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380 The Innovator’s Delusion | Category Pirates

FYD EPISODE 380 The Innovator's Delusion

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, Christopher and fellow Category Pirate Eddie Yoon dive into the misconceptions surrounding innovation and market dynamics.

This episode is a must-listen for business leaders and entrepreneurs who want to navigate the complexities of today’s market more effectively. 

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.

The Context

The episode revolves around the limitations of Clayton Christensen’s “Innovator’s Dilemma” and the assumptions that can lead businesses astray. Eddie Yoon critiques the traditional understanding of disruptive innovation, arguing that it often misguides incumbents in their strategic decisions. He emphasizes the need for a fresh perspective on innovation that focuses on creating value rather than merely competing on price.

The Innovator’s Dilemma

Christopher Lochhead opens the discussion by emphasizing the importance of genuine conversations in business and innovation. He sets the context for a deep dive into the innovator’s dilemma, highlighting its relevance in today’s fast-paced market.

Eddie Yoon then elaborates on the four fatal flaws associated with the innovator’s dilemma and introduces intriguing concepts like “super dingdong premium pricing.” Yoon shares valuable insights on how companies can generate unparalleled value while steering clear of “competition derangement syndrome.”

The Four Fatal Flaws of the Innovator’s Dilemma

 

Lower Prices vs. Super Ding-Dong Premium Pricing

The Misconception

Many companies believe that lowering prices is the best strategy for growth. While this can increase market share, it often sacrifices profitability.

The Reality

Eddie points out that companies like Apple thrive by maintaining premium pricing, capturing a larger share of revenue and profits. Lowering prices can lead to a race to the bottom, where quality and brand value are compromised.

Lesser Consumers vs. Super Consumers

The Misconception

Businesses often target “lesser need consumers” to expand their market, assuming that this will lead to growth.

The Reality

Eddie argues that this perspective is overly simplistic and lacks empathy. Instead, businesses should recognize the potential of “super consumers”—those who are passionate about the product and willing to pay for higher quality.

Winning the Present vs. Designing the Future

The Misconception

Many companies focus solely on current market dynamics, trying to compete in existing markets rather than envisioning future possibilities.

The Reality

This short-sightedness can lead to missed opportunities for innovation and growth. Eddie encourages businesses to think beyond the present and actively design the future by identifying unmet needs and creating new solutions.

Languaging Around Destruction Scarcity vs. Creation Abundance

The Misconception

The language surrounding disruption often focuses on destruction and scarcity, leading to a negative mindset that stifles creativity and innovation.

The Reality

Businesses should adopt a mindset of abundance and creation, where the goal is to build new categories and solve problems rather than merely displacing competitors.

To hear more from Pirates’ Eddie Yoon and Christopher Lochhead, download and listen to this episode.

This episode is based on a new audio mini-book “The Innovator’s Delusion” by your friendly, neighborhood Category Pirates! If you are curious about how you can avoid falling into the trap of Innovator’s Delusion, read about Christopher & Eddie’s solution on “The Innovator’s Solution”
Want to join in on the Pirate Talks? Subscribe to Category Pirates and sail the seas with fellow Pirates today!

Don’t forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:

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 FacebookTwitterInstagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

377 One Woman’s October 7th Bravery At The Nova Festival Massacre In Israel with Natalie Sanandaji

FYD EPISODE 377 Natalie Sanandaji

In this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we look back into the harrowing events of October 7th, 2023, when Hamas launched a devastating attack on Israel, resulting in the largest massacre of Jews since World War II.

This episode features an overview of the geopolitical context, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and a firsthand account from Natalie Sanandaji, a survivor of the Nova Festival massacre. 

What you’re about to hear is a real, unedited, unfettered, unfiltered conversation about an extraordinary event that happened on October 7, and has been impacting the rest of the world since.

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.

 

Understanding the Geopolitical Context

Christopher Lochhead provides a detailed overview of the October 7th attacks, emphasizing the unprecedented scale and impact. On that fateful day, 3,000 terrorists infiltrated Israel, resulting in 1,200 deaths and 252 hostages taken to Gaza. Over the following year, Iran and its proxies launched 10,000 missiles, warheads, and drones at Israeli civilians, with the Iron Dome defense system intercepting nearly 200 ballistic missiles in one significant attack.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza is also dire, with the people suffering under the oppressive rule of Hamas. A survey by the Tony Blair Institute revealed that 87% of Palestinians hold Hamas responsible for the ongoing conflict and suffering. Despite receiving over $25 billion in humanitarian aid, the average Gazan sees little benefit, as Hamas leaders hoard the funds.

 

A Survivor’s Story: Natalie Sanandaji

Natalie Sanandaji shares her background and circumstances as to why she was in the area during the attack. As an American Jew with Iranian and Israeli heritage, Natalie has visited Israel almost every year. She attended the Nova Festival, a nature party themed around peace, unity, and love, with a vibrant atmosphere and a friendly, accepting community.

Natalie recounts the events of October 7th, providing a vivid and emotional account of the attack. The festival was in full swing when rockets began to be intercepted by the Iron Dome. Initially, attendees were more annoyed than scared, believing the Iron Dome would protect them.

“One of our friends from our campsite was on the dance floor when the rock first rockets were intercepted overhead, and she knew that we were still at the campsite sleeping; we hadn’t woken up yet. So she came back to the campsite to wake us up, because she wants to make sure that we were alert to what was happening. She came in she woke us up and she was all smile-y. And she was like, “Hey guys, good morning. I just want to wanted you to know a few rockets were intercepted overhead. But it’s fine.” “

– Natalie Sanandaji

However, the situation quickly escalated as festival security shut off the music and announced an evacuation.

 

The Aftermath and Reflection

Natalie reflects on the aftermath of the attack and the importance of sharing her story. She disassociated from the moment she saw the rockets, allowing her to speak about the events without breaking down emotionally. Many of her friends and fellow festivalgoers did not survive, and she feels a responsibility to be a voice for those who cannot speak out.

Natalie’s bravery and resilience are evident as she continues to share her story and raise awareness about the ongoing conflict.

To hear more from Natalie Sanandaji and the event that unfolded during the October 7th attack, download and listen to this episode. 

 

Bio

Natalie Sanandaji, 28, serves as a public affairs officer for the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM).

A Long Island native, Natalie worked in real estate in New York City before October 7th, when she survived the Nova music festival massacre during a visit to Israel. Her traumatic experience that day led her to transform her life and switch her professional track to Jewish advocacy and fighting antisemitism.

Links

Connect with Natalie Sanandaji!

Twitter/X | Instagram

Combat Antisemitism Movement | CAM Twitter/X

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 FacebookTwitterInstagram, and subscribe on iTunes!

 

129 Presentations: Why They Suck & What To Do About It with Dushka Zapata & Dan Roam

LOM_Episodes-129 Dushka Zapata & Dan Roam

If you’re a regular listener, you know that we have very few guests on this podcast. That is because I believe that 90% of what we get taught about marketing and entrepreneurship is either wrong or not very helpful. So I want to make sure that whoever we have is legendary, and also very helpful. Well, today at Lochhead on Marketing, you not only get one, but two legendary guests, Dushka Zapata and Dan Roam.

Dushka Zapata has been on Follow Your Different, and is one of my absolute favorite people in the world. She’s the author of many legendary books. Her most recent is called The Love of Your Life is You: A step by step workbook to loving yourself. When she’s not writing, she has had an extraordinary career as a PR communications executive and coach.

Dan Roam is a multi-time bestselling author as well. His most recent book is called The Back of a Napkin: Solving problems and selling ideas with pitchers.

In this episode of Lochhead on Marketing, we talk about presentations, and what the template and architecture of a legendary presentation is. Pay special attention to Dushka and Dan’s thoughts on the real reason most people suck at presentations, and what they think you can do about it.

The Principle Behind The Back of the Napkin

The conversation starts of with a brief introduction of what Dushka and Dan do, besides writing bestselling books. Dushka describes her work as drawing a connection between what executives say and the company’s brand. In essence, she helps people say what they want to say in the simplest terms possible.

Dan shares that his work is pretty much the same, in which he draws clarity out of these executive’s ideas. Except that he literally draws them out on whiteboards, paper, and if nothing is in reach, napkins.

Dushka then brings up the principle of The Back of the Napkin, and Dan explains it in detail.

“Why it’s called the back of the napkin is (because) some of the very, very best ideas, whether they’re related to business, or organizations, or leadership or anything else come from a simple sketch, (gets) invariably drawn on a bar somewhere between a couple of people who are sitting there talking about their idea. One of them pulls out a pen, and on that napkin on the bar says, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, if it could draw it out, what would it look like?” They draw a triangle or an arrow or a circle. And that becomes the basis of the idea.” – Dan Roam

Dan Roam on Thinking Differently

Dan was then asked if there were people who told him as a child to stop drawing and start paying attention to the “normal” stuff. He replies that he had a teacher that said exactly that, to stop drawing and pay attention to reading books and whatnot.

What these people did not know was that this was Dan’s own way of paying attention and expressing his thoughts on paper. So just because it was a little different, doesn’t make it any less important or valuable.

“My teacher said that I drew too much, and I talked too much. And I need to sit down and listen and pay better attention. What that teacher didn’t realize is that I was really struggling to learn to read. And the way I made up for it was by talking a lot, and being kind of boisterous. And drawing was not a challenge.

I think maybe if we dug just a little bit deeper into what your I think you might be talking about, is a lot of us maybe didn’t do so well in school or in formal situations as we might have, because we thought a little differently than we were supposed to. And now we’re finding thankfully that the people who think different, kind of people from the island of lost toys, are the ones who actually are the most needed right now.” – Dan Roam

Legendary Doodler

Dan shares the story of where it all began, and it was a place that we had a shared history together, Scient. During those brainstorming meetings at Scient, Dan would often draw out his interpretations of what others were saying, which in turn gave others a visual representation of that speaker’s idea.

“I was the guy who I didn’t understand what anybody was talking about most of the time. So in meetings, I would go to the whiteboard and try to draw out what I thought I heard these consultants were talking about.

That was really the genesis of this because often in the meeting, the whole tone or temperature, the meeting room would change. (It) moved away from something that was maybe a little bit combative, or a lot of ego involved, to where people were just looking at the picture saying, “that’s really close to what we were thinking about.” – Dan Roam

From there, he became the world’s most legendary Business Doodler.

To hear more from Dushka Zapata and Dan Roam, and how you can start making legendary presentations to pitch your ideas, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Duska Zapata

After working for more than 20 years in the communications industry, Dushka noticed a theme.

People find it very difficult to articulate who they are and what they do.

This holds true for both companies and for individuals.

For companies, this is an impediment to the development of an identity, a reputation, a brand. It makes it hard for customers to see how companies are different from their competitors.

For individuals, in a new world order of personal brands, it makes it hard to develop one that feels real.

This is the focus of Dushka’s work: she helps companies and people put into simple terms who they are, what they do, and where to go next. Her work comes to life through message development, presentation training, media training and personal brand development. It comes to life through executive coaching, workshops and public speaking. It comes to life through what she writes.

Dushka has written ten bestsellers.

Her work has been consumed on Q&A site Qoura 180M times.

Dan Roam

Dan Roam is the author of five international bestselling books on business-visualization and communication clarity.

The Back of the Napkin was named by Fast Company, The London Times, and BusinessWeek as the ‘Creativity Book of the Year.’

Dan’s latest book, THE POP-UP PITCH, will be published by Hachette/Public Affairs on Oct 26, 2021.

Dan is a creative director, author, painter, and model-builder. His purpose in life is to make complex things clear by drawing them and to help others do the same.

Dan has helped leaders at Google, Microsoft, Boeing, Gap, IBM, the US Navy, the United States Senate, and the White House solve complex problems with simple pictures. Dan and his whiteboard have appeared on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NPR.

Before founding Digital Roam Inc, Dan served as Client Partner & Creative Director at Razorfish, Scient, The Interactive Bureau, Red Square Productions, The Moscow Times, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Dan graduated from the University of California Santa Cruz with degrees in Biology and Fine Art.

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 Apple Podcast! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

239 How A U.S. Army Paratrooper Went From Homeless to Successful Entrepreneur with Jaime Jay, Author of Quit Repeating Yourself

FYD - Episode - 236 Jaime Jay

We hear a lot of talk about courage, grit, and being mission-driven. Well, imagine being a young man who decides to serve his country and become a US Army paratrooper, only to become homeless after his active duty. Now imaging finding a way out of complete desperation to become a successful entrepreneur, and now bestselling author. That is Jaime Jay, and he is our guest in this episode of Follow Your Different.

Jaime Jay is the co-founder of Bottleneck Distant Assistants, and the author of the new bestselling book, Quit Repeating Yourself. Jaime and I have been working together for years, and he has helped me in most of my digital endeavors. This includes building Lochhead.com, as well as handling all of the technical issues with my podcasts and much more.

What you’re about to hear is an inspiring story of how Jaime designed a legendary business and life with his partner, Sara. Pay special attention to how Covid19 almost destroyed Jaime’s business, and how a new category design helped it to come back from the brink and power the company to even greater heights.

Jaime Jay in the US Army

There is a special place in my heart for our vets, and even more so for those who have become entrepreneurs after serving their duty. So I asked Jaime about his military service.

Jaime was part of the elite 82nd Airborne Division, and was trained as a paratrooper. He recalls how intense the training was to be part of such an elite organization, and be battle-ready for when the country needs them.

“I was part of the elite 82nd Airborne Division, 2nd 325 Airborne Infantry Regiment and I had a blast. It was is fantastic. I was really proud to be part of that organization. They man, they run a tip top organization. And that was blessed to be be part of the 82nd. That’s pretty cool.” – Jaime Jay

 

Jaime Jay on Being Homeless

Jaime shares that he has been homeless on two separate times of his life. The first one being related to his younger days, and the latter was after he had left the military. Yet he never let these circumstances weigh him down, and he continued to strive for a better life.

He talks about these points in the book as well, not for people to feel bad for him, but to see that despite all of that, you can still persevere and live a good life.

“By the way, the reason I tell these stories is not for people to ever feel bad for me or anything like that. But I want people to realize what all of this led to. I’m actually blessed that all this happened because all of this led to a better life where I appreciated so much more. The friendships like the friendship that I have with you, I will forever appreciate this for the rest of my life. I was able to find the woman of my dreams. And I appreciate it on such a different level, just the same way that I appreciate the work that we’re doing.

So the reason that I tell these stories in here is because I really want people to understand that, hey, it’s possible to do whatever it is you’re passionate about. So it’s kind of motivating, but there’s a method to the madness. “ – Jaime Jay

 

Creating a New Category: Distant Assistants

One of the things Jaime and I have worked on this past year was when we created a new category that deals with remote assistance. You might say we already have that, and it’s called virtual assistants.

Though the problem with virtual assistants nowadays is that the category has been inundated with big corporations who deal more with technology rather than the human aspect of it. While there are merits to automated assistance run by AI and such, there is something to be said for having an actual person handling it for you, and that flexible decision-making that can’t be achieved by AI yet.

“People are using a lot of AI and stuff to manage the calendar to send out emails, automation. That’s all fine and dandy, and there are some great use cases for that. I’m not here to argue that, but I also think there’s something to be said for having that human, that intimate-based relationship between one human to another. No matter if it’s an assistant, web developer, CEO, whatever, there’s always going to be something to be said, for having that human based, intimate relationship.” – Jaime Jay

To hear more for Jaime Jay and how you can Quit Repeating Yourself when running your own business, download and listen to this episode.

Bio

Jaime Jay is a connector, starter – geek, podcaster and founder of the award – winning Bottleneck Virtual Assistant Services company that offers professional growth opportunities for ambitious leaders by creating an efficient and systematic approach to identify, hire and cultivate team members who focus on specific roles and responsibilities through a single point of contact. He served in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division and worked in corporate America for over 12 years before becoming a full-time entrepreneur in 2006.

Jaime Jay is the host of the ‘Live with Bottleneck’ show. He participates in interesting dialogs with his guests where listeners are able to participate in the conversation during the live format. His guests are some of the brightest minds in business today. Stop the Bottleneck in YOUR business by watching his show today

In addition to running the distant assistant company and hosting his show, he is the author of Quit Repeating Yourself. This book is all about setting up your business with a strong culture, leading with kindness, creating systems and processes, and learning how to recruit and hire effectively. If you are in business, this book i s a must read.

Jaime lives in Springfield, Missouri with his wife Sara and their dog Nikita. He is an amateur hockey player, enjoys spending time on their boat on Table Rock Lake and traveling. Fun fact: Jaime has been playing ice hockey for over 45 years . He also loves traveling, playing guitar, hanging out with friends and doing the occasionally crazy thing like jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.

Links

Follow Jaime Jay today!

Website: Bottleneck.Online

LinkedIn: in/JaimeJay

Youtube: Live with Bottleneck

Check out his new book: Quit Repeating Yourself

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

042 Marketing Simple | Beware The “Bag Full of Door Knobs”| Marketing PodStorm #4

Marketing Simple | Beware The “Bag Full of Door Knobs”

Welcome to Lochhead on Marketing, where we are trying the first world’s Marketing PodStorm — 30 days of strategies and ideas to help you create the future that you want because we believe that nothing legendary is going to happen, at any kind of scale, without legendary marketing.

Today, let’s talk about marketing simple aka beware the bag full of doorknobs.

Biznobabble

A lot of companies communicate and market in very confusing ways. Christopher says a lot of companies share their marketing messages in a “carnival barker kind of approach.”

“A lot of companies, even if they are a little more sophisticated, they are still barking a lot at people with a lot of stuff, in the tech world, we tend to speak on Biznobabble.” – Christopher Lochhead

One of the things that Christopher likes to do is read on a company’s website, specifically the “About Us” and it does show how messed up their marketing messages are.

“I made this one up and I placed it in Playbigger, as this is illustrative of the problem:

Megatech dingdong corporation is headquartered in San Jose California and as a leading developer and global supplier of innovative highspeed world-class cloud infrastructure platform solutions to global worldwide customers and all industries

Megatech Dingdong big data application infrastructure platform solutions are highly scalable, reliable, flexible, secure and powerful, built by world-class team, with a  deep understanding of global communications standards and software and hardware expertise and design architecture development and standard-based social IOT mobile, wireless, container enabled distributed hyper-converged cloud blah blah blah yada yada yada.” – Christopher Lochhead, reading an excerpt of Play Bigger

Communicate Clearly

Christopher shares that today, particularly now is the time to communicate clearly because when people are confused, the chances of them buying is from minimal to zero. It is now, more than ever, that companies have to communicate in clear and powerful ways

“When people are confused, they have to think about it and ‘think about it,’ it is code for ‘I’m not sure’ or ‘I don’t get it’ which is also code for, ‘I’m not buying!’.” – Christopher Lochhead

Getting Super Simple

How could you get super simple? Christopher advises companies to focus on the problem your company is solving and remember that legends market the problem, not the product. Market one simple product or service to solve that problem and use short, simple and powerful words. 

To know more about marketing simple and how to avoid a bag full of doorknobs, 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; was the founding CMO of Internet consulting firm Scient, and served as head of marketing at the CRM software firm Vantive.

Links:

Fedex USA-Brazil Campaign

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! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content.

036 Small Pond PR Strategy w/ Jeremy Ryan Slate

036 Small Pond PR Strategy w/ Jeremy Ryan Slate

In this episode, we have a thoughtful conversation about how to create and execute what Marketing guru and entrepreneurial podcaster Jeremy Ryan Slate calls “A Small Pond PR Strategy.” We dig into why you should go small before you go big.

Small Pond PR Strategy

Jeremy is the host of Create Your Own Life Podcast and owner of firm Command Your Brand Media. He is on a mission to help entrepreneurs get their message out though podcast guesting. Likewise, he also helps podcasters become more profitable.

He is also spreading the word about Small Pond PR Strategy

“You have to figure out what’s your small area. Honestly, one of the best ways that I found to do that is: start writing press releases to promote to the area because they’re hungry for news and you got to tell them about it.” – Jeremy Ryan Slate

Start Small Before Going Big

Jeremy shares that oftentimes, people disconnect with their local community and focus on targeting big-time media outlets such as Forbes or INC. It is the belief that a featured article from these big media will move the needle. 

“If you shoot right for that stuff, you have to realize that there are stairs to get in the media and you have to know how to actually get up those stairs and actually get your local areas for you. So, by saying that its a small pond, what I mean is, everybody has a small community group or whatever it may be that they are a part of.” – Jeremy Ryan Slate

To cite an example, Jeremy shares he did an exchange with Rotary International, where he spoke in front of 30 different groups in Peru. He was promoted via the newsletter. This is a great avenue to become an opinion leader in a certain field.

Maximize Press Releases

Jeremy also shared about writing press releases and tapping community newspapers. Christopher also said local bloggers who have an enthusiastic following is also a good medium. 

In writing press releases, Jeremy advised to ask these questions:

“What’s newsworthy about our business? If you don’t have a reason your different, or reason that the media should carean interesting statistic, an interesting achievement, something that you’re doing to help the community.”  – Jeremy Ryan Slate

To learn more about Small Pond PR Strategy and more information about Jeremy Ryan Slate, download and listen to this episode

Bio:

Jeremy Ryan Slate is the founder of the Create Your Own Life Podcast, which studies the highest performers in the world. 

He studied literature at Oxford University and is a former champion powerlifter turned new media entrepreneur. 

Specializes in using podcasting and new media to create celebrity and was ranked #1 in iTunes New and Noteworthy and #1 in the business category, as well as ranked # 78 in the iTunes Top 100.

Jeremy was named one of the top 26 podcasts for entrepreneurs to listen to in 2017 + 18 by CIO Magazine, a top podcast to listen to by INC Magazine in 2019 and Millennial Influencer to follow in 2018 by Buzzfeed.  

The Create Your Own Life Podcast has been downloaded over a million times. 

He’s also a featured writer for Influencive and Business.com, as well as a contributing editor of New Theory Magazine and Grit Daily. 

After his success in podcasting, Jeremy Slate and his wife, Brielle Slate, founded Command Your Brand Media to help entrepreneurs get their message out by appearing as guests on podcasts and to help podcasters be more profitable.

Links:

Jeremy Ryan Slate

Twitter: @jeremyryanslate

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Lochhead on Marketing™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on FacebookTwitter,Instagram and subscribe on iTunes! You may also subscribe to his newsletter, The Difference, for some amazing content. 

088 The Impact Entrepreneur: Mike Flynn

Fellow entrepreneur and podcaster Mike Flynn joins us today for another great episode. He is a best-selling author and host of the podcast, The Impact Entrepreneur. Today, he talks about his heart-felt book “Master The Key,” the inspiration behind it and his opinions on personal development, commitment and service and many more. 

Facts About Employee Disengagement

Mike shares some important figures for employee disengagement at work. He says that “85% of the employees globally are disengaged at work.” Further, 40% of these American employees said they have a side gig that is related to their passion.

“If someone is following their passion and they really dont know what they are passionate about, and they don’t know what they are willing to suffer for, and they still haven’t left their job that they are disengaged at, when that business fails and they fall back from that place where they were disengaged, what’s gonna happen, Christopher?” – Mike Flynn

Personal Development in the Workplace

Christopher cited some of his observations about employee disengagement at work. He cites the visible impacts of this, such as the escalating depression rates and obesity problems.

Further, Christopher shared some important points from Episode 071: How to design a company that people are lining up to work for. He discussed the importance of the personal development of every employee. For him, happy individuals in the workplace result in positive company culture.

“Every company needs to be personal development company because every organization is made up of a bunch of individuals who are grappling with 4 fundamental questions: who am I, how do I show up in the world, what would I do when I get there, who do I do it with?” – Mike Flynn

The Podcast and the Book

Mike also talks about his podcast, “The Impact Entrepreneur.” He shares that he has not earned any money from the podcast for three years. He started monetizing his talents through his book and through public appearances as a speaker. He shares that all his efforts are done out of love.

“I was at a point in life when I needed to reach out to people and learn how they managed the various impact moments: the victories, the failures, the brokenness of their life and how they turned that into something that served the good.” – Mike Flynn

Additionally, he shares the inspiration behind his fictional book, “Master The Key: A Story to Free Your Potential, Find Meaning and Live Life on Purpose.”

To hear more about the impact entrepreneur himself, Mike Flynn, download and listen to the episode.

Bio:

About Mike Flynn

Links:

The Impact Entrepreneur

Instagram 

Twitter 

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!

087 9 Lies About Work w/ Ashley Goodall

087 9 Lies About Work w/ Ashley Goodall

The author of a ground-breaking new book called Nine Lies About Work, Ashley Goodall, joins us today for a fun, smart and unpredictable conversation about work and life. Lochhead and Goodall discuss what’s wrong with work and what to do about it, work-life balance and nurturing the human spirit at work. 

Nine Lies About Work  

Ashley Goodall is SVP of Leadership and Team Intelligence (LTI) at Cisco. He built this new organization to focus entirely on serving teams and team leaders. Through this, they are able to research and study the most challenging questions about work. 

His work at Cisco focuses on defining what is special about the best teams and how does one create the best team for the company. Other than this, he is also the co-author of Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World.

“There are very few things in life that you can’t or shouldn’t smile at. At some point, the more serious the topic, the more important it is to find little moments of levity and humor.” – Ashley Goodall

Work-Life Balance 

Ashley points out his opinions about achieving work-life balance and why it is such an unapplicable paradigm in today’s world. Christopher shared how this mindset creates two persons: one that is working and another one, who is living his life. 

“The implication of that is, all that stuff in work is bad and all the stuff in life is good. Your job ⁠—  in order to lead a fulfilled life ⁠— is to have enough sugar to sprinkle into all that bitterness of work.” – Ashley Goodall

In this mindset, we are taught that life is the antidote to work  ⁠— but that is a huge misrepresentation of life. Further, Ashley says that work-life balance is such a disservice to the wonderfulness of work. It mutes employee curiosity of finding out what work will be like if one is high-performing or say, growing and making a huge impact. 

“If the prescription is to take over the toxicity and balance it with life, you’ll never get to ask those questions, that is such a shame.” -Ashley Goodall

Language, Love, and Life

Ashley shares a wide array of stories and opinions in this podcast. He poses his standpoint on giving weight to context, as opposed to just taking words as it is. 

He further gives advice on how to grow the human spirit in the workplace. The discussion turns into an interesting discussion about love.

To hear more about the nine lies about work and more relevant information from Ashley, download and listen to the episode.

Bio:

Ashley Goodall is an executive, leadership expert, and author, and has spent his career exploring large organizations from the inside.

He looks for lessons from the real world that help people and teams thrive. Further, he focuses on what makes work a more human place for all of the humans in it. 

His first experience of teams and leadership were as a student musician and conductor. He was fascinated by the unspoken understanding between people playing together and carried this fascination into the corporate world.

He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Leadership and Team Intelligence (LTI) at Cisco. It is a new organization built to focus entirely on serving teams and team leaders, and which aims to reveal the answers to some of the most challenging questions about work. What is special about the best teams?

Why do we follow one leader and not another? How can we make more teams like our best teams and more leaders like our best leaders?

The new approaches he has pioneered address everything from performance management to feedback, to team activation technology, to real-time team intelligence, to social network mapping, to strengths-based leadership—and together this challenge much of the conventional wisdom of work today.

Ashley is the co-author, with Marcus Buckingham, of Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World (Harvard Business Review Press, April 2019), and of two cover stories in the Harvard Business Review: The Feedback Fallacy, (March/April 2019), and Reinventing Performance Management, (April 2015).

Links:

CISCO Executive Bio – Ashley Goodall

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!

086 Grumpy Old Geek Stuff: Jason DeFillippo

086 Grumpy Old Geek Stuff: Jason DeFillippo

He’s back! Podcast legend and co-host of Grumpy Old Geeks podcast, Jason DeFillippo joins us for another dynamic conversation about the world of podcasting. They also touched a few recent topics about “who should be allowed at Disney World,” “why FaceApp is scarier than Facebook and Instagram” and many more!

Podcasting Is Alive!

In episode 006, Jason DeFillippo joined Christopher Lochhead to discuss a lot of random but viral topics. In this episode, DeFillippo did not disappoint as he shared his views on a lot of topics, firstly, about podcasting. 

“Those people are like you and I, we stick around and we get through the tough times. We’re not here to make a quick buck. We’re not here to turn a profit on 10 episodes or 6 episodes, on an iPhone on a library. You gotta put in the work.” – Jason DeFillippo

DeFillippo shared his comments about news writers who dub podcasting as dead. In unison, Lochhead shared statistics to prove that podcasting is, indeed, growing. They exchanged stories as hosts, such as their experiences with booking and rejecting guests and advertisers.

“I’m a craftsman, I’m an artist. I love to make new things. I love to try new things, that’s why I love podcasting. There’s always something new to learn but people who come into this, all they want to do is make money and that’s almost everybody that’s coming in now.” – Jason DeFillippo

Viral Issues: Where do you stand?

For a breather, Lochhead cites some viral stories and takes the standpoint of DeFillippo. 

Lochhead cites the Disney rant — where a mom’s rant about long queues and childless millennials in Disney World, goes viral. They also discussed Apple’s Siri recordings apparently sent out to contractors for analysis. DeFillippo believes it will not hurt the company in any way, just like how Facebook stock prices rose up after paying fines to the government. 

In relation to Security threats raised by Morgan Wright in Episode 84, about deep fakes and Russian FaceApp, DeFillippo brushed these events aside.

“Who cares? This is useless data. These photos? They could get that in the internet already. They care about a lot of other things, but a picture of you? No, ‘cause they’re looking at numbers. They care about your behavior and your demographics and how they can influence you.” – Jason DeFillippo

Moreover, Lochhead and DeFillippo discussed more recent top stories such as Equifax paying $125 for filling up a simple form and for bizarre stories, about a woman cuddling a giant pet snail. They sure did had fun having a rundown on these top and viral stories. 

To hear more about podcasting, viral stories and more relevant information from Jason, download and listen to the episode.

Bio:

Jason is a full-time podcast producer and editor for The Jordan Harbinger Show as well as the Creator and Co-host of the Grumpy Old Geeks Podcast.

Jason has been building websites since the early days in 1994 for clients that range from small businesses to million dollar websites for blockbuster films to his own start-ups.

In 1994 he created the groundbreaking website Spewww which was nominated for a Webby in the first year the awards were held in 1998.

In 1995 a new media company in Santa Monica moved him out to Los Angeles to build the first website for Epson America.

Since then Jason has launched over 250 websites for major corporations like Paramount Pictures, Sony, Warner Brothers, and Disney. 

He also created the two time SXSW Weblog Award-winning Blogrolling service as well as co-founded the global blog network Metroblogging.

He has worked at several startups in San Francisco including Technorati and 8020 Media, the publishers of JPGMagazine.com, and statistical aggregator Metricly.

Links:

Website – Jason DeFillippo

Twitter

Instagram

LinkedIn

Website: Grumpy Old Geeks

Jordan Harbinger Show

Some of the topics covered:

Have We Hit Peak Podcast?

Childless millennials have no place at Disney World and should be banned, tired mom rants

Siri recordings ‘regularly’ sent to Apple contractors for analysis, claims whistleblower

‘Deepfakes’ Trigger a Race to Fight Manipulated Photos and Videos

Why you probably won’t actually get $125 from the Equifax settlement

Woman inseparable from giant pet snail that she loves cuddling on sofa

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!