To say our culture prizes the “outer” (whether it’s outer work or the apparent “outer reality”) is an understatement. And by contrast, you hear a lot of leaders and coaches and people who have learned through trial and tribulation that you have to do the “inner work” first. But what is inner work, and how is it different from what we do at work every day? Many people already have commendable achievements in the ‘outer work’ aspect of their life. By this, I mean growing in their careers, managing...
Oct 20, 2022•37 min•Season 4Ep. 107
When I first started thinking about how powerful sadness is an entry point–as a huge territory–for growth, I immediately was like, “this would never make a podcast.” I can see it now: People clicking on the headline wanting to learn more about how they too can be sad. Doesn’t have quite the marketing hook of “how to be happier by thinking positively.” But in a way, that’s just the point. Sadness is the very inversion of happiness. We’ve been inundated by “happiness” and the power of positive thi...
Oct 13, 2022•47 min•Season 4Ep. 106
Habits will make or break us. Habits will deliver results one way or the other. Our focus doesn’t just come from getting out our calendars and setting proper weekly and daily goals. It doesn’t emerge from understanding the 80/20 rule . It comes from the application of principles that elude us because they come from within. What comes from within is less measurable, and often less clear at first. For that matter, it’s scary going within. There are reasons we’ve pushed things into our unconscious....
Oct 06, 2022•33 min•Season 4Ep. 105
Today’s episode is focused on visualization and specifically we put on our critical thinking hats and consider how it plays into the Law of Attraction. This law can be easily misunderstood. So, we are going to explore what it really means, how it can be harnessed and why it truly is powerful when applied with discipline, and also what it is NOT. What we focus on, we attract. The Law Of Attraction goes way beyond just 'visualizing' or 'vision boarding' our dreams. What we're ultimately doing is f...
Sep 29, 2022•50 min•Season 4Ep. 104
If you’re like a lot of people, you don’t really care about the health effects of drinking, and frankly you probably don’t care to know. But the fact is that most of us have been drinking more than we want to for a long time. And a lot of the time when we do this it also fills us with guilt, maybe even shame. Or to bring this full circle, maybe you really don’t think about it and don’t want to think about it. But if you’re honest, really honest, like we chose to get honest with ourselves finally...
Sep 22, 2022•44 min•Season 4Ep. 103
Shelley shares her story of burning out and what she's done with it five years on. Chad asks questions based on what he's hearing and thinking about from her story. Shelley discusses how she began to take radical responsibility for herself and her "self" alone and how this led to the tipping point of recovery. We learn about how Social Twos have their own special sauce when it comes to control, and how pride takes hold of the ego. Time Stamps: 1:09--How the story has evolved 3:40--Back in 2014, ...
Sep 15, 2022•55 min•Season 4Ep. 102
We've got a few questions on the subject of failure. Do you really learn from failure? What does it mean to actually fail at something? How big or how small does the failure have to be? Do you really learn more when you have a losing season instead of a winning one? Where did the “fail fast” mentality come from, and does it mean the same thing today? Everyone’s paths are different, but many of us start out with early indications about what we should be for the rest of our lives. We begin to beli...
Sep 08, 2022•49 min•Season 4Ep. 101
Burnout has become one of the most talked about workplace and life topics, and its impact is far-reaching. But too much of the conversation is focused on the problem vs. what we can actually do to break free from burnout. In her new game-changing, self-illustrated book, THE AWESOME HUMAN PROJECT: Break Free from Daily Burnout, Struggle Less, and Thrive More in Work and Life Nataly makes a compelling case that while challenges in life are constant, struggle is optional. She offers us proven scien...
Mar 27, 2022•49 min•Season 3Ep. 100
Today we speak with entrepreneur and investor, Ted Alling. Ted is a leader in Chattanooga who uses his entrepreneurial achievements to create opportunities for others. He is the co-founder and former CEO of a $500-million startup, Access America, which merged with UPS subsidiary Coyote Logistics. That initial success allowed Ted and his fellow Access America founders to create Lamp Post Group, a venture capital firm and tech-focused incubator located right here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Lamp Po...
Mar 13, 2022•43 min•Season 3Ep. 99
Leading teams and organizations to greatness has never been more challenging than it is right now. But there is opportunity amidst the chaos. We are now in an era of post-traumatic growth. An Egon Zehnder study reports that 80% of CEOs strongly agreed they needed to transform themselves as well as their organizations—up from 26% prior to the pandemic. Employees want to grow. Leaders want to help their people and their companies grow—and recognize that the only way to do that is to grow themselve...
Feb 27, 2022•52 min•Season 3Ep. 98
Anne Scottlin is on a mission around the world to help people from business executives to creatives to startup employees who wear a lot of hats to find their joy. What does joy mean? What does it mean to possess it and carry it around with you wherever you go? Tune in to find out. Plus, how Anne practices her own methods in her life. Also, what happened when Anne mind-mapped her life and connected the dots from Medieval literature to acting to altruism around the world supporting oppressed women...
Feb 13, 2022•41 min•Season 3Ep. 97
Long before the pandemic gripped the world and blurred the lines between home and work, we had become a nation suffering high levels of burnout. It is one of the most discussed, and far-reaching problems in the workplace today. And that is why we are covering it from a wide variety of perspectives on our podcast here at the top of the year from top business professionals and trained coaches, researchers, and leaders. In BEATING BURNOUT AT WORK: Why Teams Hold the Secret to Well-Being and Resilie...
Jan 30, 2022•47 min•Season 3Ep. 96
We’ve been covering burnout from our inception at the top of 2020. We've suffered from it in different ways and at different times in our lives. Now we help organizations and leaders deal with it, and we had no idea how acute it would become and how the screws would tighten with the circumstances and chaos of the pandemic. And who better to bring on the show to discuss her own unique strategies and experiences than Jennifer Moss? In her compelling new book, Moss argues our current strategies are...
Jan 16, 2022•34 min•Season 3Ep. 95
“People change all the time,” write Peter Bregman and Howie Jacobson in their new book, You CAN Change Other People . “They make big changes like starting businesses, getting married, moving, or getting a new job. And they make smaller changes like eating healthier, waking up earlier, or listening better. But people change when they choose to change. If they feel like you’re trying to make them change? Forget it.” How do we help others make changes they actually want and need to make? Well, draw...
Jan 02, 2022•52 min•Season 3Ep. 94
It’s that time of year! Time for reflection. Time for slowing down and chilling out after all the social functions. And time to recharge those batteries. We are taking inventory to pat ourselves on the back for our accomplishments, to get real about the small and possibly big ways we can improve our coming year. We break it down into five pragmatic and powerful ways to move forward in self-awareness, in confidence, in optimism, and to make those annual goals using the SMARTER method, and breakin...
Dec 22, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 93
Sebastian Matthews experienced a life-changing event that was almost life-ending. Besides the broken bones, part of his growth process for him and his family was dealing with the trauma. He tells us that sometimes PTSD doesn’t even set in until a couple of years after the event. He also tells us that we don’t all have to go through such an intense trauma to experience things like burnout, anxiety, and disconnection from yourself and others. He believes in the creative life, in soft boundaries be...
Dec 19, 2021•45 min•Season 2Ep. 92
The idea behind the name Big Self is a paradox. We encourage people to do the inner work before they take big leaps, so they know their ladder is leaning on the right wall in the first place, and that they're motivated for the right reasons. Or if they come to us in burnout or crisis, we still begin with inner work, which usually begins with self-awareness training, and personality "hacking." When it comes to the self we want to diffuse the ego so that when we lean into our ambitions and aspirat...
Nov 21, 2021•33 min•Season 2Ep. 90
On this week’s episode we speak with Joe Sanok. In 2012 Joe launched Practice of the Practice to blog about what he was learning about business, marketing, and private practice. Since then, his income has gone up over 2,000%. In the beginning, he was making around $1000 per month. In 2015, he grossed over $200k. By 2019, he had sold his private practice. Joe is a keynote and TEDx speaker, business consultant, and podcaster. He has the #1 podcast for counselors, The Practice of the Practice Podca...
Nov 07, 2021•51 min•Season 2Ep. 89
Personality Hacker is an organization designed to help people leverage their own mental processes to optimize whatever can be optimized: productivity, communication, job satisfaction, and most importantly – your overall happiness. When we get these needs met we stop being so myopic through the lens of our own experience, and start seeing a bigger picture. Today’s episode gives you some high-level overview of the Myers-Briggs as a system from Antonia Dodge and Joel Mark Witt. We also nerd out a l...
Oct 31, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 88
Today we speak with a boots-on-the-ground guy. Remmington Curtis is a fan of the podcast and reached out to see if he could join us on the show. We love to hear from our listeners, and we love hearing from not only thought leaders, influencers, and authors, but also the coaches doing the work themselves. A person some might say had the dream job. He spent the first 10 years of his career on Wall Street, researching companies as an equity analyst initially, and later a client relationship manager...
Oct 24, 2021•34 min•Season 2Ep. 87
This week we speak with Barbara Dalle Pezze. Barbara is a speaker, author and seminar leader with two decades of experience living and working in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Canada, and the U.S. Barbara works to inspire others, especially entrepreneurs and leaders, to reconnect with their purpose. She does through helping them make mindset shifts and breakthroughs, which in turn helps their teams and organizations effectively create large scale changes. Barbara is a member of the Leadership Dev...
Oct 17, 2021•46 min•Season 2Ep. 86
What is the Great Resignation? What's causing it? What are companies doing about it? And what's our final takeaway? The Great Resignation is a term first used by Anthony Klotz, a psychologist and associate professor of management at Texas A&M University, during an interview with Business Insider. It describes a profound shift in the way Americans are viewing their relationship to work over the past four months. For four months in a row, a record number of Americans are quitting their jobs. I...
Oct 10, 2021•29 min•Season 2Ep. 85
Today we speak with Justin Sainton, Elle Worsham, and Erin Maslowski. Enneagram 7s don't like constraints. They tend to want it all, and they have a lot of the tools for getting it. They're head types with the ability to solve a lot of problems through their own structures and spreadsheets. At the same time, they're upbeat and positive. They have loads of interests and plenty of energy. What could go wrong? Sometimes that can be a little complicated. One of the answers our panelists discuss is t...
Oct 03, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 84
The Enneagram is so much more than a typology. It is so much more than a static symbol. In fact, the Enneagram is a living, breathing, dynamic process-driven system to self-observation and self-understanding. It helps you to understand yourself ("Know Thyself") at deeper level much faster than you ever could without it. It helps you to understand others. In today's episode, Shelley and Chad cover five proven approaches to going beyond just knowing your number. Knowing your number is a start, but...
Sep 26, 2021•42 min•Season 2Ep. 83
Today we speak with Suzy Anthony, Marta Gillilan, and Roger Coles. We discuss what it's like getting into the heads of Sixes. Sixes are sometimes named the Loyalist, and sometimes the Skeptical Troubleshooter. Their archetype centers on a person who seeks security and certainty, but ironically often doesn't find it. Of all the personality types, Sixes are the most loyal to their friends and their beliefs and ideas. At the same time, it's easy to break trust with them if you don't pass their snif...
Sep 19, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 82
Today we speak with Richie Daigle and Chris Schoolcraft, two Fives who have done a lot of work to under their personalities and how they show up in the world. We discuss what it's like being a headtype as our center of intelligence, and how they hold on to their knowledge and skills and share it only when they feel completely ready. Fives highly value working independently. They're more comfortable with data and facts than with people and emotions. They also tend to see the work they do through ...
Sep 13, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 81
Today we speak with Shay and Amanda, along with our very own Chad. We all know how special Fours are, and how much they fear being anything but ordinary. But it's not every day we get to hear the perspectives from two self-preservation subtypes and one relational (one-to-one) subtype at the same time. We discuss what it's like being a heart type as our center of intelligence, how the subtypes really opened up our self-understanding, and the concept of envy. Fours are constantly feeling what they...
Sep 06, 2021•58 min•Season 2Ep. 80
Today we’re answering some of your fantastic questions, and it is making for a great show. Could you give us more background on the history of the Enneagram? We give credit to a 20th-century pioneer of the Traditional Enneagram, Oscar Ichazo. We also briefly touch on the influences and how it reached the west. Interesting sidenote: According to Gurdjieff’s student JG Bennett, the Enneagram was developed in the 15th century by mathematicians in the Sarmoun mystery school to express principles sym...
Aug 15, 2021•44 min•Season 2Ep. 79
Our two Enneagram 3 panelists this week have done a great deal of work on themselves. While Jim Gum certainly has done a tremendous amount of work over his 30 years of working with the Enneagram, Steph Barron Hall's six years or so has brought her a long way as well. If you are ready to learn your Enneagram type and what to do with it, we have a giveaway for you! We’re offering a free Enneagram typing package to a lucky someone who gives us a review on iTunes or Spotify. These typing packages ar...
Aug 08, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 78
Shelley is super excited to introduce you today to her brother and sisters of the Enneagram type Two. These are her people. If you are ready to learn your Enneagram type and what to do with it, we have a giveaway for you! We’re offering a free Enneagram typing package to a lucky someone who gives us a review on iTunes or spotify. These typing packages are valued at $375, and include an interview, a proprietary test, and one follow up coaching session. So you heard it here: if you go to iTunes or...
Aug 01, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 77
