” – Mike Maples, Jr.

Mike Maples, Jr. on Nurturing an Economy that Rewards Productivity

According to Mike, the issue nowadays is that people make money from the market without creating new ideas, and are incentivized to do it in the current financial economy. In order to become a successful society, we need to incentivize productive behaviors to move forward.

“So hedge fund guy borrows money close to 0%, and then buys IBM stock or loans at IBM so they can buy back their own stock. And since they know they’re gonna do that they front run it. And so Okay, did any jobs get created in that? No. Did any new products get created in that? No. But people who played financial engineering games did well. And what you want is an economy that is not financialized. You want an economy that rewards productivity gains, because fundamentally all abundance and standard of living advancement comes from people being more productive.” – Mike Maples, Jr.

Engaging in fakery and keeping this charade of an economy will just lead to a cycle of economic bubbles and bursts in the future.

Startup Capitalism

If the current system won’t lend itself to shifting back to a productive economy, then the third option is to exit. Though it was not as feasible before as it is now, Bitcoin and other non-Fiat currencies have given us the chance to break free and start over, without being tied down by Fiat economies.

That said, Mike has been playing around the idea of a Startup Capitalism. As with most startups, they focus on creating a different future than just following the current flow of things. Which is why startups are born from the pursuit of new ideas, and could be the drive to a more productive economy that Mike wanted.

And you don’t necessarily need to start a new company to create a startup. It could be born inside a bigger one, much like the iPhone inside Apple.

“At the very least, you get to exercise the option of doing things in a different way. “– Mike Maples, Jr.

To hear more from Mike Maples, Jr. and his ideas on how to Rethink the Future, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Mike Maples, Jr. is the Co-Founder and Partner at Floodgate, the host of the Starting Greatness podcast and a Co-conspirator with awesome Startup Founders.

Links

Connect with Mike!

Website: Floodgate |Twitter: @m2jr | LinkedIn: in/Maples | Podcast: Starting Greatness

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!